He and his family (now with three small children) left Alsace on 14 November 1918 with the hospital staff and patients, reaching Berlin several days later. In March 1919 he witnessed the savage repression of the uprising in Lichtenberg, the eastern Berlin district where he had settled; his sister Meta was killed by grenade shrapnel as she fetched milk for her children. His essay On Cannibalism reveals his anger at both the ineptitude of the insurgents and the callousness of the Social Democrat Minister of War, Noske.
Citizens and Soldiers, the self-contained first volume of November 1918: A German Revolution, presents a vivid panorama of fictional and real individuals, scenes and events over a chaotic two weeks. It was published in Amsterdam and Stockholm in October 1939, shortly after Britain and France declared war on Germany. Unsurprisingly it had little chance to circulate.
During his exile years in California (1940-45), Dblin completed the remaining parts of what became the longest of his nine epic novels. When in 1947 the question arose of publishing the entire work in Germany, the French Occupation Authority (in which Dblin was serving as Public Education Officer) vetoed Citizens & Soldiers because of sensitivities about the status of Alsace-Lorraine, main location of the novel's action.
November 1918 A German Revolution therefore appeared as three volumes successively in autumn 1948, spring 1949 and spring 1950. This truncated edition was the basis for an incomplete English translation in the 1980s. In Germany, a complete edition appeared only in 1978, two decades after Dblin's death, enabling for the first time a proper evaluation of what is now seen as one of Dblin's most impressive achievements. It is high time that English readers too should have access to the missing first volume: Citizens & Soldiers.
He and his family (now with three small children) left Alsace on 14 November 1918 with the hospital staff and patients, reaching Berlin several days later. In March 1919 he witnessed the savage repression of the uprising in Lichtenberg, the eastern Berlin district where he had settled; his sister Meta was killed by grenade shrapnel as she fetched milk for her children. His essay On Cannibalism reveals his anger at both the ineptitude of the insurgents and the callousness of the Social Democrat Minister of War, Noske.
Citizens and Soldiers, the self-contained first volume of November 1918: A German Revolution, presents a vivid panorama of fictional and real individuals, scenes and events over a chaotic two weeks. It was published in Amsterdam and Stockholm in October 1939, shortly after Britain and France declared war on Germany. Unsurprisingly it had little chance to circulate.
During his exile years in California (1940-45), Dblin completed the remaining parts of what became the longest of his nine epic novels. When in 1947 the question arose of publishing the entire work in Germany, the French Occupation Authority (in which Dblin was serving as Public Education Officer) vetoed Citizens & Soldiers because of sensitivities about the status of Alsace-Lorraine, main location of the novel's action.
November 1918 A German Revolution therefore appeared as three volumes successively in autumn 1948, spring 1949 and spring 1950. This truncated edition was the basis for an incomplete English translation in the 1980s. In Germany, a complete edition appeared only in 1978, two decades after Dblin's death, enabling for the first time a proper evaluation of what is now seen as one of Dblin's most impressive achievements. It is high time that English readers too should have access to the missing first volume: Citizens & Soldiers.
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