Talk:Der Landser

I wouldn´t agree with you´re claiming the popular LANDSER-series to be "pulp". It rather comes under the Dime Novel label. You may be right when you say the LANDSER is not focussing so much on war crimes and politics. But then it is equally circumnavigating Allied war crimes. There would be a lot to say about Russian atrocities or carpet bombings. The LANDSER is more of a lookalike of the BBC-People´s War with a touch of the once successfull Sven Hasell books.


 * The description as pulp was taken from external sources. I guess one could make an argument in which of related literature types it fits best. However following the description in Pulp magazine I would classify it as pulp as well. Comparing it to a BBC production strikes me somewhat absurd frankly speaking. The Landser is far shot from main stream war coverage or entertainment, but its mostly rooted in the right fringe (regardings its content, authors and readership).--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:10, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

BBC´s `People´s War´ relates war memories from all branches of service as well as from civilians that lived through that period. And so does the LANDSER. For someone being "rooted" in the left "fringe" this may certainly have a rightist tinting, not to the unbiased reader at any rate. The LANDSER is by no means more jingoistic than anything you´ll find with American or English booksellers, lest other media. As to true authentic detail it certainly has an edge over a lot that is published elsewhere. I highly recommend it to those who read German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.238.46.211 (talk) 17:35, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I can't claim to know much about the "Landser", but the following things are clear. 1. It's pulp, though the German tradition is to put the pulp into little booklets ("Heftchen"), not magazines. 2. It's decried as Nazi, but when you look at the given reasonings, this is mostly by "what it leaves away", not what it says: which itself seems to imply that it doesn't propagate actual Nazism. 4. The statement at the beginning of the booklet, "we hate war, and for this reason people must know how it was like which is to say, ..." is obvious lip-service and understood by all the involved as just that. It's a war pulp fiction which doesn't make any effort to be anti-war, and with narrators on the German side of World War II. Probably not worse than that but certainly that.
 * The German wikipedia has this interpretation, which, though it is intended to be negative in its intent, seems rather accurate in its content:
 * The plot is trivial: the good side*, the Germans and their partners, fights against the bad side*, the Allied, in most cases against "Iwan"**, and there's a happy ending. In the end the good side* wins, and in the few cases where the Germans lose***, they do so honorably, gallantly and bravely, often expressed by the authors having them praised for their courage and bravery by the opposing protagonists. If the German side wins, then because of tactical skill, superior manner of fighting or glorious heroic acts of individuals (oftentimes Knight's Cross recipients) and a lot of secondary virtues**** which Landser often ascribes to German soldiers but rarely to representants of other armies. If the Germans lose, then only because of material or personal superiority of the enemy, because of the enemy's unfair manner of fighting, because of bad weather, because of wrong military decisions given far away from the front, or because it simply was fate.***** War is seen as an adventure, sometimes funny and ironic, sometimes dangerous, occasionally deadly; but it remains possible to survive the adventure happily and unscathered. The aim of the war (whose reasons are not questioned any further) is the victory of the German Armed Forces, a view of the war ascribed in Landser to the common soldiers.
 * [*This is interpretation of an unfriendly critic, of course. The factual content is that it's about a fight of German vs. Allied, full-stop.
 * **Iwan: German expression for the Russian enemies, like "Tommy" for the British, "Ami" for the American or on the other side "Jerry" for the Germans.
 * ***So, sometimes they do lose.
 * ****The word, from a German discussion, while meaning something "good but secondarily so", discipline, cleanliness, on-time-ness and the like, has the undertone of something genuinely bad and under suspicion.
 * *****Which, of course, is a rather diverse accumulation of reasons for a defeat.]
 * Whether that would be so bad is a matter of opinion. (I myself, as I guess has been clear, though I don't read them, wouldn't consider this as reasons not to do so. After all, just the same could be said about the movie Das Boot which I do like - a simple matter of supposed literary quality.)--2001:A61:260C:C01:F4B5:7A80:21F7:E6F6 (talk) 14:20, 17 March 2018 (UTC)


