Class 1902

This is an autobiographical novel of youth spent on the German home front during World War I. First published in Germany in 1928 as Jahrgang 1902, Glaeser's autobiographical novel centers on the experiences of the narrator, E., and his friends who come of age during the Great War but never know comb [...]
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This is an autobiographical novel of youth spent on the German home front during World War I. First published in Germany in 1928 as Jahrgang 1902, Glaeser's autobiographical novel centers on the experiences of the narrator, E., and his friends who come of age during the Great War but never know combat because the war ends before they can be drafted. Through their perspectives Glaeser provides glimpses into traumatic times on the German home front. Over the four years covered by the novel, E. witnesses the buildup and deployment of troops, the return of the wounded, deaths, hunger, and air raids. His own actions follow a quest for sexual experience and, moreover, the understanding of life he believes will come from such experience. As E. simultaneously spurns the onset of adulthood and yearns for the physical pleasures that might accompany such a transition, his life repeatedly intersects with the war, moving him in and out of dangers and eventually taking his girlfriend Anna from him before they can consummate their relationship.Through the vibrantly detailed episodes that make up the work, Glaeser gives a street-level vantage point on the sufferings of the German civilian population and shows the high cost of war even for those with no direct involvement in its outcome. Deemed "a damned good book" by Ernest Hemingway, Glaeser's work warrants reading today for its value as a historical document and as a novel of antiwar sentiments from a German perspective. In the new introduction to this edition, Kruse details the reception of the work against the historical backdrop of German novels of the era and the international rise of the antiwar genre in which the work participates.