Comrades of War

Description

There were not so much people as animals. Sometimes small and frightened, huddling together in cattle cars, wounds gaping, tongues swelling even as they licked the moist frost from the walls... Grievously wounded - having survived the operating table and the perilous journey West on a freezing freight train - Sven Hassel and his comrades find themselves behind the lines in a Hamburg hospital. The Reich is a hotbed of lies, betrayal and propaganda. Disgusted by the Nazi cause, the comrades drink themselves into oblivion, visit brothels where women dance naked on saloon tables and reach for home comforts before they return to the dreaded Russian Front. Because Hitler's war must go on... COMRADES OF WAR is a gritty portrayal of war's harsh realities and the fear and fanaticism at the heart of The Third Reich. Sven Hassel's unflinching narrative is based on his own experiences in the German Army. He began writing his first novel, Legion of the Damned in a prisoner of war camp at the end of the Second World War.

Born in 1917 in Fredensborg, Denmark, Sven Hassel joined the merchant navy at the age of 14. He did his compulsory year's military service in the Danish forces in 1936 and then, facing unemployment, joined the German army. He served throughout the Second World War on all fronts except North Africa. When the war ended in 1945 he was transferred between Russian, American and French prison camps, and upon returning to Denmark, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason. He began writing Legion of the Damned during his time as a prisoner of war. His 14 Second World War books, which draw on his own encounters and experiences as a soldier, have sold over 53 million copies worldwide and have been published in more than 50 countries. He peacefully passed away in Barcelona in 2012, where he had resided since 1964.

In essence this is an expose of the absurdity of war, and a moving plea for peace. As such, it takes its rank with far milder books, such as ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT - NEWSDAY Hassel's books of war are the most powerful I have ever read He is graphic, at times brilliantly so, but never brutal or bitter. He is, too, a first-rate storyteller - WASHINGTON POST In an almost magical way Sven Hassel unites the powerful style of Ernest Hemingway with Remarque's unique way of writing. The unknown soldier of the Second World War has got his monument - MORGENAVISEN, Norway