5.0 out of 5 based on 7 reviews. – Customer review on 03/12/2009

An excellent read, without the political correctness that tarnishes so many historical accounts. There is no painting over of history here to imply all Germans were devout Nazi's and deserved nothing more than to die. The accounts of the eastern front accurately reveal atrocities by the Red Army as well as his own, a rarity. An unbiased account which is a must for anyone interested in the real war not the sanitised versions that abound our TV screens, from predominantly US production houses.

5.0 out of 5 based on 7 reviews. – Customer review on 07/10/2011

Now there are some who attack this work, quoting Helmuth Spaeter, yet they neglect to mention that he later recanted. At the very least this is a great historical novel with vivid descriptions of the Eastern Front and a powerful personal narrative. Many Eastern Front veterans have affirmed the credibility of it's accounts in terms of it's authenticity to the ACTUAL conditions and battles that raged there.

Thus it satisfies me, an excellent gripping novel that has been given the tick of approval by many Eastern Front veterans, based on it's realistic portrayal of the HELL that was the Eastern Front. A front that consumed 30 million lives. Lives that were treated by both sides as expendable cattle and now are forgotten by most as if their suffering and sacrifice never occurred.

This book porvides an inportant service by reminding people of the horrors and sacrifice made in that terrible war.

Authencity debate

From the internet:

The Forgotten Soldier (1965), originally published in French as Le Soldat Oublie, is presented as an autobiographical account of Guy Sajer, the pseudonym of Guy Mouminoux who was a well known french comics writer also known under the pseudonym of Dimitri. Sajar was a French citizen from 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. Due to a spate of historical inaccuracies, the accuracy and authenticity of Sajer's autobiographical work has been questioned, with proponents on both sides. Division historian for the Grossdeutschland Division, Major Helmuth Spaeter, after originally claiming Sajer to be a fraud in a 1988 interview, later recanted his claims and afforded him the benefit of the doubt in 1997.

The book, in reference to the autobiographical soldier's ambiguous relationship to war and its passions, has been called "the account of a disastrous love affair with war and with the army that, of all modern armies, most loved war", being written with the "admiration of a semi-outsider" (an Alsatian in a German unit).[1]

A movie adaptation of The Forgotten Soldier, written by Michael Frost Beckner and Joel Kassay is currently in development. Paul Verhoeven was previously attached to direct the film.[2]
Contents

Authenticity controversy

The accuracy or authenticity of the book has been disputed by some historians, due to some incorrect cited details, while other details are simply impossible to verify due to a lack of surviving witnesses and documents.
A member of the Grossdeutschland Division, showing the special cuff title in the correct position on the right sleeve

The most frequently cited inaccuracy was Sajer's statement that, after being awarded the coveted Grossdeutschland division cuff title, he and his friend were ordered to sew it on their left sleeves (when it was actually sewn on the right), an obvious error that critic Edwin Kennedy called "unimaginable" for a former member of such an elite German unit. The author also discusses campaign locations in vague terms and never with specific dates, some which contradict historical fact: for example, Sajer's assertion that during the summer of 1942 he was briefly assigned to a Luftwaffe training unit in Chemnitz commanded by famed Stuka ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel, when, (by Rudel's own testimony) his training unit was actually in Graz, Austria during all of 1942. Likewise, the names of most of Sajer's companions and leaders don't appear on official rolls in the Bundesarchiv, nor are they known to the Grossdeutschland Veterans Association, whose leader, Helmuth Spaeter, was one of the first to question whether Sajer actually served in the Division as he claimed.

However, some authors and other Großdeutschland veterans have testified to the book's historical plausibility, even if they cannot speak to the specific events in the book. Lieutenant Hans Joachim Schafmeister-Berckholtz, who served in the Grossdeutschland during the same period as Sajer, confirmed in a letter that he had read the book and considered it an accurate overall account of the Division's battles in the East, while also noting that he remembered a Landser named Sajer in his Panzergrenadier company (5th co), the same company number Sajer mentioned being assigned to (though there was more than one "5th Company" in the Division). Sajer himself struck back against implications of fraud or fiction by claiming that The Forgotten Soldier was intended as a personal narrative, based on his best personal recollections of an intensely chaotic period in German military history, not an attempt at a serious historical study of World War II: "You ask me questions of chronology situations dates and unimportant details. Historians and archivists have harassed me for a long time with their rude questions. All of this is unimportant. Other authors and high-ranking officers could respond to your questions better than I. I never had the intention to write a historical reference book; rather I wrote about my innermost emotional experiences as they relate to the events that happened to me in the context of the Second World War."[3]

