German Literature and the First World War: The Anti-War Tradition

Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front remains the archetypal example of an anti-war novel, and one that has become synonymous with the Great War. Yet the tremendous and enduring popularity of Remarque’s work has to some extent eclipsed a plethora of other German anti-war writers. In order to provide a more rounded view, this volume offers a selection of essays published by Brian Murdoch over the past twenty years. A new introduction provides the context for the volume and survey recent developments in the subject, the essays that follow range broadly over the German anti-war literary tradition, telling us much about the shifting and contested nature of the war.