Preview

Soldier x book review

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
607 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Soldier x book review
Can you imagine what must have gone through the minds of the young soldiers who fought in Hitler’s army as Russia began its overpowering resistance of the Nazi from Russian soil? I couldn't until I read Soldier X. Young Soldier X also known as Erik finds himself alone but alive in a long deep trench. Although he is a German citizen he speaks Russian and has Russian ancestry. Aware that the German war front is crumbling in Russia he continues to obey military instructions with the idea that he must fight to the death for his mother country. Barely aware of the things committed against Jews he has been brainwashed into believing that Jewish people are a roadblock to the Nazi belief of world conquest. Yet in spite of this Nazi living Soldier X’s lively thought begins to challenge those beliefs. As he sits in his trench terrified by the approaching Russian tanks and infantry that are unstoppable, he questions why he must remain in this forward position only to die for his country. His platoon leader has pounded in his heart a fear that if he dares run or retreat he will be shot in the back by his own officer. Overrun in his trench he stays in place.
To some good luck a Russian tank stalls directly over his trench caught up by the barbed wire placed by Nazi soldiers to stop the powerful force of the Russian military. Every Nazi soldier around him is dead. What saves Soldier X is the stalled heavy Russian tank sitting above his head. With no other choice Soldier X exchanges his Nazi uniform for a dead Russian soldier. Then when he hears the battle moving from his position he leaves his trench with a piece of shrapnel stuck in his leg, a piece large enough that he cannot remove it. In his Russian uniform a dying German commander shoots Soldier X and he goes down. Within minutes Soldier X is hauled off by Russian infantry for immediate medical aid as a wounded fighter. During recovery after surgery he finds himself in a Russian hospital nursed back to health by a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    If You Survive, written by George Wilson, is a first person account of a US Army officer in the European Theatre during the Second World War. His account took place over an eight month period of constant combat which began days after the Normandy landings and up to the Battle of the Bulge. Wilson’s story begins as a young infantry lieutenant right out of Officer Candidate School, who was sent to war as a replacement officer. Only a few days after the Normandy landings, his regimental commander informs the group of replacement lieutenants that if they survive their first battle he will promote them.…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Soldier Boys Book Summary

    • 301 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The title of my book was Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes and it was a fiction book, published in 2003. Soldier Boys was during WWII in Germany and Brighman City, Utah. It tells the story of an American and German teenaged boy. They join the war and fight in the battle of the Bulge.…

    • 301 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Soldier X Summary

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Erik Brandt is a 16 year old half Russian half German boy. He is in a program called Jungend which is also known as Hitler's Children Army. It is like Boy Scouts for German Kids. They boys in the Jungend are also enlisted soldiers who have to fight when it is needed. One day Erik is sent to fight in the war. He is shipped to the eastern front where the Germans have to fight Russia on Russian soil. Erik is uncomfortable because he is half Russian and German. He was aware of the things Germans were doing to Jews but he was convinced it was right and that Jews were preventing Germany's world domination. While traveling to Russia he becomes acquainted with some other boys in his platoon named Oskar, Jakob, and Fassnacht. They get attacks by aircraft and very few of the Germans die but the boys are pretty scared. When they reach their destination they go into the trenches and prepare to fight. Their commander explains the plan and teaches them how to use certain equipment like mines and grenades. When the first waves of Russians attack it is mainly infantry foot soldiers. The Germans win and Erik thinks it’s over and he is exhausted and tired. Then their commander says that was the easy one and tells them to prepare for tanks to start progressing. In the second wave the Germans start to drop and German hope looks lost. Erik is hit by a grenade and he is hurt. He is lying in pain in the bottom of a trench. With many dead bodies around him, he sees that playing dead won’t help because the Russians are stabbing every body they find with a bayonet. He knew he was running out of time. To his luck a tank broke down over him. He now has to think fast. He sees a dead Russian boy and puts on him uniform to disguise himself. He leaves the trench disguised as a Russian. As he is going he get shot by a surviving German in the side. He passes out and wakes up in hospital. When the soldiers he meets asks his name he says he has amnesia. He meets a young nurse in…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “All Quiet in the Western Front” is a social commentary on how soldiers are effected emotionally and socially throughout the war and are conflicted on how to readjust to their lives after the Great War. Soldiers are conflicted by their character and do not know whether to pick back life up as a youth or as adults who have endured hard circumstances. The book does not focus on battles and it does not focus on a specific time frame, it rather evaluates what goes through the minds of a soldier. These men are literally being bombarded in the war front by explosives and in the home front by misinformed public who want to know the extremity of the war. Bystanders set High expectations for soldiers to be tough and to know how to behave in order to survive, yet those who did not participate in the Great War could only speculate what was going on in the soldier’s minds. The Great War damaged these soldiers physically and mentally, however certain elements gave the survivors the ability to pull through the war. The youth shifted its mentality and lost its innocence in the Great War. Therefore, Remarque did not focus his book on the combat that took place during the Great War, rather he presents social issues, which does not belittle his experience rather it presents a different view of the…

