Legion of the Damned by Sven Hassel
Legion of the Damned (1953) by Sven Hassel Sven Hassel was the pen name of Danish-born Børge Willy Redsted Pedersen, who wrote a total of fourteen novels based in large part on first-hand experience he gained as a soldier for Germany in WWII. Legion of the Damned is considered the most autobiographical of Hassel’s works, detailing in first-person narrative the exploits of a young soldier who starts off the book convicted of desertion and placed in a concentration camp. The inhumanities of the camps are presented in a blunt, matter of fact manner that only adds to the horrors being described. We follow our protagonist through his harrowing time as part of a bomb disposal unit before being assigned to a penal combat unit. The cast of characters expands from this point with much camaraderie and even room for a little ill-fated romance for our narrator before the war intr...