The Forgotten Soldier

by Guy Sajer (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $9.96

  A tremendous best-seller and critical success in France and Germany, the Phoenix Press edition has a new introduction by Doris Lessing. 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.

• Used

  Paperback
  1993

  $15.05

• New

  Paperback
  1999

  $13.72

  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 Deutschland 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.