Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-18T22:33:40.369Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Hors de combat

Mobilization and immobilization in total war

from Part II - The Social Practice of Peoples’ War, 1939–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2015

Michael Geyer
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Adam Tooze
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Get access

Summary

The relationship between mobilization and immobilization in Nazi total war was dynamic rather than static over time, space and circumstance. In the long view the Nazis could regard human and material resources devoted to the total destruction of 'racial inferiors' as part of a broader total war. At the same time this exertion represented considerable costs at the expense of the total war against the nation states fighting Nazi Germany, though the wartime increase in mobilization of prison and camp labour compensated for this. There were several categories of Germans wholly or partially immobilized, by age, by mental or physical condition, by disposition, or by gender. The immobilization was met with a costly and labour-intensive Nazi campaign to integrate disabled soldiers into the war economy. While most homosexuals remained, undetected, part of the Nazi war effort, the debate over their nature and utility is an instance in the realm of science and medicine of the dynamics of mobilization and immobilization.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Hors de combat
  • Edited by Michael Geyer, University of Chicago, Adam Tooze, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Second World War
  • Online publication: 05 June 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139626859.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Hors de combat
  • Edited by Michael Geyer, University of Chicago, Adam Tooze, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Second World War
  • Online publication: 05 June 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139626859.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Hors de combat
  • Edited by Michael Geyer, University of Chicago, Adam Tooze, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Second World War
  • Online publication: 05 June 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139626859.016
Available formats
×