First World War in German

[truthergw]

We are blessed with several very good books in English giving an overall view of the war. Could any of our German speaking pals recommend a German equivalent. I mean a book from the German point of view, written in German. I have decided to brush up my German and would like something like a German version of Hew Strachan as a reader. Might as well learn two things at the same time.

[Halder]

Graf von Kielmannsegg wrote one, I think late 1960s, simply entitled Erster Weltkrieg, but from memory it's not particularly lively.

My own experience is that the Great War is a bit of forgotten German history. There's a lot on the Kaiser, there's plenty of the causes of the war... and then nothing until the revolution of 1918/19, Weimar and Hitler; I've really struggled to find much published post-1939. There are few good recent studies of Verdun, Somme, Marne, 1918 offensives in the German language; certainly from what I've seen nothing to match say Alistair Horne's Price of Glory, for example.

Holger Herwig's Germany and the First World War is outstanding (and English!) and a must read; it's very much a German Strachan. He's also given it an excellent bibliography. I know Ian Passingham's All the Kaiser's Men has its detractors, but I think it's a good lively read of the landser's war. Also not bad is Victory Must Be Ours, published by Leo Cooper a decade or so ago. The author's name escapes me, sorry.

The Reichsarchiv's official histories are pretty easy to get hold off, well the 1914 and 1915 volumes, via Abebooks. On the down side, like most pre-WW2 German books they're in Gothic script.

I'd be interest for input from other Pals for English/German language suggestions too. I've toyed with writing a book on Germany in WW1, but I'm most likely to do the Marne campaign or the collapse in 1918... hence falling into the trap I've had a go at above!

[truthergw]

Graf von Kielmannsegg wrote one, I think late 1960s, simply entitled Erster Weltkrieg, but from memory it's not particularly lively.

My own experience is that the Great War is a bit of forgotten German history. There's a lot on the Kaiser, there's plenty of the causes of the war... and then nothing until the revolution of 1918/19, Weimar and Hitler; I've really struggled to find much published post-1939. There are few good recent studies of Verdun, Somme, Marne, 1918 offensives in the German language; certainly from what I've seen nothing to match say Alistair Horne's Price of Glory, for example.

Holger Herwig's Germany and the First World War is outstanding (and English!) and a must read; it's very much a German Strachan. He's also given it an excellent bibliography. I know Ian Passingham's All the Kaiser's Men has its detractors, but I think it's a good lively read of the landser's war. Also not bad is Victory Must Be Ours, published by Leo Cooper a decade or so ago. The author's name escapes me, sorry.

The Reichsarchiv's official histories are pretty easy to get hold off, well the 1914 and 1915 volumes, via Abebooks. On the down side, like most pre-WW2 German books they're in Gothic script.

I'd be interest for input from other Pals for English/German language suggestions too. I've toyed with writing a book on Germany in WW1, but I'm most likely to do the Marne campaign or the collapse in 1918... hence falling into the trap I've had a go at above!

Thanks very much for the time and trouble you have taken. I have Werth's " Verdun" and the Reichsarchiv

" Ypern", but I was hoping for something a bit more general. Holger Herwig's book sounds as though it may be to good to miss even if it is in English. Thanks again.

[Jack Sheldon]

Try obtaining a copy of Der Weltkrieg by Rudolph Stratz, which was published in 1933. There are plenty of second hand copies about. Yes it is printed in Fraktur, but that script is by no means as difficult to read as some make out. My father learned German in school in England in the 1930s and the entire business was based on this script. The book is a series of bite-sized essays, some of which cover similar ground to the chapters in Ian Passingham's book. For example 'The Terrible Turnip Winter' is covered by Stratz as Der Kohlruebenwinter', so if you read Ian's section first and get the drift of it, it makes reading Stratz easier.

Jack

[Robert Dunlop]

... that script is by no means as difficult to read as some make out.

Just watch out for the similarities between 's' and 'f'. Some publishers make the distinction and it is easy to tell once you have got used to their style. Other publishers were not so kind. Can make things a bit tricky when figuring out if units were 'aus'ing or 'auf'ing from obscure villages and towns . It forces you to look up locations and I have found that this has given me a much deeper appreciation of what happened, particularly with respect to the early months in 1914.

