Guy Mouminoux (13 January 1927 – 11 January 2022), known by the pseudonym Guy Sajer, was a French writer and cartoonist who is best known as the author of the Second World War novel Le Soldat Oublié (1965, translated as The Forgotten Soldier), based on his experience serving in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front from 1942 to 1945, in the elite Großdeutschland Division.
Guy Mouminoux was born in Paris on 13 January 1927, the son of a French father and an Alsatian German mother whose maiden name was Sajer.
[1] Mouminoux wrote about his experience on the Eastern Front during World War II in his book Le Soldat Oublié (The Forgotten Soldier), published in 1965, more than 20 years after the events it describes, under the pseudonym Guy Sajer.
The author states that he was an inhabitant of Alsace drafted into the German Wehrmacht at age 16, in 1942, (the author is mistaken on this point as he would've been 15 at this time given that he was born on January 13, 1927) and that he fought in the elite Großdeutschland Division during World War II, taking his mother's name so as to blend in better with his German comrades.
[2] Some of the details in the book, such as the precise location of the division's insignia, are incorrect, while others are impossible to verify due to the lack of surviving witnesses or official documents, most of which were destroyed during or after the war.
The publication of The Forgotten Soldier in 1965 brought Mouminoux success as a writer, but also cost him his job as a comic artist.