Rating: 
Summary: 1st-person view of the war
Review: As an ex-artilleryman, I found Knappe's account of military life to be very accurate, and I was surprised at how similar life in a German WWII battery was similar to a 1990's American battery. Except for the horse-drawn aspect, discipline and duties were nearly identical to my own Army experience so I could easily relate to Knappe's narrative of events.
The eye-witness account starts out with the last defense of Berlin then goes back to the start of the war where Knappe tells about his thoughts and his actions to the unfolding of events of WWII. Usually, Knappe would become wounded at the beginning of any combat so he spent much of the time in hospitals or assigned to a training school. He was lucky. The book ends with his capture by the Russians and his 5-year prison sentence in Russia followed freeing his family from East Germany.
Overall, it is a very interesting read but sometimes became a llittle stale from the robotic narrative, like the voice of Dragnet's officer Friday droning on about "Just the facts, ma'am". Any person considering life as a soldier should read this account to get an idea of what military life is like and take note that officers live much better than enlisted soldiers. It also shows how important morale and training are for combat effectiveness. I was relieved that this book did not try to justify Nazism. Knappe was a career soldier, not an idealogue, and his loyalty was to his fellow soldiers and country first, government second.
Any deluded fool who should for some reason idolize Nazism should read this book and understand that the Nazis were a thug organization that was counter-productive to the German war effort and was the same as Communism concerning brutality and the stifling of freedom. Knappe was surprised to see in conquered France how the capitalist French lived and ate far better than his countrymen back in Germany who had to do without because the socialist government took much for itself.
Rating: 
Summary: A super good book
Review: Follow a German soldier from his training, to the battlefield, from Russia to Italy, to the Battle for Berlin and then to his capture by the Russians. The details of life both on the front and at home really brings us into the war, allowing us to see how conditions change and how his view on war and the Reich also change. A few extras, like a small glossary and a organizational chart are not really needed. The book is about life in the Reich as much as the battles the Wehrmacht fought. Lots about the daily life of the German soldier, from their food, how they dealt with the weather, how they dealt with the horror of battle.
A must for seeing the war from a PERSON's point of view.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed reflections
Review: For anyone interested in the Wermacht this book is a must have. Not only does Herr Knappe write of his early training and pre-war days, but he gives us an insight into the Armies Staff Academies, combat in the West and in the East, and a very detailed day by day account of the fall of Berlin. He draws on both contemporary documentation and his amazing clarity of recollection to provide us with firsthand, accurate information. I felt I was able to understand the WW2 German soldier and the immeasurable challenges they faced much more clearly after having read this book. Recommended with pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: A great book, from the German soldiers point of view
Review: I have just recently finished reading "Soldat", I can honestly say it is one of the best books I have ever read on WWII or anything else for that matter, and I have read quite a few books. The book really takes you through the whole war from the German side on almost every front of the ETO. You really seem to get to know Major Knappe, his family and friends, he is truley a remarkable man. A must read for anyone interrested in WWII.
Rating:
Summary: Unexpected
Review: I'm writing this to say I like Soldat for all the reasons most other reviewers don't. I like the fact that Knappe focuses his narrative on his own interests and motivations during the war and not the war aims, troop movements, numbers and battle sequences that the other reviewers can't get enough of. The photo section included in the paperback edition is made up of Knappe's personal photos taken while on vacation, dating, or in uniform through the years. His decisions throughout the war are guided by two things; his career path as an army officer and the time he spends with his young wife. I was fascinated by the twists of fate that kept him moving from place to place attached to different commands. Clearly, Knappe's war experiences qualified him to write revealing, detailed and highly technical war novels from the German viewpoint. He chose, however, to fill his novel with the rare human touch of things and people he most valued during the war. If you remember and like 'Samurai!' by Saburo Sakai, Soldat has a similar tone.
Rating: 
Summary: Average book, worth it for the price.
Review: It was an ok book. The author wasted some time in the book pointing out on more than a couple occasions that he was a good German and not a Nazi. That got a little old. It kind of made me wonder, if some of the story was written to make him look better. He did end up in the USA, so there would be pressure to write a story that showed himself in a better light. It's just an ok book. You learn more about the German officer training system more than what it was like to be on the front.
Rating:
Summary: very interesting book
Review: Knappe gives the reader a great insight on the day to day running of the German Army as his role as an officer in the horse drawn artillery and then as he moved up the ranks, ending up being one the defenders of Berlin serving under General Weidling.He fought in a number of campaigns that included France, Russia, Italy & finally defending Germany as the end drew near. He was a very lucky man to have survived the war and its aftermath in a variety of harsh Russian prison camps. Knappe comes across as a decent sort of fellow and like most other German soldiers was appalled when the truth of what the Nazis had been doing in the concentration camps was finally revealed. The writing style is fairly straight forward and as someone else stated has a rather cold style about it, but it is totally absorbing and I highly recommed it to anyone interested in military history.
