Rating: 
Summary: A Sense of the Panic
Review: Guy Sajer's autobiography is a classic. Half German, from his mother's side, Sajer feels divided loyalties. Is he German or French? To the Germans he's German and thus eligible for military service. At first his German is heavily accented and he feels at a disadvantage among the "race-conscious" Nazi-indoctrinated German soldiers around him. Once he joins an elite division however, he finds himself accepted, except for one incident during a drunken party.Besides the remarkable descriptions he gives of his infantry training after joining the elite Grossdeutschland Division, his participation in the Kursk offensive and fighting partisans as part of an ad hoc Kampfgruppe is a sense of the panic that gripped the Germans in 1943-44 as they were forced back out of the Ukraine and towards Germany itself. His description of the retreat across the Dnepr as well as the welcome the survivors received at the hands of the military police gives a good impression of the incomprehensible fear and shock that almost overwhelmed the Wehrmacht. It was only with ever increasingly brutal methods that the authorities felt that they could keep the men fighting, keep their army from falling apart. The best historian of the Wehrmacht, IMHO, Omer Bartov, has much to say about this and also has some interesting things to say about Sajer's account, but that should wait until after the reader has completed this book.
Rating:
Summary: You understand the front line soldier's agony
Review: Sajer, a simple front line soldier writes an amazing book describing the hard life on the Russian front. It resembles a lot the classic WWI book "All quiet on the Western front". Sajer goes thru basic training, to Kiev, Close to Stalingrad and even at (altough not specifically quoted) the battle of Kurk. A must read.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bit Disappointed
Review: This book did not move me as I had expected, based on the reviews I had read. Yes, it was interesting in that it was written by a grunt on what was the most vicious part of WWII. However, it reads like a novel, with Sajer taking a lot of liberties in terms of specific dialogues that make up a big part of the book. The book lost some credibility with me because of this. Perhaps I was not as swept away by this book after having recently experienced a true "work of soul" (Saving Private Ryan), and having read a gritty book that was much more fact-based (A Blood-Dimmed Tide--Battle of the Bulge) right before having read Sajer.
Rating:
Summary: Rare literary talent
Review: Guy Sajer makes you feel the brutal cold, fear, and despair that was the German soldier's lot on the Eastern Front, which was quite possibly the most brutal campaign in human history. But, at the same time, Sajer lets you share his simple joys, and the deep bonds which he forms with his circle of friends with whom he has faced hell on earth. In my opinion, Sajer's book is the best personal memoir to come out of the war. It is impossible to read it and not be moved. His stories of his training, his first combat, and of his dawning realization that the war was lost, are particularly vivid. The closing pages of the book will live in the reader's memory for a long while. This book is a true military classic, and I cannot recommend it too highly.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutly a great book on and unkown perspective of WWII
Review: Absolutly awestruck! This book provides one of the best accounts of the soldier's life I have ever read. Sajer uses his abilties in writing to bring his experience as a German soldier to life. Throughout the entire book I imagined I was a German soldier going through war. I felt for the soldier's even though they were the US's enemy. This book is a must read for any historian.
Rating:
Summary: Fave book of all time
Review: In trying to understand WAR, you can either waste the rest of your life reading every other book written about it, or you can simply read "The Forgotten Soldier." One of the few books which actually had a physical impact on me while I was reading it. At times I wept with pity for the soldiers of both sides, and at other times I clenched my fists in anger at mankind's endless folly. I concur fully with all the other reviewers except the few who had the ignorance and/or stupidity to say that Sajer was a coward. Of course these whimps have never heard a shot fired in anger themselves, let alone endless barrages from Soviet Katusha rockets. Sajer volunteered to fight in the German Army's premier mechanized division, "Grossdeuschland." The GD was a "fire brigade" that was sent wherever the action was hottest on the Eastern Front. The GD probably saw more combat than even the Whermacht's penal battallions did. I'm a student of WW II and especially the Eastern front. The best war literature I have ever read has come from the German veterans of Russia. If you're interested in other great personal accounts, the best books I can recommend are: Willi Heinrich's "Cross Of Iron," Peter Neuman's "The Black March," Leon Degrelle's "Waffen SS in Russia," Benno Zieser's "The Road to Stalingrad," Heinrich Gerlach's "The Forsaken Army," and Christian de la Maziere's "Ashes of Honor." Although the content in some of these books is questionable in terms of historical accuracy, they all effectively portray the Armageddon that was Germany's Eastern Front. But the Forgotten Soldier is simply the best of the best. Read it and die a little with Sajer and his comrades, so you can live that much more.
Rating:
Summary: This Is War.
Review: I will never forget this book. The only book to bring me to tears in my 25 years of reading. If you've not read this book, read it. From the first page to the last I was Guy Sajer. Trying to stay alive, trying to make sense of war. If you're of German descent, and the names are accurate, you might even find a relative mentioned as I did.
Rating:
Summary: A book that will stay with me forever.
Review: From the moment I opened this book, I felt as if I was there. Sajer's ability to convey all the emotions of a man in such terrible circumstances is without compare. It is impossible to find the words to discribe the impact of this book. It held me captive until the very last page and, indeed, holds me still. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: The horrifying truth about World War Two in Russia.
Review: "The Forgotten Soldier" is all the explanation you need on the horrors of war in general, and World War Two on the Eastern Front in particular. It is the story of Guy Sajer, a young Alsatian who volunteers for service in the Wermacht as a member of a supply unit. He ends the war having served as an infantryman with one of the Wermacht's (not the Waffen-SS's) elite Panzer divisions in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. I read this book when I was a teenager and wasn't able to leave behind its most vivid images: the men of his squad under intense artillery fire outside Belgorod, the living misery of existence in Memel, the seemingly endless and deadly Russian winters, his falling in love with a young Berliner. Years after reading it the first time with dropped jaw and tears, I picked it up again; I was amazed at its undiminished ability to jar my emotions and leave me mentally exhausted. I won't lie: this book is difficult to read simply because it encapsulates every morsel of TRUTH about one of the most horrible chapters of human history. That said, if you are a student of history or simply humanity, brace yourself for a harrowing journey into hell, and read it. To read this book is to understand humanity's duality: its magnificence and nobility in being able to rise above adverse conditions; and its depravity and ignobility in its massive capacity to inflict them. Quite possibly the greatest work of military non-fiction ever written.
Rating:
Summary: Souldrowning reality
Review: Guy Sajer's work is the single most harrowing and incredible account of war that I have ever read. His book is so incredibly vivid and descriptive that before you even realize it you feel as though you are fighting alongside the German armies experiencing the immensity of horrors and terrors that the break of every day would bring. But the thing that Sajer does in his account that no other book has been able to instill in me is the universality of human emotions and the absolute dreadfulness of war to every man, woman and child regardless of race, creed or culture. An absolutely monumental achievement. Not only one of the finest books ever written about WWII but also one of the single best books that I have ever read...period.
|
