Published in 1930, "Front Summary" became one of the landmark novels about the First World War, along with the works of E.M. Remarque "On the Western Front without change", R. Aldington "Death of a Hero" and E. Hemingway "Goodbye, weapons!". A participant in the First World War, who went to the front as a volunteer from the third year of the university's philosophy department, Edlef Koeppen created a "montage novel" where original documents – quotes from the proclamations of Emperor Wilhelm II, decrees of censorship authorities, newspaper reports are organically woven into the plot, and the prototype of the main character Adolf Reisiger is the author himself. The Frontline Summary became one of tens of thousands of books publicly burned in Germany in 1933, and was not published in Germany until 1976, and in the GDR until 1981. At the beginning of the century, the novel attracted attention again, was republished many times and translated into several languages.