Robert

[truthergw]

Thank you guys. Robert, Like your father, but slightly later in forties and fifties, my textbooks were in what we called Gothic type. "Deutsche Leben ". That's probably why I kept the French going and dropped the German. I had no ' need' for either. Jack, is that what you call " Fraktur"? I can cope, but find it requires intense concentration. When I find myself reading the same paragraph for the third time, I close the book and put the kettle on. Luckily, it is purely a leisure pursuit to help take up anticipated freetime after my looming retirement. I am trying to get an inkling into the war as seen by different nations involved. I have been poking about on Abebooks. De. I was looking for some guidance on what to look for, and believe I have it now. Incidentally, the price of books is very low. Lack of interest having, for once, a beneficial effect on the market?

[Halder]

Forgot to mention: Ernst Kabisch wrote a series of books on the great battles of the war, such as the Somme, Verdun, the Black Day of the German Army. They're quite readable, although they're tainted by post-1933 bias.

Also readily available are collections of Feldpost; Witkop's book was translated into English and is back in print (War Letters of German Students or something similar). They're are a few more, the best of which is probably Wir kämpfen in Weltkrieg which I think was edited by Wolfgang Foerster.

Much more comprehensive than the Reichsarchiv's battle series are the official histories, the counterparts to the ones produced by Edmonds et al in the Uk. They're titled Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918: Operationen zu Lande. I think they run to 17 or 18 volumes, although you won't find anything beyond about vol. 10 for sale. The IWM has a complete set.

I've been re-reading Herwig again today. If you like Strachan, you'll like Herwig. His style is very similar. It's going for about £13 on abebooks at the moment. Foley and Mombauer's studies of Falkenhayn and Moltke respectively are very good if you're a serious student. Isabel Hull's study of German militarism is also interesting. Absolute Destruction

Contrary to what Pal Jack says, Fraktur is horrible to read. Or at least it is when you've spent the day peering at a microfilm reader in the British Library looking at German newspapers from 1918 and 1919! He has a point though, some Fraktur is easier to read than others; depends on the publisher. Still prefer good ol' Times Roman...

[Robert Dunlop]

The thing that really helped me get to terms with Gothic script was transcribing the originals into modern German. I can touch type quite quickly so the process is not too time-consuming. More importantly, I find that it helps me take in the fine details. Not to be recommended as a hobby! but even transcribing a few pages in this way will help make you more familiar with the script.

Robert

[truthergw]

The thing that really helped me get to terms with Gothic script was transcribing the originals into modern German. I can touch type quite quickly so the process is not too time-consuming. More importantly, I find that it helps me take in the fine details. Not to be recommended as a hobby! but even transcribing a few pages in this way will help make you more familiar with the script.

Robert

Thanks again chaps. Robert, I can see how that would help but I am still at a very early stage of reading at all. The script is not too much of a hindrance. I read a sentence or two then consult dictionary and or grammar . Read another sentence, scratch head, go back a few sentences and read again......... You have forgotten the real fun of it all For a very few euros , I picked up a copy of Moltke on Moltke. A splendidly baroque cover and tiny type in light grey ink. circa 1890. I stop when one of my eyes falls out. Thanks again for the recommendations.

[Jack Sheldon]

I sympathise with what Halder has to say about microfilm. Frankly the same applies to old British newspapers, but the point I was trying to make is that it is wrong to permit yourself to allow a script which was used universally for a long period to be an obstacle to understanding. Your target is the language that lies behind the typescript and not the script itself. Tens of millions of people from the brightest intellectuals to the biggest dunces coped with this script on a daily basis and it was only dropped (allegedly) because Adolf discerned Jewish origins behind it in the early 1940s. So coping with it is a matter of familiarity and practice. There are good websites which will help you. Just run a Google search for 'Fraktur' and print off some guidance. I do this for styles of handwriting which, in their frequently abbreviated and smudgy original form, still cause me great difficulty.

Here are a few tips which you may find helpful.

- Sit at a desk or table and flood the page with light to avoid eyestrain. Use a ruler to help you stay on each line in turn.

- Try not to keep reaching for the dictionary - It interrupts the flow. I accept that you will come across many unfamiliar words; adjectives of the period, in particular, often seem to have fallen out of fashion since. But remember, as often as not modern dictionaries will not help you much, especially where technical or military terms are involved.

- You might find it helpful to buy the Imperial War Museum reprint of 'Vocabulary of German Military Terms and Abbreviations' of July 1918 (ISBN 1-870423-53-4)

- As an aid to comprehension, to try to read the book as its original audience would have done and to get into the rhythm and cadence of the language, start by trying to understand the sense of a complete paragraph ata time, even if you have to skip straight through difficult sections. The more you do this the better you will get at it and the more you will understand of each fresh passage at first reading.

