Shortly after I bought my copy of Black Wednesday at ORIGINS 95 in Philadelphia, I noticed that the annotated bibliography on the last page of the rule book said the following about The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer: "The true story of a common soldier's experience in Russia. This book is to WWII what All Quiet on the Western Front was for WWI. This is a must read for any student of military history."

Well, that's partly correct. All Quiet on the Western Front is fiction, after all, and so is The Forgotten Soldier. I'm afraid that whoever put together the annotated bibliography for Black Wednesday fell into the same trap as many other WWII historians and military enthusiasts. Just because a book's cover says it's a true story does not necessarily mean that it is. In reality, The Forgotten Soldier is perhaps the most famous example of a whole genre of post-war historical fiction written by Europeans, especially Frenchmen, who, for whatever reason, misrepresented their works as fact.

I first ran across The Forgotten Soldier about thirteen years ago, and read it with great interest. Like everyone else, I assumed it was a true story because it said so, and what difference did I know? However, since then I've learned much more about the German Army and the Russian front, and what I've learned about these subjects and The Forgotten Soldier makes me absolutely convinced that this book is a poorly researched work of fiction. Perhaps gripping at times, but almost totally non-historical.

This opinion is not just my own. In the Spring 1992 issue of Army History (The Professional Bulletin of Army History, published by the US Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C.), there is an article called "The Forgotten Soldier: Fiction or Fact? " by Edwin L. Kennedy, Jr. He concludes that The Forgotten Soldier is fiction. I can't quote Kennedy's whole article here, but his major pieces of evidence are as follows.

1. Sajer's first training unit is a Luftwaffe unit, specifically the Stuka unit of the famous Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the most decorated pilot in the entire Luftwaffe, whom Sajer mentions by name. Rudel's own well-known autobiography Stuka Pilot confirms that the time frame is correct (late summer/early fall 1942), but Sajer gives the wrong location. Rudel says his unit was located in Graz, Austria at that time. Sajer says he was in the Chemnitz/Dresden area, three hundred miles to the north, on the other side of Czechoslovakia. Soldiers are rarely that wrong or uninformed about where they take their basic training.

2. Sajer says he was in the "17th Battalion" of Grossdeutschland. No such battalion ever existed. One or both regiments of GD may have had a 17th Kompame, but few soldiers would confuse their company with their battalion.

3. Sajer specifies his ammunition as 7.7mm. The Germans never used this caliber (Japanese did, but never Germans). The German small-arms caliber was 7.92mm (both rifle and machine gun). Few soldiers would be in error about the caliber of their own weapons.

4. Sajer talks at some length about his company commander in GD, a Hauptmarm (Captain) Wesreidau. Kennedy conducted an interview in Germany with Helmuth Spaeter regarding Sajer and The Forgotten Soldier. Spaeter is a veteran and official historian of the GD veterans association, a Knight's Cross holder and author of 5 books about GD. He served on the staff of the division.

Spaeter told Kennedy that no officer named "Wesreidau" ever served in GD, and Spaeter had the documentation to prove it. Furthermore, neither Spaeter nor any other GD veterans which Kennedy spoke with at a GD reunion had ever heard of Guy Sajer, Wesreidau, or The Forgotten Soldier.

5. Finally, and perhaps most damning, is Sajer's description of where he wore his elite "Grossdeutschland" cuff title on his uniform. He says he wore it on his left sleeve. This is blatantly wrong. Waffen-SS cuff titles, which were more well known and photographed, were worn on the left sleeve. All GD cuff titles (as well as all other German Army and Luftwaffe cuff titles) were worn on the RIGHT sleeve. It is highly unlikely that a soldier who was a member of an elite unit would make such a fundamental error about the nature and location of his prized unit insignia on his own uniform.

More Evidence

My second body of evidence consists of the comments and conclusions given to me by a personal friend, a German veteran of the Russian front named Hans. Hans was on the Russian front continuously from the day of the invasion on June 22, 1941, until he was seriously wounded in February 1944. He was a corporal in the signals battalion of a panzer division (not GD). He has lived and worked in the U.S. for more than 30 years now, and speaks perfect English. I have seen his original awards documents, service records, wound scars, and photographs of him in Russia, so I know he is telling the truth.

Hans read my copy of The Forgotten Soldier, and he marked every instance in the book of something he disagreed with or did not believe. There are comments on almost every other page. He ripped the book to shreds. Almost every German language word in the book is wrong; no such word in German. Almost every word and term for weapons and other everyday items is wrong; not the words that German soldiers used, or even reasonable translations.

Almost every detail about how the NCOs and officers treated the men in basic training is wrong. For example, in reality, there was absolutely no, repeat NO, corporal punishment in the German Army. Officers and NCOs never, repeat never, struck or beat trainees and enlisted men. And on and on and on. Every other page in my book, which I am looking at as I write this, has Hans's comments: wrong, never, untrue, no way and a fair number of bullshit.

The emphatic conclusion of someone who was there: fiction, and poorly researched fiction at that.

So there you have it. Taken individually, each of these problems with the book could be the result of an accident or honest mistake. But taken together, it becomes almost impossible that all of them are innocent efforts. In the face of all this evidence, the odds are overwhelming that The Forgotten Soldier is, indeed, fiction.

None of this is meant to be a criticism of Black Wednesday or its bibliography; the game is, after all, about the Spanish Blue Division, not Grossdeutschland. I just hope I don't see The Forgotten Soldier in the bibliography for GD '41!