Fallen Soldiers : Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars: Reshaping the Memory of the World WarsOxford University Press, USA, 15 mars 1990 - 272 pages At the outbreak of the First World War, an entire generation of young men charged into battle for what they believed was a glorious cause. Over the next four years, that cause claimed the lives of some 13 million soldiers--more than twice the number killed in all the major wars from 1790 to 1914. But despite this devastating toll, the memory fostered by the belligerents was not of the grim reality of its trench warfare and battlefield carnage. Instead, the nations that fought commemorated the war's sacredness and the martyrdom of those who had died for the greater glory of the fatherland. The sanctification of war is the subject of this pioneering work by well-known European historian George L. Mosse. Fallen Soldiers offers a profound analysis of what he calls the Myth of the War Experience--a vision of war that masks its horror, consecrates its memory, and ultimately justifies its purpose. Beginning with the Napoleonic wars, Mosse traces the origins of this myth and its symbols, and examines the role of war volunteers in creating and perpetuating it. His book is likely to become one of the classic studies of modern war and the complex, often disturbing nature of human perception and memory. |
Table des matières
A Different Kind of War | 3 |
PART I THE FOUNDATIONS | 13 |
PART II THE FIRST WORLD WAR | 51 |
PART III THE POSTWAR AGE | 157 |
Notes | 227 |
252 | |
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army battle battle of Langemarck battlefield became Berlin Brigades burial buried C. E. M. Joad Christian commemoration confrontation crosses cult dead defeat Deutsche Deutschland Deutschlandlied dominated earlier elite enemy England English enthusiasm Ernst Jünger Ernst von Salomon example Experience fallen soldier fascist fatherland fighting films fought France Free Corps French Revolution front German Youth German Youth Movement groves heroes Hitler honor Ibid important individual Italian Jews Krieg Kriegerdenkmäler Kriegsgräberfürsorge landscape Langemarck lives London manliness memorials military cemeteries modern monuments mountain Munich Myth Napoleon nation nature Nazis pacifist Paris patriotic peace Père Lachaise picture pilgrimages played popular postcards postwar process of brutalization process of trivialization reality Reich resurrection role sacred sacrifice Second World Second World War seemed social society song Spanish Civil War symbols themes tion tomb traditional Trenker Unknown Soldier Verdun veterans victory Volk Volksbund volunteers Wars of Liberation Weimar Republic wrote Youth Movement