The Rise and Fall of Comradeship

Hitler's Soldiers, Male Bonding and Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century

Thomas Kühne (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

310 Seiten

2017
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-107-65828-8 (ISBN)

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Investigating how the ideals of kameradschaft (comradeship) developed within Germany as a collective yearning for national unity, this book explores how a divided society came to terms with the traumas of war and defeat. Across the twentieth century the gospel of comradeship not only provided the foundation for mass murder, but also for democratic peace post-1945.

This is an innovative account of how the concept of comradeship shaped the actions, emotions and ideas of ordinary German soldiers across the two world wars and during the Holocaust. Using individual soldiers' diaries, personal letters and memoirs, Kühne reveals the ways in which soldiers' longing for community, and the practice of male bonding and togetherness, sustained the Third Reich's pursuit of war and genocide. Comradeship fuelled the soldiers' fighting morale. It also propelled these soldiers forward into war crimes and acts of mass murders. Yet, by practising comradeship, the soldiers could maintain the myth that they were morally sacrosanct. Post-1945, the notion of kameradschaft as the epitome of humane and egalitarian solidarity allowed Hitler's soldiers to join the euphoria for peace and democracy in the Federal Republic, finally shaping popular memories of the war through the end of the twentieth century.

Thomas Kühne is Strassler Chair in Holocaust History and Professor of History at Clark University, Massachusetts. His research, published in English, German and other languages, focuses on modern Germany and explores the cultural history of war and genocide and the construction of collective identity through mass violence. His awards include fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the German Bundestag Research Prize.

Acknowledgements; Introduction: a concept from a different world; Part I. The Myth of Comradeship, 1914–1939: 1. Healing; 2. Coalescence; 3. Steeling; Part II. The Practice of Comradeship, 1939–1945: 4. Assimilation; 5. Megalomania; 6. Nemesis; Part III. The Decline of Comradeship: 7. Privatisation; 8. Integration; 9. Demonisation; Conclusion: protean masculinity and Germany's twentieth century; Index.

Verlagsort	Cambridge
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 228 mm
Gewicht	450 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
ISBN-10	1-107-65828-4 / 1107658284
ISBN-13	978-1-107-65828-8 / 9781107658288
Zustand	Neuware