    • 1709 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    For several years, World War II had been raging in Europe. In 1945, German soldiers surrounded Russia and tried to choke off the train of supplies entering the country. Leningrad, Russia remained under constant bombing by German aircraft. Leningrad was a key location for Russia’s war efforts due to its manufacturing facilities and needed to stay functional. Lev Beniov was on the roof of his apartment building watching the anti-aircraft balloons above the city. It was on this night that a dead German paratrooper landed in front of Lev’s building. As the news reached all the boys and girls on the roof, they rushed down to examine and loot the dead soldier. Within minutes, Russian soldiers appeared. Lev’s friends deserted him and he was arrested and thrown into the Crosses. After spending the night, Colonel Grechko gave Lev a chance to redeem himself for his wrongs and save his life. Through…

    • 1292 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story starts in Montreal with an unnamed soldier of 20 years old who is getting ready to leave with the Canadian army to go fight the Germans in Europe, mostly in France and Belgium, during World War I. He already starts to build close relationships with some of the fellow soldiers: Brown, Cleary, Fry, Broadbent and Anderson. Soon after, the story shifts to the trenches, where the conditions are unsanitary with lice and fat rats. The narrator (which is still and will stay unknown) changes his perspective about war. When he thought war contained glory and glamour, he finds himself wrong when his comrades start to die, beginning with Brown. A while later, he is emotionally affected when he kills a German with his bayonet. His emotional status worsens when another of his friend dies. The narrator then goes on leave for 10 days in England, where a prostitute makes him forget about the war. When he comes back, an attempt to raid the Germans takes place where the rest of his friends, except Broadbent dies. The general tells the new team that the Germans sank a hospital ship, and organizes another raid, this time to kill everyone. The narrator has wounded his foot, and discover that Broadbent was mortally wounded too. Broadbent’s leg is hanging by a string of flesh, but then dies by blood loss. Then the war is over. The recruits are told that the general lied, the Germans didn’t sink a hospital ship. It was a ship filled with weapons. He then realizes war is basically a chess game for the generals, and the soldiers are just young boys, listening to the orders, with meaningless ideals…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing anymore. I am so alone and so without hope that I can confront them without fear" War is a political hotbed. Regardless of the warring nations’ reasons or the outcome, in the wake of the battle, the soldier, or country’s hero, actually becomes the victim. Youth is sacrificed, lives are lost, and the survivors are forever altered.…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Generals Die in Bed

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The novel depicts how the war brings out disrespect and selfishness in the soldiers. Just like their constant companions the lice and the rats, the soldiers in the trench adapt to the hell that they find themselves trapped in – doing whatever it takes to survive. They even fight each other over food ‘at each others throats like hungry, snarling animals’. As the novel and the war progresses so does the inhumane side of the soldiers who become increasing more detached from killing, unconcerned with the death of friends. The soldiers are conditioned, hardened up and desensitised with self preservation becoming a key motivator. This is shown as the soldiers plunder the city of Arras, the allies ' town and vandalize houses with no consideration of the local people who will come back to a raided and shelled town. As they ransack the town ‘chewing food while pillaging,’ stealing and destroying people’s possessions, self satisfaction is their only concern. The soldiers become feral and even rebel against and shoot at their own Military Police who are trying to restore order. By these merciless and selfish acts the dark side of the soldiers’ nature is revealed.…

