23 - Daily Life at the Front and the Concept of Total War

Summary

Until recently, German military history has largely ignored the daily lot of the common soldier. Whereas historians have generally concentrated on grand strategy, decision-making processes, and a few highly influential persons, the vast majority involved in the war effort have been subsumed under the label “unknown soldier” - not important enough to be studied in closer detail as individuals. The argument that the hardship, brutality, and anxiety of daily life at the front is incomprehensible to the outsider, although ostensibly a sympathetic one, was usually no more than a pretext to avoid widely available sources: Most soldiers described the reality of war in letters; most veterans talked about this exceptional part of their lives and communicated their experiences and reflections; and many tried to come to terms with it by writing memoirs and novels. These documents teach a lot about the experience of war, its suffering and destructiveness, monotony and boredom, cruelty and pain, but also its comradeship, adventure, and excitement. Studying the anthropological dimension of wars reveals their inhumanity as well as the psychological dispositions that are necessary for wars to take place.