- When it comes to unravelling parts you do not understand initially, work on the assumption that every sentence is intended to convey a clear meaning, so force yourself to discover what that is, making use of the slightest recognisable signal in the text.

- Do not concern yourself with working out every little nuance. That only matters when you are translating.

Finally you are doing this for your own interest and pleasure, so do not let it become a chore. Remember that if you crack it, you have opened the way to a gigantic amount of literature which has to remain a closed book to almost everyone who is interested in the Great War.

Jack

[Robert Dunlop]

I found this web site was helpful when I started:

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Search/RG/...hic99-36316.ASP

Robert

[bob lembke]

I taught myself to read German (I had learned to speak it after a fashion in Ljubljana, Slovenija in the 1960s and 1970s) about 4-5 years ago to read a pile of family letters I had found, mostly Feldpost from my father and grand-father. So, having started with Suetterlin and Kurrent, this Fraktur stuff is all downhill, and it feels odd to read German in modern script. Just do it! (My super-wife has just started the Arabic alphabet. It is worse than it looks.)

They were mentioned, but the "Schlachten" series of Reichsarchiv books are useful, and cheap. (A typical price is about 7 Euros.) They are variable in style and probably in quality, as they have real authors, but they have a lot of info, especially the detail of actions and individual men. They cover most major battles and campaigns, but not all. The Weltkrieg 1914-1918 series are fairly comprehensive, seem to have been written by committee, and are much pricier. As for an over-view in German, I tend not to read secondary sources, and I don't know of one I would strongly recommend.

An interesting source, to be used with caution, and free, is the daily communique of the Highest Army Command, as published daily by the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau, as found on the Internet at www.stahlgewitter.com. It obviously had a spin, but that spin seems to have been mostly imparted by being selective about what was said, not be lying throuth their teeth. I have a letter from a US corps commander to Pershing's chief of staff, citing the OHL report of the Germans having "cleaned his clock" in a small engagement, and the letter seems to take it as a given that the German report is accurate about his losses. Does anyone have an opinion about these reports? They cannot be a major source, but they cover most engagements of note briefly and give a different slant on an engagement. Any opinions? My impression is that they attempted to be accurate about what they did print, to gain creditability, and then do the propaganda effort by being selective about the events mentioned or ignored.

Amazing that I only found this sub-forum now, despite being a serious book-nut.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

Halder;

If you have been reading German papers for 1918-1919, you must have an idea if the Freikorps / Spartakist punch em' up was covered, and in what detail. (Of course every paper would have its own spin.) My father was in the Freikorps Potsdam, and was one of the gents that burned their way thru a back fence and then the back door with his Flammenwerfer during the assault on the Vorwaerts building. Plan to write about it in a couple of years, when I write the "Georg book" (he was quite a character!), but I am sniffing for sources up front and building a time-line.

Any opinions? Papers that were publishing then and there? I can then launch my wifely "Librarian of Fortune", as she fancies herself.

Bob Lembke

[truthergw]

I taught myself to read German (I had learned to speak it after a fashion in Ljubljana, Slovenija in the 1960s and 1970s) about 4-5 years ago to read a pile of family letters I had found, mostly Feldpost from my father and grand-father. So, having started with Suetterlin and Kurrent, this Fraktur stuff is all downhill, and it feels odd to read German in modern script. Just do it! (My super-wife has just started the Arabic alphabet. It is worse than it looks.)

.............................

Amazing that I only found this sub-forum now, despite being a serious book-nut.

Bob Lembke

Thanks for the input Bob. I am mainly interested in rounding out my view of the war with the help of commentary from the different protagonists. Interesting what you say about secondary sources. To some extent, of course, I agree. But there are primary sources and primary sources. I am very wary of personal reminiscences. I enjoy them, but I do not trust them. Personal anecdotes aside, if granny tells me one thing and Hew Strachan tells me another, I think I'll plump for Mr. Strachan. I prefer my military history to be like a good martini, very dry.

[Halder]

Hi Bob,

There is quite a bit on the Freikorps, mainly editorials rather than first-hand accounts, and also a lot of adverts in the small ads calling for volunteers. I have to admit I wasn't looking for Freikorps material, rather Versailles treaty and the homecoming of troops to Berlin in December 1918. Vorwarts from what I've seen looks to be little more than a political rag with little in the way of news. Tagliche Rundschau is a right-wing nationalist paper with some news. Vossische Zeitung and Berliner Morgenpost seem to be about the best. Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung was seen as a semi-official government paper.