Comrades of War

i love well written gritty soldier stories, & brother this one or anyting ive read from SVEN HASSEL always makes me gnash my teeth & turn my knuckles white. cant put it down... as a side note SVEN actually served in a penal panzer regiment under hitler... theses books much like SVEN & his comerades are PRO-SOLDIER not pro-fascist or any kind of politics! klint

A couple of things first before we start. Okay. 1) Ignore the stupid runic ss on the cover. This is just a dumb ruse to sell the book. 2) This book can't be taken as fact. While many of the events in it did occur, its arguable the author was there or not. Ok, the book is a sequel of sorts to Wheels of Terror (Cassell Military Paperbacks). It's not necessary to have read WoT first, but it doesn't hurt (it starts where WoT left off in a sense). The story centers on the members of the 27th Panzer Regiment (often refered to as Penal, but this is incorrect: there were no penal panzer regiments) and the eastern front. This includes Sven, Tiny, Porta, the Old Man, the Legionnaire, Heide, Ohlsen and others. It starts with a train full of starving, thirsty, shattered, wounded soldiers heading back to Germany in a cattle car. From there it progresses through their various adventures in Germany, including a serial killer and thence back to the Eastern Front, ending at the launch of Operation Bagration. There are interludes about a jew in the czech forests with a fight between tiny and heide, partisan girls in russia, Ohlsen and his wife, amongst others. There is an incredible amount of texture to the writing with snippets of backstory everywhere. Like the good Hassel stories there's plenty of drinking, fighting (both amongst themselves and against various enemies including the red army and the SS and the Nazi party), sex, whores, stealing, missions and other capers. The prose is spare, rich and very descriptive. The author pulls no pounces whatsoever when it comes to the warfare aspects of the story. At times it is exceedingly graphic. The author also demonstrates good technical knowledge. This (and other Hassel books) is a rich tapestry and an amazing, headshaking, insight into war on the eastern front. It is hilarious, grim, sad, brutal, and incredulous in turns. These are larger than life characters, and you're sure to find one or two you identify with. The author is quite adept at creating and working set peices. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have a modicum of knowledge of the eastern front and the main personalities and organizations of the 3rd reich, but not essential. This is an incredible book just for the richness and reality it presents. There is no censorship just a depiction of a gruesome, horrendous reality that soldiers such as these fought under. There is no appologetic tone or aggrandizment of the nazi regime, rather the characters have there own opinions on the matter. These are men scooped up in the grasp of a bloodthirsty, remorseless, murderous war and their adventures in survival and death. It very difficult to put down and reads extremely well. So if you want the full gamut of warfare and emotion, read it and savor the quality of the writing, despite its dubious veracity. This is a seriously good book and my favorite of all Hassel's book. Definitely worth a read!

Every piece of word here must be treated as fiction, even if some of the events, locaitons and periods are based in actual facts. Comrades of War is the third of fourteen novels written by Sven Hassel, and it, by far, the best of them all. It has an unique and different style of the other novels. First, the whole history follows a coehrent plot, instead of isolated chapters. second, due to the tile "comrades", the reader will feel much more connected to the characters. There is more dialogue, more comradeship between Tiny, The Legionnaire, Sven, Old Man. Also unusual is the fact that Joseph Porta only appears in the final third part of the book.

I remember reading the exceptionally gritty and (to me) utterly realistic Comrades of War many years ago and marvelling at how the author had survived his time in a German penal battalion while his colleagues were being killed off methodically. Now I discover to my great surprise that Sven Hassel may in fact not have been who he said he was. If you go to Hotbot and do a search for his name you'll find an intriguing site where a Danish journalist claims to have amassed evidence that Hassel was the pseudonym for a Dane who joined the Gestapo and was initially sentenced to death after the war. The translation is a bit ropey but it makes for some very interesting reading. It's hard to tell how much of it is accurate, but at first glance it would appear that Mr Hassel has some awkward questions to answer. This doesn't detract from the powerful tale that is Comrades of War, as long as you treat it as fiction rather than biography.

One of the best war books I've ever read. Historically correct and believe it or not funny as hell. Required reading for professional warriers.