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    If there was a god, why would he/she be so harsh? The text is compared to the book Night by Ellie Wiesel and from the poems “Night over Birkenau” and “Harbach 1944”. The book Night tells the story of a young boy and his father fighting for their freedom from the Nazis; Ellie Wiesel tells the story of his experience of the Holocaust. Both of the poems show the journeys of people and how they pictured all of the madness. Ellie fights through many hardships, but comes out of the Holocaust victorious! Ellie and his father were both willing and strong throughout the Holocaust, but his father escaped a different way. The theme states that during survival, people think about needs rather than wants. This is clearly developed in the poems “Night over Birkenau” By Janos Piliszky and “Harbach 1944” and Night to show harshness, survival, and fear.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Storm of Steel

    • 1485 Words
    • 6 Pages

    We start off with the young soldier going off into the glory of battle, but with a twist as he reflects back on what he remembers and makes his memories unfold. We can see that he enters the war with an adolescent outset of it all. The beginning of the book, however gloomy, informs us of this. It's extremely amazing to know that Ernst Junger lived to be 102, being the definitive survivor that he was. Bearing in mind the odds that it seemed that he would have never reached 20 at the rate he was being wounded in the story. Hurt over and over again in combat, one can only wonder how close did a bullet or a metal shard almost miss a vital organ that could've killed him had it just been an inch or two over. It's amazing how his fellow soldiers died to the left and right of him, yet he lived on and continued to thrive on the glory…

    • 1485 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “No soldier ever really survives a war” These are the words of Audie Murphy, he was a notable American combat soldier in the U.S army during World War II. War is unmerciful on the body and additionally to the mind and spirit. You set off to war to fight for your country and be a hero, however, when you come back, your perspective on life has been completely changed. Either you die in action or you live to tell your story. The truth of the matter is; if you have been in battle, you will always have effects haunting you at night. Those horrible memories that you saw and lived through on the battlefield will continuously come back. You live every day with the thought of being a murderer. Throughout the novel Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, war has a vast impact on Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese man living on San Piedro Island.…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    War is often viewed as one of the most dangerous and brutal events ever created. It utterly destroys the humanity and mental state of soldiers fighting in the war. In All Quiet on the Western Front, a world renowned war novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the epigraph states that this novel “will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” Staying true to this quote, Remarque tells of the horrors of World War I and fittingly describes the effects that war has on humans through the eyes of the protagonist, Paul Bäumer. In his epigraph Remarque says, “this book is to be neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure.” Except for a few notable exceptions,…

    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Introduction “One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” (Night).…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I had just arrived to my destination: Gallipoli, Turkey. As nervous as I was already with shivers down my spine nearly every minute I didn’t want to lose my young life tomorrow. It was a long ride but my troops and I were prepared for what could come our way. We jumped off the half sunken ship due to the enormous amount of soldiers. It was going to be a long and hard battle. The water we had to walk through to set up our camps was muddy and clumpy I was hoping I don’t get trench foot. Me, as the leader leaded on where we have to set up our camps. We set up our tents around the gruesome field of dead, yellow, sun dried grass next to the sandy rough hills. Rain had just started sprinkling and the next minute, hailing, it lit out our fire along with a deathlike thunderstorm. The dogs started howling under the glowing half-moon that gave us the only light left. I knew the next day only brought frightful visions of what will come to us tomorrow….…

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Test

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages

    It's three o'clock in the morning and you waken suddenly to the heavy sound of soldiers' boots outside your door. Your heart leaps in your chest as you hear screams in the hallway and the cries from other families. Fear has been a constant presence in your life ever since Nazi Germany conquered your country. Now the fear has turned to terror as fists are pounding on the door.…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics