Court Martial

by Sven Hassel Book 12 in the Legion of the Damned series.

First published 1978

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4.1(1,387)

On the Finnish front, Sven and his comrades face extreme cold, Soviet forces and the prospect of removal from combat for punishment. Survival does not offer safety: accusations of disobedience or anti-Nazi feeling may send a soldier before a court martial or to Torgau, a centre of the German military penal system. Interrogation, torture and coerced confession threaten the regiment from within its own army.

The novel joins the northern Eastern Front to the judicial terror of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler’s regime demands ideological reliability as well as military obedience, turning deserters, political opponents and inconvenient witnesses into prisoners of the state. Hassel’s soldiers know that the institutions behind the front can be as lethal as enemy fire, and their solidarity is tested by fear that any comrade may be compelled to inform or confess.