I am an independent student of WWII. In Mexico this is hard because having a very rich history of my own country, many would-be historians prefer national subjects. This translates into having very little bibliography available of WWII. Sven Hassel's books have been out of print for at least a decade and can only be found at second-hand bookstores in downtown Mexico City. I only have five of his books, all translated into spanish. I discovered that his books are somewhat fictitious becuase there is an inconsistency between "De Fordomtes Legion" and the rest of them. In this book he meets Porta and then Porta gets killed, and he doesn't mention most of the other very important and typical caracters. I have a hypothesis that this may have been his first and most sincere book, since the rest of the ones I have read are quite frankly exaggerated and take place in very different theatres of operations. However, I consider him one the best authors of WWII inasmuch as he perfectly portraits the brutallity of war and has a very cruel and caustic sense of humor.

I think Sven Hassel is the best WW2 writer! I don't care if he wasn't there!

I remember reading the exceptionally gritty and (to me) utterly realistic Comrades of War many years ago and marvelling at how the author had survived his time in a German penal battalion while his colleagues were being killed off methodically. Now I discover to my great surprise that Sven Hassel may in fact not have been who he said he was. If you go to Hotbot and do a search for his name you'll find an intriguing site where a Danish journalist claims to have amassed evidence that Hassel was the pseudonym for a Dane who joined the Gestapo and was initially sentenced to death after the war. The translation is a bit ropey but it makes for some very interesting reading. It's hard to tell how much of it is accurate, but at first glance it would appear that Mr Hassel has some awkward questions to answer. This doesn't detract from the powerful tale that is Comrades of War, as long as you treat it as fiction rather than biography.

If you enjoy reading war adventure books and you like books that put you right in the middle of the horror and bloodshed, this one is for you.On the back cover there is a warning in red lettering,"This is a book of horrors, and should be left alone by those prone to nightmares.Sven Hassel's descriptions of the atrocities committed by both sides are the most horrible indictments of war I have ever read---Alan Sillitoe--
This book and others by Sven Hassel are true gems that take the reader to a place and time that is horrifying. You feel the fear,and understand the terrors of war as if it is really happening. These books are a true window into the world of the WW2 Russian front at its worst. A definate must read for all war novel enthusiasts who enjoy reading what it was truely like on the Russian front. Non stop action from page 1 through to the end. These books are my all time favorites and I'm sure they will become one of your favorites as well.

I have read all of Sven Hassel's books. I'm going back maybe 40 years here. I had never read such a discriptive account of the horrors of combat that faced the infantry. The Russian front was worse than most and Hassel captures the fears of death by many means and also the joy of finding somthing to eat when you least expect it. This is not a book about the officer class but about the average soldier who is doing his best to survive. I would recommend this for anyone who was interested in WW2. It is written from the German point of view but with the caveat that it is dealing with men in a penal regiment who are therefore more expendable than most. I read these books first when I was a teenager I would like to read them again, it is unfortunate they seem to be out of print. This first book in a series of about 10 has my highest recomendation as do the books that follow it.

I have read many of Sven Hassels works and have found them ALL to be chillingly descriptive and accurate about the real frontline conditions faced by the German Military. These books also reveal the harsh and deadly occurances within the military heirarchy during ww2. I you desire a descriptive and action filled perspective on ww2, I recommend you read this book.

This is the first book í've read from Sven Hassel, and i think it's really, really good. I like the way he discribes the situations and the humor there is in this story. I would like to read more books of him. I don't care if they are old or new.

Busco libros en Castellano de Sven Hassel, nuevos o de segunda mano, soy de Barcelona.

De las 14 novelas que he leido de Sven hassel, esta es la que mas me ha gustado. Si bien no tiene el realismo de otras como la Legion de los Condenados, o el dramatismo de Camaradas del Frente, tiene un macabro sentido del humor, y una acidez de la que pocas novelas belicas pueden presumir. Ideal para leer de un tiron ¡Porta vive!

Sven Hassel manages to capture the pure essence of survival in a world gone mad. his stories are realistically horrific yet can capture your mind in a book, which after reading through the first few chapters, you won't want to stop reading it, and once you've finished, you want more.

Reading Sven Hassel since 1967 and he's my favourite author.His books are of a kind you will read and read and read.... so you must not forget that time too many innocent people died. Sven Hassel has prooved in his books the senselessness of the war. Who can tell me more about Sven Hassel? Joop van der Does

Sven Hassel is a true survivor. His personal account of the horrors of war, the futility and the hope that you must keep going against the odds are no better summarised than in the SS General. The amazing story of his escape from the hell of Stalingrad is compulsory reading.

