Things Hitler Never Knew

FORWARD, GUNNER ASCH! (368 pp.)-Hans Hellmut Kirs-Little, Brown ($3.95).

In Germany, it has seldom occurred to novelists that life in uniform is a laughing matter. But in 1954 a Prussian-born veteran of the Wehrmacht named Hans Hellmut Kirst wrote a book called Null-Acht-Fiinfzehn-the model number (0-8-15) of the Wehrmacht service pistol-which in Germany is a term roughly equivalent to G.I. The book snickered behind the officers' ramrod backs, put in a plea for the dignity of the individual in uniform, and demonstrated hilariously how a canny conscript like Gunner Asch could win at the old army game simply by hiding behind regulations. Old army pros denounced it, and the publisher's office was ransacked by hoodlums. But Gunner Asch became the talk of the land and Null-Acht-Funfzehn the bestselling novel of postwar West Germany.

Kirst's wry chronicle of the peacetime Wehrmacht was published in the U.S. as The Revolt of Gunner Asch (TIME, March 5). Forward, Gunner Asch! is sketched in the frame of the Russian front. But Author Kirst, who fought there, knows that a sense of the ridiculous is valid up to and including the front lines.

Sergeant Asch never liked the army in peacetime, and he likes it even less in war. He is no hero, but he is something even better: an intelligent man who does his duty superlatively well. His instinctive dislike of Hitler and his works makes him no less the friend of his artillery unit commander, who stubbornly insists that the Fuhrer is infallible. When a martinet from the rear comes to take over the troop, Asch has a field day that a G.I. of any nationality can appreciate. It is the old story of the parade-ground perfectionist who simply cannot grasp the fact that war is a dirty and even unmilitary business. When Captain Witterer fouls up an "according-to-plan" withdrawal, Asch simply ignores him and does his best to save the troop.

Forward, Gunner Asch! has its sententious anti-Hitlerism ("Yes, Lieutenant-a dishonorable war. Deliberately unleashed. Conducted with the methods of a pimp "), and a melodramatic love affair which features a class-C movie Russian Mata Hari who loves her German officer sincerely even as she betrays him. But its freewheeling candor is as engaging as it is un-Prussian. Even its most improbable episodes are edged with Soldier Kirst's knowledgeability, which consistently saves Novelist Kirst's neck.

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