And even if a thousand times not; only parochialism can see in the trembling adherence of a rotting nobility the salvation of the state. He, Gus, knows and intuits, feels that the modern age is held in the conspirator Catiline, that his abettors are premature heralds of spring riding through the winter snow. Yes, and a thousand times it is so, only the subversive men have brought anything great into this world. Hence – a broom here – we want to sweep away, sweep away the snow from the path on which the steeds of the saviours trot. Sweep away so that they do not slip and fall, the coming men – sweep, sweep for the new age.

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I consider it not only to be the most beautiful writing which the contemporary German arts has brought forth, but also to be one of the best and most valuable books the German people have been gifted. It is a book which arrests and captivates the reader, and which, when they have finished it, occupies them for a long time afterwards with the deep tolling which rings across from the author’s soul into our hearts … Anyone who could write such glorious pages must count amongst the authors of which our nation can be proud. - Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger

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Georg Julius Leopold Engel (1866-1931) was a German author and dramatist whose works were burnt and grave desecrated by the Nazis. A number of his novels were bestsellers, and some were adapted into movies during his own lifetime.