Rating: 
Summary: Experience the life of a soldier.
Review: Any soldier knows that fighting is survival. Fighting the elements: blizzards, constant rainfall, wind that can rip the skin from your face, blinding rays of a desert sun. A soldier must ration water, food, sleep, and energy. This is a powerful book; one that should be read by politicians and the public.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've ever read, I read it over and over ...
Review: A must-read for any student of european history, or any war veteran. Love, adventure, comradeship, anguish, horror. This book covers the full range of human emotion in depth and sincerity. The best book I've ever read. Interesting debate in historical circles about this book; true biography versus fictional fabrication. Read it and you'll know no man could make up this story. He lived these experiences.
Rating: 
Summary: the barbarity of war has never been more stark
Review: Far too many books about war are written from the vantage point of the officer/commander/historian. How many times have you heard 'The battalion took the enemy positions in heavy fighting' or something similar and thought 'yeah but what was it LIKE!'
In this book you won't hear anything like those distant viewpoints. First person perspective of battles, the chaos, terror, artillery barages, being attacked by planes and massed attacks by the Red Army. Sajer tells of the lice, the misery, the horrendous winters, frostbite, even when he suffers from dysentry. The death of his friends, the madness of combat, those who go insane and the heroism of others. He is no hero himself just a terrified young man trying desperately to survive.
He fell for the myth of German Imperialism and the Nazis, fell in love with the ideas.
He has no guilt for this, no sense of shame or regret that I can detect. For every boy who grew up on war films this book is a savage insight into the terrifying reality of WWII on the russian front. Pity the poor millions of Russians who died by the German policies. Pity Sajer and those like him who believed in creating an German Empire
Rating:
Summary: Truly THE BEST war novel ever written!
Review: I understand that this is a bold claim. However, I've read many books about war, and more specifically the Eastern Front, and I can say without reservation that this gripping novel of real-life combat is the best book ever written.
Simply put, if you want to know what life and death was like on the Eastern Front then you must READ THIS BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: A must read.
Review: This book is amazing! Understand the war from the perspective of a 17 year old German Infantry soldier. Very well writen. You feel right there on the front lines with Guy Sajer as he fights for his life time and time again. You actually feel numb with cold when he speaks of the Russian winter. The best WW2 memoir I have read period, regardles of nationality.
Rating:
Summary: Best WWII book ever
Review: This book is unbelievable. Although the quality of the translation from French to English leaves to be desired.Some people have questioned the authenticity of this book which is laughable. I guess truth can sometimes be more unbelievable than fiction. Guy Sajer did respond to some of the naysayers in an article several years ago: "You ask me questions of chronology, situations, dates and unimportant details. Historians and archivists (Americans as well as Canadians) have harassed me for a long time with their rude questions. All of this is unimportant. Other authors and high-ranking officers could respond to your questions better than I. I never had the intention to write a historical reference book; rather, I wrote about my innermost emotional experiences as they relate to the events that happened to me in the context of the Second World War."(23) "Apart from the emotions I brought out, I confess my numerous mistakes. That is why I would like that this book may not be used, under no circumstances, as a strategic or chronological reference. Except for some clear landmarks, we didn't know exactly where we were (I am speaking about Russia). We had only code numbers for mail which meant nothing to us .... In the black Russia of winter, I would not have been surprised if someone had told me that we were in China." (25)
Rating:
Summary: Five stars if true, one if not
Review: There is ceratinly a lot of contoversy as to the truth of this book. If it is a truthful account of Sajers experiences (and perhaps we must all accept that memory is not perfect and no account will be a 100% accurate), then this is without a doubt in the list of very great autobiographys. Sajers accounts were harrowing and give you the very best insight into the horror that was the Eastern front. The scene in which he was travelling in a truck in the great German retreat with severe Diarrohea is one of the most gripping pieces if writing of all time. If it is not true, then one star. Why? IF he is passing fiction as fact, and not admitting that then he would be stealing from, and exploiting cynically those who really have been through hell.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful read
Review: Sajer's chronicle of his experience as a German soldier during World War II is one of the most searing books I've come across. His command of language brings every horrible adventure vividly to life; this is a must-read for anyone interested in history or, for that matter, anyone looking for an all-absorbing read.
Rating:
Summary: Classic war memoir
Review: Guy Sajer's war memoir is classic because it shows the horror war very clearly. Most American memoirs, like the excellent "Roll Me Over", are different because although friends were dying, the US soldiers weren't on starvation diets, and were victorious for a righteous cause. War on the East Front, though, was the most hellish thing imaginable. Sajer isn't going to win any awards for political correctness - he's bitter no one appreciates the hard work he did for Hitler - but he wrote a gut-wrenching book on war.
Rating:
Summary: Not An Autobiography
Review: But a hell of a historical novel. I fully recommend it.
|
