Prose & Poetry - Arnold Zweig
Arnold Zweig (1887-1968), the German
soldier and writer, published one of the best-known novels to emerge from
the First World War, The Case of Sergeant Grischa.
Zweig was born on 10 November 1887 in Glogua in Germany. In spite of his clearly expressed socialist views Zweig was nevertheless swept up in the war fever of the summer of 1914 and consequently enlisted with the German Army.
The course of Zweig's wartime service - which put an end to his writing career for the duration of the conflict - took him to Verdun in 1916 and to the headquarters of the German Army on the Eastern Front.
Following the armistice Zweig returned to his pen and published in 1928 The Case of Sergeant Grischa, which he based upon the real case of a Russian prisoner of war, a sergeant executed as a German Army deserter in spite of his actual identity becoming known.
A Zionist and co-editor of the anti-fascist magazine World Stage, Zweig was forced into exile from Germany in 1934 with the rise of the Nazi Party. Following the Second World War he returned to live in East Germany and was President of the German Academy of the Arts from 1950-53.
The recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize Arnold Zweig died in East Berlin on 26 November 1968 aged 71.
The German word "U-Boat" was derived from "Unterseeboot" (undersea boat).
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