Line #50 Creator/SvenHassel


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pg_54_hassel_rex.jpg]]
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3	Sven Hassel (real name Børge Willy Redsted Pedersen, 19 April 1917 – 21 September 2012) was a Danish author of fourteen UsefulNotes/WorldWarII novels based around the experiences (both tragic and comedic) of [[TheSquad 2 Section]] -- a unit of the 27th Penal Panzer Regiment, made up of court-martialed soldiers and former inmates of concentration camps and prisons, conscripted as expendable CannonFodder for the Nazi cause.
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5	The novels are ostensibly told from the point-of-view of the author, though some chapters are in third-person and cover other characters. Sven Hassel claims to have based them on his service in the Wehrmacht, during which he served on every front except North Africa. A journalist however claimed Hassel spent the war entirely in Denmark as a member of a collaborationist police unit, and his stories are based on conversations with ex-Dutch SS soldiers thrown into prison with him afterwards. Certainly his novels are not taken seriously by historians, containing many inconsistencies and exaggerations. Nevertheless with their unstinting mix of action, horror and BlackComedy they have proved quite popular, being translated into eighteen languages.
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7	Although the members of 2 Section vary from novel to novel, the main characters tend to be:
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9	* 'The Old Un' or ‘Old Man’ (Feldwebel[[note]]later Oberfeldwebel - he brags about his rank only once, in ''OGPU Prison'', when a policeman admonishes him upon entrance to a tavern-brothel[[/note]] Willie Beier) -- Former carpenter and dedicated family man. He is the leader of 2 Section and respected by both officers and men, though the antics of his section frequently drive him to frustration.
10	* Obergefreiter Joseph Porta -- A cheeky Berliner with a tendency to engage in rambling tales of doubtful truth. An expert [[TheScrounger scrounger]], tank driver and cook; he can talk his way around anyone and has a knack for getting along with the locals regardless of language and cultural barriers. Often engaged in [[FriendInTheBlackMarket black market activities]], either in opposition or collusion with his rival, Chief Mechanic Wolf.
11	* 'Tiny' or ‘Little John’ (Obergefreiter Wolfgang Creutzfeldt) -- A huge strong brute who enjoys rape and killing with his bare hands, yet is childlike and [[DumbMuscle stupid]]. Can fly into rage with dangerous yet comedic results.
12	* "The Legionnaire" or "The Desert Rambler" (Corporal Alfred Kalb) -- Ex-member of the French Foreign Legion, for which he was imprisoned and later [[GroinAttack castrated by a camp commandant]]. He is a cold, cynical veteran with great skill in the use of his throwing knife.
13	* 'Barcelona' Blom -- A veteran of the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar, in which he fought for both sides. Carries a dried-up orange in his pocket as a reminder of Spain.
14	* Julius Heide -- A fanatical Nazi from a deprived background, obsessed with regulations and determined to advance through the ranks. [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Despised by the others]], yet very much a member of their circle.
15	* Gregor Martin -- Former batman of an unnamed GeneralRipper, of whose antics he speaks quite fondly in long, reminiscent anecdotes.
16	* 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'' [[FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator Hassel tends to take the background in his novels]], seldom portraying himself as remarkable or heroic.
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18	!!The novels contain the following tropes:
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20	* AdaptationDistillation: A large number of modern illustrators would depict the characters in the coolest uniforms of the Reich, from the immaculate-black uniforms of the Panzertruppen to the dotted camouflage uniforms of the post-1943 [[{{BadassArmy}} Waffen-SS]]. Even as the author strives himself to convince how ragged they were (justified, as a penal unit got the scraps of everything).
21	* AnyoneCanDie: Particularly in [[spoiler:the first book, ''Legion of the Damned'']].
22	* AllDevouringBlackHoleLoanSharks: Porta is an "80% man" (e.g. he loans money at 80% interest). Failure to pay up is unwise.
23	* AnachronismStew:
24	** 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.
25	** 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.
26	* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Most people with a bit of historical knowledge quickly point out hundreds of absurdities in matters of tactics and weaponry throughout the books. Some of these errors may be down to BlindIdiotTranslation (see below).
