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fionnchu's review against another edition
4.0
I learned after the fact there's been controversy about this author and the book, but it was harrowing and conjured up the Eastern Front powerfully; and it explores the breakdown of order masterfully.
iluxan's review against another edition
4.0
This book is haunting. What boggles the mind is the force of history that put all the people on all sides of the conflict where they are.
The German men and boys who find themselves commanded to run under fire down a shallow trench dug in the ground that's frozen solid at the outer edge of a 1000-mile-long arm of men and machinery that's reached into the frozen wastes of a country none of them ever cared to see or even think about.
The unending waves of nameless Russian "muzhiks" are attacking the German positions on the Don again and again. Each one of them came from a village, had a family, hoped for a future on a farm. Each suddenly found himself on some god-forsaken piece of swamp and ordered to take a hill with a German machine gun on it. Retreat is death, both to themselves and their families back home.
The German civilians living along the Baltic coast - fishermen, traders, schoolteachers - were not expecting to be waiting on piers being bombed and shelled at, hoping against hope that one of the ships makes it through and takes them away from the madness of their burning home town that's been turned into a battlefield.
There isn't anything to say about the Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and other civilians.
None of them expected anything like this to happen in 1929 or 1931. The world was supposed to be a rational place. The words above do not adequately describe what's in the book. And even in the book Sajer repeatedly says that his words cannot possibly describe what war is really like.
It's worth it to read this book. It will stay with you for a while.
This is the second book in my unplanned World War II reading arc. This is quite a different perspective from [b:The Von Hassell Diaries 19381944: The Story of the Forces Against Hitler Inside Germany|9015649|ULRICH VON HASSELL DIARIES, 1938-1944, THE The Story of the Forces Against Hitler Inside Germany|Ulrich von Hassell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41lFV%2B6gGqL._SL75_.jpg|13893143]. Von Hassell ate in restaurants while Sajer was freezing in a trench, though both were trying to save Germany from complete defeat and destruction in their own way.
The German men and boys who find themselves commanded to run under fire down a shallow trench dug in the ground that's frozen solid at the outer edge of a 1000-mile-long arm of men and machinery that's reached into the frozen wastes of a country none of them ever cared to see or even think about.
The unending waves of nameless Russian "muzhiks" are attacking the German positions on the Don again and again. Each one of them came from a village, had a family, hoped for a future on a farm. Each suddenly found himself on some god-forsaken piece of swamp and ordered to take a hill with a German machine gun on it. Retreat is death, both to themselves and their families back home.
The German civilians living along the Baltic coast - fishermen, traders, schoolteachers - were not expecting to be waiting on piers being bombed and shelled at, hoping against hope that one of the ships makes it through and takes them away from the madness of their burning home town that's been turned into a battlefield.
There isn't anything to say about the Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and other civilians.
None of them expected anything like this to happen in 1929 or 1931. The world was supposed to be a rational place. The words above do not adequately describe what's in the book. And even in the book Sajer repeatedly says that his words cannot possibly describe what war is really like.
It's worth it to read this book. It will stay with you for a while.
This is the second book in my unplanned World War II reading arc. This is quite a different perspective from [b:The Von Hassell Diaries 19381944: The Story of the Forces Against Hitler Inside Germany|9015649|ULRICH VON HASSELL DIARIES, 1938-1944, THE The Story of the Forces Against Hitler Inside Germany|Ulrich von Hassell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41lFV%2B6gGqL._SL75_.jpg|13893143]. Von Hassell ate in restaurants while Sajer was freezing in a trench, though both were trying to save Germany from complete defeat and destruction in their own way.