Zero Hour

An autobiographical novel of World War I experiences in the German ranks, ""Zero Hour"" equates duty with camaraderie and finds a balance between bitterness and hawkishness. The war is experienced here through the keen eyes of Hans Volkenborn, a well-bred officer-candidate whose youthful enthusiasm turns to angst and disillusion. The sole comfort of his experience is fellowship with his comrades, but even that abates over time. Grabenhorst recalls specifics of battlefield actions on the Western Front with a visceral language that resonates still today. Of particular historical importance are accounts of combat in the Ypres campaign in 1917, and the futile clashes in the woods of Aveluy in northern France the following summer as German hopes for victory faded. But the novel's greatest success is a vivid description of shell shock, the result of being briefly buried alive by a mortar round. The condition ultimately engulfs Volkenborn's ailing psyche and leaves him tormented, isolated, and blinded at the war's end. ""Zero Hour"" was first published as Fahnenjunker Volkenborn in Germany in 1928 and was translated into English under the current title in the following year. This reissued edition features a new introduction by Robert Cowley and a new afterword by Casey Clabough to place the novel in its proper literary and historical contexts.