27	** The whole idea of a penal Panzer Regiment in an army desperately short of armour. While often without a tank to its name, on other occasions 27th Panzer has been equipped with rare Panthers and Tigers and even [=SdKfz=] 234 "Puma", which were only allocated to elite Panzer divisions, not a unit that's supposed to be the dregs of the Wehrmacht.
28	** 2 Section runs into an English SS unit who have volunteered to fight on the Russian front. While there was such a unit, its size was minuscule and it was mainly used for propaganda.
29	** The bragging about having the most desirable military decorations in the Reich and from outside the Reich in a penal regiment (which usually got no awards at all, despite whatever heroism they might have shown on occasion). Julius Heide gets at one point the Order of the Black Eagle, which has not been awarded ever after 1918 and it was anyway a Prussian order which only the deceased [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany Emperor Wilhelm II]] could award.
30	** In ''OGPU Prison'', a guy set up to assassinate a mob boss [[UniversalAmmunition loads his captured Nagant revolver with ammo for a P-38 pistol]] and blows the gun [[{{Fingore}} and his fingers away]] at the first shot. None of the WWII German handgun rounds could even enter the chambers of a Nagant, no matter how hard one pushes.
31	** In ''Monte Cassino'', Major Mike Braun and some former acquaintances from the US Marine Corps exchange insults via radio and loudspeaker. There were no [=USMC=] units on the Italian front during the war.
32	** In ''Bloody Road To Death'', Chief-Mechanic Wolf's men place a S-Mine into the cesspit, whose explosion blows Tiny out through the outhouse's roof. S-Mines were specifically designed to fire shrapnel (ball bearings) around [[NightmareFuel and tear men's flesh]], not just detonate.
33	** In ''Comrades Of War'', former SS soldier Kraus got condemned to penal regiment for cowardice under fire. Later he is unmasked as a former torturer and executioner from Auschwitz-Birkenau and promptly killed. This happens during an anti-partisan patrol in Czechoslovakia during mid-war years. Birkenau only had begun mass killings by gas in March 1942, Waffen-SS troopers were sent to their own penal units, not those of the Army, the punishment for fleeing before enemy was usually execution after a drumhead court martial at the frontline.
34	** The RunningGag of threatening people [[FateWorseThanDeath to be sent to the Dirlewanger Brigade]] during mid-war years. There was no Brigade to speak of prior to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Sonderkommando Dirlewanger only had a few hundred men, poorly trained and ragged, who butchered civilians behind the frontlines and barely saw any proper fighting before late-1943.
35	* AsTheGoodBookSays: A RunningGag is Tiny trying to quote from his school bible studies and making a complete mess of it.
36	* BadassCrew: 2 Section definitely qualifies.
37	* BattleCry: The Legionaire’s “Viva la mort!” (Long live death!)
38	* {{Bears Are\|BadNews}} [[InvertedTrope Good News]]: Rasputin in ''The Bloody Road to Death'', a Russian bear that can drink beer and throw hand grenades. His death causes a HeroicBSOD on Porta's part. Rather [[{{Irony}} ironically]] based on the RealLife [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_%28soldier_bear%29 Wojtek]], who served for the ''other'' side in the war ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Armed_Forces_in_the_West Free Poles]], Nazis' sworn deadly enemies).
39	* BerserkButton: Do ''not'' sneer at the French Foreign Legion, or General de Gaulle, in front of the Little Legionnaire. While you're at it, making cracks about his castrated state is highly unwise. Tiny also has a tendency to flip out from time to time.
40	* BlackVikings: Stabsgefreiter Albert Mumbuto, a German Negro who's a member of 2 Section in ''O.G.P.U Prison'' and ''The Commissar''. While this can seem implausible to modern audiences it has to be remembered that from the late 1880s up to 1918 Imperial Germany had African colonies (Kamerun, Namibia, Tanganyka) and some Africans which served under the German flag emigrated to their "Vaterland" after WWI. Some married and had children, who happened to live and come to age under the Third Reich; there are historical accounts of some of these men reporting for draft duty and usually being rejected or posted to out-of-sight positions. Given Hassel's notorious inaccuracy is still hardly probable, but not completely unfeasible.
