(2 of 2)
One of these is Captain Winfried, attached to the political section of the army administration governing conquered territory in Lithuania and Poland. The Crowning of a King begins with Captain Winfried's dizzy climb into the high councils of the army. Entrusted with secret negotiations, he wins the friendship of the great General Clauss himself, the hero of the Eastern front. But at each step in Winfried's climb, usually without his knowledge, the ghost of Grischa enters his life. Sometimes superpatriotic officers who had been on the other side in the Grischa case whisper that Winfried is untrustworthy, try to delay his progress. Sometimes Winfried is warned by humble soldiers of traps that have been set for him, because they remember his attempts to save Grischa.
Because of his reputation as a just officer, Winfried is told of terrible abuses in a forced labor camp, promises to try to correct them. But in the excitement of his swift rise to power, his love affair with a pretty nurse, the hazards of his diplomatic negotiations, he lets his promise slip his mind. When General Clauss learns that Winfried has been seeing members of the Reichstag who want peace, he agrees to let the young captain be taught a lesson, has no idea how terrible the lesson is to be. For old rivals, who have hated Winfried since his interference in the Grischa case, have him arrested as a spy, thrown into the labor camp that he had neglected to investigate, almost kill him. Winfried gets out, for friends in the lower ranks of the army—orderlies, telephone operators, privates—protect him. But he finds that his sweetheart has died, that the German armies are retreating in the West, that his eyes are permanently open to the brutal realities of conquest. When Clauss tries to make up with him, Winfried damns him and his kind, takes his place with the common soldiers.
No such book as the first volume of the Grischa series, The Crowning of a King has much of the same moral force, little of the excitement. Its main importance is likely to be that of steering readers to the book which many a critic considers the best that has come out of the World War: The Case of Sergeant Grischa.