The Great War

The Great War turned upside down the lives of millions of people. To contemporaries such as Walter Benjamin, it seemed as though a world of horse-drawn streetcars had been swept aside by political radicalism, inflation, the collapse of the international order, and the downfall of European culture, leading to a devaluation of experience itself. For returning soldiers, who constituted the bulk of the workforce and whose political role was critical, the Great War was a watershed in their lives, which they struggled to comprehend. The Great War: German Soldiers' Experiences of Combat, 1914-1918 connects citizens' experiences, memories and conceptions of the First World War and its aftermath, together with the political changes which were brought about by the conflict, to questions about different forms of violence. Through a close reading of diaries, letters and memoirs, this, the fourth volume of Mark Hewitson's study of the violence of war in the German lands during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, reassesses the impact of soldiers' experiences of combat. Although such soldiers were not necessarily brutalized by the war, many were altered by it, making their reintegration into the postwar world difficult and unpredictable. The meanings of violence - and, especially, the distinction between political and military violence - had changed, with far-reaching effects.