A Soldier's Legacy Author:Heinrich Boll Since the Korean War and especially since Vietnam, Americans have thought of foreign wars as a quagmire, the German equivalent now portrays the war on the Eastern Front as a vast bottomless black pit. — This book presents a good description of military service, with an emphasis on the excruciating boredom of life on the coast of occupied France, ... more »waiting for the Allied invasion. It was a dull quiet pettifogging life, with no hint of the so-called French "Resistance" and instead the accounts of various French farmers and tavern keepers who had the single goal of making an easy profit from the German soldiers.
The military life was familiar; part of a great campaign, filled with petty little rules and regulations and routines. The waiting was exhausting, not because it was strenuous, but with activities designed to fill time rather than any immediate need. Then comes the transfer to the Eastern Front, the sudden departure and the psychological spiral down into doom.
It's a very German book. Every element of military officialdom is condemned; if nothing else, the traditional German sense of automan obedience to military orders has een shattered. The story is told with a post-war resentment of officers who survived; based on a theme that only the decent and intelligent died. The opportunist bullies who pushed everyone into the vast bottomless black pit of the war against Russia are the real villains.
After World War I, 'All Quiet on the Western Front' condemned the futility of war, but not the leaders who sent millions to the slaughter. Since World War II, the Germans have resented leaders who sent millions into a hopeless crusade to "save" Europe, Christianity and Western Civilization from the menace of Godless Asiatic Communism.
It helps explain why Germany and France didn't support the American crusade to bring democracy, free enterprise and oil exports to Iraq. The Germans have been through it, and they are still haunted by that vast bottomless black pit.« less