Bloody hell! This is quite a book. It's a novel but presented as based on fact as a memoir of a German soldier. It was written in the immediate aftermath of the war. It starts with him being tried for desertion and sent to a concentration camp where he is treated brutally. He is then sent to a penal batallion and ends up on the Eastern front.
Along the way, he frees some Jewish women from a camp, shoots some SS officers and generally represents the image of German soldiers as being unwilling servants or even victims of Hitler and the Nazis, just trying to get through the war alive like everyone else. It's moving in a way. It's also really well written, full of action. In short, a really good read.
What a shame, then, that the author was revealed to be a fraud and most likely a traitor who willingly served German intelligence.
Everyone should read this though, because it's fascinating. Everything about the moment in time, the controversy around the author, the conscious setting out of how a German soldier might want to represent himself and distance himself from the crimes in which he'd participated. It doesn't get much darker and yet it is as unputdownable as a a good thriller.