ZWEIG, Arnold
Die Bestie
München, Albert Langen, 1914
small 12mo, original wrappers, 111 p.; good copy
Rare first edition in book form, published as the third volume in the series “Langens Kriegsbücher”. The German writer Arnold Zweig (1887-1868), best known for his anti-war literature, began his literary career writing nationalistic stories fictionalising German propaganda about Belgian snipers. In Die Bestie, the eponymous ‘beast’ is a treacherous Belgian farmer who is justly executed for cutting the throats of three sleeping German soldiers. A few years later, converted into a pacifist activist, Zweig criticized himself for having succumbed to the German wartime lies and becoming an accessory to Germany’s war crimes. After the seizure of power by the Nazis, Zweig’s books were openly burned.
