For ordinary Germans caught up in the impending conflict that would engulf Europe and the world, 1938 was hardly an insignificant time. That year Gertrud von le Fort – a member of the Prussian gentry, a convert from Protestantism in 1925, Nobel nominee, scholar, poet and novelist – wrote a compelling historical novel that fused poetic and spiritual insights with historical truth. This account of a crucial event in the Thirty Years’ War – the siege and destruction of Magdeburg in 1631 – is now available in English translation for the first time.
2:38 PM
Conscience and catastrophe in the Thirty Years’ War
A powerful German novel explores how the fraught relationship between faith and political power sowed the seeds of disaster
Francis Phillips
5 min read
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