The Forgotten Soldier

Rating:
Summary: The Standard WWII German Memoir
Review: If you are approaching the Eastern Front for the first time, or already know quite a bit about it in the broad sense but lack a microcosmic view of the war, then there is no better place to start than here. I have read numerous memoirs of German soldiers who fought in the Second World War, and by far, this is my favorite. Sajer writes like a novelist, with an incredible eye for the kind of detail that makes lasting impressions on the reader: he conveys to those who have never set foot on a battlefield a sense of what the immense catastrophe of war must feel like, while at the same time capturing the deep emotions that the average foot soldier inevitably dealt with. In other words, this is no analytical treatment of warfare; it's chief duty is portraying the day to day reality of those involved at the most basic level, the men who were responsible for waging that terrible war. It's a very human and humane portrait. Whether or not his account is genuine -- and this is up for debate in many circles, partly perhaps because of some of the very characteristics I've mentioned above -- does not affect its standing as a magnificent work of art, and a definitive snapshot of warfare. Stephen Crane did not fight in the Civil War, but many consider THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, novels about warfare ever written. Similarly, even IF Guy Sajer did not fight on the dreaded Eastern Front and experience firsthand the things he wrote about, his work remains a classic simply for its literary merits. With that said, though, I believe the book's internal evidence, coupled with the strong arguments of the pro-Sajer crowd, leads one to conclude that the memoir is not only a fine achievement of the written word, but a genuine and important account of World War Two's most devastating front. His story will stay with you, and you will likely never view German soldiers (or any soldiers, for that matter) the same way again.

Rating:
Summary: One of theTwo Best German Soldier Accounts Available
Review: Although this book has been available for some time, it is good to see it become so popular among the readers of the WW2 common soldier lexicon. It truly is a "Must Read". Axis personal accounts below field grade, while not rare, are certainly not plentiful. There is a reason this book has always been so popular among historians, trained as well as armchair. This is a highly readable personal story, told very well from a typical soldier that most former soldiers can, and do, readily identify with. Never one to volunteer yet not one to shirk duty either, Sajer had the unenviable position of being a dutiful, if not somewhat naive, Alsace German trying to fit in as a typical Landser in a predominatley "hochdeutsch" German infantry unit. He is an unassuming "get-along" kind of guy, who never plays the hero. He simply wants to live through the charnel house that became"Barbarossa." He eventually faces the ultimate irony of returning home to no home after the Allies have restored the Alsace to France. Sajer is a reluctant patriot who returns to his town a shunned traitor. A traitor to a country to whom he had never sworn allegience. His vivid and highly readable accounts of small unit engagements on the Eastern Front and subsequent retreat through the Balkans and Austria leaves one breathless, chilled and amazed that he or any of his comrades could have survived the terrors of personal combat and the many deprivations of the walk back to Germany. Thankfully, at no point does the book drag into burdensome military minutae or the postwar pandering to an Allied readership that was so typical of many of the notable senior German officer memoirs. Sajer leaves the political commentary to a minimum, unashamedly says that he did what he had to do as a soldier and concentrates on the reason you want to buy this book; simply to answer the question, what was it like to be a private soldier in the Wermacht in the hell of the Eastern Front. You will absolutely marvel at Sajer as he survives Soviet tank attacks, air assaults, infantry engagements and deadly partisan raids only to nearly die at the end of it all at the hands of his own evil Feldpolizei...an event that will only illustrate the sheer cruelty and futility of the eastern campaign. George C. Scott playing in "Patton" inadvertently summed up Sajer's Eastern Front experience, when in the North Africa scene as Patton watches German troops walk into a predetermined artillery trap he puts down his field glasses and says to an aide,"a damned fine waste of gallant infantry." So very true. How unfortunate that such fine young men had to be sacrificed for such an evil and ignoble cause.

