Postwar Soldiers : : Historical Controversies and West German Democratization, 1945–1955 / / Jörg Echternkamp.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Echternkamp, Jörg,
• Place / Publishing House: New York ;, Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Making Sense of History ; 39
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (570 p.)

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.

Table of 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 -- Introduction -- 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