Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The forgotten soldier

finally finished the book, and read some of the criticism of the book. I guess everyone makes their own mind up, is it a book of fiction or his memories?
particular of interest to me as i once knew a man who was a machine gunner in one of the 8 man units fighting on the eastern front. captured, by the russians, he eventually got away and surrendered to the allies, migrating in time to this country.
Really mind boggling reading this book and then remembering conversations i had with the man, conversations his own son had no idea of.
really recommend the book, particularly to anyone in the military, or who has seen combat.

Don't be afraid to name the author: Guy Sajer.

I should have done that. I am going to be worthless today, trying to remember conversations i had with two men, both deceased, served on the eastern front. Just boys, one was the same age as guy when he entered service. The other, was in the S.S. much different than i think our history likes to blanket its description of it.
I did post the following on my facebook page in reference to the book. It's something that haunts military collectors, which i am one of. To recondition or not. I have on the american side a navy utility knife worn on the hip of a guy that was on a sub tender at pearl when the japanese hit it. If that stuff could only talk.
Interesting enough from the rifle standpoint. One of the germans said they prefered the WWI mauser to the K98. They felt with it's longer barrel they felt it had better accuracy.
"i have to put a little addendum on this. Part of my collection is a K98Mauser, russian capture. Made in the 30's and saw duty on the eastern front. Typical capture, "dipdie" russian repark, horse glue russian revarnish, their numbers on the wood. One part of me said leave along, part of it's history. The other part i couldn't ignore, the "blood rust" on the top of the reciever pits and corrosion. Blood is very acidic, and under the right conditions it does this. Some poor "landser" had leaked his blood on it. So, asking forgiveness and hoping that man would understand, i got rid of the russian influences, redid the metal, redid the wood, and ground/polished out the blood rust effects, made it look like it would have when he was issued it. Fired a clip of ammo through it, yep, works fine, and put it away probably never to be shot again. I read this novel and think of the man that carried it. I have several russian capture german handguns, maybe i need to do them too. Only a gun person can understand the relationship to his rifle."

if one had the money and the time, to walk the battleground of kursk would be something.

One thing I think that bothers some critics about the book is that Sajer describes the relations with the Russian civilians as being a lot more cordial than accepted history would have us believe.

To me Sajer's accounts ring true in that regard because if the Germans were as bad as many would have us believe, there would have been no Russians left after the occupation. I suspect that things were a bit more nuanced than most want to admit nowadays.

It's been a long time since I read the book, but IIRC Guy Sajer was not from a German speaking area, possibly Alsace-Lorraine, and French was his first language. Guy is a common French name. May have been a conscript.

Certainly an interesting read, from the perspective of a common soldier.

I vaguely recall that at one point he got laid, a nice respite from combat.

Paul

guy was a french speaker, watching the germans when they invaded france. parents on one side french, the other german.
as to the russians. Remember this covered a lot of the ukraine, 30million dead from starvation by stalin in the 30's, at the beginning of the war they were not exactly russian friendly and looked at germans as saviours. one of hitler's big mistakes was not to utilize this more than he did, and turn oppressive.
My friend was on a troop train to siberia. at a railroad siding the train stopped and he and some others figured it was better to be shot than go to siberia, so he started walking home. The russian guard he said was a kid about his age, just let them go. I think of something like 110 000 men sent to siberia only something like 5000 or so made it home years after the war.
they were still fighting in some of the baltic states until the early 50's from what i have gathered. against the russians. He did get laid, sort of, described her kind of like a "hog".

rosa shanina to me was drop dead gorgeous. 58something confirmed kills. dead at age 20 i think. interesting writeup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roza_Shanina

interesting story with this one. an american, taken prisoner of war escapes. makes his way to a russian armor command coming into germany in january 1945, rides with them and his friend aleksanara samusenko. Quite a pretty girl.
she was a tank commander, killed in pomerania, just to the east of the elbe river.
He had the distinction of being the only one known to fight in the american army and the russian army in WWII.
She was killed at something like age 22
http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/aleksandra-samusenko-female-tank-officer-1st-guards-tank-army/

as to the ukrainians:
http://www.feldgrau.com/rvol.html

in the book, mention was made of one town in the ukraine. i goggled it up and read where they had been having battles with the russians clear back into the 1600's.

this eastern front is complex. I know that there was a croatian division in the germany army.
at the same time a relative, an american citizen, croatian, was caught up in the war in the village my family came from, sent to a concentration camp labeled as a spy, where he died.
you need a score card.

If you're a student of WWII, it's a must read book. I found it incredibly insightful. The thing I found really surprising is how clueless the officer corps kept the average Wehrmacht soldier. Seems he never knew where they were going and why. Expectations were rarely clear for a grunt. Just amazing that the Wehrmacht was so effective with soldiers that were so poorly trained and informed.

But I'm sure some of that lack of being informed may have been due to the language barrier. But the Wehrmacht was very much a multi-national military, so you'd think they'd have taken steps to mitigate the language barriers.

Anyhow, VERY interesting book. It's really a shame that more like it were never written. I'd love to hear first person perspective on different fronts, with different leaders, and different types of units.

Sajer was very much the Wehrmacht conscript. Would have been interesting to see the same type of book from a Fallschirmjager volunteer, SS volunteer, Panzer crew on either front, etc.

The Wehrmacht was very much a multi-national army. Volunteers and conscripts from many nations served Germany in WWII. Had to be a bit of a nightmare just managing the languages and cultural differences.

Ron - I have a cribbage board made from a piece of decking from the USS Oklahoma. My uncle was a navy metalsmith sent in for the rebuild of Pearl Harbor. The family had lived in Oklahoma and he took the piece of wood and made the cribbage board. He shaped it like the hull of a ship and stamped USS Oklahoma on it. Every now and then I take it out and just hold it, close my eyes, and imagine. Best, John

Not to make light of the misery of the Eastern Front, but my remembrance of the book goes something like:

Geez, it's hot and dusty here.
This place is really big.
There sure are a lot of Russians. We kill 1000 and they send 1000 more.
They sure do have a lot of artillery.

Geez, it's really cold here.
This place is really big.
There sure are a lot of Russians. We kill 1000 and they send 1000 more.
They sure do have a lot of artillery.
I'm hungry.

Geez, I mean it's really freakin' cold here.
This place is really, really big.
There are a helluva lot of Russians. We kill 1000 and they send 1000 more.
OMG, do they have a lot of artillery!
I'm hungry.

Geez, it's really hot and dusty here.
This place is really, really, ginormously big.
Where the hell are all these Russians coming from? We kill 1000 and they send 1000 more.
I'm gettin' gd sick and tired of all this artillery!
I'm still hungry.

Damn damn damn! I'm freezin' my ass off and we're all really, really hungry....

Repeat as needed for almost four years.

^^^^^ just rub more axle grease on your hands!^^^^

If you liked Sajer's book, you should read Devil's Guard by George R. Elford.

One of my favorites of all time.

Black Edelweiss