Rating:
Summary: Detached perspective reads like a history book
Review: Siegfried Knappe is one of the Wehrmacht's better officers. He is conscientious, ambitious, hard-working, a good student, and an able leader. Soldat follows Knappe throughout his experiences in the German Army, starting before the war. Knappe starts as an artillery officer, where he is dismayed to learn that the supposedly high-tech German military still uses horses to tow its cannons and howitzers around. Still, he is an intelligent officer, and eventually makes his way up the career ladder,winning promotions and medals, and eventually securing a staff position in Hitler's own bunker toward the end of the war. After the fall of Berlin, Knappe is taken prisoner and sent to Siberia, where he tells of Soviet attempts to brainwash him and his comrades. He is finally released and makes his way back to his family in Germany, and eventually emigrates to America. For all his wealth of experience (He fought in almost every major theater of the European War) however, Knappe tells the story with such a dearth of feeling and emotion that the story feels like a historical research paper, and not the wartime memoirs and recollections of a combat veteran. While Knappe is undoubtedly a combat soldier (he was wounded several times) he never relates the sense of terror, exhilaration, heartbreak and fatigue associated with combat. The death of his own brother is related as though he were a distant relative or neighbor's son. If you're looking for an insider's view of the WW2 German military by a real up-and-coming officer, this is your book. If, however, you're looking for a true combat memoir, there are none better than Guy Sajer's "Forgotten Soldier."
Rating:
Summary: A view of WWII from the German side
Review: Siegfried Knappe was an Artillery officer in the German army at the beginning of WWII. He saw service in Poland, Italy, Russia, and finally in the defense of Berlin. He was finally captured in 1945 by the Russians when Berlin fell and shipped to a Russian concentration camp for four years. This book chronicles the years he spent in combat and as a prisoner of war. He gives real insight into the way the German Army operated and he shows how he changed from idealisim and support for Hitler to growing disillusionment. It is an interesting book from both the standpoint of a combat history and also a social history of what Germany itself went through as the war dragged on. However, I did find myself skimming over certain parts, mainly Knappe's views on what he felt were German justifications for the war. And make no mistake, even though he came to feel Hitler was causing the German people great harm, he did feel that a Germany had valid reasons for invading Poland, France, and Russia. I'd recommend this book for anyone who's fascinated by what really happened in World War II.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not compelling
Review: Sigfried Knappe's book is interesting for what it is: a personal history of WWII. Don't be fooled by the copy on the back of the book, though - it provides relatively little insight into the psycology of WWII Germany, the operation of the German Army, or the reality of Soviet prison camps. In fact, even the title is somewhat misleading ... while Knappe was a soldier in that he was employed by the Wermacht, he spent relatively little time during the war actually doing any shooting. The problem here is that Knappe spent his life as an artillery staff officer, and while he nominally served in all those campaigns, he saw relatively little combat (none at all in Italy; only a few days in France; more in the invasion of Russia, but he was wounded early in Typoon, before things got really tough; and then none again until the last days of the 3rd Reich). His service in the late war is mostly as operations officer. On the one hand, this *is* quite interesting if you are curious about logisitcal details of the German Army; if you are interested in combat conditions and operational details, though, you'll need to look elsewhere. Knappe was a staff officer who lacked real decision-making authority, so you won't get either good high-level coverage of the campaigns, nor will you get the gritty details. Additionally, the writing in this book has some issues. For one, the line between Knappe's contributions and Brusaw's ghostwriting is in some places clearly drawn, which raises questions about the areas where it isn't. For example, early in the book, distances and such are stated in English units; most of the middle in metric; and later on, metric with English conversions (Knappe, as a German, would presumably only use metric, and certainly would only have used metric in his diaries). Secondly, the book was apparently written mostly from diaries, and the style shows; the writing tends towards long, rambling narratives, and it tends to be unfocussed. We get long sections of realtively uninteresting material, and short sections on crucial campaigns and battles that cry out for some more supporting detail. Bottom line, this is a book that will be of some interest to die-hard WWII buffs, but I doubt it will be of that much interest to most people. I hate to give a marginal review to a book like this, which probably has merit just for being what it is, but time is short and there are a lot of better books out there. Soldat hardly stands up in comparison to Guy Sajer's excellent (if somewhat mysterious) The Forgotten Soldier. That book is more compelling, more interesting, and far better written.
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