Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: The myth of the “spirit of 1914”
- 1 Public opinion in Germany,July 1914:the evidence of the crowds
- 2 The response to the outbreak of the war
- 3 The “August experiences”
- 4 The “spirit of 1914” in the immediate interpretations of the meaning of the war
- 5 The government's myth of the spirit of 1914
- 6 The “spirit of 1914” in the discourse of the political parties
- 7 The myth of the “spirit of 1914” in German propaganda, 1916–1918
- 8 The “spirit of 1914,” 1919–1945
- Conclusion: the myth of the “spirit of 1914” in German political culture, 1914–1945
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
4 - The “spirit of 1914” in the immediate interpretations of the meaning of the war
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: The myth of the “spirit of 1914”
- 1 Public opinion in Germany,July 1914:the evidence of the crowds
- 2 The response to the outbreak of the war
- 3 The “August experiences”
- 4 The “spirit of 1914” in the immediate interpretations of the meaning of the war
- 5 The government's myth of the spirit of 1914
- 6 The “spirit of 1914” in the discourse of the political parties
- 7 The myth of the “spirit of 1914” in German propaganda, 1916–1918
- 8 The “spirit of 1914,” 1919–1945
- Conclusion: the myth of the “spirit of 1914” in German political culture, 1914–1945
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
Summary
Contemporaries who examined “public opinion” in 1914 agreed that its most striking characteristic was the degree to which the war had captured the public's interest. Johannes Müller, a professor of theology, wrote that “all life in the fighting nations is now war. War has become the total meaning and the only purpose.” This had not been the case in the last war, in 1870. Newspapers filled their pages with stories about the war to the exclusion of almost everything else. Illustrated magazines carried photographs of soldiers, military equipment, or battlefields instead of photographs of sports and movie stars. Literary magazines published articles on the philosophy of war, on war and culture, on the aesthetics of war. Theaters, after closing briefly at the beginning of August 1914, reopened either with productions of classical treatments of martial themes, or, more often, with productions of quickly written pieces which recreated the “August experiences.”
Publishers chose manuscripts which treated war themes. Ministers, priests, and rabbis discussed the war in their sermons, some even replacing the afternoon church service with a patriotic lecture. Those who preferred their religious patriotism outside church attended one of the “patriotic evenings” staged in many of Germany's larger cities, whose program resembled the Lutheran liturgy. Established lecture organizations such as the Red Cross and the Goethe-Bund increased the size of their operations; alongside them new lecture associations sprang up.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Spirit of 1914Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany, pp. 115 - 135Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000