The Great War and Religion in Comparative Perspective Why the Christian culture of war prevailed...

KZG/CCH, 28. Jg., 21–62, ISSN (Printausgabe): 0932-9951, ISSN (online): 2196-808X © 2015 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen

■ aufsätze und essays/articles

Gerhard Besier

The Great War and Religion in Comparative Perspective

Why the Christian culture of war prevailed over religiously- motivated pacifism in 19141

Historical Background: Christian Peace Initiatives between 1907 and 1914

It may come as a surprise, but the decade preceding the outbreak of World War I was not only characterised by numerous crises. In reality, this was a period of various Christian peace initiatives originating particularly from Great Britain and Germany, which – in the face of the various political tensions between these two countries (naval and colonial rivalries)2 – ought especially to have served the purpose of bi-national understanding.3 The publisher of Peacemaker, a Christian magazine, which was effectively seen as the British flagship publication of the

1 Lecture delivered at the Notre Dame London Centre on March 20, 2014, the History De-partment at Stanford University on October 21, 2014, and the Faculty of Arts at the Uni-versity of Lisbon on 13 November 2014.

2 See Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers. How Europe went to War in 1914, London: Al-len Lane, 2012. Religious-historical and cultural historical aspects lie outside Clark’s approach. This is also the case for Jörn Leonhard, Die Büchse der Pandora. Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2014). It is only in his chapter »Kriegsdeutun-gen« (Interpretations of War) that Leonhard considers the approach of the liberal theo-logian, Ernst Troeltsch (op. cit., 238–240). This is in clear contrast to Herfried Münkler, in Der große Krieg. Die Welt 1914–1918, Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2013. See his chapter, Der Sinn und die Ziele des Krieges (215–288). See also, Gerhard Hirschfeld/Gerd Krumeich, Deutschland im Ersten Weltkrieg, Frankfurt a. M.: S. Fischer, 2013, and Oliver Janz, Der Große Krieg, Frankfurt a. M.-New York: Campus, 2013, Chapter 5 (Kulturkrieg); Ernst Piper, Nacht über Europa. Kulturgeschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs (without reference to the Christian churches, there is a chapter »on the situation of Judaism among the people«, 315–367). See also Jay Winter (ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War, 3 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014; vol. 3/part V, includes a chapter on »Beliefs and Religion« by Adrian Gregory (pp. 418–444). Bart Ziino (ed.), Remembering the First World War, New York-London: Routledge, 2015, answers to the question how and why this period is discussed so widely in present times.

3 Cf. Gerald Deckart, Deutsch-englische Verständigung: Eine Darstellung der nichtoffiziel-len Bemühungen um eine Wiederannäherung der beiden Länder zwischen 1905 und 1914, Diss. phil. Munich 1967, esp. 90–108; Günter Hollenberg, Englisches Interesse am Kai-serreich. Die Attraktivität Preußen-Deutschlands für konservative und liberale Kreise in Großbritannien 1860–1914, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1974, 60–113; 132–146.


22 Gerhard Besier

movement, marks the year 1907 as the starting point4 for these Christian initia-tives and the trigger was the second Peace Conference at The Hague in mid-Oc-tober, 1907.5

Two lay-people met at this conference, the London liberal Member of Parlia-ment, Joseph Allen Baker (1852–1918),6 a Quaker, and Baron Eduard de Neufville (1857–1935) from Frankfurt/M. They talked about the opportunity to mobilise religious communities from both countries in the name of international under-standing. Like Baker, Eduard de Neufville was a committed pacifist,7 who had already sought to establish literary contact between people from the two coun-tries. De Neufville was deeply concerned about the total lack of representatives from the German Church at the Second Peace Conference.8 These men met in the conviction that religion, as the »soul« of their people, ought not to be allowed to be driven back any further; the more so as it had always encompassed the »ecumenical« field. Baker and de Neufville contacted the British Prime Minister, Henry Campbell-Bannermann, as well as the Chancellor of the German Empire, Prince Bernard von Bülow, who each promised their support for the Peace Pro-ject. Thanks to Baker’s involvement, who had meanwhile been appointed Pres-ident of the Metropolitan Free Churches Federation, an interdenominational committee was established in Great Britain. This committee invited 133 German

4 Cf. John Henry Rushbrooke, Die Bewegung unter den britischen christlichen Kirchen zur Pflege freundschaftlicher Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien in: Die Eiche. Vierteljahrsschrift zur Pflege freundschaftlicher Beziehungen zwischen Groß-britannien und Deutschland, edited by Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze 1 (1913), 9–11; see also Keith Clements, 100th anniversary of the Anglo-German Churches’ exchange visits, in Gemeindebrief der Christuskirche Oxford-Petersham, Pfarramtsbereich London-West, April/Mai 2008, 4 f.; idem, A Notable Ecumenical Anniversary: The Anglo-German Churches’ Exchange Visits of 1908–09 (www.ctbi.org.uk/pdf_view.php?id=147). The rele-vant archival documentation can be found in WCC Archives, Geneva, Boxes 212.020 and 212.021 (World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches).

5 See Jost Dülffer, Regeln gegen den Krieg? Die Haager Friedenskonferenzen 1899 und 1907 in der internationalen Politik, Frankfurt a. M.: Ullstein, 1981; Walther Schücking, Der Staatenverband der Haager Konferenzen, Munich and Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1912; Martin Löhnig/Mareike Preisner/Thomas Schlemmer (eds.), Krieg und Recht. Die Ausdif-ferenzierung des Rechts von der ersten Haager Friedenskonferenz bis heute, Regenstauf: Gietl, 2014.

6 Cf. The Times, 4 July 1918, 3 and The Times, 17 July 1918, 6. See also E. B. Baker and P. J. Noel Baker, J. Allen Baker, MP. A Memoir, London: Swarthmore Press 1927; Harmjan Dam, Der Weltbund für Freundschaftsarbeit der Kirchen 1914–1948. Eine ökumenische Friedensorganisation, Frankfurt a. M.: Otto Lembeck, 2001, 19 ff.

7 Ref. the history of the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft (German Peace Society), founded in 1892 in Berlin by Bertha von Suttner and Alfred Hermann Fried, see Dieter Riesenberger: Geschichte der Friedensbewegung in Deutschland. Von den Anfängen bis 1933, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985; Brigitte Hamann, Bertha von Suttner. Kämpferin für den Frieden, Vienna: Christian Brandstätter, 2013. Ref. Britain see: Martin Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain 1914–1945: The Defining of a Faith, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980, esp. 20 f.; 34 ff.

