A brutal, devastatingly honest story of the trenches that somehow retains its humour, and its poetry, to the end Independent, Best Books of 2015
Hans Herbert Grimm was born in 1896 in Vogtland. In 1928 he published his anti-war, semi-autobiographical novel Schlump anonymously in German. The following year it was published in English, in Britain and America. In 1933 the book was banned by the Nazis and Grimm became concerned with preserving the anonymity of his authorship. To avoid detection, he joined the Nazi party and worked as a language interpreter during the Second World War. On returning home to Soviet-occupied Germany he was no longer permitted to work as a teacher because of his involvement with the Nazis. In 1950 he was called to a meeting in Weimar by government officials - he never revealed what was discussed but two days later he committed suicide. Authorship of Schlump remained a mystery until 2013.
