Wheels of Terror

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Wheels of Terror! - Rated
Previously banned in Germany this story of war atrocity is everything but controversial. The main character Porta is a lanky loud mouth with hardly any teeth and a top hat who carries a kitten in his gasmask carry case and yet despite this rather strange Obertafuhuer, he is a merciless killing maschine and convicted rapist.
And he's just one of the many colourful characters that our first person accounts from Sven Hassel acknowledges. We have an amazing novel that depicts war in all it's horrid and gruesome non-glory. The beggining is nothing but disturbing and sets a tone for the rest of the book yet even with the charred children and dying women there are the odd bits of black humour.
One of my favourite books ever, live on war pulp fiction.

Brutal, violent and thoroughly readable - Rated
This book is an episodic semi-autobiographical journey through a part of the Second World War told through the eyes of the 'hero', Sven Hassel, a member of a penal regiment fighting the Russians. The book contains a lot of deeply unpleasant and brutally violent scenes that ring horrifically true. This isn't a rose tinted version of war we see in Hollywood movies but a grim, harsh and horrible reality. Despite it's unpleasantness this is hugely readable.