Rating: 
Summary: THE EASTERN FRONT CLASSIC
Review: This is simply the best first-person account I have ever read of any war. I have seen some discussion on web sites doubting the veracity of Sajer's story, but I say that if this is not a true story, then Sajer is one of the greatest novelists ever. Sajer was a 16 year old French boy of part German blood when he joined the Wehrmacht. He endured the strict basic training in Poland, and soon he and his comrades find themselves in Russia as part of a supply convoy. It is the dead of winter and they are pushing toward the front lines. They hear later that Stalingrad has fallen and Sajer begins to wonder what he's gotten himself into. What he's gotten himself into is the middle of the most destructive war of the 20th Century, and there's no way out. He and his kamerads endure epic hardships: blizzards, air attacks, lice, a fanatic enemy, partisans, and the Nazi police state. Sajer leaves home a boy, but returns almost unrecognizable to his own family. If you have any interest whatsoever in World War II or human endurance, and want a different point of view (though he fought in the German Army, he was apolitical), I highly, highly, highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling, but novel-like
Review: I'm now reading it for the second time, and while it's interesting, it reads too much like a fictitious novel to really make an impact. I'm sure a lot of what Sajer writes went on, but there is absolutely no way that anyone under fire and as tired and sick as he was can remember all those peripheral details. He even descirbes personal, intricate details for other people when he wasn't in the room with them. He took obvious poetic license. A book that had more of a personal impact for me was Soldat. It seemed much more credible.
Rating:
Summary: Forgotten Soldier
Review: Excellent book. Offers the reader a window to life at the eastern front during WWII. Written by a young German soldier of French decent. At times I found myself puzzled as to how the author could remember such details of his experiences, while at other times details are omitted. However, whether all the experiences are legitimate or not, the book is worth reading because it does offer an insight to life on a front in which very few books have been written.
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Summary: I have finally a little compassion for the Germans
Review: When I visited Germany in the 80's, I could not shake from my mind the monstrosities their minds created. I saw them as dour, rather unfriendly people. A visit to Dauchau did little to diminish those feelings. There were people I met there that I did like, friendly people who I had a hard time believing could ever be involved in the mass murder of millions. It wasn't really fair of me to lump most Germans into that category. This book has made me think twice. Even though it is easy to think that the Germans had it coming, they were human beings, and the good ones suffered along with the bad. Forgotten Soldier is well written, and I'm curious about when it was written, because Sajer has a very good memory if it was written years after the events. I really am amazed that anyone could have survived those horrible winters and the constant attacks by the Soviets. At times I was spellbound by the action and could not put the book down. I hope Sajer realizes that what he was fighting for was pure evil, even though he should have realized it before he volunteered to fight for the Nazis.
Rating:
Summary: War Buff
Review: I have read hundreds of books about many different wars and can honestly say that this is the most compelling book I have ever read. If you want to read a first hand account of the horror of war, this will be the book you can't put down. It is a story you will never forget. Do yourself a favor, read it.
Rating:
Summary: Don't read this book ...
Review: unless you think you can handle this personal, gut wrenching account of the Eastern Front. It's one soldiers sad, horrifying and lonely story as seen through the eyes of young Guy Sajer. Only 18 years old and French, he is caught in the insanity of WWII and the fall of the Eastern Front. After watching Spielberg's graphic war movie, 'Saving Private Ryan', I found the images and emotions Sajer writes about all that much more troubling. At the end of his story I truly had a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. A masterpiece and must read for anyone who dares to see the depths of a man's sole in war.
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Summary: Sherman had no idea what hell could be
Review: The quote attributed to General Sherman that War is Hell did not anticipate the Eastern Front in WWII. The hell that Guy Sajer went through is nothing like anything I could have imagined. I am a former officer, a US Army Armor Major and I never fought a day. Sometimes I felt somehow cheated.. until I read this book and learned the truth of the matter. There is no glory or honor in modern war, if there ever was, just survival. The other reviewers have is right. If you think you understand war and have not read this man's story, then you are mistaken. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: An Unvarnished Masterpiece
Review: This book will shake you...this is an account of war as it really is. What 'All Quiet on the Western Front' was to WWI, this book is to WWII...absolutely riveting. It brings to mind the famous statement from a Civil War General: "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it".
Rating:
Summary: Change your life, read this book
Review: As a keen student of military history, i thought i had a good grasp on the second world war. Then i read this book. Never has the pure inhumanity of actual warfare been brought home to me in such a readable manner. Sajer spends little time or effort trying to explain why so many millions fought and died for ideology, but concerntrates on what the actual experience means to the people at the business end of an artilery barrage or rifle.The horror of winter combat actually made me lose sleep. The violence and casual way in which death became an almost natural thing shook my personal moral structure. The mere fact that he survived a trip to hell says more about the role of fate in war than any passing heroism. He wasn't a hero, he was just a man trapped in hell, clinging to anything that could help him get through to the next day. In one book, he has managed to shatter any illusions that ever existed about the glamour and glory of armed conflict and place the real value of human life on another plane. Read it, tell people about it, and then get it made essential reading for every schhol child. Then the next time a politician tries to send them into a fox hole to defend whatever high ideal they want them to die for, they will remember that there must be a better way.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Brutal Account Of War Ever
Review: After reading this somber account of war on the eastern front, I felt like I had seen a glimpse of hell. Never have I read an account of war this honest and brutal. How Mr Sajer ever survived is just a plain miracle. Beginning the war as a 17 year old supply driver and ending as a front line rifleman, Mr Sajer proceeds to take the reader from one hell to another without a chance to catch your breath. There have been few good books on the war on the eastern front. This is unfortunate since the war between Hitler and Stalin is really where the war was won and lost. It was a total war of annilation. No side gave the other any breaks. Very few prisioners were taken, it was easier to shot them than to feed them. Having said all this, this book must be read! No one can understand WWII until they have experienced this book. Even now, I can still feel the cold and terror Mr Sajer went through.
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