8 See Roger Philip Chickering, »The Peace Movement and the Religious Community in Ger-many, 1900–1914« in: Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, Red Bank (New Jersey): American Society of Church History 1969 (Booklet 3), 300–311.


The Great War and Religion in Comparative Perspective 23

churchmen and theologians to London and Cambridge for the end of May/early June 1908. The spokesman for the delegation was the General Superintendant of Berlin, Ernst von Dryander,9 while well-known theologians, such as Paul Althaus (Göttingen), Martin Rade (Marburg) and Hans von Soden (Berlin), added an in-tellectual aspect to the delegation. The Provost of St Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin represented the Roman-Catholic Church, and Carl Kleineidam (1848–1924) rep-resented the Archbishop of Cologne. The guests were welcomed by the Archbish-op of Canterbury, Randall Davidson,10 the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Francis Bourne,11 the President of the Free Churches, John Clifford,12 a Baptist, and the Chief-Rabbi. As well as visiting church institutions and worship servic-es, the German delegates had the opportunity to interact with representatives from all religious communities and politicians from all parties, including the new Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith. A reception given by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace was the highpoint of the meeting.13 A return visit in the fol-lowing year gave some 110 representatives of Britain’s Christian churches the op-portunity to get to know Germany’s big cities and form a picture of the religious environment in Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II invited the delegation to Potsdam, where he gave a warm welcome speech and entertained the British guests at the Schloss Sanssouci palace.14

Later at the Berlin University, the guests listened to a lecture from the Church historian, Adolf von Harnack, about International and National Christian Liter-ature (Internationale und nationale christliche Literatur).15 The theologian closed his speech with the statement that, »at the very roots of Science and of Christi-

9 See G. Besier, Ernst Hermann von Dryander, in: Gerd Heinrich (Ed.), Berlinische Le-bensbilder. Theologen, Berlin: Colloquium, 1990, 249–260; Bernd Andresen, Ernst von Dryander. Eine biographische Studie, Berlin-New York: de Gruyter, 1995.

10 Cf. George K. A. Bell, Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2 vols., London: Ox-ford University Press, 1935.

11 Cf. Ernest Oldmeadow, Francis Cardinal Bourne, London: Burnes, Oates & Washbourne, 1940.

12 Cf. James Marchant, Dr John Clifford CH, Life Letters and Reminiscences, London: Cas-sell, 1924.

13 Cf. Der Friede und die Kirche. Peace and the Churches. Souvenir Volume of the visit to England of representatives of the German Christian Churches May 26 to June 3rd, 1908, including the visit to Scotland June 3rd to 7th, 1908, London: Cassell, 1908.

14 Friendly Relations between Great Britain and Germany. Souvenir Volume of the visit to Germany by representatives of the British Christian Churches June 7th–20th 1909. Edited on behalf of the Kirchliches Komitee für Freundschaftliche Beziehungen zwischen Gross-britannien und Deutschland by F. Siegmund-Schultze. Berlin: H. S. Hermann, 1909.

15 Cf. A. v. Harnack, Aus Wissenschaft und Leben. Reden und Aufsätze. New edition, Vol. 1, Giessen: A. Töpelmann, 1911, 23–40. See also Christian Nottmeier, Adolf von Harnack und die deutsche Politik 1890–1930. Eine biographische Studie zum Verhältnis von Protes-tantismus, Wissenschaft und Politik, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004, 367–377; idem, Reli-gion, Krieg und Demokratie: Berliner Theologieprofessoren im Ersten Weltkrieg, Deut-sches Pfarrerblatt 8 (2005), 413–415; Jan Rohls, Die deutsche protestantische Theologie und der Erste Weltkrieg, in Mitteilungen zur Kirchlichen Zeitgeschichte 8 (2014), 11–58; here: 28 ff.


24 Gerhard Besier

anity, the cry is ringing out ›War!‹, like some sort of madness, like a cry from the deep, a place from which we have long since risen.«16 Harnack was one of the founders of the Society for International Communication (Verband für inter-nationale Verständigung),17 a pacifist association that he had joined on the basis of his study of early Christian core beliefs.18 During both meetings, resolutions were adopted that confirmed the desire for mutual cooperation, and ultimately led to the foundation of the Associated Councils of the Churches in Britain and Germany for Fostering Friendlier Relations between the Peoples of the British and German Empires. The Archbishop of Canterbury assumed the Presidency of the British committee; Joseph Allen Baker took on the role of Executive President, and Sir Willoughby Hyett Dickinson (1859–1943), a Member of Parliament for the British Liberal Party, served as Secretary of the Council. In Germany, an in-dustrialist, Friedrich Albert Spiecker,19 assumed the role of Executive President, while the young Berlin pastor and teacher, Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze,20 took on the function of Secretary. The publication of quarterly magazines formed the basis of the work for both committees; The Peacemaker for the British audience and Die Eiche (The Oak Tree) for the German. The first edition of The Peacemaker appeared in July 1911, and soon reached a circulation of 67,000 copies. Its editor was John Henry Rushbrooke, a Baptist pastor from Hampstead, who had studied for two years in Marburg and Berlin, and who was married to a German.21 Die Eiche, whose first edition went to print in January 1913, was published by Sieg-mund-Schultze. A further 4,000 prominent figures from across Germany were members of the German Committee, and their names appeared in the first edi-tion. Often, the same articles and reports about significant church events were printed in both the German and the English editions of the magazines – appro-priately translated according to the version – and in this way, linguistic-cultural hurdles were overcome.

16 Harnack, Reden und Aufsätze. New edition, Vol. 1 (op. cit. note 14), 40.17 Cf. Chickering, The Peace Movement (op. cit. note 7), 309; idem, A voice of Moderation

in Imperial Germany: Der Verband für international Verständigung, in: JCH 8 (1973), 147–164. See also Karl Holl, Pazifismus in Deutschland, Frankfurt a. M. 1988, 94–97.

18 Cf. Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums (1900), revised and edited by Trutz Rendtorff, Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999; A. v. Harnack, Militia Christi: Die christliche Religion und der Soldatenstand in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1905.

19 Cf. Jochen-Christoph Kaiser, Friedrich Albert Spiecker (1854–1936). Eine Karriere zwi-schen Großindustrie und freiem Protestantismus, in: Theodor Strohm/Jörg Thierfelder (Eds.), Diakonie im Deutschen Kaiserreich (1871–1918). Neuere Beiträge aus der Diako-niegeschichtlichen Forschung, Heidelberg: VDWI 7, 1995, 105–144; Heinz-Elmar Ten-orth/Rolf Lindner/Frank Fechner/Jens Wietschorke (eds.), Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (1885–1969). Ein Leben für Kirche, Wissenschaft und soziale Arbeit, Stuttgart: Kohlham-mer, 2007 esp. 23 ff.

