Last year I read Guy Sajer's book, "Forgotten Soldier" and found it quite interesting. But not long after finishing the book I started to hear chatter about the book being ilegitimate and fictional. The arguments against it were mainly surrounding the existence of a Stuka training school and the existence of a "rolbahn" unit. Just curious, has anyone else read Sajer's book or the criticism of it, and if so what is your opinion about its legitimacy?
For a full and pretty even-handed account of the controversy surrounding Sajer's book, have a read of: http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/sajer.htm Personally, I think it's possible that Sajer's book is genuine, but there are a myriad of very legitimate historical question marks against its authenticity that make me very skeptical.
The subject of Sajer's book has appeared here before several times - and rightly so. Firstly, many thanks Greenjacket for the link which I shall read and re-read. I'll say here what I've said before. IMHO, there is no way in which the book should be used as a work of reference. If that's what you want, there are plenty of good books available. To me, 'The Forgotten Soldier' is a work of art in which the writer uses his impressions to attempt to give the reader just a small idea of the unique atmosphere and horrors of the Eastern Front. To illustrate my point, take Paul Nash's 'Menin Road' from a previous, unimaginable war : - http://www.art-ww1.com/trame/052text3.html Ypres didn't really look like that - Nash used his art to exagerrate, to attempt to communicate to us what he felt. To me, Sajer's book ranks alongside Robert Graves' 'Good-Bye To All That' - an acknowledged classic which has been proven to be full of factual errors. Graves didn't care - that's how it looked to him and how he recalled it years later. That's art - not history. [ 17. November 2003, 01:08 AM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]
Taking Martin's thoughts one step further. "That's art-not History" hits the nail on the head. If you want pure History there are many, many accounts of the war on the Eastern Front that tell you what unit was where at what time and be packed full of analysis of Command decisions. However, if you want an account of what an everyday Landser went through there, Mr. Sajer's book is one of the best. I don't think he gave a crap about where his Grossdeutchland cuff title was sewn on. Plus, it is very evident that he did not do much post-war research into Orders of Battle, troop- movements and whatnot. I don't think he cared much about that. That's my two cents worth. Later
Thanks Martin. I have also heard the rumors surrounding this book's authenticity. There are definitely factual errors in it but when you are writing a first hand account, many years later at that, you are going to get a couple things wrong. Looking past all of the minor factual errors, I found this book to be a journey, I would even go so far as to call it an epic. As far as best first hand account during warfare, this one takes the cake from what I have read.
I've just finished re-reading Guy Sajer's memoir. It must be about eight years since I last read it and I have to say that I enjoyed it even more ( if 'enjoyed' is the right word.. ) this time. Errors of historical accuracy were more clear to me this time round but for me the book remains complementary to the many rather 'dry' Eastern Front histories now in print. The Forgotten Soldier still reminds me of the WW1 memoirs Good-Bye To All That and Henry Williamson's Wet Flanders Plain. Like the latter, Sajer literally gives up trying to describe the indescribable ; one is left with vignettes and flashes of memory. I still rate if very highly - not as history, but as a description of human experience.
Just a while ago I noticed in one book a foreword by Guy Sajer---interesting...Unfortunately it is now hidden under my mountains of books. But when I find it, I´ll be back on which book it was...
I have the 2000 Potomac published book (the back cover has a 2005 copyright notice but I assume that could just be print date?) which features a foreword that is about a paragraph in length where Sajer describes briefly the book and how the war still scars him today.
I have always been of th opinion that unless you were there you can't critcise... I hav read a number of reviews on this book either by historians or reenactors....I dont understand how they can nitpick as they do.....position of cuff titles and specific dates an times and not "feeling" like a book about the German army seem weak criticisms.....thi bloke went through a lot and memories and details fade over time, becoming more a blur of events than a chronological memory. I was in Iraq only five years ago, and I would have to look at photos to tell you on what side I wore my Australian flag patch, and I could only recall a number of specific dates for certain events, without going to my service record to look things up. If I were today to sit down and write an account of my time in Iraq, it would be from my personal view of things, as Heer Sajer has written it, and not necessarily a complete campaign history. In fact in my humble opinion, the only person who could write a historical account of our time in Iraq would be the Commanding officer or Regimentl Seargent Major of the particular units as they would have access to campaign diaries and also have the " big picture" view of the deployment and our part in it....personal accounts are invaluable sources alongside the more detailed unit histories....
I don't think I've read a review by anyone who states that it isn't a good read. The question that often pops up though is whether or not it is a novel or a biography. So far the weight of evidence, at least IMO, seems to favor the former. Since it claims to be the latter there is plenty of grounds for criticism on that matter.
I would solidly agree with QOTD on this being an authentic historical account from the first-person view of a grunt in the trenches. As they say, the guy at the pointy end of the stick only knows what's going on around him, his "big picture" extends to the foxhole on either side of him. At the front, not much attention was put on nitpicky little things like badges and whether your shoes were laced "in the proper military fashion"...such things tend to take a lower priority to survival. I was "officially" authorized to wear two gold hash-marks for 3 years' service (gold for no administrative punishment/mast). I never purchased a single one, didn't particularly care, and wasn't even in combat during my stint in the Navy. For a guy on the eastern front, life probably wasn't all peaches and cream. I'll forgive him a couple of historical errors (especially since they're not blatant attempts to re-write history to make himself appear in a better light). Could he have researched it before publishing the book? Yeah. Do I feel I have a right to criticize him for not? Nope. Its his book, his story, and his war. I'll respect him for telling it his way.
The critisisms I've read are not so much minor historical lapses but things that bring to question whether or not the account is authentic. For instance Cooper made a fair number of minor historical misstatements in Death Traps but there was never any question about him actually having served and/or seeing the things he said he saw.