Of all the books written on German militarism, "The Captain From Koepenick," by German playwright Carl Zuckmayer, is not only one of the great all-time satires, but penetrates to the heart of the matter more pointedly than a dozen treatises.
The play premiered in 1930 and immediately earned its author a place on the Nazis' enemy list. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Zuckmayer was a marked man, more for his political views than for his mother's descent from an assimilated Jewish family.

owned and operated a 100-acre farm in the late 1940s.  Of all the exiled Weimar artists, Zuckmayer had a close and unique understanding of ordinary Americans, something he wrote about in his long essay Amerika ist anders.  Early on in his stay in America, Zuckmayer came to the sober realization that there wasn't a huge market in his new country for German plays. He turned to neighbors in Vermont to teach him about milking cows and cultivating the land. He managed to eke out a living  on his farm - a trying time for him and his wife, but ultimately very enriching.  His wife Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer later wrote about this time in a charming memoir Die Farm in den gruenen Bergen. (Amazon.com, Amazon.de)