The Novels of Sven Hassel

I came across the novels of Sven Hassel while I was in High School in the late 70s.
These are novels about war, written by a German soldier in the second world war. Sven Hassel's novels are more or less dramatical biographies depicting the lives of a penal soldiers fighting on various battle fronts.

I was growing up in the era of the first Arab/Israeli wars and in the time of the Vietnam war. So I was being more or less made to believe the hero stories of war and who the good guys were in every war.

The period of my youth was almost like a war culture, we played war games all the time, we watched "John Wayne" movies and "The Legend of Tom Dooley", "Kelly's Heroes"...

I'm not going to describe the film culture in which I grew up in Rabaul. But I'd like to provide a background to the veneration of war culture in which my generation grew up. 

Our house boy in the village was full of comic books, "Tarzan", "Korak" (son of Tarzan), "Believe it or not", "The Phantom", "The Marvel Comics" and "DC Comics - Superman". But my most favourite comic series of all was the "Comando Comics". The Comando comics has a shorter format than all the other comics, and the drawings were the best we had come across on all war stories, the war machines were accurately reproduced, and the heroic deeds of war was so well polished that we truly believed that war was a place for heroes.

So when I picked up Sven Hassel's books, my classmates said: "What, you are reading about German soldiers? They lost the war."

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But I read those books, starting with the "The Legion of the Damned", and boy did I discover the true horrors of war..!

Sven Hassels, books are a brutal account of war. War without principle, war without honour, war without meaning. The soldiers in Sven Hassel's squad fight as a unit to survive and that seems their only principle. They are going through the motions of war as trained men. As machines.

I can't tell anymore which stories belong into which of the novels I've read, but it's a series of novels that describe the war, although not always historically consistent. 

But what you get, is the vivid account of a soldier, telling the story of his squad of soldiers serving in a penal regiment, just before the fall of Germany during the second world war.

Penal regiments are military formations from convicted men who are sent to the front as punishment, sometimes in lieu of death penalties. These regiments in the German army used to be given "suicidal" tasks where the risk of death was very high.

It is through the experiences of these condemned soldiers that I first realised as a young teen-ager, the realities of war. The soldiers are crawling in the mud, they are cold, hungry or extremely thirsty that they could murder for a drink. They are forced to pee in their clothes while under fire. Their feet are rotting in their cold boots. Their socks are worn through, and you can feel the rock in a soldiers boot, as he is marching with a regiment, unable to stop to remove the stone that's making a hole in the sole of his foot. When at last the regiment, stops and the soldier is removing his feet from his boots, parts of the soles of his feet remain at the bottom of his boots.

In one paragraph, that I have never forgotten to this day, Sven Hassel describes how to enjoy frozen sardines out of a can in the Russian winter.

An American film was made from one or two of Sven Hassel's novels. Played in English by American actors, the film: "Wheels of fire" totally destroys the spirit of Sven Hassel's writing and does not at all bring the novels to the screen.

Biography Sven Hassel

The Author Sven Hassel was born in 1917 in Fredensborg, a small village of Denmark. He was raised in the traditional scenario of a Danish working-class family. At the age of 14 Sven embarked in the merchant navy as a shipboy. In 1936 he did his military service, and the following year, due to the great unemplyment in Denmark, he joined the German army as a volunteer. Initially he served in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment and furthermore in the 11th and 27th "Panzerregiment". He fought in all the frontlines except in the North of Africa. Consequentialy Sven was wounded eight times. From 1945 to 1949 he was POW and was subject to Russian, American, French and Danish prisoner camps.

In that period Sven wrote his first book, THE LEGION OF THE DAMNED, which was published in Denmark in 1953 and it is the only novel in Denmark, which has been in sale continuously since then. In 1957 the author unexpectedly developed the rare disease of Caucasian fever, a sickness caught in the war, causing total paralysis. He was not cured until 1958. Since 1964 Sven Hassel lives in Barcelona, Spain. He is married (1951) to Dorthe Jensen and has a son, Michael (1952).

Sven Hassel has written 14 novels: The Legion of the Damned, Wheels of Terror (filmed), Comrades of War, Marchbattalion, Assignment Gestapo, Monte Cassino, Liquidate Paris, SS General, Reign of Hell, Blitzfreeze, The Bloody Road to Death, Court Martial, O.G.P.U. Prison, and The Commissar.

These novels have been translated into 17 languages and published in more than 50 countries. In Great Britain 15 million copies have been sold and worldwide more than 52.000.000.

Sven Hassel´s style is emphasized by the use of same characters throughout the series. They are altogether Porta, Tiny, the Legionnaire, the Old Man, Heide, Gregor Martin, Barcelona-Blom and Sven himself. Of these true persons, only Tiny, the Legionnaire, Heide, Gregor Martin and Sven survived the war.

Sven Hassel´s novels are antimilitarist. He writes about the small soldier, showing us the backside of the medals. Sven tells us about the men who do not provoke wars, but who have to fight them. All Hassel´s books are based on his own experience in WWII. He warns younger generations against war. Hassel stresses that war is the last solution of bad politicians.

Novels List:

Legion of the Damned

Wheels Of Terror

Comrades of War

March Battalion

Assignment Gestapo

Monte Cassino (The Beast Regiment)

Liquidate Paris

SS-General

Reign of Hell ISBN 

Blitzfreeze

The Bloody Road to Death

Court Martial

O.G.P.U. Prison

The Commissar