I've read loads of books about various wars from the Roman Empire to the current crisis in Afghanistan. Some of these were good, the occasional one or two have been very good, but Gus Seyer's "The Forgotten Soldier" is by far the best book that I have had the good fortune to read.
In short this is a world war II story of a German soldier who fought on the Eastern front.
As an eighteen year old from Alsace in France, Seyer joined the German army in 1942 in the belief that he would be fighting to save Europe from the Red army. Armed with the expectation that the French army would soon be standing side by side with their German cousins in this just fight, he drove suppliers to his adopted countrymen on the front line. With the tide of the war now turning against the Axis armies, Seyer later volunteers for the the elite Gross Deutchland division.
The author admits that some of place names that he recounts have faded from his memory, yet this absence adds to the feeling of vast empty spaces that he trekked across and that now we relive with him.
Unlike most books of this genre there is little awareness of the bigger picture of the war or even of the specific battles taking place, instead we are abandoned in an area no more than a few hundred yards surrounding our hero. Actually a more accurate description of the author would be that of teenager, prematurely aged by the scenes of horror he witnessed or stumbled across, the fear of being captured by Russians and the complete deterioration of his mind and body.
Over the next three years he walks over a thousand miles in the great retreat following the loss of Stalingrad. Nearly every day is marked by attacks by either the Russians or sickness, the continuous death of friends in the most grotesque manner harden his appreciation of life, but he never causes the readers interest to waiver. In fact I was resolved to read fifty pages a day of this book, I just had to know what was going to happen next.
VERDICT 10 out of 10
Once you've read this book, pass it onto a friend and then read it again yourself as I intend to.