Sven Hassel: Difference between revisions

 

The novels are ostensibly told from the point-of-view of the author, though some chapters are in third-person and cover other characters. Sven Hassel claims to have based them on his service in the Wehrmacht, during which he served on every front except North Africa. A journalist however claimed Hassel spent the war entirely in Denmark as a member of a collaborationist police unit, and his stories are based on conversations with ex-Dutch SS soldiers thrown into prison with him afterwards. Certainly his novels are not taken seriously by historians, containing many inconsistencies and exaggerations. Nevertheless with their unstinting mix of action, horror and [[Black Comedy]] they have proved quite popular, being translated into eighteen languages.

* Sven Hassel -- A Dane of German descent, he joined the German army before the war as there was no work in his native country. Sentenced to a concentration camp for desertion, he is then 'pardoned' and sent to a penal regiment. With the exception of ''The Legion of the Damned'' Hassel tends to take the background in his novels, seldom portraying himself as remarkable or heroic.

 

 

* [[Angry Guard Dog]]: Wolf's pair of wolfhounds which he uses for protection, and to eat those who annoy him.

* [[Anyone Can Die]]: Particularly in {{spoiler|the first book, ''Legion of the Damned''}}.

* [[Cool Pet]]: Porta has a habit of adopting animals as unit mascots -- ranging from Stalin the cat to Ulrich, a 'friendly' black panther who gives everyone heart attacks.

* [[Cunning Linguist]]: Porta's magical ability to communicate with anyone they come across has saved their skins on several occasions, especially when they unexpectedly encounter enemy soldiers while [[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]]. In a subversion of the trope Porta's Russian is actually atrocious, but as the Soviet army had a large number of minorities who spoke little or no Russian this doesn't seem unusual.

* [[Depraved Dentist]]: Porta and Tiny both collect gold teeth from dead soldiers.

* [[Dirty Communists]]: A lot of the action takes place in the USSR during [[Josef Stalin]]'s reign, and the Soviets are portrayed as being just as evil as the Nazis themselves.

* [[Ensign Newbie]]: Any time a young, inexperienced lieutenant is mentioned, you know he might as well be wearing a [[Red Shirt]].

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Several times the heroes find out about things that other Germans, or the Soviets, have done that repulse even these hardened killers. When they get a chance to show their disapproval in concrete form, it gets...messy.

* [[A Father to His Men]]: Oberst Hinka (commanding officer of 27th Panzer), Lt Ohlsen, and of course The Old Un.

* [[Freudian Excuse]]: When we find out about {{spoiler|Julius Heide's}} home life and background, or {{spoiler|Tiny gets a letter from home hoping he'll die soon so that his mother can collect on the government insurance on him}}, it's hard [[Tear Jerker|not to feel sorry for them]], even though one is a [[Jerkass]] and the other is often a bully.

* [[Military Maverick]] / [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: The penal soldiers often fit this trope in various ways, as do some of the people they meet.

* [[Mood Whiplash]]: Drunken parties are often interrupted by the enemy attacking and the celebrants suddenly dying in brutal ways.

* [[Nazi Germany]]: Who they're ostensibly fighting for, no matter how unenthusiastic or cynical they are about the cause.

* [[Nice Hat]]: Porta's top hat and Tiny's grey bowler.

* [[Obligatory War Crime Scene]]: At some times, the heroes come across things that even they find repulsive.

** An aversion of this trope actually, because ''everyone'' commits atrocities in these novels (even on the Western front), rather than one obligatory war crime scene to avert accusations the creator is “glorifying war”.

* [[Playing Possum]]: Veteran soldiers never pass an enemy corpse without putting a bullet in it.

* [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil]]: Hassel clearly states that the soldiers he serves with have commited rape, although (no doubt because the author realises it would be crossing the [[Moral Event Horizon]] for most readers) we never actually see it committed by the main characters. Instead the Old Un averts Tiny's attempts to molest any woman they come across.

* [[Rasputinian Death]]: Whenever Porta et al decide to murder someone as a result of their black market activities, there invariably follows an entire chapter of bungled attempts which end in the victim either dying by accident or just going insane.

* [[Royal We]]: Gregor Martin always describes his [[The Nameless|unnamed]] [[General Ripper]] this way (e.g. "my general and our monocle") right up to the moment the general commits suicide ("And then we shot ourselves!") after which he's described normally.

* [[Shot At Dawn]]: 2 Section carries out several executions, including one in which they're forced to shoot the only general they've come to respect.

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: ''SS General'', ''Court Martial'' and ''Assignment Gestapo'', in which dedicated officers end up being executed -- usually after long periods of mistreatment in prison -- for refusing to throw away their soldiers' lives in a meaningless [[Last Stand]].

* [[The Spartan Way]]: In ‘'Monte Cassino’' 27th Panzer is commanded by Major Mike Braun, a German-American ex-US Marine.

Then began one of Mike's usual exercises. We hated him because of them, but they made us hard and inhuman. If you are to be a good soldier, you have to be able to hate. You have to kill a man as if he were a louse. }}

* [[Talkative Loon]]: Porta loves to entertain his friends and confuse officers with tall stories that ramble on for ages. He also has an annoying habit of babbling on about the best way to prepare meals when his companions are starving.

* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]: The horror and stupidity of the Nazi regime is shown in full force.

* [[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]]: Happens often -- either because they're sent on a <s>suicide</s> commando mission, overrun by the enemy during a <s>retreat</s> strategic withdrawal, or just get lost.

* [[War Is Hell]]: This is taken [[Up to Eleven]]; the Geneva Conventions and laws of warfare are treated as dead letters by both sides, and torture and murder of prisoners happens repeatedly.

* [[World War II]]: The setting. At various times, the heroes are on nearly every front on which the Germans fought, save only North Africa. (And they would have got there too, had their ship not been torpedoed). Sometimes they're on two different fronts hundreds of miles apart. [[Did Not Do the Research|At the same time]].

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[[Category:Sven Hassel]]