The Way of Sacrifice [Opfergang]. [Translated by C.A. Macartney.]

Bookseller Notes

Scarce.The blurb announces the novel as 'the most devastating picture of the soul-shattering futility of modern war ever penned'. It was written in 1916 as a savage response to a request for a work propagandising the conflict in advance of the Battle of Verdun, and drew the ire of the authorities, whose attempts at suppression were undermined by the work's underground circulation among troops, before it was published in Berlin in 1919. The author, associated with the Expressionist movement (though the blurb here considers that 'his method is impressionistic'), also wrote poetry and drama, often with a similar focus on pacifism. As the Nazi Party came to power, Unruh left his homeland for France and then the US, only returning to Germany in the 1960s.[With:] The first edition of the work, published by Erich Reiss in Berlin in 1919, 34/500 COPIES, in the original full navy morocco, the backstrip a little faded and worn with a little mustiness to the leather on upper board.