Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War : Killing, Dying, Surviving

Translated into English as the Winner of the Geisteswissenschaften International Translation Prize for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences 2015. During the Great War, mass killing took place on an unprecedented scale. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War explores the practice of violence in the German army and demonstrates how he killing of enemy troops, the deaths of German soldiers and their survival were entwined. As the war reached its climax in 1918, German soldiers refused to continue killing in their droves, and thus made an active contribution to the German defeat and ensuing revolution. Examining the postwar period, the chapters of this book also discuss the contested issue of a 'brutalization' of German society as a prerequisite of the Nazi mass movement. Biographical case studies on key figures such as Ernst Jünger demonstrate how the killing of enemy troops by German soldiers followed a complex set of rules. Benjamin Ziemann makes a wealth of extensive archival work available to an Anglophone audience for the first time, enhancing our understanding of the German army and its practices of violence during the First World War as well as the implications of this brutalization in post-war Germany. This book provides new insights into a crucial topic for students of twentieth-century German history and the First World War. "During the Great War, mass killing took place on an unprecedented scale. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War explores the practice of violence in the German army and demonstrates how the killing of enemy troops, the deaths of German soldiers and their survival were entwined. As the war reached its climax in 1918, German soldiers refused to continue killing in their droves, and thus made an active contribution to the German defeat and ensuing revolution. Examining the post-war period, the chapters of this book also discuss the contested issue of a 'brutalization' of German society as a prerequisite of the Nazi mass movement. Biographical case studies on key figures such as Ernst Jünger demonstrate how the killing of enemy troops by German soldiers followed a complex set of rules. Benjamin Ziemann makes a wealth of extensive archival work available to an Anglophone audience for the first time, enhancing our understanding of the German army and its practices of violence during the First World War as well as the implications of this brutalization in post-war Germany. This book provides new insights into a crucial topic for students of twentieth-century German history and the First World War. During the Great War, mass killing took place on an unprecedented scale. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War explores the practice of violence in the German army and demonstrates how the killing of enemy troops, the deaths of German soldiers and their survival were entwined. Both the escalation of violence--for example in the German atrocities against Belgian civilians in 1914--and the refusal to continue killing must be situated in a specific spatial setting, and should not be interpreted primarily as the cause of specific ideologies or collective mentalities. As the war reached its climax in 1918, German soldiers refused to continue killing in their droves, and thus made an active contribution to the German defeat and ensuing revolution. Examining the postwar period, the chapters of this book also discuss the contested issue of a 'brutalization' of German society as a prerequisite of the Nazi mass movement. Biographical case studies on key figures such as Ernst Jünger demonstrate how the killing of enemy troops by German soldiers followed a complex set of rules."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- 1 The First World War as a Laboratory of Violence -- I The First World War as a 'total war' -- II The historical analysis of wartime violence -- III Eye-catching theories and their problems -- IV A laboratory of violence -- V The structure of this volume -- Part One Practices of Violence -- 2 Soldiers of the First World War: Killing, Surviving, Discourses of Violence -- I Killing and dying -- II Survival -- III Discourses on violence and victimhood -- 3 German Soldiers and their Conduct of War in 1914 -- I Emotional mobilization -- II Extreme losses -- III The voice of the soldiers: Georg Schenk -- IV The destruction of Réméréville -- V Collective learning processes -- VI The voice of the soldiers: David Pfaff -- VII The voice of the soldiers: Stefan Schimmer -- VIII German atrocities -- IX The limits and ambivalence of empathy with the victims -- X Killing and fighting on the Eastern Front -- XI War against Russia as social engineering -- XII Conclusion -- 4 Ernst Jünger: Practitioner and Observer of Killing -- I In Stahlgewittern as male fundamentalism -- II Jünger's original war diaries -- III Killing in the artillery war -- IV Patrols -- V The killing of prisoners of war? -- VI Rationality and emotions -- VII The heat of battle: 21 March 1918 -- VIII Killing and survival from Jünger's perspective -- IX Violence as social practice -- X Close-quarter combat -- XI Explaining the readiness for self-destruction -- XII Conclusion -- Part Two Refusal of Violence -- 5 Desertion in the German Army 1914-1918 -- I Places of survival: Escape routes for deserters -- II Desertion as a mass phenomenon -- III The motives for desertion -- IV The desertion of Alsace-Lorrainers and Poles -- V Conclusion 6 Disillusionment and Collective Exhaustion among German Soldiers on the Western Front: The Path to Revolution in 1918 -- 7 The German Army in Autumn 1918: A Hidden Military Strike? -- I The hidden military strike as a mass movement of soldiers -- II The arguments of the critics: An 'ordered surrender'? -- III What was 'shirking'? -- IV Escape routes -- V Patrols and raids -- VI The chronology of the military strike -- VII Quantifying levels of 'shirking' -- VIII A strike outside the public gaze -- IX Conclusion -- Part Three Processing Violence -- 8 The Weimar Republic: A Brutalized Society? -- I Great Britain: A 'peaceable kingdom'? -- II Polarization or cooperation between political camps -- III Radicalization in the nationalist camp -- IV 'Brutalization': The argument of George L. Mosse -- V Brutalization on the front? -- VI The reintegration of the veterans -- VII Pacifist veterans' associations -- VIII Engaging with war violence through the media -- IX Conclusion -- 9 The Delayed Rejection of Violence: Hermann Schützinger's Conversion to Pacifism -- Conclusion -- 10 'Rear Area Militarism': Discussing the War in Anti-military Bestsellers in the Weimar Republic -- I The rear area as the scene of civilian life and 'shirking' -- II Charleville and Etappe Gent -- III Two pacifist authors and the battle against their texts -- IV Conclusion -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index The First Systematic Analysis Of The Contexts And Practices Of Violence In The German Army In World War One--provided By Publisher. Benjamin Ziemann ; Translated By Andrew Evans. First Published In German By Klartext, 2013--title Page Verso. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.