Rating: 
Summary: Warfare for the common man
Review: The stark realities of World War II need no embellishment, but do require explanation to be more than numbing accounts of dramatic events in an increasingly remote and unfamiliar era. In "The Good Soldier," Alfred Novotny focuses on the sometimes brutal, often sad, but always revealing events of his wartime experiences, wrapped meaningfully and engrossingly within the context of the rest of his life.Growing up in a working class Austrian Socialist family during the depression era, at 14, Novotny learned something of the brighter side of life in his work as an apprentice server in an exclusive Vienna restaurant. Before long, Novotny found himself drafted into the German Labor Service and ultimately, the German Army's most elite division. Novotny's images of military life and war are at once haunting and full of vitality. He describes the fiercely demanding training he received in the recruit depot of the "Grossdeutschland" Panzer-Grenadier Division during which two of his fellow trainees committed suicide. In his foxhole at the front, he is joined by a brand-new replacement who has barely uttered his name in greeting before he is immediately blown to pieces by a Soviet artillery shell. Sent home on leave after being wounded, the author is reunited with some old friends from the restaurant, one of whom has lost a hand in combat, another an arm, and another both legs. Novotny tastefully and humorously recounts the intense drive of the life force in fleeting moments of lovemaking that occur amidst the desperation and deprivation of war. That same will to survive despite bloodthirsty lice and other parasites (including the tapeworm he unknowingly hosted through two years of combat) carried him through years of hard labor amid the squalor, disease, and lethal environment of a Soviet prison camp after the war. Those seeking a professionally rendered treatise on tactics or strategy will not find it here, although in my opinion, the Aberjona Press has recently produced some of the finest of that genre that are currently in print. However, what makes "The Good Soldier" unusually valuable is not only its depth of life-perspective and unusual personal detail, but its exceptional and perhaps unintentional portrayal of how an especially elite formation was forged and sustained from average draftees. This is not another story about daring airborne volunteers, or highly-motivated rangers, or carefully selected commandos. Neither is it the story of an average unit with typical experiences. All of those are interesting and useful, but none are as fascinating as this story about a young Viennese waiter becoming a good soldier in an exceptional and world-renowned military unit. This unique outcome was the result of a process that is little understood and often ignored. Yet is was exactly this process, and not the extremist politics or lunatic racism of the Third Reich, that made the Wehrmacht so formidable. As only a product of that process can, Fred Novotny honestly, forthrightly, and authentically provides an unsurpassed glimpse into that transformation that produced so many "good soldiers."
Rating:
Summary: A path through history's upheavals
Review: There are probably few books in English that take the reader from everyday life in pre-WW II Austria, through the marching columns of the Third Reich's assault on Europe, the cruelty and deprivation of captivity in Stalin's Gulag, and finally to immigration and successful settlement in the United States. Alfred Novotny's readable and engaging biography takes the reader on a journey with an ordinary man who, like tens of millions of others, had their lives changed beyond recognition and endured profound traumas from 1939 to 1945. Novotny's detailed description of his training with the Grossdeutschland Division and his stark, intense picture of battle on the Eastern Front make "The Good Soldier" a useful reference from a military-scholarship viewpoint. However, as a personal narrative, the book will also be a fascinating read for the general reader, because Novotny successfully blends into his narrative the story of his life from his working-class childhood home in politically unstable 1930s Vienna, and his early and hopeful employment in a famous Vienna hotel -- all of which was interrupted by the call to arms. ("The Good Soldier" will appeal to readers interested in English-language material about Austrians' experiences in the Wehrmacht.) Millions of defeated German and German-allied soldiers were marched to Soviet prison camps in 1945; many never returned. Novotny's description of how they interacted with their captors and fellow prisoners from day to day -- in cruelty and, sometimes, with friendship -- illustrates this chapter of history without undue political polemic or judgement. This book is as much about the love of friends and family as the calamities of nations at war. I would recommend it for the general reader of history; it would also fit well into a high-school honors or college course on twentieth-century history.
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Summary: A man with his integrity: a trial by war, prison & bribery
Review: This book offers an excellent example of a boy who becomes a man during a most difficult period in world history. All the while he seems to accept what comes his way without giving in to it by giving up. This is such a powerful story set in a reality that many of us can understand even though we did not experience war directly. By that I mean that the human elements of Novotny's upbringing, friendships,intimacy and decisions to "do the right thing" are all things that every person faces in his or her life. The details in the book allow the reader to grasp the context of situations; and yet, they do not become so fine-grained as to lose the focus of the story: a man immersed in humanity who lives with integrity doing his duty and "the right thing" as the good soldier.
Rating:
Summary: What my father could never tell me.....
Review: Tough, when you are a boy and your fathers memory of the war was so painful for him that he could never tell you anything about it. If you are a kid of fourteen, all you want to hear is all the wonderful stuff, the heroism, the valiant, the gallant, the comraderie and, yes, the victory....then your dad goes on to another plain and you never really know... Years later you meet Fred. He becomes your mentor, your friend, in many ways a substitute for the father who passed out of your life so soon....and, yes, he was a soldier, too. A good one. You, like so many others, urge him on to write a book about his experience of this part of history which shaped our world today. He does, eventually....with no experience in writing (Thank God). He lets the memory flow, sings his heart, with tears and joy, evokes pitures in your mind which your eyes never held, and connects with you....the energy and the feelings completely spin you into a coccoon in which you feel Freds experience. I has to be this way if someone writes so from the heart and therefore connects so completely and firmly with you... Read this book. Through its nature it will enrich your life. It will give you a gentle lesson. Its truly a gift of the Universe. Read it and give it to your kids. So they dont have to find someone to ask, like me. Even if you were never a soldier.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Enough Detail
Review: Unfortunately, I "listened" to what most of the other evaluators wrote about this book and purchased it. Believing I was buying a book that was going to be as insightful as some of the other classics on the Eastern Front, I was somewhat disappointed. If you are looking for an account of someone fighting against the Russian's during World War II, read Voss, Sajer, or Knappe. If you want to read about the Russian concentration camp system, read Solzhenitsyn. If you just want something to read to pass the time, then, and only then, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Reader's Digest Version
Review: Unfortunately, I "listened" to what most of the other evaluators wrote about this book and purchased it. Believing I was buying a book that was going to be as insightful as some of the other classics on the Eastern Front, I was somewhat disappointed. If you are looking for an account of someone fighting against the Russian's during World War II, read Voss, Sajer, or Knappe. If you want to read about the Russian concentration camp system, read Solzhenitsyn. If you just want something to read to pass the time, then, and only then, read this book.
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