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Title: The Good Soldier: From Austrian Social Democracy to Communist Captivity with a Soldier of Panzer-Grenadier Division "Grossdeutschland" by Alfred Novotny ISBN: 0-9666389-9-9 Publisher: The Aberjona Press Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Warfare for the common man
Comment: The stark realities of World War II need no embellishment, but do require explanation to be more than numbing accounts of dramatic events in an increasingly remote and unfamiliar era. In "The Good Soldier," Alfred Novotny focuses on the sometimes brutal, often sad, but always revealing events of his wartime experiences, wrapped meaningfully and engrossingly within the context of the rest of his life.
Growing up in a working class Austrian Socialist family during the depression era, at 14, Novotny learned something of the brighter side of life in his work as an apprentice server in an exclusive Vienna restaurant. Before long, Novotny found himself drafted into the German Labor Service and ultimately, the German Army's most elite division.
Novotny's images of military life and war are at once haunting and full of vitality. He describes the fiercely demanding training he received in the recruit depot of the "Grossdeutschland" Panzer-Grenadier Division during which two of his fellow trainees committed suicide. In his foxhole at the front, he is joined by a brand-new replacement who has barely uttered his name in greeting before he is immediately blown to pieces by a Soviet artillery shell. Sent home on leave after being wounded, the author is reunited with some old friends from the restaurant, one of whom has lost a hand in combat, another an arm, and another both legs. Novotny tastefully and humorously recounts the intense drive of the life force in fleeting moments of lovemaking that occur amidst the desperation and deprivation of war. That same will to survive despite bloodthirsty lice and other parasites (including the tapeworm he unknowingly hosted through two years of combat) carried him through years of hard labor amid the squalor, disease, and lethal environment of a Soviet prison camp after the war.
Those seeking a professionally rendered treatise on tactics or strategy will not find it here, although in my opinion, the Aberjona Press has recently produced some of the finest of that genre that are currently in print. However, what makes "The Good Soldier" unusually valuable is not only its depth of life-perspective and unusual personal detail, but its exceptional and perhaps unintentional portrayal of how an especially elite formation was forged and sustained from average draftees. This is not another story about daring airborne volunteers, or highly-motivated rangers, or carefully selected commandos. Neither is it the story of an average unit with typical experiences. All of those are interesting and useful, but none are as fascinating as this story about a young Viennese waiter becoming a good soldier in an exceptional and world-renowned military unit. This unique outcome was the result of a process that is little understood and often ignored. Yet is was exactly this process, and not the extremist politics or lunatic racism of the Third Reich, that made the Wehrmacht so formidable. As only a product of that process can, Fred Novotny honestly, forthrightly, and authentically provides an unsurpassed glimpse into that transformation that produced so many "good soldiers."
Rating: 5
Summary: Recall of WWII in Austria
Comment: Reading Alfred Novotny's "The Good Soldier" brought back memories of my days living in Austria's economic depression in the 1930's, followed by seven years of Nazism and finally, nearly ten years of Soviet Communist occupation. Mr. Novotny's book drove home a realism that was all around me then. After such a long time we tend to forget the bad experiences of life, which is probably good. And yet, there is a danger in becoming complacent instead of assuring that for all of human kind they must not recur. I wish to thank Mr. Novotny for his brilliant account of what pain war inflicts and how only a few have the strength to survive it. Excellent reading to teach all of us that war is not an alternative.
Rating: 3
Summary: Reader's Digest Version
Comment: Unfortunately, I "listened" to what most of the other evaluators wrote about this book and purchased it. Believing I was buying a book that was going to be as insightful as some of the other classics on the Eastern Front, I was somewhat disappointed. If you are looking for an account of someone fighting against the Russian's during World War II, read Voss, Sajer, or Knappe. If you want to read about the Russian concentration camp system, read Solzhenitsyn. If you just want something to read to pass the time, then, and only then, read this book.
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