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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
23.9.1935
XIX, Strassergasse 47
Dear Meister Arnold,
Master indeed! My daughter Anna is now reading the Erziehung vor Verdun and she keeps coming in to me and telling me her impressions. We then exchange views. You know that I imagine it was my warning which restrained you from returning to Berlin, and I am still proud of this achievement, and now it is more certain than ever that you should never go near the German frontier again. You are too good for that.
It is like a long-hoped-for liberation. At last the truth, the grim ultimate truth, which is nevertheless essential. You cannot understand the Germany of today if you know nothing of Verdun and what it stands for. It is true that disillusionment has come late in the day, even in your case. Hence the obvious anachronism that the education at Verdun is followed by the Grischa idyll where there is still little suggestion that all illusions are dead. This fits in with the fact that when the war was over you settled in Berlin and built a little house there. Today one says to oneself: If I had drawn the right conclusions from Verdun, then I should have known that I could not live among these people. We all thought it was the war and not the people, but other nations went through the war as well and nevertheless behaved differently. We did not want to believe it at the time, but it was true what the others said about the Boches.
The factor which completes the education of the hero is not as clear as in Grischa-that is perhaps a weakness in the book. But in the characterisation of the numerous figures you show your frankly incredible mastery. To set someone like Lieutenant Kroysink before us-how do you do it? By what means do you conjure a Schwester Klara into life? How did you manage to give what is after all such a charming delineation of the bird-faced Crown Prince? It would be