Beglaubigte Zeitzeugnisse

The First World War, a historical turning point of destruction and new beginning, has changed strategies of world politics along with military technologies, but also the field of culture and media. The literature of the Great War, shaped mostly by combatant writers, recognised authenticity as one of ist core values. Regardless of the text’s ideological messages, sincerity, directness and immediacy were considered its quality guarantee. The literary work on the events of the first modern war also required a modernization of the narrative.
This book explores the cultural backgrounds of the appreciation for the authenticity at the turn of the century as well as after 1914 and focuses on stylistic elements of the authentic war narrative. This study on German and European literature and history provides a glance across the borders, those of languages and cultural spaces, but also those of ideological constructs.