JF Ptak Science Books Overall Post 5142
Earlier today I catalogued a small tri-folding World War I-related leaflet printed in 1936 and emblazoned Krieg!!! The cover is striking, partly because in addition to the graphics it also shows something being blown-up in real time, which was a pretty uncommon thing to make a photograph of in WWI. It turns out that this little six-page pamphlet was a collection of eight book reviews written by German military about the war. And it wound up being surprising—to me, at least—because most of the reviews seemed as evocative as the cover art.
A number of the reviews were surprising to me because, in some way, they seemed to be a little on the unglory of war and the suffering—not anything like Johnny Got His Gun, or All Quiet on the Western Front, but different and diffident enough to make an impression. For as short as this work is there's a fair amount of discussion of the horrors of war as experienced and then shared by both sides.
For example, in a review for Verdun-Souville, by Hermann Thimmermann, we find the work described as "A factual report based on the notes of an officer from the Bavarian Infantry Regiment, the regiment that advanced the furthest against Verdun in the bitter struggle in 1916...he stumbles again over the shot-up field and through the corpse-staring gorges of the bulwark...and once again experiences the whole horror of these days. Barrage! Flamethrower! Gas! It was no longer a war - it was planned annihilation. Comradeship alone keeps the fighters in this hell upright and even blurs the relationship between enemy and enemy...Not only we Germans, but also the fighters from the other side will read this factual report with the same emotion. A book that has an infinite amount to say to the young generation from here and there, which should also be read in schools in Germany and France, because it has a power to reconcile people!"
Perhaps this was not unusual to post-WWI German renditions of the war, but to my experience it certainly seemed so, especially three years into Hitler's Germany.
Here's part of the review for Sowar eine Schlacht vor Verdun, by Franz von Epp, former commander of the Leibregiment: "What countless regiments and hundreds of thousands of those doomed to death had to experience and overcome in these months is poetically told in this book ...This book will have to be counted among the most valuable poetic documents of the world war."--Volkischer Beobachter And: "An excerpt from the battle that only a few were able to reproduce with such realism and such shocking urgency." Der Lieber, Munich.
Of particular and unusual interest is a "lost patrol" story in the review for The Forgotten, by Adolf Treib: "Notes from a fellow combatant from the German campaign in Palestine in 1918. A patrol of 14 German soldiers missed the connection with their retreating battalion and made their way through Palestine on their own. Chased by Bedouins and shot at from ambush, robbed by fanatical natives and chased like wild animals, they and their guide withstand all suffering and hardships and refrain from giving themselves prisoner to the English. Half starved and dying of thirst, the German rearguard found them at the last minute." and continuing: "From every line of this book speaks the high price song of the leader idea, which is powerfully anchored in the soldiers at the front...Shattering to read! German history will keep a loyal memory of these forgotten people." - Völkische Beobachter
That said, there are some glories celebrated here, particularly for the book Jagd in Flanderns Himmel, which is mostly about German aviation, where Himmler and Goering shower the book with praise “I have seldom enjoyed reading a war book as much as this one. The hero song of the fighter squadron, whose last commander was our party comrade Goering, is another reminder to all of us that in the end, loyal and brave hearts always win" wrote Himmler. Goering heaps praise as well, concluding "Whoever reads this book with awe and proud emotion believes in eternal Germany".
In any event, this is an interesting document, and I've reproduced it all, below, if you'd like to see it for yourself.
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