20 Cf. Stefan Grotefeld, Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze. Ein deutscher Ökumeniker und christlicher Pazifist, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998, esp. 82 ff.

21 Cf. Bernard Green, Tomorrow’s Man: A Biography of James Henry Rushbrooke, Didcot: The Baptist Historical Society, 1997. See also Keith W. Clements, Baptists and the Out-break of the First World War in The Baptist Quarterly (April 1975) 74–92; here: 77–80.



On both sides, the limited scope for success for this »ecumenical« undertak-ing could not be overlooked. Supporters of the movement were, often as not, po-litically liberal laymen with a (Free) Church background and strong connections to their respective levels of government. The inter-denominational composition necessitated a strict limitation to general peace objectives, meaning that deep-er theological statements or even alliances were simply not possible. Unlike in Britain, the German movement did not receive strong backing from the estab-lished churches, largely because rivalries between the denominations as well as their reservations toward one another were too great. Against the background of German traditions, the initiative lacked the characteristic ecclesiastic-theo-logical signature, while the postmillennialism Social-Gospel movement in An-glo-American countries22 led to a levelling of theological differences for the sake of common social concerns. However, on the practical side, the high-level »Reli-gion-Tourism« in the interest of peace seemed to function very well. Of course, if one takes a look at the editorial from the publisher of The Oak Tree, a further problem becomes obvious: Siegmund-Schultze used the old nationalistic filled symbols without any limitation and only tried to extend their meaning a little. The Oak Tree was destined to remain the symbol of the German nature, Ger-man strength, loyalty and love of one’s country, but should now also represent the ethnic relationship between Germany and Great Britain. »Certainly a sign of German power, a guardian of German coastlines, but at the same time a symbol of Germanic kinship, Old-Saxon brotherhood and German loyalty! A memorial to the Emperor’s words, ›Blood is thicker than water‹.«23 The concept of the use of these racial-cultural maxims being intended to bring together absolute op-posites into a harmonious relationship was doomed to failure, all the more so as Siegmund-Schultze’s already questionable constructions or reproductions of traditional romantic stereotypes of a British or respectively German »collective character« was easily read as a subordination of the British under the Germans. The initiative lacked a consistent ideological modernisation, which would have been the implication had there been a rejection of outdated national confirm-ing formulae. However, the consensus in the national concerns apparently did not reach this far. In this respect, failure threatened the attempt to correct the negative stereotype of the »perfidious Albion«, to be reconciled with the positive

22 Cf. Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion, vol. 1: The Irony of it All, 1893–1919, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986, 282 ff.; Susan Curtis, A Consuming Faith: The Social Gospel and Modern American Culture, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1991 ff. Richard A. Gamble argued: »They [the progressive clergy] fused sacred and secular history into a quest for temporal salvation and redirected the historical process toward the goal of an everlasting Golden Age.« Richard M. Gamble, The War for Right-eousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation, Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003. 35.

23 Die Eiche 1 (1913), 2. Ref. Siegmund-Schultze’s attitude towards the war see Jens Wiet-schorke, Der Weltkrieg als »soziale Arbeitsgemeinschaft«. Eine Innenansicht bildungs-bürgerlicher Kriegsdeutungen 1914–1918, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 34 (2008), 225–251.


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self-image of the »German being«.24 As soon as real crises appeared on the hori-zon, there was an inevitable regression into the challenges of prejudices that had only been overcome to a limited extent. »So long as British Christians spoke of their Empire as God’s chosen instrument, and Germans spoke of their Kultur in similar vein, this simply conceded the perilous dynamic of the situation till the collision occurred – and made it all the more bitter.«25

There were further meetings of these two national committees between 1909 and 1914, in which a range of well known individuals participated, including the renowned liberal theologian Adolf von Harnack. Von Harnack travelled to London in February 1911 with Spiecker, where he delivered a highly regarded speech.26 In the interest of maintaining good British-German relations, Joseph Allen Baker kept in continuous contact with the British Foreign Office and Lambeth Palace during the second Moroccan crisis between July and November 1911,27 trying to quell the waves of mutual outrage. On the other hand, Harnack’s »real-political pacifism« gave no leeway for opinions against the »German national consciousness«; he dismissed a common resolution from both committees affirming their work towards mutual understanding.28 However, even after this, the mutual relationship continued to develop so well that the Archbishop of Canterbury started to question whether the Associated Councils were, in fact, necessary after all. Nonetheless, it was clear that the British committee was far more active in the general public than their German counterparts. In Berlin, attempts were made to reconcile this shortfall in April 1914 through a high-level conference in the Prussian House of Representatives at which Harnack, Superintendent Lahusen and other prominent dignitaries spoke.29

Reasons for this general optimism can also be found in the fact that the Brit-ish-German Peace movement was sparking great interest in other parts of the world – not least in the USA30 In the summer of 1910, the British committee had

24 Cf. G. Besier, Neither Good Nor Bad: Why Human Beings Behave How They Do, Newcas-tle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, 73 ff.

25 Keith W. Clements, Baptists and the Outbreak of the First World War (op. cit. note 20), 85.26 Cf. A. v. Harnack, Der Friede und die Frucht des Geistes, in: Idem., Reden und Aufsätze,

Vol. 1, Gießen 1904, 203–209.27 Cf. Gerd Fesser, Der Panthersprung nach Agadir. Mit dem deutschen Marineabenteuer

vor Marokkos Küste begann am 1. Juli 1911 der Weg in den Ersten Weltkrieg, in: Die Zeit, Nr. 27 from 30th June 2011, 24.

28 Cf. Nottmeier, Adolf von Harnack (op. cit. note 14), 371 f. See also Rüdiger vom Bruch, Deutschland und England. Heeres- oder Flottenverstärkung? Politische Publizistik deut-scher Hochschullehrer 1911/12, in MGM 29 (1989), 1–35; here: 17 f. (Harnack); Hart-mut Lehmann, Es ist eine tiefernste, aber eine herrliche Zeit. Adolf von Harnack und die Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, in: Kurt Nowak/Otto Gerhard Oexle/Trutz Rendtorff/Kurt-Victor Selge (eds.), Adolf von Harnack. Christentum, Wissenschaft und Gesell-schaft, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, 189–206.