Rating:
Summary: Vivid (And Longwinded) Account of the Eastern Front Collapse
Review: One of the essential preparations for modern warfare is to deny the humanity of one's enemy. This makes it much easier in psychological terms to both kill, and then to live with the knowledge that one has killed. And in the years following the end of WWII, the disclosure of the full extent of the Holocaust has done this in reverse. It's hard to imagine regular people committing such acts, and shades of gray are tossed out the window, so that the entire German military is equated with the Nazi party, and thus evil. For younger Americans, Nazis are cartoon villains invoked whenever a villain of unquestionable evil is required. And German soldiers in field gray are usually faceless automatons (see, for example, Saving Private Ryan, the Band of Brothers series, the Medal of Honor video game).

For anyone seeking an alternate perspective of the common German soldier, this book is an invaluable (if overlong) work. Sajer was a half-German, half-French teenager of conflicted identity who enlisted in the Wehrmacht in order to be part of something glorious (although he never really seems clear what that is). Like so many naive young men seduced by the idea of war and being a soldier, it doesn't take long for reality to intrude. Following a vigorous training, he becomes part of the Rollbahn supply corps. Hundreds of pages of sheer terror follow, as he and his friends are thrown into the maw of the Eastern front.

Most people have more than a passing knowledge of WWII know that the Eastern front was a big mistake on the part of the Germans. Between the insane winters, the overstretched supply lines, constant partisan harassment, and ultimately, the sheet number of Red Army troops, the Germans never had a chance. Knowing that on a strategic level is one thing, but hearing about what this meant to the average soldier on the ground is something else. And hearing it from someone who was there is even more compelling. You've never read about being cold like this. Cold that cracked the hands and caused sores so that men would urinate on each other's hands in order to provide brief relief. Hunger was the other major issue, and it's impossible to conceive of men living in such conditions surviving on the meager portions available.

Terror and misery is the major theme of the book, as the front collapses and Sajer spends most of the war retreating. He and his friends volunteer for the Gross Deutschland, a renown SS division, which doesn't appreciably improve their plight. Although they were previously running supplies to front line positions, they now find themselves manning positions in rearguard actions, constantly being strafed by Russian airplanes who began to control the sky, and often on the verge of being overrun by Russian tanks or infantry. As Sajer's unit falls back through the Ukraine and over the Baltic coast and into Prussia, the chaos is palpable and it seems remarkable that the German army managed to remain any semblance of order. And ultimately, it simply becomes a matter of racing to find some British or American troops to surrender to before the Russians catch up.

That's one of the several minor flaws of the book, the Russians are entirely portrayed as barely human savage hordes who would mindlessly throw themselves into battle, complete with war cries. Granted, the German soldier was probably indoctrinated to think of them that way, but Sajer only occasionally displays any empathy for them as fellow soldiers. Another minor problem is that the book is awfully long-winded. There's a lot of interesting detail, but the problem is that you have to sometimes slog through uninteresting detail to find it. There's also a saccharine love story that seems very hokey.

It should be noted that there have been claims made that the book is a fake, and that Sajer made the whole thing up. These claims focus on particular details and have been fairly convincingly rebutted in a vigorous debate that took place in publications like Army Journal, (copies of these exchanges can be found online fairly easily). It's worth noting that since the book's original French publication in 1967, no one has disputed its description of life for the German soldier on the Eastern front. Others have criticized the book on the grounds that it attempts to engender sympathy for an army that destroyed Europe and made the Holocaust possible, and that, essentially, "they got what they deserved." To a certain extent this is valid, since Sajer has said repeatedly that the book is a tribute to his fellow soldiers and to their bravery and suffering. But if one does feel sympathy for Sajer and his fellow soldiers, it at least means that the reader has a true sense of the horror of war and will keep this knowledge in mind when the next time their own country rushes to battle.

Rating:
Summary: horrors and lessons to be learned
Review: great read. Lost track of time while reading this account. gives you a true appreciation for all soldiers and is a valuable tool for classroom settings. Believe in the message this book delivers, whether or not dates and places the author writes about are shaky. I think we owe him that respect for a traumatizing time for anyone.