Doug Nash made a good effort and contacted Sajer a few years ago but unfortunately I do not believe that he was able to secure any records, copies of official papers, pictures, etc. Ultimately Sajer is the only person who can really put this issue to rest and he has obviously no intention in doing so. Given all the great veteran accounts available today, I personally choose not to waste my time on an author who can't even come up with a clear cut answer about his date of birth.
You know, sometimes people get to a point in their lives that they just don't care anymore - whether that be not caring what people think, or caring about their self-image.
I was recently inspired to re-read this book and just finished. The whole time I was reading I had this controversy in the back of my mind. I have one broad comment to make:
There are vast amounts of important insights made by "Sajer" throughout the book, not just "which arm the cuff title was on", that was just one of a great many details. For instance, he gives some very important dates and descriptions of events at Memel, and the whole area around Danzig, all of these can be either verified or proven totally wrong.
He said that he was evacuated from Hel on March 28 or the 29, 1945 by a white ship called the Pretoria. He described this ship as being once a luxury liner but now had the look of being pressed into service. Well, interestingly, one website described the Pretoria was a "white ship" that was, before the war, a luxury liner that ran from Hamburg to South Africa. At the start of the war it was purchased by the kreigsmarine to be a transport ship. This website even says that during March to May of 1945 it was used to evacuate refugees from cities along the Baltic coast.
See the ship called "GUNUNG DJATI" at
http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/hadj.html
Has any of the armchair critics taken the time to research the Pretoria's logs (the ship survived the war) to see if it was in Hel on that date?
Well, I would not consider myself fluent in German but I am nearly certain this website says the Pretoria was in Hel at the end of march.
http://www.vorfahrenforschung.de/flucht ... danzig.htm
Posted here for posterity:
Kloevermarken, den 10.3.1946
Hier schreibt Frau Minna Anders, Danzig-Neufahrwasser, Hedwigskirchstr. 8:
Nach dem schweren Angriff am Sonntag, dem 25. März 1945, verließen wir das brennende Neufahrwasser um 7 Uhr abends. Mein Sohn Heinz und Schwiegertochter Wally, geb. Kramer, kamen mit. Mein Mann Peter Anders kam nicht mit, denn er wollte mir nachkommen. Wir waren bald ums Leben gekommen, denn ein Volltreffer nach dem anderen gingen bei uns nieder. Der Luftschutzkeller hielt, aber wir waren bald erstickt. Bevor wir unseren Weg antraten, gingen wir noch auf die Suche nach meiner Tochter, Frau Paula Wahl, geb. Anders, Tochter und Schwiegersohn im Hause „Leuchtturm“, Olivaerstr. 46. Aber trostlos, wir kamen gar nicht durch, denn es brannte von der Sasperstr. Durch bis zur Olivaerstr. Ich habe meine Tochter bis heute nicht gefunden. So ging denn unser Weg über Weichselmünde. In Heubude machten wir kurze Rast bei Bekannten und ließen unser Gepäck dort, weil wir so erschöpft waren. Wir haben auch nichts mehr davon gesehen. Wir dachten, es am Montagmorgen noch zu holen, aber das Haus wurde auch getroffen. In Westlich-Neufähr bei meinen Verwandten um 1 Uhr nachts angelangt. Aber hier war auch die Hölle los. Mein Sohn und die Schwiegertochter mit drei Kindern fuhren am Dienstag mit der Wehrmacht nach Schiewenhorst, wo er gleich geschnappt wurde. Ich verblieb bis Karfreitag, dann ging es zur See mit Familie Schneider, und wir fuhren mit einer großen Fähre nach Hela. Um 9 Uhr morgens am 30. März langten wir an. Dann wurden wir auf das Lazarettschiff „Pretoria“ verladen. Am 1. April fuhren wir dann nach Dänemark. Neben uns fuhr das Schiff „Deutschland“. Aber zweimal Schwimmwesten anlegen, immer in Todesgefahr. Am 2. April glücklich angekommen. Verblieben 8 Tage auf dem Schiff bei guter Verpflegung. Dann fuhren wir mit Autobussen nach Lager 81, von dort am 20. April nach Lager 87 in Getoften und am 28. Dezember nach Kloevermarken, Baracke 11, Zimmer 6. Meinen Sohn habe ich vor kurzem in Wesermünde gefunden und seine Frau Wally befindet sich in Helrug.
Another example, "Sajer" says that in a town called "Gotenhafen" he was part of a scratch battalion. He decribed a very wide street that led directly down to the port. I consulted Google Earth and saw that indeed, this city, now called Gdynia, Poland had a very large and wide main street running straight down to the ports.
Another example, around Memel he describes some "cliffs" over the beaches a few miles north of Memel, these cliffs had some bunkers facing the ocean. Well, Google Earth certainly picked up the cliffs on these beaches, things I doubt any map would have shown, which show he had first hand knowledge of the terrain. Have any of the critics proven or disproven the existince of the bunkers?
Critics have pointed out that there was no "sajer" in the lists of the GD. But has anyone looked for any of the other MANY names he mentions in the books? Where do the records indicate these people were? Where they all in the same units as Sajer decribes?
There are many other examples, it is almost trite to say, that if someone was serious, they could indeed prove this book as substantially true or a phony. So far, everything points to it being true as far as I am concerned. If someone wants to make claims against Sajer's book, it is not enough to cite a few suspected and not proven *SEEMINLY* inconsistent and irrelevent points to discredit the whole book as a phony. These people need to do some real work, there is certainly enough information to prove it one way or another. I mean really, it is not hard to cast doubt at all, it is in fact very easy - there are people now who are casting doubt that 9/11 even happend! So until then, the real phonies are the people who want to tear apart sajers account just because the intricacies of war and some finer details of a mans memory doesn't correspond to a few bits of raw data they got from Barnes and Noble.
Sorry if I seem sarcastic.
As a side note, I must have missed this the first time I read the book: He describes taking part in an attempt to reach Konigsberg from Memel. I think he said they had 30 tanks and were getting ready to start the assualt. He said that shortwave radios of the tanks were playing "flight of the valkyrie". I can only imagine the scene from "Apocolypse Now" with the helecopters playing this music. Perhaps this book inspired this for the movie?