Sajer further stressed the non-technical and anecdotal nature of his book in a 1997 letter to US Army historian Douglas Nash, stating "Apart from the emotions I brought out, I confess my numerous mistakes. That is why I would like that this book may not be used under [any] circumstances as a strategic or chronological reference." [4] After reading Sajer's latest letter, one of his staunchest critics--Grossdeutschland Veteran's Association leader Helmuth Spaeter--recanted his original suspicions of Sajer, noting "I was deeply impressed by his statements in his letter... I have underestimated Herr Sajer and my respect for him has greatly increased. I am myself more of a writer who deals with facts and specifics--much less like one who writes in a literary way. For this reason, I was very skeptical towards the content of his book. I now have greater regard for Herr Sajer and I will read his book once again."[5]

In additional defense of the book, there are many very accurate references in the book that have been gleaned from official histories. Bunkers on beaches which exist to this day and descriptions of towns and terrain which are verifiable through unit histories provide excellent support to Sajer's story. One of the more compelling arguments is a reference to and accurate description of a ship called the "Pretoria" (later named the "Gunung Djati"), which the author places in Hel on March 28 or 29th of 1945 and is verifiable through open sources. This ship was in fact purchased by the Kriegsmarine at the start of the war and used to evacuate areas around the Baltic at this precise time. The ships logs record leaving Hel at 9:00 AM on the morning of the 30th. And finally, the comrade of the author ("Hals") who is referred throughout the book has been identified, contacted, and has verified Grossdeutschland unit accounts.[citation needed]

The respected British historian Alan Clark, author of 'Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45', refers to Sajer in his well-known 'Diaries'. A footnote states "Sajer, author of The Forgotten Soldier, a book to which AC often turned, served on the Russian front for three years without relief". [6]

Despite the recent critique from mostly U.S. military historians, it is still considered by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College to be (at the very least) an accurate roman à clef and has remained on their recommended reading list for World War II, along with other historical novels. It is also on the recommended reading list of the Commandant of the United States Marines Corps. [7] Apart from being recommended in the United States, it is a recommended read for insights in the personal experience of war in many armies around the world.

5.0 out of 5 based on 7 reviews. – Customer review on 23/01/2011

Excellent book, most of the bio's I have read have been from the Vietnam War or the Iraq/Afganistan conflicts. When you take into account how bad war can be even with all the modern assistance available to modern armies, what those who fought on the Eastern Front during the Second World War had to endure whatever side they were on is unthinkable. Good read for those who are interested in the personal aspect of war rather than military campaigns

5.0 out of 5 based on 7 reviews. – Customer review on 04/08/2009

Best world war 2 memoir ive read so far !! Im only 24 and havint read that many realy but after reading this i have rather high expectations for future WW2 memoirs , I highly recomend this book . Two thumbs up !!!

5.0 out of 5 based on 7 reviews. – Customer review on 01/09/2008

This is the kind of book that I tell people that if they don't read anything else about the second world war, then they should at least read this. This book is immensely powerful. There is debate about whether it's a true account. I disagree and would argue that the amount of detail and the passion with which it's written screamns truth. Regardless of the debate, read the book. It's one of those books you go back to every now and again just to remind yourself about how good we have things. I lent this book to a friend and regretted having lent it so much that I bought a second copy!

5.0 out of 5 based on 7 reviews. – Customer review on 31/01/2007

This is an evocative and shocking portrayal of the Eastern Front during 1942 and 1943. It then follows Sajer's retreat from the Soviet Union through Prussia and Memel to the Western Front where he is eventually captured. The author takes part in a number of major battles of the campaign and describes the conflicts from the viewpoint of a supply company soldier and later an infantryman in the Gross Deutschland Division.

The way that Sajer describes what he experiences hits the reader very hard and a number of times I put the book down after being shocked by events that he recalls. It is easily possible to imagine yourself the one battling the cold, fear and fatigue that he faces due to his descriptive style. At some stages during the narrative, Sajer steps slightly away from his story and gives his impression of those times now that he is older and these passages are particularly memorable.

This book is an unforgettable read. I would recommend it to anybody with an interest in military history. It is also valuable to those without an interest as it makes the futility and physical and emotional horrors of war gruesomely clear.

5.0 out of 5 based on 7 reviews. – Customer review on 11/03/2009

This book has become one of the great classics of Second World War writing. Sajer writes about a conflict that is so enormous in both its scope and it ferocity that it is almost hard to grasp. One of the thinks that struck me about this book is futility and wastefullness of soldiering on in hopeless situations to help prop up on of the most vile regimes in history. A very poignant book.