41	** There is [[https://img.uwants.com/attachments/day_160810/20160810_e48283c845a9dd4da280s7kRDsh0iEqk.jpg at least one photo circulating]] of a Black man in Heer uniform with Fallschirmjäger helmet.
42	* BlackAndGrayMorality
43	* BlindIdiotTranslation: The people translating the novels from Dutch, French or German etc are often unfamiliar with the military, leading to such howlers as grenades being fired from tank guns (German WWII terminology: ''Panzergranate'' = anti-tank shell) or "Tiny fired a burst from his revolver" (revolver = pistol = machine-pistol = submachine gun).
44	** The wicked ''Stabsfeldwebel'' Gustav Dürer is rendered in most editions as "Jern Gustav" to convey his nickname "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Iron Gustav]]". "Jern" is the Danish / Norwegian word for iron. German-speaking characters should have called him "Der eiserne Gustav" instead.
45	* BloodlessCarnage: Averted as plenty of characters die in gory, unheroic ways.
46	* BoxedCrook: The whole point of the penal regiments, which were TruthInTelevision in the Nazi and Soviet armies.
47	* CoffinContraband: In ''Liquidate Paris'', Two Section do this to smuggle a black-market pig across a guarded bridge in German-occupied Paris, in a scene that appears to have been plagiarized from ''Film/TheTripAcrossParis''.
48	* ContinuityReboot:
49	** 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.
50	** 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.
51	* CunningLinguist: 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 TrappedBehindEnemyLines. 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.
52	* CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon: Notable examples include "...where [[MosesInTheBullrushes Moses]] got his beer" (sent to Hell), "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:
53	-->"He's going round telling the world you're nothing but a cleaned-out rabbit's head, stuffed with sauerkraut, and if you're lucky enough to get back from the front he's going to see to it you get deported to a cowshit-stinking hole in South Bavaria where the entire population consists of village idiots!"
54	** The same person after surviving a murder attempt demands the man responsible be brought to him in 25 separate pieces, which he'll then feed through a mincer and sell as dog food, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking off the ration]].
55	* DepravedDentist: Porta and Tiny both collect gold teeth from dead soldiers.
56	* DieselPunk: Sometimes the story abandons the mask of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII realism and delves into Diesel Noir / Diesel Weird War, from the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraftian]] character of the Colonel who played cards each evening with Devil and Death (''Reign Of Hell''), through the dashing raid into the heart of the Soviet Union to steal a few tonnes of gold (''The Commissar'').
57	* DirtyCommunists: A lot of the action takes place in the USSR during UsefulNotes/JosefStalin's reign, and the Soviets are portrayed as being just as evil as the Nazis themselves.
58	* DrillSergeantNasty: Portrayed as sadists more interested in breaking men than turning them into good soldiers.
59	* DrivesLikeCrazy: Porta, whether driving a tank or the most powerful general in the army (fortunately General Burgdorf is more amused than alarmed).
60	* {{Epigraph}}: Each chapter begins with short prose, sometimes involving the main characters but usually an unrelated story or historical ancedote about the brutality of the Nazi or Soviet regimes.
61	* EnsignNewbie: Any time a young, inexperienced lieutenant is mentioned, you know he might as well be wearing a RedShirt.
62	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Several times the heroes find out about things that other Germans, or the Soviets, have done that repulse even these hardened killers. When they get a chance to show their disapproval in concrete form, it gets...messy.
63	* EvilVsEvil: A recurring theme. On the other side you have the bloodthirsty, barbarian, murderous DirtyCommunists, and the protagonists' side, [[ThoseWackyNazis oh well...]]
64	* AFatherToHisMen: Oberst Hinka (commanding officer of 27th Panzer), Lt Ohlsen, and of course The Old Un.
65	* 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.
66	* FriendlySniper: Porta's a crack shot and loves a chance to show off.
67	* TheFunInFuneral: The funeral of Gregor’s general is described as being "more like a battle course with all the trimmings!” The highlight was the coffin being dropped whilst carried up a muddy hill in the rain, and running down a load of Nazi bigwigs. The pallbearers are all [[ReassignedToAntarctica sent to the Russian Front]] for this cock-up.