29 Cf. Die Eiche 2 (1914), 214. Harnack’s speech is printed in Peacemaker 1914, 20–22. Be-cause Nottmeier (Adolf von Harnack [op. cit. note 14], 375, note 7140, writes that the relevant volume of the Peacemaker was not available, the speech has been printed here in an appendix.

30 See Charles S. Macfarland, International Christian Movements, New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1924; C. S. Macfarland, Steps toward the World Council. Origins of the



been invited to a conference in New York City. This conference was held an-nually at Lake Mahonk and was effectively a form of social-political forum for academics, clergy, magistrates, industrialists and others. The two British dele-gates, W. Moore Ede and William Thomas, Secretary of the Metropolitan Free Church Federation, sought to gain favour for the organisation of an »Ecumenical World-Conference«. It was intended that the goal of this conference would be to influence not only public opinion, but also European governments and the USA, to seek friendly relations between their peoples. Furthermore, it was hoped that existing conflicts and disagreements would no longer be solved through military means but through an International Court of Justice. The USA was better placed than any other nation to promote this cause, because the country was physically separate from the European hostilities.31 Participants in this Lake Mahonk con-ference were so impressed by the British guests’ visionary approach to peace, that they decided on the spot to commit a session of the following year’s conference to this topic, and to invite not only British but also German delegates from the re-spective English-German committees. The opportunity was timely, as they were able to win the support of the newly founded union of Protestant Churches, The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America (FCC), for the project. On the British side, Joseph Allen Baker, Moore Ede and John Clifford took part in the 1911 Conference at Lake Mahonk, while Siegmund-Schultze represented the Germans. Immediately following this conference, a further conference of pastors took place, in which over 1,000 clergymen participated. The European delegates were able to inspire the participants of both conferences with their concept for an »Ecumenical World-Conference«. In preparation for these meetings, Frederick Lynch, the Secretary of the FCC, travelled to London and Berlin in 1911, where tensions between the governments had once again started to increase. Lynch was also the Secretary of the Church Peace Union,32 which had immediately seized upon the concept of a World-Conference, and even convened a preliminary con-ference in Switzerland in May 1914, that was attended by leading personalities from the host country, as well as Great Britain and Germany. It was decided at this meeting to hold the World Conference in Constance at the beginning of August 1914. However, the fact that by the end of July 1914 the European states had already mobilised meant that only 85 of the 153 planned delegates from ten different countries were actually able to reach Constance. Those present opened

Ecumenical Movement as expressed in the Universal Christian Council for Life and Work, New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1938, 27–37; R. Rouse and S. Neill (eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement, London: SPCK, 1967, 511–515. See also K. Bornhausen, Die Freundschaftsbeziehungen zwischen deutschem und amerikanischem Protestantismus, in: Die Eiche 1 (1913), 66–72. In this publication, the editor complains the USA only con-siders the scientific results of German theology, not their connection to the religious pop-ular soul or German religious culture.

31 The Churches and International Friendship. Movements leading up to the Conferences at Constance and Liege, August 1914. Booklet in World Alliance material, WCC Archive, Geneva, 9.

32 Cf. Ethics & International Affairs (EIA), February 14, 2013.


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the conference on August 1, 1914 – the day on which war broke out between Ger-many, France and Russia. Participants were forced to flee Constance, but not be-fore they were able to send a telegram to all the European Heads of State and the USA swearing to »protect Christian civilisation from the impending catastro-phe«.33 A core assembly in London nominated a follow-up committee, and called this group the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches.34

In the light of these preceding events, it then comes as a considerable surprise to find that barely days and weeks later, many of the participants in the Christian Peace Conferences formulated and/or signed pronounced war-like manifestos.35 The ecumenical spirit appeared to have simply blown away – at least among the warring nations. Adolf von Harnack, who had stood at the forefront, as far as a peace initiative between Great Britain and Germany was concerned, now de-clared before students at the Berlin University, »[…] as war now approaches with iron steps, how will we receive it? We only need to look out onto the streets! Qui-etly, powerfully and ultimately also in jubilation. We are now entering the time of joy in sacrifice.«36 Later, from time to time, he even pronounced himself in favour of unrestricted submarine warfare.37 In this, Harnack was not alone, but typical of a sudden serious reversal of opinion among German, but also British and French, theologians, scientists,38 artists39 and intellectuals.40 Even the appeals from the newly elected Pope Benedict XV for peace or neutrality at the beginning

33 See: Jürgen Wandel, Das vergessene Konzil von Konstanz, in Zeichen der Zeit 8/2004, 12–15.

34 Cf. Harmjan Dam, Der Weltbund für Freundschaftsarbeit der Kirchen 1914–1948. Eine ökumenische Friedensorganisation, Frankfurt a. M.: Otto Lembeck, 2001.

35 Cf. Gerhard Besier, Die protestantischen Kirchen Europas im Ersten Weltkrieg. Ein Quel-len- und Arbeitsbuch, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984; see also idem, Krieg – Frieden – Abrüstung. Die Haltung der europäischen und amerikanischen Kirchen zur Frage der deutschen Kriegsschuld 1914–1933, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982; Clements, Baptists and the Outbreak of the First World War (op. cit., note 20).

36 Quoted according to Schwabe, Wissenschaft und Kriegsmoral. Die deutschen Hoch-schullehrer und die politischen Grundfragen des Ersten Weltkrieges, Göttingen: Mus-terschmidt, 38. See also Thomas Kaufmann, Die Harnacks und die Seebergs. »National-protestantische Mentalitäten« im Spiegel zweier Theologenfamilien, in: Manfred Gailus/Hartmut Lehmann (eds.), Nationalprotestantische Mentalitäten in Deutschland (1870–1970). Konturen, Entwicklungslinien und Umbrüche eines Weltbildes, Göttingen: Van-denhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005, 165–122.

37 Cf. Münkler, Der große Krieg (op. cit. note 1), 512. See also Adolf v. Harnack, Wilsons Botschaft und die deutsche Freiheit, in: Bund deutscher Gelehrter und Künstler (Eds.), Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1917, 1–13.

38 Cf. Roy MacLeod, The scientists go to war: revisiting precept and practice, 1914–1919, in Journal of War and Culture Studies 2 (2009), 37–51. See also Gerhard Besier, Die Mitt-wochs-Gesellschaft im Kaiserreich, Berlin: Siedler, 1990, 41 ff.; 291–295.

