Product Description

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: #584931 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 481 pages

About the Author
Born to a French father and a German mother, the author joined the German army in the summer of 1942. After three years fighting on the Eastern Front he was finally captured by the English in 1945. After the war he returned to his native France.

Customer Reviews

The Forgotten Soldier - not to be forgotten.
If like me you are a little nervous picking up books about war and think that they may only glorify the great scale of battles, victories and tactics then I would recommend the Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. This book is a first person account of life on the eastern front from the perspective of a young, naive man, which simultaneously depicts the fall of nazi Germany and the destruction of the illusions of the German people.

When, as the teenage son of a French father and a German Mother Sajer signs up to join the German army, his enthusiasm for war is unbounded. However, three years of experience in the either scorched or frozen desolation of wartime eastern Europe reveals an unremitting crushing of his idealism. From the cruel army regime and its sometimes deadly training approach, through frostbite, starvation and the slaughter of friends, enemy and innocents, this account graphically reveals the true horror of war.

Many of the scenes in the book will haunt the reader for days afterwards. The sense of futility and the suspension of reason in the mad world of war grows throughout the book and the reader is drawn in deep; to the extent that you genuinely feel like you are sharing in the experience.

This book deserves to be compulsory reading for anyone who is interested in twentieth century history. It is worth a hundred dry historical accounts and demonstartes above all the power of the individual as a witness to a world and circumstances out of his control.

The best 1st person book about war I have ever read.
I have never been the fastest of readers yet I managed to digest this book's 500 odd pages in a couple of days. I was unable to put it down and have never been so addicted to a book.

Sajer describes in great detail his hopes and dreams which desend into fear and loathing and then into nothingness after spending too many years fighting the Russians and seeing the majority of his comrades killed in a savage fashion before his eyes.

I never thought I would feel real pity for the Germans who fought for Hitler but this book has managed to bring that emotion out in me. It has made me realised that whilst Nazi Germany brought misery on millions of non Germans it also inflicted that same misery on the Germans themselves, many of whom also didn't want war. Although I am sure I will never fully understand what happens to people during war without experiencing it myself this book goes part way to explain it. I hope I never live through anything like this.

This book is a must, even if you do not normally read war based books this one makes it worthwhile. A truely harrowing, sad book that everyone should read.

German soldiers were brave too
A brilliant personal story. My title shows that what you take from this book is an amazing appreciation of both what it was like to be a young german caught up in a whirlwind of war, thinking and believing your country and leader could not be wrong. It also goes a long way to explain how a reasonable, respectable developed society can bury their morals and follow the sheep into the abyss. Without doubt this book is the best one i have read on the human impact of being exposed to war from the aggressors perspctive, it leaves me haunted by unanswered questions and in awe of the scale and conditions soldiers and civilians endured. The book is a great insight into the German nature, so different from the Brits, Yanks or Russian. It is best read alonside Stalingrad and Berlin by Antony Beevor to see how much history has missed out the German-Russo aspect of ww2.