In the Hell of the Eastern Front was written by Amo Sauer. This biography is his only publication. It was released in 2020.

Due to some violence, I categorize this book as PG. The author relates the experiences of his father. The book begins when Friedrich “Fritz” Sauer is 17. He serves about a year with the Reich Labor Service before being drafted into the Wehrmacht. It briefly looks back at his youth, then he goes on to describe his experiences in WWII.

Sauer is deployed and sees combat on the Eastern Front in 1942. After being severely wounded, he is sent back to Germany to recover. He spends some time in France before he is sent back to the Eastern Front. Soon he must flee the advancing Russians. His story tells of his capture, the long journey home, and his postwar experiences.

I enjoyed the 6.5 hours I spent reading this 179-page WW2 history. A bit of general WWII history is sprinkled through Sauer’s biographical experiences. I have read a few accounts of the war from the German perspective. They are a little different, but all depict the Eastern Front as a hellish place. I like the cover art selected. I give this novel a rating of 3.7 (rounded up to 4) out of 5.

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I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history ,particularly 2nd world war history dealing with the eastern front and the harsh realities of this war from a soldiers participation in these events.after reading this book you realise the harsh results of this war on civilian population and local communities. Excellent and unputdownable.

Really informative and interesting read and with todays news it is a scary thought that the past will be repeated!
My stepdad loves anything military history so he really enjoyed it as well.
Definitely worth a read for anyone who shares my stepdad’s love of all things military history.

This book looks at the true horrors of the wartime experience through the eyes of a young German soldier fighting on the Eastern Front against the Russians. Please check out my review at the link below.

A refreshing memoir with a controversial viewpoint. Why not try to decide for yourself who is right and who is wrong?

'In the Hell of the Eastern Front: The Fate of a Young Soldier During the Fighting in Russia in WWII' offers a firsthand account of the events on the European war theatre. To present his father's life story, Arno Sauer combined his father's recollections of the period with historical research on the matter. The book aims to show the German soldiers as naive executors of the Third Reich, as people who should be judged rather with mercy than hate for starting WWII. Fritz Sauer was born in Bassenheim, a community of roughly 1,500 people whose primary occupation was agriculture. His honor and self-respect rested on the love toward Fatherland, so he didn't question the necessity of military service, even if his family had never openly supported the regime. He was sent to the Eastern Front, first to Crimea, then to the Leningrad area, and only miracles had saved him from inevitable, horrible death.

One reviewer on Amazon justifiably reduced the book rating due to two factors: 1) there is no distinction between Arno Sauer's and his father's points of view; 2) the book contains factual mistakes. While I can say nothing about the latter (I'm leaving it to the experts), the former is debatable: armies' movements and dates are results of the author's research; the first person part of the book belongs to Fritz Sauer. My reason to take away one star has nothing to do with historical accuracy. The text needs further editing, especially in syntax: long, hard-to-understand sentences, repetitions of one word twice in a sentence, and banal typos. While, in general, the book follows the chronological order, sudden jumps in time from the main plotline to Fritz Sauer's childhood (both lines in the simple past tense) may sometimes cause confusion.

I recommend the book to all history lovers. Besides the engaging language, the story emanates the untangible flair of sincerity that evokes, in return, sympathy and a sense of trust. The author does want readers to feel compassion toward his father and his peers, who became involuntary victims of the war. Yet, contrary to many memoirs from the German side, a reader doesn't feel forced to accept the author's viewpoint.

I received an advance review copy, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I received this book for free on Netgallery for a honest review.

Rating System in Stars:
1 Star – Didn’t enjoy the book
2 Star – Enjoyed the book well enough, but wouldn’t buy a physical copy or if I own a physical copy, wouldn’t read it again. May recommend it to others, but would state I had trouble reading it myself.
3 Star – Enjoyed the book and would read it again
4 Star – Thoroughly enjoyed the book and will be read again and again
5 Star – Loved Loved Loved this book and will go onto my Favourites Shelf
I’d give this book 3.5 Stars
This is a well thought-out biography of a German man who lived in the country and was conscripted into World War 2. It’s written by a family member, someone Fritz trusted to hear the story of a point in Fritz’s life that he didn’t speak to anyone else about. It’s written in a conversational tone, and this makes it for slightly easier reading even though the subject matter is heart-breaking in many parts.
I would highly recommend this, as the reader gets into the head of Fritz and feels what he feels. He doesn’t hold back, and there are moments where he talks of people he knew, being killed or injured in front of him. He’s hurt himself, but even with these life-threatening wounds, Fritz still manages to find the humour and ‘light’ in the situation. I’d attribute part of that due to his own personality, but also with his relationship with God. It’s not pushed into the reader’s face, but the reader can see his belief in God is what gets him through many situations.
It is very much a book that gives the reader an insight into what the ‘common’ German man or woman thought of the War; of the battles they fought in and/or the tragedy they faced. He speaks of how he knew that the enemy weren’t necessarily evil, but they had a job to do. All young people were raised to protect and aid their country, and so Fritz, and many other men joined or were unwillingly conscripted into the German army/air force and/or navy. He shows great empathy for the ones he fought against and doesn’t blame the entire Russian army (people) for the crimes he witnessed.
This different point of view is a must-read for anyone who wants a rounded understanding of World War II. There are many books on Hitler, on the Third Reich, on Hitler’s cronies, on the Allies (the United Kingdom/the United States of America) especially and on world politics. To find one from someone who grew up through the war on the German side is a rarity, and so this is one I plan to re-read again.

