For some years now the books
of Sven Hassel - once traded feverishly in every playground across the UK - have been out of print everywhere except Finland. For kids of the 1970s, these luridly titled paperbacks (Legion Of The Damned, Blitzfreeze, SS General), with their even more lurid covers, were their first introduction to the horrors of war. Supposedly based on Sven's own wartime experiences, the books followed the misadventures of the 27th Penal Regiment - a motley collection of deserters, criminals and other undesirables - as they fought their way from France to Russia and back again.