The Forgotten Soldier

[2] Sajer wrote that The Forgotten Soldier was intended as a personal narrative, stressing the non-technical and anecdotal nature of his book.

In a 1997 letter to US Army historian Douglas Nash, he stated that, "Apart from the emotions I brought out, I confess my numerous mistakes.

[4] The book was considered by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College to be an accurate roman à clef and has remained on its recommended reading list for World War II, along with other historical novels.

Some of the details Sajer mentions appear to be incorrect, while other are impossible to verify due to the lack of surviving witnesses and documents.

The most frequently cited inaccuracy is Sajer's statement that, after being awarded the coveted Grossdeutschland Division cuff title, he and a friend were ordered to sew it on their left sleeves, when it is well established that this specific unit always wore their cuff titles on the right sleeve.

Sajer himself struck back against the critics, claiming that The Forgotten Soldier was intended as his own personal recollections of an intensely chaotic period in German military history, and not an attempt at a serious historical study of World War II: "You ask me questions of chronology, situations, dates, and unimportant details.

Other authors and high-ranking officers could respond to your questions better than I. I never had the intention to write a historical reference book; rather, I wrote about my innermost emotional experiences as they relate to the events that happened to me in the context of the Second World War.