The Forgotten Soldier

Guy Sajer makes you feel the brutal cold, fear, and despair that was the German soldier's lot on the Eastern Front, which was quite possibly the most brutal campaign in human history. But, at the same time, Sajer lets you share his simple joys, and the deep bonds which he forms with his circle of friends with whom he has faced hell on earth. In my opinion, Sajer's book is the best personal memoir to come out of the war. It is impossible to read it and not be moved. His stories of his training, his first combat, and of his dawning realization that the war was lost, are particularly vivid. The closing pages of the book will live in the reader's memory for a long while. This book is a true military classic, and I cannot recommend it too highly.