39 Cf. Peter Harrington, Religions and spiritual themes in British academic art during the Great War in First World War Studies 2 (2011), 145–164.

40 Cf. Christophe Prochasson/Anne Rasmussen, Au nom de la patrie. Les intellectuels er la première mondiale (1910–1919), Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 1996.



of September 1914 fell on deaf ears,41 while both sides suspected that the leader of the Roman Catholic Church was secretly a supporter of the opposition.42

This abrupt swing from moderate Christian-ecumenical pacifism to religious affirmation of a passionate culture of war needs to be explained.43 Admittedly, the enthusiasm expressed by so many soldiers was already starting to wane af-ter barely four months of fighting. Instead of marching home triumphantly,44 soldiers across all the warring parties had to celebrate Christmas in 1914 in the trenches. In no-man’s-land on the front line, there were spontaneous scenes of reaching out in the spirit of man’s common brotherhood – scenes that have be-come legendary, especially on the British side – and which hearkened back to the unifying power of the common Christian culture of peace.45 Some 100,000 soldiers took part in this Christmas experience, as regimental chaplains tried to give the festival its traditional ritual glory.

Religiousness in War in Central-, Western and Eastern Europe, and the USA

History of Research46

Inspired by the young people’s cultural awakening of the late 1960s, a series of articles started to appear in the Federal Republic of Germany in the mid-1980s

41 Cf. Arnold Struker (Ed.), Die Kundgebungen Papst Benedikts XV. zum Weltfrieden. In the original version and in German translation, Freiburg i. Br.: Herdersche Verlagsbuch-handlung, 1917.

42 Cf. Wolfgang Steglich, Papst Benedikt XV., Der Friedensappell Papst Benedikts XV. vom 1. August 1917 und die Mittelmächte, Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1970; Wolfgang Steglich (re-vised), Die Verhandlungen des 2. Untersuchungsausschusses des Parlamentarischen Un-tersuchungsausschusses über die Päpstliche Friedensaktion von 1917, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1974; René Schlott, Die Friedensnote Papst Benedikts XV. vom 1. August 1917 / eine Untersuchung zur Berichterstattung und Kommentierung in der zeitgenössischen Berliner Tagespresse, Hamburg: Kovač, 2007. See also John F. Pollard, The Unknown Pope: Benedict XV and the Pursuit of Peace, London: Continuum, 1999.

43 With reference to the signatories to the call to the cultural world on 4/10/1914, Oliver Janz confirms, »Nicht wenige der Unterzeichner hatten sich vor 1914 in Organisationen enga-giert, die für Frieden und internationale Verständigung eintraten.« (»More than a few of the signatories had been involved in organisations prior to 1914 that worked for peace and international understanding.«) (Janz, Der Große Krieg [op.cit. note 1], 206). See also Gerd Krumeich, Der Erste Weltkrieg. Die 101 wichtigsten Fragen, Munich: C. H. Beck, 2014, 99–103.

44 Cf. Stuart Hallifax, ›Over by Christmas‹: British popular opinion and the short war in 1914 in First World War Studies 1 (2010), 103–121.

45 Cf. Michael Jürgs, Der kleine Frieden im Großen Krieg: Westfront 1914. Als Deutsche, Franzosen und Briten gemeinsam Weihnachten feierten, Munich: Goldmann TB 15303, 2005. See also Tony Ashworth, Trench Warfare 1914–1918: The Live and Let Live System (1980), London: Pan Books, 2000.

46 See also Jay Winter/Antoine Prost, The Great War in History. Debates and Controver-sies, 1914 to the Present, Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 42008; Alan Kramer, Recent Historiography of the First World War (Part I and II) in Journal of Mod-ern European History 12 (2014), 5–27; 155–174; esp. 171 (religion at war).


30 Gerhard Besier

seeking to analyse and clarify theologians’, priests’, pastors’ and church offi-cials’ responsibility for the ideological preparation for and backing of the First World War.47 Naturally, these collections of documents and studies concentrat-ed on war-sermons, manifestos and theological war-apologia by predominantly renowned Christians. They also accentuated the theological-political turning points that had arisen from decisive political-military events, such as those in the years 1917 and 1918/19.48 What the authors – primarily theologians – revealed, often as not in an expression of moral consternation, followed »a predominantly ethically critical approach: They want(ed) to demonstrate how Christian belief allowed itself to be exploited, and how easily seduced the clergy and believers from various denominations were by power and ideology.«49 Furthermore, the authors wanted to illustrate how little these people had committed themselves to following in the steps of their religion’s founder, to heed His core message of peace and reconciliation. Through to the most recent publications, these analyses continue to emphasise »an altogether frightening abandonment of the substance of Christianity in the church’s approach to the First World War«.50 Frequently, the »unprecedented theological degeneration«51 was reduced to specific theolog-ical questions or traditional schools of thought, without sufficiently considering the completely different socialisation and situation of those who did not succumb to the national religious euphoria and fervour.52

47 Cf. Heinrich Misalla, »Gott mit uns.« Die deutsche katholische Kriegspredigt 1914–1918, Munich: Kösel, 1968; Karl Hammer, Deutsche Kriegstheologie 1870–1918, Munich: Kö-sel, 1971; Günter Brakelmann, Der deutsche Protestantismus im Epochenjahr 1917, Wit-ten: Luther-Verlag, 1974; idem, Protestantische Kriegstheologie im Ersten Weltkrieg / Reinhold Seeberg als Theologe des deutschen Imperialismus, Bielefeld: Luther-Verlag, 1974.

48 Cf. for instance Martin Greschat, Der deutsche Protestantismus im Revolutionsjahr 1918/1919, Witten: Luther-Verlag, 1974.

49 Gerd Krumeich, »Gott mit uns«? Der Erste Weltkrieg als Religionskrieg, in: idem/Hart-mut Lehmann (Eds.), »Gott mit uns«. Nation, Religion und Gewalt im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000, 273–283; quote: 275.

50 Martin Greschat, Die zwei Weltkriege und die Kirchen, in: Katharina Kunter/Jens Hol-ger Schjørring (eds.), Europäisches und Globales Christentum. Herausforderungen und Transformationen im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011, 107. See also Martin Greschat, Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Christenheit. Ein globaler Über-blick, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2014, 48 (»eine erschreckende Preisgabe der christlichen Substanz in den Voten der europäischen Kirchen«).

