Sven Hassel: Difference between revisions

* [[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.

* [[Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon]]: Notable examples include "I'll pull your arsehole up over your ears", "I'll have you shaved with the big razor" (sentenced to decapitation), or the crowning one:

* [[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.

* [[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.