P is for Pickelhaube

Broken trust. Broken promises. Shame, confusion, and guilt. Unimaginable violence. Then the War came, and the cycle started anew. This is the story of Kurt, a Bavarian infantryman serving somewhere on the Western Front during the First World War. He is like many of his comrades and not a few of his enemies: he fights a war within a war, a singular combat against what he knows of love, hate, sex, addiction, and abuse. A combat against monsters both real and otherwise. Combat in the First World War was a dehumanizing experience. Gone was glory and individual heroics. Gone too were the fluttering flags and colorful uniforms. Gone was color altogether. In this alien world death came from afar, the enemy hidden from view. New and terrifying technologies elevated killing to previously unheard-of industrial levels and rendered battlefields into lifeless moonscapes. Yet while surrounded by this maelstrom Kurt faces an enemy that is still very much human - himself. Which combat will prove more deadly? In war, when men are wounded, they are called casualties. But what are men called when they are wounded before their fight begins?