Storm of Steel

Proof copy. 8vo. Pp. xxiv, 288, [1]. Pictorial wraps.

A new translation by Michael Hofmann based on the 'Sämliche Werke' edition, by Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1978–1983. Originally published commercially in 1922 by E. S. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, as In Stahlgewittern – following a 1920 private edition – the first English translation by Basil Creighton came out by Chatto & Windus in 1929.

Winner of the 2004 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. "As though walking through a deep dream, I saw steel helmets approaching through the craters. They seemed to sprout from the fire-harrowed soil like some iron harvest". A memoir of astonishing power, savagery and ashen lyricism, it illuminates the horrors but also the fascination of total war, as seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier.

"To read this extraordinary book is to gain a unique insight into the compelling nature of organized, industrialized violence. Michael Hofmann's superlative translation retains all the coruscating vitality of the original." –Niall Ferguson

[Enser, pp.155/383]