"The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer

[filfefil]

just thought i would add my own bit to this subject. when i was younger i watched the world at war and read a few libary books. then came sven hassel and although god stories a few good ref books and a bit of knowledge tells you they are made up. then comes guy sajer, now im not a slodier but i have lived life on the oppisite side of the street. roits in the countryside and a ten year war with the police have taught me a few things. Mr sajer s book IS IN NO WAY A FRAUD and anyone who has been involved in minor or major war ,civil or conventional will recoqnize the emotions in this book. the fear of waiting or being hit when unsuspecting ,the terror were all to real. im sorry i cant expand on my own experiances but there not history yet

[B Hellqvist]

Mr sajer s book IS IN NO WAY A FRAUD and anyone who has been involved in minor or major war ,civil or conventional will recoqnize the emotions in this book.

I have no problem with the emotions - it is many of the faulty facts that gets me.

[filfefil]

when you are about to hit a load of guys you dont ask for the make of vehicle and who they are, there the enemy get on with it. add a few years and things become even more blurred. more @#% upon more @#% and then you want an accurate record of what the vehicle was or what coloured socks some regiment was meant to wear.life let alone war cannot be recalled the way historians like because we are to busy living.

[Frederick L Clemens]

...then you want an accurate record of what the vehicle was or what coloured socks some regiment was meant to wear...

Sajer goes to great lengths in his book to provide minute details as well as strategic situation briefings. He obviously disagreed with your philosophy when he wrote his books. He clearly wanted to present an accurate record. You may "feel" his emotions are accurate and above reproach - that's fine - but it is entirely legitimate for others to examine what he presents as fact so that history is not distorted.

Ask yourself these questions:

- Would you want the 1965 movie "Battle of the Bulge" to be what people understand of the real battle, even if it "felt" right for the average person watching it?

- Would "Saving Private Ryan" would be as good a movie if the German soldiers wore pink tutus?

[filfefil]

sorry but you obviously have never been involved in war conventional or otherwise or you would have got the thread. guy sajer wrote the book as his version of events as he sawthe the it,its obviously not a unit history. films like private ryan are entertainment and to producers realisum is expensive luxury. i will say again when you are being shot at its not your first thought to find out his name and what weapon he was using. guy sajers book has to be taken for what it is , his version of the events of his life. after the war he wrote his book and got on with his life. now through a few years of research its accepted the basics of his book are true. re read this whole thread for ref.

[lwd]

.... guy sajers book has to be taken for what it is , his version of the events of his life...

But if it's marketed or promoted as a history we have the right indeed the duty to question it if the facts are "off". Ie if his version varies too far from reality it's fiction. Nothing wrong with fiction I read a lot of it I just don't like to see it refered to as fact.

[Frederick L Clemens]

sorry but you obviously have never been involved in war conventional or otherwise or you would have got the thread...

When someone is unable to debate the facts, they resort to this approach.

Like I previously said, no amount of claimed expertise can make me believe that 2 plus 2 equals 5. In this case, believable emotions plus fabricated details does not equal an authentic story. Any good fiction writer can mimic emotions, whereas a real soldier knows what he should know (his own weapons) and knows what he could not possibly know (the exact model number of a aircraft he briefly sees overhead).

And yes, I have read the thread. If you care to address the specifics in the book, feel free. You don't need to waste time playing psychic about my own experience.

[filfefil]

sorry did nt mean to say my life and experiances are any less valid than yours , but when someone has experianced similar things he does have a more valid point than someone who has not. sorry thats just a fact of life. i do not see why there is criticism of this book. its about one mans experiance during the war and if he gts a few things wrong it does not distract from the totality of hie experiances. here s an experiment for you to do. spend a day with a friend and at the end separetly write what happend in chronilogical order and see what differences there is. add a war twenty years and all the emotional stress he had to deal with i dont see how this book can be disbelieved. thats my last say , thank you and good day

[Helmut]

Servus,
Can't we all just agree to disagree and just let this thread die a much overdue death?

Regards,

Helmut

[Frederick L Clemens]

Personally I would like to ask that there be a ban on anyone who questions another person's right to question Sajer's story. This isn't Pyongyang, folks. One should not have to present the proper party credentials to criticize Sajer.

I respect Doug Nash and others for attempting to explain some of the "strange facts" that Sajer presents, just as I will defend the right to poke holes in the explanations. And I think that we can learn from some interesting things along the way even if we disagree on the bottom line. And one day - we all might have an answer to the Sajer mystery - or maybe not.

[John W. Howard]

Hello Gents:
Let's take it easy, folks. Please do not resort to the personal in posts. Let's just debate the relative merits(or lack there of ) of member's arguments. Fred, you are allowed to poke as many holes as you want, as long as you don't insult John Moore's sanity again Best wishes guys.

[John P. Moore]

Can't we all just agree to disagree and just let this thread die a much overdue death?

Regards,

Helmut

That's the most sensible comment that I have seen from anyone on this thread for a long time.

John

[Doug Nash]

Amen, says I - John Moore speaks eloquently and I can't add anything to what has been said. This dead horse has been beaten so long and so thoroughly that there's nothing left to flog but dust!
Cheers,
Doug Nash

[phylo_roadking]

....until the film premiere.....

[Frederick L Clemens]

I, not so surprisingly, consider the critique of Sajer to be central to the field of Third Reich military history. Let's face it, TFS is the closest thing we have to the Bible or a holy scripture in this area. As such, it is prone to be critiqued and defended with the same fervor. The issues brought up go to the very heart of military history writing - authenticity, truth, corroboration of facts, etc. It's all there. As long as we can debate the subject from the point of view of serious analysis, we are on the right track to not only learning more about Sajer, but about military history writing in general.

One standard I use for judging if a soldier's account is legitimate is the question - Does he know the things he should know and does he not know the things he should not? As I have demonstrated in examples, I believe Sajer fails that test. Someone has suggested to me that perhaps there was a "silent partner" at work such as the publisher who inserted extras into the book to "improve" it. That could explain a lot of the weirdness in TFS, but Sajer would have to give us confirm that before it could be accepted as a corrupting influence.

For an example of a superior first person account by a German vet, see the following report: http://www.geocities.com/fschpibtl5/Gef ... on2002.pdf
The author of that report, besides being a master of clarity, demonstrates the correct level of detail that one would expect from a Leutnant thrown into a chaotic situation. The details that are missing are exactly those which one would expect to be outside his knowledge. In the entire account there is only one thing that strikes me as implausible - the unexpected arrival of an award for one of his men - but given his high level of credibility otherwise, I can reasonably accept the event as one of those "stranger than fiction" things that happens in war.

I believe anyone who reads this account I have cited and compares it to Sajer will see what I mean when I say Sajer simply has the credible versus implausible ratio upside down.