The Sergeant in the Snow

Rating:
Summary: A Heart Wrenching Odysee
Review: I am shocked to find the great many people who are unaware of Mussollinni's ill-fated pursuit of glory in the east. His broken dreams left many Italian families orphaned and widowed. This well written account of the brutality of combat on the Eastern front is a fine addition to any WW2 eastern front library. It is well written and fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: A Heart Wrenching Odysee
Review: I've heard many times that rigoni Stern's "Sergeant in the Snow"is one of the best memoirs on eastern front,however,very unfortunately this book has long been out of stock in most book stores.At first time I purchsed this book, I was bit dismayed by its size-it's just little more than 100 pages .but shortly after I started reading the book. I can't stop reading it..Not only Rigoni Stern's honest and realistic potrayal of the war but also the beauty of each sentence which is so powerful that it constantly conjures up images of snow,trench, soldiers who had completely normal lives before war ..love,homesick,girls,friends,comradeship,bravity..and a young master sergeant whose humanity and will for life shines and finally prevails all unbearable physical and mental exhaution.
another attraction is that although Rigoni had already been a seasoned veteran by the time his Division became a part of unfortunate Italian 8th Army .he didn't lose his sanity and love for people.(he is very symphathetic to poor Russian people and even his enemy ..) Unlike Guy Sayer , Rigoni Stern doesn't intend to invoke sensationalism by describing death ,multilated bodies, and combat ,but the book conveyed sense of desperation and symphathy for those who lost during the retreat and break out .
The book will be particulary helpful to understand solders of often unfairly labelled Italian 8th army in Russia.

Rating:
Summary: powerful and excellent potrayal of war
Review: I've heard many times that rigoni Stern's "Sergeant in the Snow"is one of the best memoirs on eastern front,however,very unfortunately this book has long been out of stock in most book stores.At first time I purchsed this book, I was bit dismayed by its size-it's just little more than 100 pages .but shortly after I started reading the book. I can't stop reading it..Not only Rigoni Stern's honest and realistic potrayal of the war but also the beauty of each sentence which is so powerful that it constantly conjures up images of snow,trench, soldiers who had completely normal lives before war ..love,homesick,girls,friends,comradeship,bravity..and a young master sergeant whose humanity and will for life shines and finally prevails all unbearable physical and mental exhaution.
another attraction is that although Rigoni had already been a seasoned veteran by the time his Division became a part of unfortunate Italian 8th Army .he didn't lose his sanity and love for people.(he is very symphathetic to poor Russian people and even his enemy ..) Unlike Guy Sayer , Rigoni Stern doesn't intend to invoke sensationalism by describing death ,multilated bodies, and combat ,but the book conveyed sense of desperation and symphathy for those who lost during the retreat and break out .
The book will be particulary helpful to understand solders of often unfairly labelled Italian 8th army in Russia.

Rating:
Summary: The best Eastern Front memoir ever
Review: In a world where the term "masterpiece" is much abused, here's a little book that - I hope - will be read even 100 years from now. "The Sergeant In The Snow" is, quite simply, the best "soldier view" of the whole Eastern Front history (at least on the Axis side), focusing on the autobiographical experiences of sergeant Rigoni Stern, then a country boy from the Dolomites area drafted into the Italian Alpines Troops and sent to fight in Albania, Greece, Yugoslavia and Russia. Here we've only the Russian bit (the rest of the war is covered in his others volumes), but this is Rigoni Stern's magnum opus. It manages to bring poetry, humanity and soul into a potentially devastating experience - the long months on the Don section of the frontline in 1942, the winter, the Russian offensive, the disastrous retreat (where Rigoni Stern's unit took 75% losses, most from exhaustion and cold), and the breakout battles to escape encirclement. It could have all the potential for the usual self defensive lies, complaints and half baked jingoism, but what we've is a magnificent (AND readable AND well written) potrait of the human experience in war. Most of Rigoni's comrades are vividly portaited (alas - few got the chance to see home again), and the furious breakout battles (expecially the now legendary confrontation at Nikolaievska) are given a dry, perceptive tone often lacking from more ponderous books (this includes Guy Sayer's "Forgotten Soldier"). Also, Rigoni Stern (as many of his comrades) is well aware of the stupidity of the Italian involvement in the Russian campaign, and doesn't hide its simpathy for the ordeals of the local population, and the valour of the "enemy". In one memorable accident, during the Nikolaievksa battle Rigoni stumble into a Russian squad hiding (and eating!) inside an "isba". He's scared, but he's hungry too, so he asks for something to eat, thanks everyone and get out unharmed. It's a small episode, but the author manages to put into it all the significance of what can people do when they don't hate each other. Also, there's definitely no much love lost for the German allied, althrough you'll not find inside Rigoni's book the monumental scorn against the Germans of, let's say, Nuto Revelli "Poor Men's War". But Rigoni (who spent one year in a German concentration camp and after the war became one of Primo Levi's best friends) shows no illusions on the true nature of the predictment they're in - an annihilation war against an entire country. "The Sergeant In The Snow" is an incredible book, a work of poetry by a great writer unfortunately not well known outside Italy. If you're into the topic, you must absolutely buy it!

Rating:
Summary: The Sergeant in the Snow
Review: Mario Rigoni Stern was barely twenty-one - and already a battle veteran - at the time of the hallucinatory World War II disaster searchingly described in this book. In July 1942, the Italian forces in Russia totaled 230,000 men. They included three divisions of Alpini troops, specially trained for winter warfare; the author of this book belonged to one of these, the Tridentina. In December, the troops began retreating, entirely on foot, with no supplies, at a temperature of 30-40 degrees below zero. Many of the troops, overcome by exhaustion, broke away from the column; others were cut off and captured by the Russians, others lost in the steppes. In the end, about 90,000 were missing or dead, about 45,000 frostbitten and wounded." "This narrative, together with his novel The Story of Tonle and several other works, paints a broad fresco of Italy's history in this century, chronicling social and political change so radical and profound that it has touched even those in such secluded provincial communities as that which Rigoni Stern has so masterfully described.