The Rise and Fall of Comradeship

Hitler's Soldiers, Male Bonding and Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-107-04636-8
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 306 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 540 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kühne, Thomas

Kühne, Thomas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte Deutsche Geschichte: Holocaust
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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.

Über Autor(innen)

Kühne, Thomas
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.