THE FORGOTTEN SOLDIER

by Guy Sajer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 6, 1970

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.

Pub Date: Jan. 6, 1970

ISBN: 1574882856

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION