History Creator / SvenHassel

* NiceHat: Porta's top hat and Tiny's grey bowler.

* SuperStrength: Tiny has [[WordOfGod by author description]] the physical strength of a bear, but even so, they claim in ''Liquidate Paris!'' [[UpToEleven he throws a hand grenade 118 meters away]] and Sven follows with an 110 meter throw. The average German soldier could throw a stick grenade between 27 to 37 metres.

* WarIsHell: This is taken UpToEleven; the Geneva Conventions and laws of warfare are treated as dead letters by both sides, and torture and murder of prisoners happens repeatedly.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: Averted 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”.

* FreudianExcuse: When we find out about Julius Heide's home life and background, or 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 [[{{Tearjerker}} not to feel sorry for them, even though one is a Nazi JerkAss and the other is often a bully.

* WilliamTelling: In ''Monte Cassino'', Porta takes up shooting at the Americans with a bow and arrow, and adopts the name Red Flame (for his red hair) after killing eight officers in two days. An Alaskan sergeant[[note]]The few Alaskan recruits served in either Pacific or their native state, all Native American troops on the Italian Front were form Western and Midwestern states[[/note]] takes offense and challenges Porta to shoot a forage cap that he places on top of his helmet. If he misses, he and the other Native Americans in the unit will hunt Porta down and castrate him. Porta makes the shot successfully and is acclaimed by both sides, until their commanding officer turns up and angrily orders everyone to get back to fighting the war.

* WilliamTelling: In ''Monte Cassino'', Porta takes up shooting at the Americans with a bow and arrow, and adopts the name Red Flame (for his red hair) after killing eight officers in two days. An Alaskan sergeant takes offense and challenges Porta to shoot a forage cap that he places on top of his helmet. If he misses, he and the other Native Americans in the unit will hunt Porta down and castrate him. Porta makes the shot successfully and is acclaimed by both sides, until their commanding officer turns up and angrily orders everyone to get back to fighting the war.

* FreudianExcuse: 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 [[{{Tearjerker}} not to feel sorry for them]], even though one is a JerkAss and the other is often a bully.

* GotVolunteered: This happens several times, once taking the soldiers all the way to [[spoiler:Moscow on a commando mission]].

** ContinuityReboot: Their [[ColonelBadass brave regimental commander]] Hinka is a Lt.Colonel and then a Colonel during the Eastern Front fighting, then a Major during fighting in France as of 1944 during ''Liquidate Paris!''. Also, the time when [[HandicappedBadass he lost his arm in combat]] varies and the arm changes from left to right and back.

* {{Retcon}}: In ''Comrades Of War'', 'Barcelona' Blom is said (after his death) to be a fraud who invented the whole Spanish story and learnt Spanish by himself. However in ''Liquidate Paris'', Blom encounters a former communist he knew from the Spanish Civil War hiding out as a Gestapo agent.

* 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.

** There was no [="OGPU"=] to speak of at the moment when ''OGPU Prison'' is set (second war winter on Soviet ground), as the [[{{StateSec}} OGPU]] had been absorbed into the [[=NKVD=]] (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) in mid-1934.

* AnachronismStew: During some night skirmish in the snow, Sven throws a grenade at a Soviet soldier and captures a "Kalashnikov gun" from the dead man. The first Kalashnikov guns got distributed to the troops only in 1949. During mid-war years, Mikhail Kalashnikov was just a [=NCO=], freshly released from hospital in early 1942 and not yet fit for duty.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: 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”.

* SuperStrength: Tiny has [[WordOfGod by author description]] the physical strength of a bear, but even so, they claim in ''Liquidate Paris!'' [[UpToEleven he throws a hand grenade 118 meters away]] and Sven follows with an 110 meter throw. The strongest modern troopers can barely throw above 30 m.

* Julius Heide -- A fanatical Nazi from a deprived background, obsessed with regulations and determined to advance through the ranks. Despised by the others, yet very much a member of their circle.

** RightForTheWrongReasons: What sets Hassel apart from the official versions of WordWarTwo war crime narratives. Usually politicized history shifts the blame for the crimes towards the opposite side: for the Soviets, "Fascist cruelty", while for the Nazis were "Asiatic barbarians" and, for the modern West, "Nazis who coerced their troopers into most inhumane acts". Every since his first published novel in the 1950s, Sven Hassel saw the entire Eastern Front and a lot of places of the Western one as a WretchedHive, where most of those involved, from ordinary rifleman to General, didn't shy away from robbery, murder, rape, torture, or all of them together.

** ContinuityReboot: Their [[ColonelBadass brave regimental commander]] Hinka is a Lt.Colonel and then a Colonel during the Eastern Front fighting, then a Major during fighting in France as of 1944 during ''Liquidate Paris!''. Also, the time when [[HandicappedBadass he lost his arm in combat]] varies and the arm changes from left to right and back.

** AnachronismStew: During some night skirmish in the snow, Sven throws a grenade at a Soviet soldier and captures a "Kalashnikov gun" from the dead man. The first Kalashnikov guns got distributed to the troops only in 1949. During mid-war years, Mikhail Kalashnikov was just a [=NCO=], freshly released from hospital in early 1942 and not yet fit for duty.

** ContinuityReboot: Their [[colonelBadass brave regimental commander]] Hinka is a Lt.Colonel and then a Colonel during the Eastern Front fighting, then a Major during fighting in France as of 1944 during ''Liquidate Paris!''. Also, the time when [[HandicappedBadass he lost his arm in combat]] varies and the arm changes from left to right and back.