Im Dienste : Erinnerungen aus verworrener Zeit

A vivid snapshot of a small European duchy on the brink of upheaval, this memoir opens amid the frantic elections of July 1918. The narrator, a poet‑turned‑observateur, recounts the tangled dance of parties—right‑wing, socialist, liberal and independent—each vying for a fragile constitutional chamber while the German army looms over the region. Through a candid conversation with his old schoolfriend, the socialist deputy J.P. Probst, he reflects on personal and political loyalties, hinting at the uneasy compromises that will shape the nascent government.

Interwoven with the formal record of votes is a tender recollection of youthful summers in the village of Mersch, where poetry and camaraderie once flourished. The narrator’s deep empathy for human suffering colors his observations, offering both a historian’s eye and a poet’s heart. Listeners are drawn into a world where idealism meets the harsh realities of wartime politics, setting the stage for the turbulent years that follow.