German veterans

[Guest hallen1]

Hey,

I'm doing some research on post WWI Germany, and had a few questions that I hope someone here might be able to help me with.

I was wondering if anyone has any information, or can direct me to a good site or book, on German veterans of WWI in the post-war society. For example, I am interested in how they were treated or recognized after the war, what their place was in society, and their general reaction to and treatment by the rising Nazi regime.

I know this isn't directly related to the Great War, but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

HSA

[fritz]

Welcome HSA,

here are two links of organizations I remember at once

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stahlhelm,_Bu...r_Frontsoldaten

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyffh%C3%A4userbund

Fritz

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

Many of the veterans from the groups I have studied formed post war veteran organizations that held meetings and reunions. The XIV Reserve Corps stopped these in the mid 30's and did not start up again until the 1950's. Many of the veterans of this group also served in some capacity in WWII in the army in some cases, air raid police, etc.

In the case of many Jewish veterans their years of service, medals, paybooks, etc. did nothing to prevent the Government from placing them in camps as the Nazi Regime took power and control over every aspect of their lives. A sad ending for men who served loyally throughout the First War and in the years 1914-1918 lost over 10,000 killed or died of wounds and disease.

Ralph

[edwin astill]

This raised a question I've often wondered about. There is a very large literature available to us on WW1 participants in English - books diaries etc - hundreds if not thousands. Does Germany/Austria enjoy such largesse?

Edwin

[fritz]

Yes of course Edwin, between the two wars a great number of WW1-literature was created. But only fragments of it are available today.

In the west of Germany the bombing war has done his work, in the east escaping people from the Soviet army had no interest to take these books in their bags.

After WW2 nearly was nobody was interested in WW1-literature and a good deal was going on to the rubbish-heap.

Only some times later some people started again to secure this historical phase.

Fritz

[momsirish]

Hey,

I'm doing some research on post WWI Germany, and had a few questions that I hope someone here might be able to help me with.

I was wondering if anyone has any information, or can direct me to a good site or book, on German veterans of WWI in the post-war society. For example, I am interested in how they were treated or recognized after the war, what their place was in society, and their general reaction to and treatment by the rising Nazi regime.

I know this isn't directly related to the Great War, but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

HSA

Hallen:

I hope this doesn't throw you off track but postwar, the DADA artists were protesting Germany's degeneration from a society of reason to one of self destruction through war, or something like that. Seeing all these troops coming home sick, amputated, etc lead to art being made from pieces of torn material paper etc. or just seemingly illogical artworks not readily understood.. Many artists of the period had friends who suffered or did not come home from the war. Looking up artists' histories may give you names of their soldier friends.

momsirish

[AndyHollinger]

Hmmm ... as a College professor, I smell an assignment. But look to postwar war German Literature, Remarque has some insight in Drei Komeraden, and The Road Back. Alfred Doblin's book, A people betrayed is good. Germany Tried Democracy is a classic by Halperin (that is history not fiction) Some works that I found very interesting are "The Thought they were Free by Mayer about ordinary Germans during the Reich but there is good background on each who became a minor party member. Another classic is William Allen's The Nazi Seizure of Power ... goes into the 1930 - 1933 time period. Phillip Metcalfe's 1933 is very good as well. Also for another slice of horror is Ordinary Men ... the background of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of Polish "fame" .... most everyone is a WWI vet and their backgrounds will give you much material. Doblin's novel and Halperin's history are basically left, whereas all the others study things about people who ended up fascists. Any good work on Karl Liebknect or Rosa Luxemburg will give you some background as well.

There is some work done on the Danzig situation as well ...

In general, life sucked. Let me know how the paper is going.

[ph0ebus]

Hey,

I'm doing some research on post WWI Germany, and had a few questions that I hope someone here might be able to help me with.

I was wondering if anyone has any information, or can direct me to a good site or book, on German veterans of WWI in the post-war society. For example, I am interested in how they were treated or recognized after the war, what their place was in society, and their general reaction to and treatment by the rising Nazi regime.

I know this isn't directly related to the Great War, but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

HSA

Hi HSA,

I can only speak of my own grandfather's experiences, which I know of via my father. The disarray of postwar Germany left my grandfather (whose image appears as my avatar in his Prussian feldartillerie uniform and pickelhaube) full of dismay, and though he stayed and tried to make the best of things through the mid twenties, by 1928 he had enough, and pulled up stakes and came to America, along with his wife and two kids. He was sponsored by his cousin, and got a nice job as a bird specialist at the Odenwald Bird Company on the Bowery in NYC, which eventually became Hartz Mountain Pet Products. I gather he was further dismayed by what transpired next, i.e., the rise of the Nazis, and enthusiatically supported my father's decision in 1943 to enlist in the US Army to fight in the second World War. My grandfather even registered for the draft (as I suppose he was required to do) but by the early 1940s his health began failing him (likely relating to nearly dying from Typhoid, being shot and subsequently gassed in the course of his four years of service in the Great War), and by 1945 he was dead, at age 49.

