Eine Jugend in Deutschland

First published in 1934, I Was a German by the expressionist playwright, Ernst Toller, provides a fascinating insight into the ” generation of 1914″ – men who returned from the trenches. Toller went to World War I as an avid volunteer and returned home as a humanitarian pacifist. He took the side of the rebels, was imprisoned in the Niederschönenfeld fortress, and recognised the tragic limitations of the revolution. In his sincere and masterful yet plain-speaking autobiography, he describes his early years – a youth in Germany that was full of great hopes and great disappointments. Probably the most important work by Toller, shockingly topical these days, who reconciled in his art poetry and politics.