51 Karl Kupisch, Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rup-recht, 1966, 94 f.

52 Cf. Wolfgang Huber, Kirche und Öffentlichkeit, Stuttgart: Klett, 21991, 98 ff.; 135–219. From this perspective, the Swiss theologian Karl Barth was able to arise as a shining role model of measured theological thought and expression. In neutral Switzerland, even the churches appeared only to have marginal significance with regard to measures to promote peace. Georg Kreis (Insel der unsicheren Geborgenheit. Die Schweiz in den Kriegsjahren 1914–1918, Zürich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22014), likewise, is able to present his description without any mention of the churches. See also Konrad Kuhn/ Béatrice Ziegler (eds.), Der vergessene Krieg. Spuren und Traditionen zur Schweiz im Ersten Weltkrieg. Baden: hier + jetzt, Verlag für Kultur und Geschichte, 2014.



The central focus was on office bearers and theologians of the two major churches, the State Protestant Church and the hardly less privileged Roman Catholic Church;53 the Free Churches and other religious denominations re-mained largely outside the field of study. Later investigations, however, have in-dicated that it was not only the conservative and liberal-church theologians and churchmen at the time that became passionately involved with what they deemed to be judgement theology founded in the Bible, there were also many individuals from the circles of Revivalist Protestantism.54

In the 1970s, the Anglican theologian, Alan Wilkinson, proceeded along a similar research path to the German church historians in his book The Church of England and the First World War,55 first published in 1978. Nevertheless, it was apparent to the author – unlike his German colleagues – that the lack of perspec-tive with regard to the Free Churches and Roman Catholicism deserved further investigation.56 To a large extent, the Scottish churches were also not taken into account.57 Wilkinson justified his decision given the wealth of resource mate-rial that his own church had to offer, and presumed a similar attitude from the Free Churches, which in itself is questionable,58 together with the virtual total silence on the part of the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike most of the German church-historical representations of the First World War, Wilkinson embeds the conduct of his church during the First World War in the general cultural, social and societal context of the time. By doing this, a comparative perspective can be considered, that nowhere else in Europe was the readiness for war so little as in Great Britain.59 Central to Wilkinson’s investigation is the approach to the cler-gy’s support of the war effort at the Front as being a different aspect of analysis to that of the clergy’s support of the war effort at home. The author explores the ecumenical aspirations among members of the church leadership and enquires into the effects of the bloody slaughter on soldiers’ sense of religious belief. In his doctoral thesis, Kevin Christopher Fielden delves further into the aspect of

53 Cf. Wilfried Loth, Katholiken im Kaiserreich. Der politische Katholizismus in der Krise des wilhelminischen Deutschlands, Düsseldorf: Droste, 1984, 278 ff.

54 Cf. Elmar Spohn/Christof Sauer, War zeal, nationalism and unity in Christ: evangeli-cal missions in Germany during World War I, in: Studia Historiae Ecclasiasticae XXXV (2009), 323–336; Elmar Spohn, »Durch Blut und Eisen«. Zeitgeist und Hermeneutik im I. Weltkrieg, in: GBFE Jahrbuch 2011/12, 313–330.

55 London: SPCK, 1978 (second edition: 1996; reprint: 2014).56 Cf. Wilkinson, Church of England, 1978 (op. cit note 54), 2.57 Cf. Stewart J. Brown, A Solemn Purification by Fire: Responses to the Great War in the

Scottish Presbyterian Churches, 1914–1919, in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45 (1994), 82–104.

58 Cf. G. Besier, Krieg – Frieden – Abrüstung (op. cit. note 34), 71 f. In contrast, see Keith W. Clements, Baptists and the Outbreak of the First World War (op. cit. note 19). In this work, the author claims there were »countless signs that Baptists, with other Free Churchmen, were generally wholeheartedly in support of the war. […] All but one of the male Sunday-School teachers had volunteered. […] Pride stirred in the hearts of previous-ly peace-loving Baptists as they watched their young men go« (ibid., 75 f).

59 Janz, Der Große Krieg (op. cit. note 1), 182.


32 Gerhard Besier

the Church of England’s social history during the First World War.60 Likewise, Albert Marrin’s The Last Crusade: The Church of England in the First World War describes the church’s attitude during the War, internal conflicts, the role of the clergy in maintaining the war-effort, the position of conscientious objectors, as well as the debates regarding retaliatory measures at the end of the War.61 Lin-da Parker deals with the role of the Anglican army chaplains and acknowledges their pastoral care of the soldiers at the front – in contrast to a long held view that their pastoral activities were ineffectual.62 In this way, she follows the lead of Michael Snape, who had previously established the significance of the military chaplains for the religious commitment of the British soldiers,63 and who, short-ly thereafter, presented the historic development of the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department from the early 18th century to the Cold War era.64 At the start of the Great War, some 3,500 »padres« were available from eleven different denomina-tions, albeit denominations that to varying degrees were fiercely competitive one with the other. In the first instance, a professionalization of the role of the army chaplain, in addition to the chaplains’ immediate pastoral deployment to the Front were fundamental to the development of the job description in the course of the war. Admittedly, Brown notes with reference to the target group of soldiers to be offered guidance, »According to the chaplains, only about 20 per cent of the British troops had any church connection […]«65

Likewise, Edward Medigan considers the predominantly negative picture of Army chaplains between the wars largely to be a myth.66 Certainly, the padres were not able to fulfil the great expectations placed upon their shoulders – to initiate a religious awakening in Great Britain through the circumstances of the war. However, to achieve this, they would have had to gain the attention and achieve the respect of the officers and companies, having first come into close contact with the industrial workforce, not to mention falling foul of the conserv-

60 Cf. Kevin Christopher Fielden, The Church of England in the First World War (2005). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1080. http://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1080.

61 Albert Marrins, The Last Crusade: The Church of England in the First World War, Dur-ham: Duke University Press, 1974.

62 Cf. Linda Parker, The Whole Armour of God. Anglican Chaplains in the Great War, So-lihull: Helion & Company, 2009. See also Stephen H. Louden, Chaplains in Conflict. The Role of Army Chaplains since 1914, London: Avon Books, 1996, esp. 43–68. Using diaries and letters written by six padres during the War– five Anglican and one Roman Catho-lic – journalist Michael Moynihan wrote a book in 1983 about British Army chaplains: God On Our Side. The British Padre in World War I, London: Secker & Warburg, 1983

63 Cf. Michael Snape, God and British Soldier: Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World Wars, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005; idem (ed.), The Clergy in Khaki. New Perspectives on British Army Chaplaincy in the First World War, Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.