68	* GeneralFailure / GeneralRipper: Most high-ranking officers are portrayed as either Nazi fanatics who consistently underestimate their "subhuman" opponents, or corrupt cynics willing to advance themselves [[WeHaveReserves at the cost of thousands of lives]].
69	* GermanicEfficiency: Inverted. The Nazi war machine is portrayed as [[FascistButInefficient incompetent and inefficient]], though 2 Section seem to manage quite a few OneSidedBattle moments.
70	* GloryHound: Several of the [=COs=] whom the 27th get fit this trope. Others like Hauptmanns’ Meier and von Pader are more TheNeidermeyer type, along with Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman.
71	* GotVolunteered: This happens several times, once taking the soldiers all the way to Moscow on a commando mission.
72	* IfYouDieICallYourStuff: In the Old Un's unit the possessions of a dead colleague always belong to his fellow soldiers, with wills being drawn up over particularly valued items. Sometimes a soldier near death will have his pistol removed, as it would only be stolen by a medical orderly, but as the soldier is often aware of this happening it only hastens his demise. In a (somewhat) more humorous example, Heide collapses after a fight and Tiny eagerly goes to salvage his gold teeth, but is so disappointed when Heide turns out to be still alive that he has to hand over everything in his pockets to avoid being beaten up.
73	* InsertGrenadeHere: The protagonists seldom have a panzerfaust or anti-tank gun when they need one. There are frequent references to tying bundles of hand grenades or Molotov cocktails together for this purpose.
74	** The standard German "potato-masher" hand grenade was in fact designed for this. Six grenade heads could be fitted to a complete seventh to make a single "supergrenade" - and there was an established drill for this purpose.
75	* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis: In the first novel ''Legion of the Damned'', Sven keeps saying he's going to write a book about everything they've gone through. His colleagues, having long since crossed the DespairEventHorizon, say that [[ItWillNeverCatchOn no-one will bother to read it]].
76	* KangarooCourt / HangingJudge: 'Special courts' in the field give hasty decisions condemning civilians of being partisans and German soldiers of being deserters, often just for being in the wrong place without proper papers. Also seen on UsefulNotes/TheHomeFront where those accused of 'cowardice' or 'defeatism' are judged by tribunals whose sentence has been decided in advance.
77	* KarmaHoudini: Heide, despite his fanatical Nazism, ended up a general in the East German army.
78	* LegionOfLostSouls: As members of a penal unit, the main characters get handed the dirtiest, most dangerous, most thankless tasks the army can find for them to do.
79	* TheMedic: Subverted in ''OGPU Prison''. A medical orderly robs the wounded, demands a huge bribe for getting Sven onto a hospital train and brutally kicks a crawling amputee out of his path. On an earlier occasion another orderly is shown abandoning a truckful of wounded and making off with a submachine gun and a Red Cross bandolier on each arm (knowing that at least ''some'' Russian soldiers won't shoot at him). Though 2 Section wishes the orderly a well-deserved death, Porta cynically comments: "[[KarmaHoudini That kind lives through any war]]."
80	* MildlyMilitary: Many of the soldiers are very indifferent to things like military courtesy. This does not mean that they are not very good at fighting, which is why their superiors often turn a blind eye.
81	* MilitaryMaverick / RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The penal soldiers often fit this trope in various ways, as do some of the people they meet.
82	* MoodWhiplash: Drunken parties are often interrupted by the enemy attacking and the celebrants suddenly dying in brutal ways.
83	* TheMovie: ''Wheels Of Terror'' (AKA ''The Misfit Brigade'') starring Creator/KeithSzarabajka as the Old Man, was made in 1988 with American actors. Has some good scenes, but not regarded by fans as having the quality of ''Film/CrossOfIron'' or ''Film/{{Stalingrad 1993}}''.
84	** Quite [[{{Irony}} appropriately]], their roughneck GeneralRipper who ends by UnfriendlyFire is played by [[Creator/OliverReed Oliver Reed]].
85	* ObfuscatingStupidity: Porta is a master at this. And while Tiny ''is'' stupid, he uses the technique quite successfully during his one-man war with Hauptmann von Pader in ''The Bloody Road to Death''.
