Schneider, Michael W./Storz, Dieter (Hrsg.) Infantrist Perhobstler

Newly edited with annotations, pictorial documents and an afterword by Dr Dieter Storz. Ten years after the end of the First World War, novels dealing with the war experience experienced a real boom. One of the books that appeared at that time was Wilhelm Michael Schneider's Infantrist Perhobstler. Its subtitle announced the autobiographical account of a soldier's fate: With Bavarian Divisions in the World War. And really, the novel is not a fictional narrative. Research in military history literature and in the Bavarian War Archives showed that the first-person narrator, who calls himself Perhobstler, is describing the author's actual war career.

Schneider, a merchant by trade, came from Altrip in the Palatinate, which at the time belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria. He was drafted in October 1914 and, after a short period of training, joined the 23rd Bavarian Infantry Regiment in Flanders. He fought in the West until the spring of 1917 and was wounded several times. After his promotion to lieutenant of the reserve, he was transferred to the 27th Bavarian Infantry Regiment in Romania. In 1918, the unit reached the West, where Schneider was wounded for the last time in June. The emotional plausibility of the report, its vivid and lively language and the documentary quality of the work are the reason for reissuing this text in the commemorative year 2014. The volume is accompanied by numerous photographs and documents from the Bavarian Army Museum, the Bavarian War Archives and not least from Schneider's estate. Volume 13 of the series "Publications of the Bavarian Army Museum".