Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

PRIVATE KARL LEBEHDE, in civilian life a Berlin inn-keeper, now of the ASC.

COLONEL STEIN, an old cavalryman, commandant of the Steinbergquell ammunitions depot.

LIEUTENANT BENNDORF, acting captain and adjutant to Colonel Stein.

ACTING LIEUTENANT GRASSNICK, veteran of the Serbian campaign, in command of the labour company attached to the ammunitions depot; known to his subordinates as Panje of Vranje.

ACTING SERGEANT MAJOR GLINSKY, formerly an insurance agent.

PRIVATES OF THE ASC: HILDEBRANDT, a blacksmith; VEHSE, an upholsterer;

STRAUSS, a shopkeeper; FANNRICH and REINHOLD.

SPERLICH, an orderly-room clerk.

BRUNO NAUMANN, barber, a socialist.

IGNAZ NAUMANN, the company fool, formerly a packer in a warehouse.

DR. BINDEL, a civilian doctor in uniform.

CORPORAL SCHNEE, from the Sanitary Corps.

SERGEANT BÖHNE, once a postman.

SERGEANT SCHULZ, an ammunitions expert.

SERGEANT CHRISTOPH KROYSING, a Nürnberger, a young poet who stood up against injustice.

AXEL KROG, a Swedish war correspondent, a fervent admirer of France.

LEPAILLE, a French gunner.

WUERFURTH, a clerk.

CORPORAL NÄGLEIN, formerly a farmer.

CORPORAL ALTHANS, a Reservist in possession of a permanent travel pass.

LIEUTENANT EBERHARD KROYSING, Christoph Kroysing’s elder brother, by profession a civil engineer, now a sapper and recipient of the Iron Cross, first class.

CAPTAIN ALOIS NIGGL, in civilian life a retired civil servant from Weilheim, Bavaria, now of the ASC and with ambitions for decoration.

MAJOR JANSCH, a Prussian from Berlin, embittered nationalist and anti-Semite, editor of Army and Fleet Weekly , now of the ASC.

LIEUTENANT PSALTER, formerly a headmaster in Neuruppen, now of the lorry park.

PROFESSOR CARL GEORG MERTENS, an eminent legal scholar, judge advocate of the court martial at Montmédy.

SEARGEANT PORISCH, Judge Advoate Mertens’ deputy.

LANCE CORPORAL SIECK, clerk to the judge advocate.

SERGEANT ERICH SÜSSMANN, a Berlin Jew, a schoolboy in years but a veteran in service.

OTTO SCHNEIDER, a telephone operator.

CORPORAL FRIEDRICH STRUMPF, a switchboard operator, once a park-keeper near Heidelberg.

SERGEANT-MAJOR LUDWIG FEICHT, formerly purser on a Bavarian lake steamer.

LIEUTENANT SIMMERDING, second in command in Captain Niggl’s company.

DILLINGER, orderly-room clerk.

LIEUTENANT PAUL SCHANZ, from Russian Poland, now of the artillery.

CORPORAL KARL KILIAN, from Baden, a switchboard operator, once a worker in a tobacco factory.

FATHER BENEDIKT LOCHNER, of the Order of St Francis, a broad-minded representative of the Catholic Church, now serving as field chaplain.

SEERGEANT KNAPPE, an ammunitions expert.

JEAN-FRANCOIS ROUARD, a French painter, now in the French air corps.

PRIVATE PRZYGULLA, formerly a farmhand.

THE CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY, Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian Army.

LIEUTENANT VON ROGGSTROH, an officer in the Royal Guard Artillery.

SERGEANT KROPP, a peasant from Uckermark.

KRAWIETZ, the company tailor.

SERGEANT BÜTTNER, an industrialist in civilian life.

SERGEANT-MAJOR PFUND, an old regular, embezzler of canteen funds.

STAFF SERGEANT SUSEMIHIL, a policeman in civilian life.

STAFF SERGEANT POHL, in civilian life a schoolteacher.

SERGEANT SCHNEEVOIGT, hospital orderly and a barber by trade.

SERGEANT SCHWERDTLEIN, in charge of a construction squad.