One of a series of 14 books that Sven Hassel wrote to describe his experiences as a soldier in the German army during WWII.

Being in a penal regiment, they were given the hardest tasks, usually being the first in with the attack and last out when a retreat (sorry, strategic withdrawal) was necessary. Due to them being regarded as expendable, they lived hard and fought hard, this being reflected throughout the books, with graphic detail of their fights both against the enemy in the form of foreign armies, as well as skirmishes with their own people when they were on leave.

This series of books are overall a good read, and are refreshingly different than the majority, which were written by people on the winning sides. They also show, in vivid detail, how the war on the Eastern Front (which was where they were most of the time) was simply a fight for survival.

This book is a natural follow-on from 'Assignment Gestapo', which isn't always the case in these series. As the title suggests, it focuses on the fighting in Italy and in particular around the monastery at Cassino.

The book begins with the Allied landings (at Anzio?) and the general withdrawal of German troops northward. The unit have to undertake a couple of 'black bag' operations; removing artefacts from the monastery in the guise of SS troops and then going behind Allied lines to capture a Staff Officer. The rest of the book covers the battles had around Monte Cassino and describes the carnage very well. There are some poignant moments too, Padre Emmanuel holding mass in the crypt in the midst of an air raid, being an example. Considering the devastation wraught, it makes you wonder how anybody survived.

To summarise, a realistic war story that is told well from a different viewpoint than most.

Published in the UK by Corgi books in 1969, reissued in 1989.

David Lucas (davidlu@sco.com).

I need to find SG's book Gestapo. Can anyone help me? If you have read one Sven Hassel book,you will be compelled to read them all

CAN ANYBODY OUT THERE TELL ME IF THIS IS THE SAME BOOK AS SVEN HASSEL'S "BEAST REGIMENT" I HAVE READ IT AND ITS ALSO ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCE IN ITALY AND AT MONTE CASSINO

Mr Hassel's first 3-4 books must have met quite a sale success, so he was encouraged in perpetuating the series. All of them deal with the doings of a German penal regiment in WW2. If one has read all of these stories, as I did, the final effect is one of a kaleidoscopic technique in writing, where the same situations - the gore, the slaughtering, the battles between thousands of tanks, the position war in muddy trenches, the patrol actions in no-man's land - are rearranged in a different sequence with a twist of the tube, repeated book after book and give the reader a sensation of "dejà vu". Mr Hassel is very effective in wedging in some occasional descriptions of characters and situations: the arrogance of Gestapo, SS and NKVD, the stuffiness of some German generals, the nightmare of the Nazi régime, the company and field officers and troops who really had to fight out the damnable WW2 following their leading madman's rantings, the barbarity of the special war tribunals and of the hangings with piano wire. All this really happened, and it's essential that nobody forgets it. However, as one keeps reading these books, he finds them repetitious and monotonous: reading one of them is reading all of them.

The Bloody Road To Death must be the funniest of all Sven's novels (and it's definately the one I would make into a film if I had any choice about such things). It's set in Greece mainly but they do get back to Russia by the end.

It has three major chapters one after the other:- The Fleas (Porta's flea ridden furs and their path through the regiment etc), Escort Duty (Tiny and Porta on a wild trip through Europe) and Darjeeling Tea (Porta and Wolf and their black market tea dealing). It's almost incidental that there's a war on. Fantastic stuff.

This book is one of the original action\sex war stories.The graphic content of death and love makes it a true classic,and grabs your attention from the first word.All the favourites are there; Tiny,Porta,The Leigionnare,e.t.c.One of Hassel's best!

This is the least appealing and least readable book from this author. Somehow I feel he loses the plot with this piece. His others are much better.

I have the chance to read all books of this writer, also i am a bluff of military history specifically in WWII, and i'm glad to see the intensity and the passion that this writer put in each book, is another way to profess that war is an irresponsible attitude of the human race, in each character he instills the hate against war, he never try to disguised it, in brutal and plain language put the reader through that brutal world of the human conflict.

I've read all Sven Hassel books but one, Legion Of Damned! Seeing how funny, realistic, and brutal books he writes i could say the Legion Of Damned is a really good book! But i think the best book of Sven Hassel is SS-General. It tells how careless their commanders were. They only tought of theirselfs and how they could be a war hero or something. It's amazing that one General, believe it or not, A SS-General saved the whole party (or what was left of it). The story goes nice and smoothly and i that's why i think that's the best book of Sven Hassel.

The credit goes to you Sven Hassel.