Abstract

Schweik Among the Herrenvolk

Ever since the rubble was cleared off the first printing press in post-war Germany, dictator Adolf Hitler's officers have been holding a grand military critique of their part in the second world war; but until recently Americans showed little interest in what they had to say. Similarly, some of the best novels interpreting the war from the other side, such as Hellmut Kirst's "The Lieutenant Must Be Mad and Virgil Georghiu's "The Twenty-Fifth Hour," crossed the ocean too soon, and in spite of their fabulous success in Europe, moved rapidly to the remainder shelves. Focused or not, real interest in how the war looked through enemy eyes was latent, and no one sensed that better than the people at Ballantine Books, a publishing house that puts out hard-bound books simultaneously with many of their paperbooks. "Defeat at Sea," by C. D. Bekker, a German Naval officer, and "The First and the Last," by Adolf Galland, are reprints of books that attracted little notice.