here - Sven Hassel

Sven
Hassel
WORLD WAR II NOVELIST
53,000,000 copies sold
published in 25 languages
14 Titles
The Legion of the Damned
Wheels of Terror
Comrades of War
March Battalion
Assignment Gestapo
Monte Casino
Liquidate Paris
SS-General
Reign of Hell
Blitzfreeze
The Bloody Road to Death
Court Martial
O.G.P.U.-Prison
The Commissar
Preface to
Sven Hassel’s work
Background:
The Sven Hassel world war classics
have
sold
53.000.000
copies
worldwide, 15.000.000 of which
were sold in the UK alone.
Sven Hassel has been compared
to the literary masters of Tjekov,
Hemingway, Hasek and Homer. His
work is considered a monument
against war and dictatorship as
well as one of the best pictures ever
given of the plain soldier with his
racy humour. Hassel does not write
of the men who create wars, but of
those who have to fight them.
Genre & Subject Matter:
This unique series of the world
literature relates the story of a
German platoon (Porta, Tiny,
Old Man, the Legionnaire, Heide,
Barcelona-Blom, Sven, etc.) on
different fronts during WWII and
narrates the atrocity and absurdity
of war, and nonetheless, the brutality
and stupidity of the nazi regime.
The Second World War both
frightens and fascinates those, who
do not carry that period as an awful
memory. Its history can be told
in different ways – as eyewitness
descriptions, as thrillers with the
war as a background and as
documentary-style works.
Sven Hassel does not use any of
these genres. There is no doubt
about his participation in the war
on German side. But even so Sven
does not give us the eyewitness
description. A great part is based
on his own experiences, but part is
also based on his comrades’ stories
and as Hassel says, on the author’s
legitimate right to use free fantasy.
It is this small melted group of
soldiers, Hassel narrates about, a
brutal and talkative collective,
whose perspective is no further than
their chin straps. Sven Hassel gives,
however, a picture of the war as a
way of life and at the same time as
a meaningless madness.
For the private front soldier in the
MHA Co.
(Preface continued)
Wehrmacht, the only thing
that matters without false
hope is surviving, and
to do so, the raw and
cynical humour of Sven
Hassel’s characters is
their life-force.
Style:
Sven Hassel uses
short sentences and
chapters giving his
writing a powerful dynamic. The reader does
not read letters, words
or sentences. The reader
is seeing what the author
describes. Hassel’s writing has
strength, expressiveness, he has an
ease to commote, a tremendous sensibility even to describe the barbarity, and last but not least he has humour!
Hassel heads straight to what matters. He tells. He does not loose his time
describing and when he does, two brush-strokes are enough, because the
plot, the action makes the description superfluous. In modern literature
narration predominates over description. By this, novels frequently–and
Sven Hassel is an example–gain in force, power and above all in rhythm.
This rhythm –understood as cinematographic rhythm– is the one which rules
over the action, but the dominion of the tempo of a novel is only within the
reach of few authors. Sven Hassel is one of them.
MHA Co.
Literary Reviews
“No ordinary novel of war, this has the special
quality of being an accurate account not only
of armies fighting but of the opposed loyalties
of individuals fighting within themselves while
remaining loyal -not to a dreadful system- but to
the known and treasured friends. A masterpiece.”
- Chicago Sunday Tribune
“The splendidly described scenes are at the
level of Homer’s representation of the battle of
Troy.”
-Neue Zeitung,
Germany
“In an almost magical way Sven Hassel unite
the powerful style of Ernest Hemingway with
Remarque’s unique way of writing. The unknown
soldier of the Second World War has got his
monument.”
-Morgenavisen,
Norway
“...Hassel is one of the best European novelists
around, with a flair for excitement that has few
equals!”
-Staffordshire Evening Standard,
England
“Frighteningly vivid, a most strongly-felt piece of
writing.”
-Irish Times,
Ireland
“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...A great war novel!”
-Alan Silitoe
MHA Co.