86	* APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy: Food, sex and booze is naturally an obsession to soldiers deprived of all three, and the unit shamelessly indulge themselves in wasteful bacchanalias whenever they have the opportunity.
87	* PlayingPossum: This tactic is used so often that veteran soldiers never pass an enemy corpse without putting a bullet in it.
88	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Hassel clearly states that the soldiers he serves with have commited rape, although (no doubt because the author realises it would be crossing the MoralEventHorizon for most readers) we never actually see it committed by the main characters. Instead the Old Un averts Tiny's attempts to molest any woman they come across. Porta [[SarcasmMode kindly]] advises Tiny at first and the rest of the Section when they care to listen "doubtless, always the wise thing is to ''pay'' [[TheOldestProfession for your piece of female ass]]".
89	* RasputinianDeath: Whenever Porta et al decide to murder someone as a result of their black market activities, there invariably follows an entire chapter of bungled attempts which end in the victim either dying by accident or just going insane.
90	* RightHandAttackDog: Wolf's pair of wolfhounds which he uses for protection, and to eat those who annoy him.
91	* RoyalWe: Gregor Martin always describes his [[TheUnnamed unnamed]] GeneralRipper this way (e.g. "my general and our monocle") right up to the moment the general commits suicide ("And then we shot ourselves!") after which he's described normally.
92	* RunningGag:
93	** Tiny's (ironically, as the whole 2nd Section [[ThePigPen complains about his filth]]) favorite insult towards the Russians is "those who wipe their arseholes with sand".
94	* ScrewTheWarWerePartying: Sometimes the soldiers manage to get their hands on huge supplies of food and booze. The result is usually APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy.
95	* ShotAtDawn: 2 Section carries out several executions, including one in which they're forced to shoot the only general they've come to respect.
96	* ShootTheShaggyDog: ''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 LastStand.
97	* TheSpartanWay: In ‘'Monte Cassino’' 27th Panzer is commanded by Major Mike Braun, a German-American ex-US Marine.
98	-->He turned to Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman. "Two hours special drill in the river. Anyone who kills a comrade gets three weeks leave. Every tenth cartridge and every twentieth grenade will be live. I want to see at least one broken arm. Otherwise, four hours extra drill."
99	-->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.
100	* SuicideMission: Since Sven and his crew are part of a disciplinary battalion sent on the most dangerous of missions, this trope gets a lot of use.
101	* SuperStrength: Tiny has [[WordOfGod by author description]] the physical strength of a bear, but even so, they claim in ''Liquidate Paris!'' 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.
102	* TalkativeLoon: 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.
103	* TeamPet: Porta has a habit of adopting animals as unit mascots -- ranging from Stalin the cat to Ulrich, a 'friendly' black panther who gives everyone heart attacks.
104	* ThoseWackyNazis: The horror and stupidity of the Nazi regime is shown in full force.
105	* TrappedBehindEnemyLines: Happens often -- either because they're sent on a [[strike:suicide]] commando mission, overrun by the enemy during a 'strategic withdrawal', or just get lost.
106	* UnfriendlyFire: The movie actually ends with 2 Section gunning down their superiors, and it's the fate of several [[TheNeidermeyer Neidermeyer]] in the novels.
107	* WarIsHell: The Geneva Conventions and laws of warfare are treated as dead letters by both sides, and torture and murder of prisoners happens repeatedly.
108	** RightForTheWrongReasons: What sets Hassel apart from the official versions of WorldWarTwo 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.
109	* WellTrainedButInexperienced: Shows up a lot, featuring lots of raw recruits that are well-drilled in their weapons and tactics, but have zero experience when it comes to actual combat. Considering the chaotic and savage nature of the Eastern Front (where most of the novels take place), this can get them killed pretty quick. In contrast, the men of the 27th Penal Regiment were well-trained, but much of that training has long-since been replaced by improvisation, pragmatism, utter ruthlessness, and an innate familiarity with their enemy that means they can react to and even predict their movements.
110	* 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 from 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.
111	* ZergRush: Soviets. Also Germans.

Context Creator / SvenHassel