SERGEANT ALEXANDER FÜRTH, a Berlin barrister, a Jew, known to his fellow corps members as Pelican, now of the railway transport office.

SERGEANT EMIL BARKOPP, a tavern-keeper from Hamburg, leader of an ill-fated working party.

CORPORAL DIEHL, a primary schoolteacher, clerk to Major Jansch,

KUHLMANN, a messenger.

SISTER KLÄRE, daughter of the well-known Pidderit family of the Rhineland, wife of Colonel Schwersenz, and now a nurse at Dannevoux field hospital.

LIEUTENANT METTNER, a mathematician, now in hospital.

LIEUTENANT FLACHSBAUER, son of a factory owner, now in hospital.

SISTER MARIECHEN, of the Dannevoux hospital unit.

DR POSNANSKI, a Jew from Brandenburg, judge advocate and successor to Professor Mertens; known as Mopsus to fellow corps members.

ADLER, Berlin barrister, clerk to Dr Posnanski.

LIEUTENANT WINFRIED, nephew of his Excellency General von Lychow.

SERGEANT-MAJOR PONT, a master builder from Kalkar on the Rhine.

PECHLER, Dannevoux hospital bath orderly.

DR BAER, Jewish chaplain at Dannevoux hospital.

KELLER, a blind cuirassier, now telephone operator for Dannevoux hospital.

PHILIPPE, pilot of a French bombing plane.

LENORE BERTIN, Werner Bertin’s wife.

In completely this translation of Arnold Zweig’s Erziehung vor Verdun, I was frequently assisted by Eric Sutton’s existing translation. Published in the United States in 1936 – just one year after the German publication – Sutton’s translation, now out of print, bore the title Education before Verdun and has been a rich source for military terminology in particular.

I am also grateful to David Midgley for invaluable assistance with First World War military vocabulary and with some of the trickier nuances in the text, and to Alaric Searle. Thanks are also due to Ingrid Kollak and Titus Kroder for providing a German native speaker’s view on certain points.

Some of the terms used in Erziehung vor Verdun almost defy translation. I have translated Feldwebelleutnant as acting lieutenant. The literal meaning is sergeant major lieutenant, and the term denotes sergeant majors given the command responsibilities of lieutenants due to the heavy losses incurred by the German army.

Also tricky to translate into English are the three categories of reserve forces in the Prussian army: the regular military Reserve , the Landwehr , roughly equivalent to the Territorial Army, and the Landsturm , made up of older men capable of wielding weapons and men not fit for active service. In many cases, I have therefore kept the original German terms of Landwehr and Landsturm in the English text, as well as the term Landstürmer , which denotes a member of the Landsturm .

Another problem arises in translating Erziehung vor Verdun into English from the fact that the German terms Kamerad , a comrade at arms, and Genosse, a Communist Party comrade, both translate into English as comrade. I have attempted to clarify the distinction in each instance.

My principal aim with this translation has been to bring Arnold Zweig’s magnificent novel of the First World War alive for contemporary English-speaking readers. In particular, I have tried to capture the flavour of the humour, dialect and colloquialisms in the original. For that reason, I have occasionally used non-standard English, particularly Scots, as that is the form of non-standard English with which I am most familiar.

It goes without saying that any errors or omissions in this translation are my responsibility alone.

Arnold Zweig (10 November 1887 – 26 November 1968) was a German writer and anti-war activist. He is best known for his World War I tetralogy of which Outside Verdun is part. Zweig volunteered for the German army in World War I and saw action as a private in France, Hungary and Serbia. He was stationed in the Western Front at the time when Judenzählung (the Jewish census) was undertaken. After World War I he was an active socialistic Zionist in Germany. Following Hitler’s attempted coup in 1923 Zweig went to Berlin and worked as an editor of a newspaper, the Jüdische Rundschau . Zweig would later witness the burning of his books by the Nazis. When the Nazis took power in 1933, Zweig was one of many Jews to go into voluntary exile, first to Czechoslovakia, then Switzerland and France and finally Palestine. In 1948, after a formal invitation from the East German authorities, Zweig decided to return to the Soviet occupation zone in Germany where he became a member of parliament. He was President of the German Academy of the Arts from 1950-53. He died in Berlin in 1968.