I really struggled with this book. I only made it about 30% and had to give up. The language was very rough and I often had to read the same sentence over and over again trying to figure out what it was saying. If this had been a word for word diary that Fritz had written, I might have been able to overlook that but the author says in the beginning that the book came from oral stories so I think there was definitely room for clean up. I do think this book is sorely needed. There is library after library on the Western Front of the War and most of the literature on the Eastern Front focuses on the Japanese. I was very interested in getting a first hand account of the German Eastern Front. I would love to see this book go through some heavy edits and have another go at reading it.

The Hell that was the Eastern Front. The title couldn’t be more apt for this book!
Reading it, knowing it’s not a work of fiction really leaves its mark on you.
A powerful emotionally charged read that at times supersedes any work of fiction and makes you wish it was fiction and not a real life lived.
Certainly a book you won’t be able to forget and nor should it be forgotten

A truly interesting story regarding the exploits of a German soldier in the Eastern front. The ordeal he had to endure throughout the war was horrifying. The hardships endured during this time will really make you think. This book will grab your attention and hold your interest.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book by Sauer is one of the most interesting and believable accounts I have read of the trials of the many people involved in the War. Some of the details were new to me. To now that POWs worked and lived with German families helping in farms was surprising. The average German male was drafted and sent off. Well they needed help growing and harvesting so the POWs were set to do just that. The details of Arnos war experiences were true of every soldier in that war. What both sides went through was unimaginable and the story is a great reason for all to read what war is really like, not the glamourised tales of movies and posers, but the real details of horror . There were also stories of bravery and honesty as well as hope in this book. If you want to know what the IMO the average German soldier felt ,Their daily lives ,and what was going on back home .Then this book will open your eyes.

This book must be one of the most powerful anti-war books ever written. It tells the true story of a young rural, apprentice barber conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to fight on the Russian front. The experiences suffered by the young soldier were truly horrific, the author vividly captures the emotions and the bloody gore of infantry warfare.
I found the statistics of the number of dead and injured, unimaginable. How many millions of families grieved endlessly for their deceased loved ones? Most had no known graves.
The invasion of Russia by Germany was almost certainly doomed from the start due to the incompetence of Hitler and his henchmen. The opening of the second front, by the invasion of Normandy, put the destruction of Germany in no doubt.
I can thoroughly recommend this extraordinary biography, written by the protagonists son.

192 pages

5 stars

Arno Sauer writes a riveting and revealing story of one German soldier’s experience on the Eastern Front during WWII. He is writing about his father who was nicknamed “Fritz.”

We follow the story from his induction into the Wehrmacht through the end of the war. He describes the conditions, the terrain and the other men in his ubit. The hardships they suffered as well as the private conversations they had. He and his comrades were well aware that negative talk about Hitler and the war could be met with a firing squad. (I thought that some of the nicknames he had for Hitler were quite humorous.)

He talks about his basic training beginning at age seventeen. What seemed difficult at the time was nothing compared to the later suffering once they arrived on the Eastern Front.

After Fritz was badly wounded, he was sent back to Germany to convalesce. After several months he was declared not fit to return to the Eastern Front, so he was sent to be a replacement guard at an internment camp. The camp mostly housed Russian POW’s. Fritz started to sneak the starving men food. So many of the prisoners died, mostly of starvation, that the camp was closed and the balance were sent to other camps.

Fritz was then sent back to the Eastern Front. This time, he was attached to a tank unit. The men there were all strangers, the conditions so bad, that they only thought of survival. There was no thought of making friends in this group.

Interspersed with Fritz’ experiences, are telling vignettes about the status of the war. Mr. Sauer names the commanders and places where the battles were fought. Slowly, the Russians learned how to fight; the Germans were pushed back. Many felt that the war was hopeless. Thousands of men died or were captured because Hitler wouldn’t let them retreat.

Mr. Sarno says that his father told him that following the liberation of the extermination camp Majdanek, that an exhortation came down from a famous Russian author to Russian soldiers that they should mass murder ordinary German citizens.

The advancing Russians crossed into Germany in January 1945. The ordinary German citizens were fleeing along with the retreating soldiers. They had no food, burdened with the elderly and small children, many died in the snow. The ground was so frozen that they couldn’t even dig graves..

Fritz was sent on a mission to contact a group of soldiers with whom contact had been lost. He has no map and not much in the way of direction, but he sets out. He then decides to head for home. He gets lost in the snow and fog and hides with a kind family. Then he continues his perilous journey home.

Mr. Sauer gives an accounting of Fritz’ three brothers as well as other citizens of the little village. He also tells of the outcomes for several of the other soldiers that we meet in this book.

“We tried in good faith to save what could no longer be saved.” Arno Sauer

This book is remarkably well written. It is poignant and telling. I felt very bad for Fritz and his fellow soldiers who were only doing their job under penalty of death. War is terrible, no matter on whose side one fights.

I want to thank NetGalley and Pen & Sword/Frontline Books for forwarding to me a copy of this heartfelt book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed here are solely my own.