The Forgotten Soldier: Guy Sajer's Memoir of World War II, 1942

Spence Of Luton: An enthralling read. Written by a young soldier in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.
He starts of as a driver in a transport unit, before volunteering for the infantry, and is posted to the elite Gross Deutschland division.
He writes in detail about the chaos, the carnage, the extreme cold, the ever present fear of death...or being captured by the russians steamrolling towards Germany

United Kingdom on Jul 25, 2023

kate: Great book

United Kingdom on Jul 19, 2023

Amazon Customer: This book has been originally written in French and his author is actually French from the germanophone area, the Alsace. This region has been constantly fought by France and Germany during the last century. Guy Sajer (real name, Guy Mouminoux) was French, but germanophone at the beginning of WW2 and for this reason he decided to join the Wermarch. Guy Sajer is also an excellent comic writter under the nickname of ''Dimitri'' who humoristically described the ex USSR and especially the goulags. I don't know if these comics exist in English, but they are delectable. So! What about the Forgotten Soldier? Excellent chronicle based on personal experience of WW2 during the terrible and horrific Barbarossa Campaign. This campaign was the longest and definitely the most difficult part of German's WW2. The description of the war cruelty is very well described as well as the horrific day to day conditions of living in the cold temperature, the lack of hygiene and the misery of these poor soldiers in both sides, a nightmare. Definitely an excelent testimony. Probably based on his own experience and testimonies. Intense, sad, human! Strongly recommended. The history is our memory!

Canada on Sep 23, 2021

Jex: I rarely write reviews for anything on Amazon, can’t be bothered 98% of the time. However..

This is probably the best personal account book about the Eastern front I’ve read so far. I say best but I mean that in the most horrendous sense of the word. Other books cover operational and strategic matters but the one shows us the perspective of a young man in the total war of the Eastern Front.

I will start with the cons because there are so few:

*A few typos here and there
*General Guderian was not leading anything into battle in 1943 as the book hints once
*One speech by a Captain character in about the middle of the book seems far too prepared and nobody would have remembered it years later (it is a good speech mind)

This guy was clearly writing with hindsight, having done a little bit of wider research into bits of the conflict around him but not too much that he sounds like he is writing an operational history of the battles around him. Just enough to roughly place where he was.

The book follows a young man from training, into a logistics team running supplies across the vast distances of Russia where he is part of the retreats after...

United Kingdom on Jul 28, 2020

Hercule Poirot: This is a very strong account of war in all its horrors, suffering and sacrifice, but at the same time a moving account of one young man's struggle to survive against almost unimaginable odds to the contrary. I am an old combat soldier myself and I can fully appreciate Sajer's totally honest descriptions of fear, comradeship and loathing of all the cruelty one witnesses during any war, whether perpetrated by the enemy or by one's own side. My war was not anywhere as mindboglingly brutal as the clash between Germany and Russia, but one thing Sajer and I have in common is that we both went to war at the impressionable young age of 16 (I am now in my 70's). I believe that I can therefore perhaps more fully than most people appreciate the descriptions of his feelings when he recounts all the things that happened to him during his turbulent wartime adolescence, including his first experience with puppy love and romance under impossible conditions.

Another thing that I have in common with Sajer is that I served alongside a large number of Germans, including several former Wehrmacht soldiers, and their banter, humour and love of singing, whether marching or relaxing with a beer,...

United Kingdom on Aug 18, 2013

N. Wallach: I am giving this book a five star rating. Is it because I love the book? No! However, I think that this is an important book that covers many themes and situations in an absolutely stunning and eloquent way. The book tells the story of Guy Sajer (a pen name, not his real name). Sajer was born to a German mother and a French father and his story starts when he volunteers to serve in the Wehrmacht during World War 2. His initial posting is with the driver corps where his unit is engaged in providing supplies to the troops fighting the Russians on the Eastern Front, just about the time of Stalingrad. After seven months of cold and horrifying experiences - during which Sajer loses one German friend to a strafing plane - he and some of his buddies volunteer for the Motorized Infantry and he spends the rest of the war serving in the Gross Deustschland Division as it continuously retreats from Russia to Rumania, and from there to Prussia, and finally gets posted to the Western front where he and his surviving buddies surrender to the British Army in April of 1945.

The main themes that this book explores include why soldiers fight; what is the difference for them between fighting...

United States on Mar 24, 2013

Johnny 88: What make this book very interesting is it is written by a soldier that received no medals, did not destroy countless Russian tanks etc. For about the first 75 pages he was in a supply unit struggling through the snow and mud to get supplies to the front line troops. Once he volunteers for the Gross Deutschland Division he experiences combat. I think better than any other excellent account about the Eastern Front that I have read, Guy Sajer conveys the terror of combat the best. Being endlessly shelled, or the terror of 40 -50 approaching tanks and all they have is 18 men with about a dozen panzerfausts, or the terror in WAITING for the inevitable attack by yet again another overwhelming force. He describes how this endless terror pushes him and his comrades to complete despair. There were times they were so psycologically devastated that they begged to be SHOT ! ! Guy Sajer bares his soul - he writes about the one time he was definitely a coward, how he completely fell apart, and that that event will haunt him the rest of his life. He wrote about how during a retreat for many days thousands of German soldiers were waiting to get across the Dnieper (I believe), and they had to...

United States on Apr 12, 2011