The book, The Forgotten Soldier, was written by Guy Sajer in the year 1965. The book was originally written in French. The book is about Guy Sajer’s experiences as a German Soldier during the World War II. Guy Sajer fought in the Eastern Front in the German army. Due to the author's vague relationship with the war, the book is known as the story of a tragic love relationship to war and with the army. Guy Sajer wrote the book as a personal narrative as part of his collection of the book talking about the cruel periods in the German military history. Guy says that he wrote the book with an intention of remembering the emotional experiences that related to the Second World War and in all the battles that were fought during the Second World War, he says that the Russian-German struggle was a class on its own. There was a loss of loves, cruelty, fierceness and all the sufferings, the books also tell about the two conscienceless dictators of all the time (Sajer, 2000).
The book is very painful and interesting to read at the same time. Even the veterans of war have concluded that what they experience these days in war is nothing as compared to what the soldiers who fought in the Second World War experienced. Sajer was very young when he joined the army and he struggled so hard to be able to go for battles (Sajer, 2000). When he was in the army some of the soldiers scorned him due to his poor knowledge of the German language. Sajer did not fear the battles and therefore he did not look for excuses to fight with the Germans. Guy's mixed heritage of Germany and France and his experiences in Russia must have created an identity crisis for him.
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The horrors of the war and the effort to reform it in the book, "The Forgotten Soldier" have helped him to describe himself. Looking back at all the torments that he was able to go through like surviving the Russian Winters and the desperate battles, he says that for one to know peace, he must taste the effects of war. Guy remembers a lot of things and very detailed information including the direct words of a commander to the soldiers in the battlefield and it’s very hard for one to realize any form of exaggeration in the book. The most interesting part of the description is the training session in the Wehrmacht. The elite training was a terror of its own, it was even worse than the war itself. Guy formed a slogan known as “We Are Born to Die and So I Serve” (Sajer, 2000). The Soviet Union was supported by the weather as some soldiers from other countries could not withstand the weather and the Americans on the other side were as brutal as the German army. Guy says that the war was well fought and every side was determined to win the war. The Allied only an advantage that they were being supported by the United States which had a large weapon industry, therefore, there was continuous supply on the Allied side.
This book is a big success and is recommend for reading worldwide as it describes the situations in Germany and in France during the war. It is also a success as a personal record that describes a huge tragedy faced by the whole world. Readers who will be able to read the whole book will learn that the book teaches us many important lessons learned from the war.
Reference
Sajer, G. (2000). The forgotten soldier . Potomac Books, Inc.