Product Description

A tremendous best-seller and critical success in France and Germany, the Phoenix Press edition has a new introduction by Doris Lessing. A young man with a French father but a German mother is inducted into the Wermacht in the summer of 1942. He could just as easily have become a French soldier. Following his initial excitement, the book becomes a horrifying chronicle of misery, cold, fear, starvation and disillusionment. The Forgotten Soldier is one of those few classic accounts of an individual's experience of an international anguish. The single most harrowing and incredible account of war that you are ever likely to read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1584503 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12-07
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

About the Author
See opposite. '...there was a war, and I married it because there was nothing else when I reached the age of falling in love...Suddenly there were two flags for me to honour...I entered the service, dreamed and hoped. I also knew cold and fear in places never seen by Lili Marlene. A day came when I should have died, and after that nothing seemed very important. So I have stayed as I am, without regret, separated from the normal human condition.' - Guy Sajer

Customer Reviews

The Forgotten Soldier
This is truly a superb book, far surpassing anything in print today. The author (Guy Sajer) portrays the hopes and fears of the average soldier of the German Wehrmacht during the most epic and hostile conflict in human history. Unfortunately our soldier joins the struggle during mid-1942, the turning point of the war. As the vision of victory slowly subsides into the realisation of defeat, the author’s interpretation of modern warfare as desensitisation separates him from the sufferings of others. The comradeship of his unit and the immense acts of bravery by fellow soldiers offer a truly inspiring scene. This piece of literature gives a clear insight into the mind of those who continued to fight regardless of knowledge that the war was already lost. The account of the battle of Memel is horrifically illustrative. For anyone with the slightest interest in the war on the Eastern Front, read this book.

A Graphic & terrifying account of the Eastern Front in WWII
A spellbinding book in which Guy Sajer vivdly recalls his own personal fight for survival on the Eastern Front during WWII. Sajer, a half French Half German volunteered to serve in the German Army when he was still too young to understand what war was about, his book vivdly illustrates how he discovered over his three years on the Eastern Front just what he'd let himself in for.No punches are pulled in this masterpiece, every terrifying, gruesome agonising moment is included as he describes how the simple soldier clung to his own life. The inhumane existence of soldiers on both sides is described with all it's lice-ridden detail and the reader will be left with compassion for anyone brave enough to keep going in what must have been a living hell.I finished this book and turned back to page one to start reading it again, after sharing Sajer's experiences with him.......you'll come away feeling different...maybe even shell-shocked. Everyone should read this masterpiece!
I defy anyone to put this down once started!

I had to wait for him to be safe to put the book down.
I am able to review this early as I have unearthed an old edition. This book quite literally lives with you from the moment you open it, to the moment you finish...and then a bit longer. The story of a half-french, 17 year-old from Alsace takes you from his misguided decision to volunteer for military service, with the Nazi-German army, through the bloodiest, most ruthless and savage campaigns of the Eastern-Front. The sheer brutality, wretchedness and loss of reasonable hope is bewildering. The close knit team that develops and the esprit de corps of the Grosse Deutschland Division is inspirational. The gore and carnage they endure and inflict is awe inspiring. Such is the fierce reality of the writing, the images of battle and of frozen death, that I ended up having to keep reading until Guy Sajer (this is autobiographical) was in relative safety and comfort. I could not "leave him". Read it, you will then know what I mean. Whatever political persuasion you belive in or stand for, no 17 year old should be made to endure this. I cannot recommend a book more highly. Forget Blitzkrieg, this is Blitz-education. It batters your senses. Thank God my 5 years in the Army never came to this.