64 Cf. Michael Snape, The Royal Army Chaplain’s Department 1796–1953, Wood-bridge-Rochester (NY): The Boydell Press, 2008, esp. 175–260.

65 Cf. Brown, A Solemn Purification by Fire (op. cit. note 56), 95.66 Cf. Edward Madigan, Faith Under Fire. Anglican Army Chaplains and the Great War,

Basingstoke-New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.



ative Anglican hierarchy through their experiences. To this extent, they would also have had to provide the impetus for reforms within the State Church as well as within the British society as a whole.

In previously published works, and to a certain extent in those published sub-sequently, the topic of War and the Church tended to assume a more peripheral role.67 John Wolffe devoted just a chapter to the topic Empire and War.68 In his study, Wolffe established that war and revolution represent a major challenge for church-es. They impede religious consciousness in the population, and plunge the church authorities into crisis, as these leaders are forced to recognise how little their insti-tution has to say to society as a whole.69 In his book God, Germany, and Britain in the Great War: a study of Clerical Nationalism, Arlie J. Hoover investigates the role of religion and spirituality in arousing the emotions of war.70 According to the author, »clerical nationalism« possessed a cardinal significance for the population’s way of perceiving the conflict. Not least because of its emotional-historical approach, this study explores new grounds. In his 2008 doctoral thesis, The Ecclesiastical Re-sponse in Britain to World War I, Wayne M. Riggs establishes similar reactions to the War as Wilkinson; however, he also noted considerable differences between and within the churches.71 Both state churches took up a unique role in national life and conducted themselves correspondingly as having a great »responsibility« with regards the nation. The Roman Catholic Church, which was perceived by many as being a distant institution, seized their chance to demonstrate their national loyalty, and hoped that through this they would come to be seen as an institutional religion. Michael Snape published an article on the question of Catholicism and British patriotism in 2002, emphasising this particular argument.72 Yousef Taouk

67 Cf. E. R. Wickham, Church and People in an Industrial City, London: Lutterworth Press, 1957; G. I. T. Machin, Politics and the Churches in Great Britain, 1869 to 1921, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987; Jeffrey Cox, The English Churches in Secular Society: Lambeth, 1870–1930, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

68 John Wolffe, God and Greater Britain: Religion and national Life in Britain and Ireland 1843–1945, London: Routledge, 1994; Kester Aspden, Fortress Church: The English Roman Catholic Bishops and Politics, 1903–63, Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2002.

69 Cf. Wolffe, God and Greater Britain (op. cit. note 67), 261 f. In contrast, see Callum G. Brown, Religion and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain, Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2006, 13 f., who presents the theory that the decline of Christianity in Great Britain first started in the 1950s, and that the First World War played no part in this process. Snape, God and British Soldier: Religion in the British Army in the First and Second World Wars, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2005, 5, emphasises the genuine significance that religion had for soldiers during the First World War.

70 Arlie J. Hoover, God, Germany, and Britain in the Grate War: a stud of Clerical National-ism, New York: Praeger, 1989.

71 Cf. Wayne M. Riggs, The Ecclesiastical Response in Britain to World War I: A Study of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Roman Catholic Church. A Disser-tation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquett University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2008.

72 Michael Snape, British Catholicism and the British Army in the First World War, Recu-sant History: A Journal of Research in Reformation and Post-Reformation Catholic His-tory in the British Isles 26 (2002), 314–358.


34 Gerhard Besier

also discusses the problems that the Catholic Church encountered through this process – its international character and the expectation from Catholic Ireland that the church ought to have supported their struggles for independence from Eng-land.73 Of all the institutions, the Church of Scotland paid the least attention to the War. Nevertheless, even the Church of Scotland was deemed to be »responsible for the meaning of the war and defining war aims« and »for offering consolation to the suffering and the bereaved«.74 Within the framework of a complete representation of European Christianity from the 18th to the 20th centuries, Michael Burleigh also takes the First World War into consideration. In this comparative analysis, it be-comes clear that ministers within the Church of England, with a few exceptions, preserved a greater theological-ethical independence with respect to political ef-forts and prevailing conditions than their German and French counterparts.75

Apart from a few individual articles,76 French research of religion in the First World War generally did not begin until the beginning of the 1990s, and, from the outset, concentrated primarily on perspectives of cultural and mentality history.77 The focus of analyses was the combination of traditional secular and religious patriotism, the broad emotional involvement and its motives, as well as the religious-cultural constructed enemy stereotypes.78 Not least because of their close collaboration with German historians, notably Gerd Krumeich, this approach aimed to achieve a comparative German-French perspective, but more importantly, a European perspective.79 From the early 1990s to the present day, this group of researchers has consistently undertaken their work based on these questions.80

73 Youssef Taouk, The Roman Catholic Church during the First World War: A Study in Po-litical Leadership, Ph. D. diss., University of Western Sydney, 2003.

74 Stewart J. Brown, A Solemn Purification by Fire (op. cit. note 56), 82.75 Cf. Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers. Religion & Politics in Europe from the French

Revolution to the Great War, London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005, 425 ff. See also Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War. British Society and the First World War, New York: Cambridge University Press, 52013, 152–186.

76 Cf. Daniel Robert, Les Protestants Français et la Guerre de 1914–1918, in Francia 2 (1974), 415–430; Jean-Marie Mayeur, La vie religieuse en France pendant la Première Guerre Mondiale, in Jean Delumeau (ed.), Histoire vécue du people chrétien, Toulouse: Privat, 1979, 179–193.

77 Cf. Nadine-Josette Chaline (ed.), Chrétiens dans la Première Guerre Mondiale, Paris: Cerf, 1993; Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, La Guerre des Enfants 1914–1918. Essay d’histoire culturelle, Paris: Colin, 1993; Annette Becker, La Guerre et la Foi. De la mort à la Mémoire 1914–1930, Paris: Colin, 1994.

78 Cf. the first issue of the journal 14–18 Aujourd’hui 1: Pour une histoire religieuse de la guerre, Paris 1998.

79 Cf. Jean-Jaques Becker/Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Les Sociétés européennes et la guerre de 1914–1918, Nanterre: Université Paris-X Nanterre, 1990; Jean-Jacques Becker/Jay M. Winter/Gerd Krumeich/Annette Becker/Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau (eds.), Guerre et cul-tures 1914–1918, Paris: Armand Colin, 1994.

