Postwar soldiers : historical controversies and West German democratization, 1945-1955 / Jörg Echternkamp ; translated from the German by Noah Harley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Echternkamp, Jörg, author.

Contributor:

Harley, Noah, translator.

Series:

Making sense of history ; Volume 39.

Making sense of history ; Volume 39

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Veteran reintegration--Germany (West).

Veteran reintegration.

Germany (West)--History.

Germany (West).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 556 pages).

Edition:

English-language edition.

Place of Publication:

New York ; Oxford : Berghahn, [2020]

Summary:

Contemporary historians have transformed our understanding of the German military in World War II, debunking the “clean Wehrmacht” myth that held most soldiers innocent of wartime atrocities. Considerably less attention has been paid to those soldiers at the end of hostilities. In Postwar Soldiers, Jörg Echternkamp analyzes three themes in the early history of West Germany: interpretations of the war during its conclusion and the occupation period; military veteran communities’ self-perceptions; and the public rehabilitation of the image of the German soldier. As Echternkamp shows, public controversies around these topics helped to drive the social processes that legitimized the democratic postwar order.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction. The Problem: Paths Out of the War

Part I FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND PROSPECTS FOR EXPERIENCE BEFORE 1945

Chapter 1. Heroic Images of War in the Age of Wars

Chapter 2. Shared Prospects for Experience in Total War

Chapter 3. The End of the War on the Horizon of Expectation, 1944–1945

Part II. A Criminal War?

Chapter 4. The Postwar Period as a Backdrop for Experience

Chapter 5. Demilitarization as an Allied Political Program

Chapter 6. Representation as a Legal Issue: The Military Leadership on Trial, 1945–1946

Chapter 7. Conflicting Ideas: The Wehrmacht between Elucidation and Myth

Chapter 8. Provisional Assessment

Part III. Veterans—An Experiential Community of “Victims”?

Introduction

Chapter 9. Self-Organization among Former Soldiers

Chapter 10. Internal and External Perceptions of Veterans: Victims and Achievers

Chapter 11. The Presence of the Absent: The Symbolic Representation and the Political Instrumentalization of Prisoners of War

Chapter 12. Experience versus Expectation: Consumption Critique and War Captivity

Chapter 13. Remembering the Fallen: Historical Signification between Commemorative Ceremony and Grave Care

Part IV. Competing Interpretations and Conferring Meaning: War Stories of “Others”

Chapter 14. The Military Resistance: Fostering Tradition as a Political Act and Biographical Challenge

Chapter 15. Defectors, Deserters, War Criminals: Mirroring Self-Images

Chapter 16. The Führer Abroad: Defense by Demarcation

Chapter 17. Traitors, Spies, and Other “Loners”: The War’s Trivialization in the Media

Chapter 18. Provisional Assessment

Part V. Historically Armed: Images of War and Soldiers in Military Leadership Philosophy and Political Public Relations Work

Chapter 19. Military Self-Understanding between the “Old” and “New” Wehrmacht

Chapter 20. The Adenauer Government’s Eff orts at Integration in the Pre-political Realm

Chapter 21. Moral Rearmament: The Party Soldiers of the Free Democratic Party

Chapter 22. The Political Functionality of “Wartime Experience” in the Cold War

Chapter 23. Remilitarization as a Field of Tension in Collective Representations

Chapter 24. Provisional Assessment

Conclusion. A Prospective View and Summary

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-80758-429-1

1-78920-558-1

OCLC:

1147832695