Böll, Heinrich

New York. 1985. May 1985. Knopf. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket. 0394536037. Translated from the German by Leila Vennewitz. 137 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Paul Gamarello/Eyetooth Design, Inc. . keywords: Literature Translated Germany . FROM THE PUBLISHER - From the German Nobel Prize-winner for literature, a rediscovered short novel, written in 1947 at the very start of his great career, then lost in the chaos of life in Germany in the late 1940s, and appearing now for the first time: a poignant evocation of youth trapped in war. It is 1943, and a German division is stretched along the coast of Normandy, part of the Atlantic line of defense against invasion. To one of these isolated outposts far out on the dunes comes the very young soldier Wenk, transferred from occupied Paris to ‘active duty: ' He finds himself in a lost world. Wholesale corruption has turned army supplies into a profitable racket for the German High Command, The starving soldiers, exhausted from three years of endless patrol and sentry duty against an enemy who never comes, must cross their own mine fields at night to raid the French potato fields, under fire from their own sentries guarding the crops, or else barter their ammunition and clothes for food, Lieutenant Schelling, Wenk's immediate superior, is already in trouble with the other company officer, Schnecker, for protesting the privations of the men. As Wenk and Lieutenant Schelling-against all army rank and protocol-are drawn by affection, political rebellion, and shared pain (both are in love with the same French girl) into real friendship, it is clear that a deeper revolt against the order of things is involved. Their enemy Schnecker believes he has found treason, and when the company is transferred into the fighting on the Russian Front, events are forced to a shocking climax inventory #1488 ISBN: 0394536037.