Above is Sven Hassel's real name and is considered a fraud in his Danish homeland. Inventing an autobiography of lies, evasions and untruths Hassel wrote several books whose total sales were over 50 million. But, pulp fiction is at the centre of SS General, written during 1960. I first read this action book during 1974 when I was 10 years old. Then I hoped to find out the mentality of an SS General. SS General Augsberg wasn't based on a real person. And if one searched there was an Emile Augsberg who was at the centre of organising the concentration camps and einsatzgruppen in the Shoah of the Jews. Pedersen was a convicted criminal in Denmark and when he attempted to join the Waffen SS he was rejected for this reason. So, pulp fiction. The plot of this novel is fundamentally about Wehrmacht soldiers escaping Stalingrad back to their own German frontline. It's an entirely fictitious tale. There are plenty of gratuitous murders, deaths and killings. War is lawless, war crimes go unpunished. The retreat from Stalingrad is one of immense landscapes, a vast steppe. Very few other villages and towns. Some elements seem ludicrous such as evading bullets in a copse. 1974, I learnt very little about the SS General here. There are amusing gutteral moments. And a sense of the need to live by normal measures instead of killing enemies and deserters from the same army. I would only recommend this book should you enjoy pulp fiction and stories of incredible scenes taken from the disaster that the Second World War was. The vocabulary is demotic. The descriptions speak of terrible injuries and images of amputees and gangrene sufferers. Sven Hassel has been exposed as a story teller of fabrication and fakery. Action packed war scenes, strange moments. It isn't a witness to history, it isn't an historical novel. The pain and suffering of war is equalled by the remorseless weather and Winter encountered in Stalingrad. Pedersen wasn't in Stalingrad. The hand to hand fighting not being mentioned only points to Hassel's fiction. So here, there is no witness to history and SS General is a work of fiction, an invention. I recommend the reader seeks the works of Isaac Hahn, Eva Tischauer and Leon Greenman. And seek Stalingrad by Antony Beevor or consult authoritative DVDs about the battle.