Below is one of the photos of him at work with the canaries at the Odenwald Bird Company, and is one of only two taken post war I have in which he actually looks happy.

-Daniel

[CarylW]

Came across an interesting snippet about immediate post war Germany in Spreading the spy net (published 1938) by Captain Henry Landau who was in Berlin after the armistice and witnessed first hand the state of the returned veterans

....the city was filled with men still wearing their field-grey soldier's uniform. Several million men had been demobilized but vast numbers of them had not yet obtained work, nor had they the price of a new set of clothes. My thoughts went back to Belgium, to those few days after the Armistice when I had seen these same men file past me, an efficient military machine. Then, even though dirty and tired, they looked as though they still had life in them and still could fight. Now they seemed to be derelicts, completely demoralized and in despair, more like human scarecrows than soldiers; often they wore only part uniform and part ragged civilian clothing, a pair of trousers or a coat from the remnants of a pre-War wardrobe. Starvation conditions, disappointment with the situation at home and misery in their families had done more damage to their morale in a few months than the enemy fire during the course of the whole War. The German authorities could do nothing for them but dish out potatoes to them at the communal kitchens; the unfortunate creatures could only wait listlessly and hopelessly until such time as the German industries had picked up sufficiently for them to be absorbed....

Caryl

[Dragon]

It might be worth looking in Richard Grunberger's works. I've just had a quick flick through A Social History of the Third Reich and there are snippets. I haven't read his book about Germany in the post-war period. Joachim Fest is another name among those who discussed the issues facing Germany, but I'm afraid I only have The Face of the Third Reich to look at. Apologies if these are dated, because I used them as an undergrad, but I'm inclined to consider them 'classics'.

I think I might also consider looking at the works and thoughts of artists such as Otto Dix, Max Beckmann (Die Hölle and Berliner Reise examine the misery of German society post-war), Dada (as mentioned above, adding Grosz to the list I mentioned so far - eg Deutschland - ein Wintermärchen and Gott mit uns, showing him as a social critic), socialist artists like Felixmüller (who studied the proletariat), Bauhaus figures like Gropius who aspired to create a new, better future (Gropius also created a monument to the 1920 insurgents and Mies van der Rohe created a symbolic structure to commemorate Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht), Käthe Kollwitz, one of whose aims was to help the poor by moving people to compassion; and many others. Art is a witness to events; enraged artists are protesters and may aim to communicate the sufferings of ordinary people. I think that the breadth of politically-inspired art in the post-war period might be illuminating.

I have Icon and revolution: political and social themes in German art 1918-1933 by W. L. Guttsman, but I'm afraid it's expensive second hand.

Gwyn

[corisande]

You want to take a look at

Freikorps

Steel Helmets

The Frekorps appear to have been the short term successor to the German Army. Look at what happened in Munich in1919

The Steel Helmets started as a veterans association and became an extension of the German Army enabling it to exceed its 100000 limit from Treaty of Versailles, reaching 500000 men before getting absorbed into Hitlers organizations around 1934.

[centurion]

Until the early 1930s there was a significant German Jewish ex Servicemens' organisation that published a well written magazine. I understand that bound copies have survived, unfortunately I don't know what its title in German was but this could be a useful source for the 1920s

[ph0ebus]

Until the early 1930s there was a significant German Jewish ex Servicemens' organisation that published a well written magazine. I understand that bound copies have survived, unfortunately I don't know what its title in German was but this could be a useful source for the 1920s

I don't know what it was really called, but it should have been entitled "Wir Wurden Verschraubt".

-Daniel

[fritz]

The mentioned organization is this

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbund_j%...r_Frontsoldaten

Fritz

[Ken S.]

I would agree that The Nazi Seizure of Power is worth looking at.

In terms of German veterans organizations, if you read German the book Militärvereine in Norddeutschland will provide an idea of the role of these groups in German society.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=E2dg89Vh9e...p;q&f=false

[James Blonde]

Looking at the amount of pre 1934 Hindenberg Cross of Honour ,

Veteran Association commemorative Crosses, Medals Insignias that were on offer

for a price to Prussian, the Associated German States, Austrian, Hungarians, Bulgarian,

there was great interest in veterans organisations.

Connaught Stranger