Postcards from the Trenches

In 1916 Otto Schubert, a young German artist, faced a future as chaotic and destructive as the war from which he had returned. His output, dispersed or lost as the result of another war and the vicissitudes of German politics, has now been recovered in this beautiful and moving book. Irene Guenther has brought good luck and careful research to lay bare the artistic achievement of an ordinary man in extraordinary times. -- Hew Strachan, military historian and author of 'The First World War' [The author] has found an ideal way to use microhistory to tell a universal story of young lovers separated by war. The postcards are strikingly beautiful and intimate, and describe sentiments which existed in every combatant army on every single front of the war. -- Jay M. Winter, Charles J. Stille Professor of History, Yale University, US [A] sympathetic biography of the German expressionist artist, Otto Schubert, focusing on his truly outstanding World War I painted postcards sent to his Dresden fiancee. ... Guenther has clearly and profoundly uncovered an important but heretofore neglected artist whose works speak to the universal issues of war and remembrance. A critical art historical and cultural intervention into 20th century German art - and a superb tour de force! -- Marion Deshmukh, Robert T. Hawkes Professor of History, emerita, George Mason University, US