Overview

An international bestseller, this is a German soldier's first-hand account of life on Russian front during the second half of the Second World War. When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue and constant deprivation. Posted to the crack Grosse Deutchland division, with its sadistic instructors who shoot down those who fail to make the grade, he enters a violent and remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, and all that matters is the brute will to survive. As the biting cold of the Russian winter sets in, and the tide begins to turn against the Germans, life becomes an endless round of pounding artillery attacks and vicious combat against a relentless and merciless Red Army. A book of stunning force, this is an unforgettable reminder of the horrors of war.

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9780304352401

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Reviews

An overpowering personal account of the author's war experiences with the elite Gross Deutschland division of the German army from his enlistment in the summer of '42 to final defeat and surrender as a prisoner of war to the British in '45. Sixteen years old, half French, Sajer was thrown into the front lines just as the tide began to turn against the Wehrmacht in the East. The narrative follows the retreat of the decimated German armies from the east bank of the Dneiper through the Ukraine, back to Rumania and Poland for a final last-ditch stand in Prussia, disgorging en route blood, guts, mud and despair. There is no didactic point here, no moral or message unless it be that war is an obscenity which ultimately effaces the distinction between living men and cadavers. The author's single, obsessive purpose is to reanimate, with all the intensity I can summon, those distant cries from the slaughterhouse. He writes in full awareness that he fought on the wrong side and the pitiless knowledge that he and his comrades belong to the rubbish heap of history. There is a beyond-the-grave quality to this memoir which suggests that for the survivor life, death, heroism and liberty have all been rendered equally meaningless. Four hundred odd pages of carnage, nausea and numbness, all part of a single recurring nightmare. (Kirkus Reviews)

A harrowing account of war on the Russian front as seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. Sajer went through some of the worst fighting of the Second World War around Kharkhov, Voronezh and the Drieper River and then, towards the end of the war, on the Baltic coast in the final battles for Mewel and Danzig. Posted to the elite Grosse Deutschland Division in 1943, he tells of its savage training system where sadistic instructors shot down those who failed to shape up; vicions combat against Russian partisans; and the carriage of battles against a desperate but merciless Red Army with its mind-numbing artillery attacks and endless waves of infantry and tanks. An all too realistic account of a violent and remorseless world that destroyed all hope and idealism and where only brute survival counted. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Sajer was a French citizen living in Alsace, who served as a foreign conscript in the German Army during World War II, fighting the Russians on the Eastern front in the Grossdeutschland Division.

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