Comrades of War (Cassell Military Paperbacks Book 3)

There were not so much people as animals. Sometimes small and frightened, huddling together in cattle cars, wounds gaping, tongues swelling even as they licked the moist frost from the walls... Grievously wounded - having survived the operating table and the perilous journey West on a freezing freight train - Sven Hassel and his comrades find themselves behind the lines in a Hamburg hospital. The Reich is a hotbed of lies, betrayal and propaganda. Disgusted by the Nazi cause, the comrades drink themselves into oblivion, visit brothels where women dance naked on saloon tables and reach for home comforts before they return to the dreaded Russian Front. Because Hitler's war must go on... COMRADES OF WAR is a gritty portrayal of war's harsh realities and the fear and fanaticism at the heart of The Third Reich. Sven Hassel's unflinching narrative is based on his own experiences in the German Army. He began writing his first novel, LEGION OF THE DAMNED in a prisoner of war camp at the end of the Second World War. There were not much people as animals. Sometimes small and frightened, huddling together in cattle cars, wounds gaping, tongues swelling even as they licked the moist frost from the walls - each of them wondering if he would be the next to die before reaching the crude operating table... And sometimes brawling, robbing and raping as they swept into Hamburg to glut themselves on life for one more day, or just one more night... And sometimes they were heroes, pushing their way through the Russian lines - the Legionnaire, Sven and Tiny, all of them knowing they had lost the war ...and every last shred of their own humanity.