Postwar Soldiers

Jörg Echternkamp is Research Director at the Center for Military History and Social Sciences (ZMSBw) and Associate Professor of Modern History at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He is co-editor of the journal Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift. Echternkamp was awarded the “Geisteswissenschaften International” translation grant in 2017.

Reviews for the German Edition:“Echternkamp successfully applies the concept of collective representation to the three fields of conflict he has selected. His research clarifies the extent to which the collective representations of war and military have enabled and contributed to political and cultural change.” • Sehepunkte“Jörg Echternkamp's convincing study fulfills its promise of methodologically complex differentiation… This differentiated view of the historical “gaps” and ambiguities offers ways to understand the German victims of the war as well as the (German) perpetrators…To this end, Echternkamp’s interpretation of the history of war and the military produces an important contribution.” • H-Soz-Kult

• AcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: The Problem: Paths Out of the WarPart I: Forms of Consciousness and Prospects for Experience before 1945Chapter 1. Heroic Images of War in the Age of WarsChapter 2. Shared Prospects of Experience in Total WarChapter 3. The End of the War on the Horizon of Expectation, 1944–1945Part II: A Criminal War?Chapter 4. The Postwar Period as a Backdrop for ExperienceChapter 5. Demilitarization as an Allied Political ProgramChapter 6. Representation as a Legal Issue: The Military Leadership on Trial, 1945–1946Chapter 7. Conflicting Ideas: The Wehrmacht between Elucidation and MythChapter 8. Provisional AssessmentPart III: Veterans – an Experiential Community of “Victims”?Chapter 9. Self-Organization among Former SoldiersChapter 10. Internal and External Perceptions of Veterans: Victims and AchieversChapter 11. The Presence of the Absent: The Symbolic Representation and the Political Instrumentalization of Prisoners of WarChapter 12. Experience versus. Expectation: Consumption Critique and War CaptivityChapter 13. Remembering the Fallen: Historical Signification between Commemorative Ceremony and Grave CarePart IV: Competing Interpretations and Conferring Meaning: War Stories of “Others”Chapter 14. The Military Resistance: Fostering Tradition as a Political Act and Biographical ChallengeChapter 15. Defectors, Deserters, War Criminals: Mirroring Self-ImagesChapter 16. The Führer Abroad: Defense by DemarcationChapter 17. Traitors, Spies, and Other “Loners”: The War’s Trivialization in the MediaChapter 18. Provisional AssessmentPart V: Historically Armed: Images of War and Soldiers in Military Leadership Philosophy and Political Public Relations WorkChapter 19. Military Self-Understanding between the “Old” and “New” WehrmachtChapter 20. The Adenauer Government’s Efforts at Integration in the Pre-political RealmChapter 21. Moral Rearmament: The Party Soldiers of the Free Democratic PartyChapter 22. The Political Functionality of “Wartime Experience” in the Cold WarChapter 23. Remilitarization as a Field of Tension in Collective RepresentationsChapter 24. Provisional AssessmentConclusion: A Prospective View and SummaryBibliographyIndex