D’une guerre, l’autre
From war to warThe cult of the dead heroes in general and of the war dead in particular was a central element of the national-socialists’ system of beliefs. This article highlights how the heroic representation of the German “Frontsoldat” of WWI has been systematically exploited by Nazi war pedagogy...
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Langue: | Français |
| Publié: |
2008
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| Accès en ligne: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Résumé: | From war to warThe cult of the dead heroes in general and of the war dead in particular was a central element of the national-socialists’ system of beliefs. This article highlights how the heroic representation of the German “Frontsoldat” of WWI has been systematically exploited by Nazi war pedagogy to breed a new generation of soldiers.The cult of the war dead in German youth culture didn’t altogether start with the Nazi “seizure of power”, but had effectively developed as much among nationalist as among protestant and catholic youth organizations during the later years of the Republic of Weimar. While the abstract, apolitical exhortation to imitate the dead soldiers’ commitment to the nation was common to most commemorative discourses of the time, the Nazi movement’s interpretation of the “war experience” radically politicised the commemoration of the war, stipulating the equivalence of the trench warfare in WWI and the political struggle in the late 1920s, early 30s, thus constructing a continuous war, whose “political soldiers” could claim to be the heirs of the glorious German army of 1914-18.Although the Hitler Youth’s travail de mémoire after 1933 concentrated on the mythical battle of Langemarck, the Nazi youth organization had in mind another role model : the “new soldier” of the trenches, a ruthless, machine-like warrior, who fulfilled his duty whatever the consequences for the enemy or for himself. An exemplary means of transmitting this set of soldierly virtues to young Germans were the excursions to Flanders’ or France’s battlefields, where the young “pilgrims” were to imbue themselves with the spirit of sacrifice of the soldiers of the Great War. |
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