Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War : Killing, Dying, Surviving

Translated into English as the Winner of the Geisteswissenschaften International Translation Prize for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences 2015.

During the Great War, mass killing took place on an unprecedented scale. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War explores the practice of violence in the German army and demonstrates how he killing of enemy troops, the deaths of German soldiers and their survival were entwined.

As the war reached its climax in 1918, German soldiers refused to continue killing in their droves, and thus made an active contribution to the German defeat and ensuing revolution. Examining the postwar period, the chapters of this book also discuss the contested issue of a 'brutalization' of German society as a prerequisite of the Nazi mass movement. Biographical case studies on key figures such as Ernst Jünger demonstrate how the killing of enemy troops by German soldiers followed a complex set of rules.

Benjamin Ziemann makes a wealth of extensive archival work available to an Anglophone audience for the first time, enhancing our understanding of the German army and its practices of violence during the First World War as well as the implications of this brutalization in post-war Germany. This book provides new insights into a crucial topic for students of twentieth-century German history and the First World War.

“Ziemann's outstanding book is highly original in its nuanced and differentiated analysis of the behaviour of German troops during the First World War - why they were prepared to kill, but also how war weariness led to mass desertion and rejection of violence. Simple generalisations will not surive a reading of this brilliant work.” —Sir Ian Kershaw, Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of Sheffield, UK

“Combat is an extreme state of emotion that armies seek to discipline, with limited success, in order to make violence purposive and effective. Historians have a similar problem. Benjamin Ziemann's highly disciplined and, yet, critical perspective on violence in war – institutional and situational military practices, soldierly dodges and subterfuges, post-combat- and post-war representations – sets new standards for understanding German conduct and experience in World War I and, by implication, for all belligerents.” —Michael Geyer, Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago, USA