Sven Hassel

[C.O.Sargent]

I have read all his books and have the complete set, from time to time in the winter I will take one out and read it again, bonlngy or not I still like to read them.

[badge5050]

T I can't prove it-I think the writer who calls himself "Sven Hassel" might be the same guy who goes by the later nom de plume "Guy Sajer"....
The verbage is so,so similar...

No way... and he is not Leo Kessler either

But a pure fake, - also the first books, remember the hole gangs was killed in the first book? But raised to the occasion in the next

http://home.tiscali.dk/haaest/Hassel-Hazel/Texts/Dansk/01-kapitel.htm

A DK site about him. Use Google to translate

But it is still good books, - and pretty funny too

[Brien]

Sven Hassell

I too have the entire collection of his books. I thought they were great reads. This is totally fiction, but fun. Don't down him, I personally like his work better than Leo Kesslers.

I also own the Misfit Brigade Oh God was it awful! Great uniforms, great tanks, but Crappy everything else. They could have done SO much with it, I think they were under a Low (0) budget at the time.

Hans Helmut Kirst is another great author. The film Night of the Generals was a good one.

[C.O.Sargent]

Ya I like Night of the Generals, people get to bent out of shape tearing apart a movie or a book instead of just enjoying it for its entertainment value.

[Chris]

There was a real Sven Hassel, his father was Danish and his mother was German, or the other way around. He deserted a prewar cavalry unit, was caught, and sent to a Bewahrungseinheit to get an attitude adjustment. Before the war started, these were harsh but not inhumane. (They were not allowed Waffenfarbe, and where it was supposed to be, the piping was just Feldgrau).

The real Sven Hassel wrote just one book, Legion of the Damned, and died in the early 1950's. Several more books were ghostwritten by his wife, Lotte. The remainder of the pulp fiction produced under his name was written by publishing house hacks who were typically paid one cent per word. The man who is claiming to be Sven Hassel today is a fraud. The actual guy died more than 50 years ago.

[Terry OToole]

Leo Kessler is the prolific military writer Charles Whiting

[Jean-Loup]

Chris, do you have any trustworthy sources from which you got your info?
Everything I ever read about Hassel was always highly controversial, and it seems that no one realy knows the truth... I would be interested to see definitive proof of your version, particularly because it could mean that Legion of the Damned is maybe more trustworthy then I thought.
By the way, it ws published in 1953; so after his death?

JL

[Chris]

Yes, British historian Bruce Quarrie met and interviewed Lotte about her husband and the books before she died in the early 1980's. The information above is summarized from my correspondence with Bruce after the interview.

Yes, I believe Legion of the Damned was published either shortly before the real Hassel's death or posthumously. The account in it of retraining in a prewar disciplinary unit is certainly exaggerated but probably contains a kernal of truth. All that later baloney about the "27th penal panzer regiment" and so on is just nonsense; the unit never existed, and wartime penal units (such as Infanterie Bataillon z.b.V 500) were all infantry formations. The Germans certainly did not give such men tanks.

[Jean-Loup]

Interesting, and thanks for the info.
You may want to take a couple of hours to rewrite the wikipedia page about Hassel, as they seem to think he is still alive in Spain or something like that last time I read it.

JL

[Chris]

Believe me, if I ever had two hours of free time in a month, I wouldn't spend it on a Wikipedia entry! That guy in Spain is a complete fraud.

[badge5050]

[quote=Chris;2722773]Yes, British historian Bruce Quarrie met and interviewed Lotte about her husband and the books before she died in the early 1980's. The information above is summarized from my correspondence with Bruce after the interview.

You have to backup that statement with more than "The information above is summarized from my correspondence with Bruce after the interview. "

Please...

[rkoy]

still fun reading and kessler is whiting????

[Terry OToole]

yep whiting wrote all the Kessler books

[Christian_GJR3]

The film Night of the Generals was a good one.

'Talking about bad taste...'

[Adrian]

Ya I like Night of the Generals, people get to bent out of shape tearing apart a movie or a book instead of just enjoying it for its entertainment value.

Very true. I still have all the Sven Hassel books, I still like to read them and I still enjoy them. So what if they're not based on actual historical events, enjoy them for what they are - nothing more than an entertaining read.