Soldier X

Soldier X is a 2001 young adult war drama novel by Don L. Wulffson. Wulffson is known primarily for his work in children’s literature; he has authored historical books, like Before Columbus: Early Voyages to the Americas and The Upside Down Ship, and collections of horror stories and mysteries for children. Soldier X was reportedly inspired by his interaction with a World War II veteran and is based on a true story, although the specifics of this soldier’s life are otherwise unknown. Soldier X focuses on X, or Erik Brandt, a German-Russian boy drafted into the German army’s Eastern front during the last years of World War II. After a brutal assault from the Russian army, he disguises himself as a Russian soldier to survive and recovers in a Russian hospital before fleeing to safety and peace with Russian nurse Tamara. The book examines the brutal realities and horrors of World War II, using issues of identity and nationality to unravel the ultimate meaninglessness and cruelty of war. Soldier X shares many similarities with other young adult novels dealing with World War II, like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and The Librarian of Auschwitz, including an emphasis on realism and harshness. Despite being fiction, it recreates the memoir feel of books like The Endless Steppe to immerse the reader in the day-to-day life of a teenager trying to survive. Soldier X won the Christopher Award and was a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book and ALA Best Book for Young Adults.

This book uses the 2003 Speak paperback, the 30th printing of the novel.

Content Warning: This book contains antisemitism, graphic violence, and gore.

Plot Summary

The narrator, Erik Brandt, explains that he prefers to go by X, a name that reminds him of his experiences as a soldier in World War II. As an adult, he works as a teacher, where most of his students assume he fought for America when he actually fought for Germany—a truth he is only just now telling in this novel.

In the past, X rides on a crowded military train on his 16th birthday to the German eastern front, wearing a repurposed, bloodstained uniform. X, a half-Russian, half-German boy, has grown up fearing that the German state would kill or deport his family if his heritage were revealed; as a result, he joined the Hitler Youth to avoid suspicion. While he once wanted to be a soldier, it now fills him with dread. On the train, X meets and gets to know several boys, including Jakob and Oskar, and witnesses the destruction and horrors of war in the cities the train passes through. At their first stop in Poland, the soldiers are fed by imprisoned, starving Jews.

The soldiers reform into platoons; X and his friends are placed under the command of a heavily scarred man named Dobelmann, who was mutilated by a grenade explosion. The platoon is tasked with delivering supplies to the front. The trucks are shot at by Russian airplanes that kill several and wound others. X meets Hals when he digs shrapnel out of the latter’s scalp; Hals hangs the shrapnel around his own neck, and they become friends. When they reach the next town, partisans attack, and they shoot them, even though most are children.

The soldiers continue to trek toward Tarnapol, despite the risks, and rest in a bunker, where they learn that soldiers eat rat meat for nourishment. The soldiers are grim, bitter, and mocking, and they consider anyone who dies quickly to be blessed. X and his friends perform backbreaking work; because he knows Russian, X is tapped to interrogate Russian prisoners for information but only learns that the Russian assault is coming “soon.” Eventually, X and his platoon are sent to the front-line trenches to replace a different group.

The Russian assault begins, and many of X’s fellow soldiers die, including Hals, which traumatizes X. The tanks approach, and X gets speared with shrapnel through the knee. When he wakes up, the Russians are systematically combing the trenches and killing German survivors; thinking quickly, he swaps his clothes with a nearby blond Russian corpse and pretends to be a Russian survivor. The Russian soldiers take him for medical treatment to a hospital in Alreni, where he meets a man in casts from the waist down named Nikolai.

X pretends to have amnesia to survive; the nurse gives him his name from his paperwork, Aleksandr, but Nikolai names him X when he says that he hates the name. He befriends others around the hospital as he recovers, including fellow soldiers Mikhos and Boris and the nurses, particularly a teenager named Tamara. The conditions in the hospital are rough and often disturbing; X witnesses a fully paralyzed man sobbing and refusing a medal of honor due to trauma and helps Nikolai adapt when his legs develop gangrene and must be amputated. He grows closer to Tamara, whom he has a crush on, but is discouraged when he sees her with her brother, whom he assumes is her boyfriend.

As X recovers, he becomes an orderly at the Russian hospital, avoiding being sent back to the front. Tamara’s brother dies after three weeks at war, deeply saddening her; X grows closer to her after learning the truth. One day, while hauling boiling water, he spills the water on his arm and curses in German in front of Tamara, revealing his secret. She does not turn him in, but their relationship grows tense. Soon after, the Germans attack Alreni, and X narrowly escapes into the burning woods with Tamara and disabled veteran Sergo, leaving many of their loved ones dead in the aftermath. The trio survives in the wilderness as they travel, rejected by civilians and avoiding the German soldiers scattered across the landscape. X, with no true allegiance, must avoid both Russians and Germans. German soldiers attack them, and Sergo is separated from them, but Tamara and X continue, with X finally sharing the whole truth about his past with her.

Tamara and X travel through the devastated landscape of Eastern Europe. Tamara’s health worsens due to starvation and exposure, and X, against his better judgment, decides to stop at a town to get her medical care. They meet a kind old woman named Elena Novak, who lost her son, the mayor, to an execution when he refused to cooperate with the invading Germans. She gives them medical care, baths, and fresh clothes, and they stay with her in her rundown mansion for a while. While recovering, X and Tamara share their first kiss.

Eventually, the Germans are routed and return to the town, forcing Tamara and X to flee. They take Elena’s car, but the car is eventually stolen by two men at gunpoint, forcing them to walk to Grdnov. Grdnov is overrun by refugees and soldiers; X and Tamara choose to help in a hospital, which earns them a place on the one train departing for Berlin. The military abandons the civilians and uses the train exclusively for themselves, starting a riot as they depart. Tamara and X disembark and escape for the American army to the southwest.

The duo reaches a deserted town and attempts to find shelter but is attacked by American soldiers, who shoot X in the face and in the arm with a machine gun. X believes Tamara is killed in the gunfire and is hauled off shrieking by the soldiers. He wakes up with his arm amputated and a bullet wound through his cheek; he learns Tamara survived but is too ashamed and horrified by his appearance and experiences to allow her to see him. He wishes for death until he gets a letter from his mother, who tells him that his grieving grandfather wants to live again now that they know he is alive. Tamara eventually finds him in the garden and insists that she loves him, and they kiss while he cries.

X marries Tamara eventually and moves to America after the end of the war, where he becomes a teacher; they have three children named Nikolai, Hals, and Katerina. He and Tamara are now retired, and she encouraged him to write the book and tell the story regardless of how difficult it was to tell and relive.