The Forgotten Soldier

The retreating troops are now joined by civilians fleeing the Soviet onslaught, which creates a whole host of responsibilities and difficulties for the soldiers. They are ordered to break through the Soviet line and establish a front at Memel, finding a city in ruins and packed with refugees. By defending a narrow front, Sajer and his fellow soldiers are able to inflict heavy losses, and against all odds they hold the line. They receive orders to attack, and while the Soviets are at first knocked back, there are too many of them, and “soon half our tanks were on fire” (419), covering their escape route with wreckage. They are able to hold the town a little longer, and most of the civilians are able to flee by ship. Pushed beyond the brink by terror and exhaustion, “men who could pray could hope, and for so many hope was dead—so they howled their prayers. In any case, it was too late” (423). Military evacuations begin as Soviet bombers commence yet another run, and Sajer loses all sense of time as the days drag on. They conduct daring forays against the Soviet position, frequently changing positions and holding on to “a small island of courage drawn from an infinity of anguish” (431). A ship arrives, but only to pick up surplus supplies. In constant contact with enemy soldiers, often separated by nothing but a thin fog, they decide that they must escape and create a makeshift raft, but it will not support their weight. On another foggy night, they hear German voices from an unexpected corner and are stunned to realize that a boat has come for them. They rush into the water, nearly drowning, and they are pulled onto the boat and dropped off with other refugees at Pillau.

They stay at Pillau for three weeks, still in shock from their experiences at Memel but needed to deal with the overwhelming refugee problem. Sajer’s unit has been shattered, but he still has friends, including his beloved Hals. They soon receive orders to withdraw even further toward the city of Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland), where efforts were underway to relocate refugees. Using a makeshift crutch from a foot injury, Sajer and his friends take refuge in a cellar, hearing from other soldiers that departing ships full of refugees have been sunk. After a few weeks of regaining strength, they are reassigned to what is left of the Gross Deutschland Division, but the Russian onslaught forces them to keep moving westward. Sajer is suddenly swept up in a battle with Soviet tanks on city streets, grabbing a Panzerfaust and fending off the tank nearest to him. The battle does not slow the advance for long, but it does clear a path for civilian evacuations. They focus on evacuating civilians, often withstanding Soviet aerial attacks as they do so, but once again they are summed for embarkation and are able to escape the Red Army via the water.

With Russian air power still pounding down on them, Sajer and his fellow soldiers await debarkation for a few days, and are dropped in German-occupied Denmark. Initially overjoyed to eat pastries, they soon reconnect with a unit, and learn that “the West” for which they had been fighting “was the other half of the vise tightening on our misery” (454). Sajer is especially upset to learn that a French army is now fighting Germany on European soil. Moving near the Elbe River, they encounter British forces for the first time. Soon, they are surrounded by British half-tracks, and Sajer and Hals surrender together. The Americans humiliate them, forcing them to fight for scraps littered on the ground. Sajer is interrogated and tells the allied officer that he is French. They tell him they will not keep him detained, since he has been conscripted into fighting for having a German mother. He is told to go home and forget everything.

On the train, Sajer tries without success to find Hals, “my only friend in a hostile world” (461). Back in France, he realizes that what has happened to him is completely at odds with a new and more peaceful life in the countryside. Throwing himself to the ground at the sight of a plane, he decides to take a nap, and upon waking sees an old woman—his mother, who at first does not notice him. He then calls out to her, and she faints. He joins the French army, and his parents forbid him from ever talking about his experiences. Before his discharge, he takes part in a parade in Paris, thinking of his dead comrades and remembering those, like Hals and Paula, whom he can only hope are still alive, and who will remain alive within his memory.