So far i'm a 1/4 through, but really enjoying(I'm not sure that's the really the right word) it so far.

It's about a man, whose mother is German, and dad is French, who's from France, Who joins the German army late'41 early '42, and his experiences on the eastern front.

Brutal and honest, and to me the most striking thing's (i've read the end already), is when he meets his parents again, and also, while he ends up in the french army for 3 years after the war, he has to remember living and seeing a war that he can't talk about, because he was on the wrong side.

If you are interested in the eastern front,

cheers fruitbat

I read it a fews years back, it's in my bookshelf. Was a bit of controversy over it's authenticity though.

Still a great read regardless.

I actually saw the movie "Stalingrad" before I read the book; several scenes seemed to be inspired by The Forgotten Soldier.

A friend who taught German military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School said there was no "Guy Sager" in the Grossdeutchland Panzer Division records, and that the book was found to have been a fraud.

http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/sajer.htm

Well it's debatable.

Germany was nearing defeat, huge amounts of records were destroyed. As for the argument about primary duties/training discrepancies during wartime, compare it to Iraq, we had artillerymen doing patrol duty in Baghdad...WTF?? If we (the U.S. lose) and we still used paper records how accurate would the historical account be, especially since we would have disposed of all records we could?

I think the truth of the matter lies somewhere inbetween,have read it and found it fascinating.
Just a quote from the page leit posted from the author

"Apart from the emotions I brought out I confess my numerous mistakes.That is why I would like that this book may not be used under no circumstances as a strategic or chronological reference. Except for some clear landmarks we didn't know exactly where we were (I am speaking about Russia). We had only code numbers for mail which meant nothing to us .... In the black Russia of winter I would not have been surprised if someone had told me that we were in China."