 * "I can't claim to know much about the "Landser" So you admit that you don't know what you talk about. Nevertheless you feel called to give us a lengthy evaluation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:DA:972A:2427:498:6BF0:A517:497F (talk) 23:48, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I do not admit that I "don't know what I'm talking about". I admitted (and still admit) that I didn't and don't know much about the general topic. "not much" and "nothing" are two different pairs of shoes, as we say in Germany. And that's enough to state that the statements "it's pulp" and "it's Nazi" are two entirely different ones, with the first being obvious truth, and the second at best a largely unproven suspicion.
 * Besides, of course a comment will become longer if one aims, not just to put a statement into the world, but actually substantiating an argument - based, if you insist, of course on the things one does know - such as to actually read the reasons critics themselves give for their qualification as Nazi. If you also insist, the "this is obvious lip-service" concerning the regular, purportedly pacifist, introductory statement - I admit that I did not substantiate that -, is one of the things I actually do know (as a German and a discharged soldier). (The same:)--2001:A61:260C:C01:D42B:EA10:7E72:6062 (talk) 21:11, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I strongly discourage copying/translating the German article on "Der Landser", it's clearly ideologically driven against the publication by people have not read even one Landser-booklet. What they lament is the lack of atrocity stories and disparaging of the Wehrmacht, Germany and it's institutions at the time. "Der Landser" is merely war stories many by former German soldiers. It compares to similar publications focusing on war experiences of Allied soldiers. --105.4.4.21 (talk) 18:42, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Rank and number
The definition given is wrong ! The word LANDSER is derived from the "Landsturm",which in the days of the Kaiser were Army territorials. A member of the "Landsturm" was called a "Landstuermer", an ( elderly ) Army reservist. In the Wehrmacht it was shortened to LANDSER and became a homonym for servicemen in general. LANDSER doesn´t refer to any specific rank e.g. "common soldier". It rather reflects our "Trooper", "Grunt", "G.I." or "Tommy". In our days we might call this man a "Squaddie".

While doing research on Saint-Exupéry I met B. K. Jochim, the founder of the excellent LANDSER series. He was a former NCO and fighter pilot with half a dozen kills to his credit. By no means was he a "war gloryfyig" individual, but a matter of fact man of soft-spoken demeanour. He sadly passed away in 2002.

This item is a short version taken from the German W-pedia. The sole purpose of it is to discredit the LANDSER series, which is held in high esteem by Wehrmacht veterans. As a side effect the authors want to quote from their own stuff and cross reference, to make their German version look more serious. The ideologically biased group behind it contends the LANDSER was a Nazi-publication. To prove their claims they quote a lot of bogus material from leftwing Unions to Ban the Bomb movements. Sorry chaps ! This is not Germany, so it won´t work here !

The LANDSER series tries to depict a frontline soldier´s everyday life during WWII. The early issues were all written by former Wehrmacht and W-SS personnel. More recent ones outline the mil. operations of the conflict and focus on uniform, equipment - the lot. All in all the LANDSER is a valuable source of information for military buffs and amateur historians alike.H.B. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.238.58.131 (talk) 12:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)


 * When I was in the military, the word Landser was used (if rarely) for what were officially Mannschaften but never for NCOs. (I'm using the German word because the English word "enlisted" comprises Mannschaften and NCOs; such a category does not exist in Germany - NCOs are as different from Mannschaften as they are from officers.) In this the series was by the way inaccurate; it features, I hear, mostly Staff Sergeants, Lieutenants and so forth as protagonists, commanding a squad or so of men - not an undistinguised member of such a squad. That would have been a real Landser.--2001:A61:260C:C01:F4B5:7A80:21F7:E6F6 (talk) 14:20, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

In other languages?
I know that they translated at least some issues for selling them in England. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.23.103.121 (talk) 11:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)