This life-affirming tale of heroism and resilience will stay with you long after turning the final page.By April 1916, the fervor that accompanied war’s outbreak has faded. In its place is a grim reality. Throughout Germany, essentials are rationed. Hope, too, is in short supply. Anna Zeller, whose fiancé, Bruno, is fighting on the western front, works as a nurse at an overcrowded hospital in Oldenburg, trying to comfort men broken in body and spirit. But during a visit from Dr. Stalling, the director of the Red Cross Ambulance Dogs Association, she witnesses a rare spark of optimism: as a German shepherd guides a battle-blinded soldier over a garden path, Dr. Stalling is inspired with an idea—to train dogs as companions for sightless veterans. Anna convinces Dr. Stalling to let her work at his new guide dog training school. Some of the dogs that arrive are themselves veterans of war, including Nia, a German shepherd with trench-damaged paws. Anna brings the ailing Nia home and secretly tends and trains her, convinced she may yet be the perfect guide for the right soldier. In Max Benesch, a Jewish soldier blinded by chlorine gas at the front, Nia finds her person. War has taken Max’s sight, his fiancée, and his hopes of being a composer. Yet despite all he’s given for his country, the tide of anti-Semitism at home is rising, and Max encounters it first-hand in one of the school’s trainers, who is determined to make Max fail. Still, through Anna’s prompting, he rediscovers his passion for music. But as Anna discovers more about the conflict’s escalating brutality—and Bruno’s role in it—she realizes how impossible it will be for any of them to escape the war unscathed . . .

    

    

    It was the government, led by the Social Democratic Party, which took power, albeit with some trepidation, after Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the German throne. Socialists saw this as the opportunity they had been waiting for, the day when workers would be the ones in power. For the conservatives who could not accept the German defeat in World War I, however, the Weimar Republic was a feeble entity which had capitulated to Germany’s enemies.The German Revolution of 1918-1919 told the story of a bruised nation attempting to overcome its military defeat at the hands of enemies who wanted to punish Germany for starting the war. Because Germany was caught in the vise of such irreconcilable political philosophies between the left and the right, the Weimar Republic, although it was the ruling power following the German Revolution, was destined to have a doomed, short life in Germany’s tragic twentieth-century history.

    

    Effectively shattering the misconception that women's military role in the war was limited to nursing, the authors recount that from 1917 to 1920, some 12,000 enlisted women served in the U.S. Naval Reserve and 305 in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Carefully researched and engagingly written, the book explores a surprising variety of military duties carried out by women, including a number of non-clerical, highly specialized billets. In their efforts to acknowledge the historical significance of the women's service and preserve a record of it, Jean Ebbert and Marie-Beth Hall address the Navy's official and unofficial responses to the women's presence and thoughtfully document the dilemmas of the time. While other books have been written about women in the military, this work is unique in its coverage of service women in World War I. Detailing their backgrounds, training, responsibilities, and personal and social challenges, it takes a hard look at the women who opened the door to women's future integration in the military. This is a significant work and a principal subject area for persons interested in the history of the military and in women's studies.