recapture of Przemysl and Lviv, Stramm and his regiment continued to pursue the Imperial Russian Army during the Great Retreat of 1915. By July, Stramm's regiment had reached the Bug River. At the beginning of August 1915, Stramm was sent home on what was his final furlough. His daughter Inge, who adored her father, later recalled how Stramm made her ten-year-old brother promise, "never to let himself down," by being, "a Schweinhund before himself." His family later learned that throughout his furlough, Stramm had carried a letter in his pocket which he needed only to countersign in order to be released from all future military service at his publisher's request. By this time, Stramm had come to detest the war and believed that his death in combat was imminent. His mind was also filled with projects that he longed to write down. In the end, however, Stramm was, according to Patrick Bridgwater, "unable to accept the alibi of a higher duty to literature," and left the letter unsigned. After returning to his company following a week's journey, Stramm found that they had been reduced to only 25 men. It was the time of a Russian counteroffensive led by General Aleksei Brusilov. Stramm, with the remnants of his company, were involved in "the giant-battle for Brest-Litovsk", which fell to Stramm's regiment on August 25, 1915. Death On September 1, 1915, August Stramm led an attack against the Imperial Russian Army in the Rokitno Marshes. The attack degenerated into brutal hand-to-hand combat and Stramm, who had been in action 70 times in all, was shot in the head by a Russian soldier. He was the last member of his company to fall during the attack. According to Jeremy Adler, Stramm was about to be awarded the Iron Cross (First Class) at the time of his death. According to Patrick Bridgwater, "What is quite extraordinary is that he appears to have found in the hell-on-earth of total warfare around Brest-Litovsk in 1915 the sense of harmony he had sought for so long." A few weeks before his death, Stramm had written to Herwarth Walden, "Singularly, life and death are one... Both are one... Battle and the night and death and the nightingale are all one. One! And fighting and sleeping and dreaming and acting are all one! There is no separation! All goes together and swims and shimmers like sun and whirlpool. Only