THE FORGOTTEN SOLDIER

The powerful chronicle of a young German soldier trapped in the vast faceless anonymity of total war.

WAR ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT – A TRUE STORY

(GUY SAJER)

The forgotten soldier has been hailed as the most powerful chronicle and indictment of war since ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’.  It provides a chilling panorama of Europe in turmoil, of a Europe that belonged to nobody.  It is not to be read as ‘literature’ – it is an unadorned, frank account of war that will convince and shock on the strength of authenticity alone.

A young man, born of a French father, because of his mother’s German background is inducted into the Wehrmacht in the summer of 1942.  A young man who could just as easily have become a French soldier and to whom at first the whole idea of war seems like an exciting adventure.  Then the Russian winter begins, and the book becomes a horrifying chronicle of misery, cold, fear, starvation, and disillusionment.  Survival becomes the one and only element, and even this is gradually just an instinct without any apparent point or justification.

Whether he is recounting the struggle for days on end of hunger, cold, deep snow, and harassment by partisans in the endless wastes of Russia in midwinter, or a forty-eight-hour leave and love affair in wartime Berlin already under aerial attack and half in ruins, Guy Sajer’s story has the extraordinary impact of absolute reality and truth.  ‘The Forgotten Soldier’ will join those few classic accounts of an individual’s experience of an international anguish, that convince us in ways that no history books can.

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This 2002 edition paperback, from the respected ‘Cassell Military’ stable is in very good overall condition although there are some signs of wear to the cover in the form of rubbing, bumps and knocks to the edges and corners (see photograph).  All pages are present, tightly bound and free from tears, creases and significant marks.  The book runs to 560 pages (19.5cm x 13cm)