80 Cf. Annette Becker, Religion, in: Gerhard Hirschfeld/Gerd Krumeich/Irina Renz (Eds.), Enzyklopädie Erster Weltkrieg, Paderborn-Munich-Vienna-Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 22004, 192–197; idem, Die Religionsgeschichte des Krieges 1914–1918. Eine



On the basis of letters and accounts from the pens of Catholic military chap-lains, Patrick J. Houlihan is seeking to reconstruct a picture of how individuals practised their faith in everyday life, ranging his analysis from simple Catholic soldiers through to civilians in occupied Northern France.81 In this process, he highlights how the faithful tried to remain true to their traditional beliefs, even in these exceptional circumstances. »There were axes of loyalty that did not always privilege the category of the nation.«82 If nothing else, against the background of the mystery of the sacrament and the transcendence of the Roman Catho-lic church beyond national borders, Catholics of the warring countries ought to have been able to link together at a local level – despite being national enemies – on the basis of the universal close religious bonds between Catholics, regardless of their origin. In this way, German and French priests organised the celebration of mass for French civilians and German soldiers, and German military chap-lains baptised French children – a kind of religious »collaboration«. The author is thus trying to break apart the stereotype of an overarching nationalism,83 and – quite apart from a political consideration – to give the Catholic religion back its ecclesiological distinctiveness. The distinguishing character of the Catholic faith becomes clear not just in the incidences of fraternisation, but in all such cases where the Catholics from warring nations each became involved in mutual po-lemics. Richard Schaefer demonstrated a characteristic Catholic »framework of meaning«84 by means of the 1915 polemic pamphlet from the Catholic Committee for French Propaganda and its German response. This framework of meaning lay beneath the interpretations of events and reduced these simply to a cultural dis-pute. According to this interpretation, Germany did not observe the »Christian rules of war« because the heathen-Germanic belief of the Lutheran rational Prot-estantism and its speculative philosophy was lacking in Christian spirituality. German Catholics accepted this religious interpretation of the war as a »cultural fight« and accused their Catholic religious contemporaries for their part of here-

Bilanz, in Gottfried Korff (ed.), Alliierte im Himmel. Populäre Religiosität und Kriegs-erfahrung, Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde e. V., 2006, 35–45; Jean-Ja-cques Becker/Gerd Krumeich, Der große Krieg. Deutschland und Frankreich im Ersten Weltkrieg 1914–1918, Essen: Klartext, 2010, esp. 105–113.

81 For a description of the unique circumstances of the Occupation and its consequences, see Annette Becker, Les citatrices rouges, 14–18: France et Belgique ocupées, Paris: Fa-yard, 2010.

82 Patrick J. Houlihan, Local Catholicism as Transnational War Experience: Everyday Re-ligious Practice in Occupied Northern France, 1914–1918, in Central European History 45 (2012), 233–267; quote: 267; see also idem, Clergy in the Trenches: Catholic Military Chaplains of Germany and Austria-Hungary during the First World War, Ph. D. diss., University of Chicago, 2011.

83 Cf. for the German example Arlie J. Hoover, The Gospel of Nationalism: German Pa-triotic Preaching from Napoleon to Versailles, Stuttgart: Steiner, 1986; idem, German Nationalism and Religion, in History of European Ideas 20 (1995), 765–771.

84 Cf. Richard Schaefer, Catholics and the First World War: religion, barbarism and the reduction to culture, in First World War Studies, 1:2, 2000, 123–139, DOI:10.1080/1947502.2010.517431.


36 Gerhard Besier

sy, of »Modernism« and of secularism that had dominated the country since the French Revolution. The majority of French children apparently grew up »without God«. »If the polemic between French and German Catholics tells us anything, it is that Catholics were both willing and able to use Catholicism itself as a platform for hostile attacks against their ›enemies‹.«85

The US writing of history was shaped for a long time by Ray H Abram’s pub-lication Preachers Present Arms dating back to 1933.86 Influenced by the author’s pacifism and the isolationist atmosphere of the 1930s, this work denounced the country’s Protestantism, largely without differentiation, of having served as an ac-complice to the national politics. The Churches should have totally disavowed the close alliance between Church and Nationalism, Church and Capitalism and the American mob’s unquestioning acceptance of war-fever.87 In the final analysis, this point of view comes very close to that of the Germans in the 1970s. Forty years after Abrams, German church historians passed a similarly devastating judgement with respect to their own Church. For a very long time, Michael Williams’ American Catholics in the War from 1921 continued to have a considerable influence on Amer-ican Catholicism.88 In this work, the author lauded the Catholic patriotism during the war years with considerable gusto. Alternately, John F. Piper’s 1985 book, The American Churches in World War I89 presents a modification of both points of view. Piper presents the roles of leading church identities, such as pastors, as being far more aware of their responsibility and more constructive than previous historians had portrayed them. In this way, Protestantism at the time should not only have overcome the challenges presented by the societal change into a mass culture, but also it should have given spiritual counsel to the thousands of soldiers in the war, together with support and assistance to pacifists, who were very ostracised during this period in the USA.90 However, the reality remains that only a small handful of theologians would have foreseen this process of social transformation caused by the War – the breakdown of the alliance between Protestantism and American culture. As in Germany, USA Catholicism saw its big chance in the advent of the First World War; the Church would be able to prove its national trustworthiness through particular loyalty and patriotism, and in this way, achieve compete equal-

85 Ibid., 135. See also Martin Lätzel, Die katholische Kirche im Ersten Weltkrieg. Zwischen Nationalismus und Friedenswillen, Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2014, esp. 71 ff.

86 Cf. Ray H. Abrams, Preachers Present Arms, New York: Round Table Press, Inc., 1933. Reprint 1969 (Herald Press).

87 See also John F. Piper, Jr., The American Churches in World War I, in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 38 (1970), 147–155.

88 Cf. Michael Williams, American Catholics in the War, New York: The Macmillan Com-pany, 1921.

89 Cf. John F. Piper, Jr., The American Churches in World War I, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985.

90 For aspects of the »Protestant pacifist culture« in the USA in the 20th century, see Patricia Appelbaum, Kingdom to Commune. Protestant Pacifist Culture between World War I and the Vietnam Era, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009 ; see also Valerie Ziegler, The Advocates of Peace in Antebellum America, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.



ity within the »Protestant« US culture.91 In reality, the Catholic Church’s self image changed. From an institution with little authority and only parochial significance, the Catholic Church became an American religion with nation-wide standing.92 The USA’s late entry into the War on April 6, 1917 caught both churches unprepared and required them to undertake immediate organisational restructuring in order to speak with one voice, and to be able to guarantee a moderate-patriotic backing of the American plans for war.93 In the light of burning patriotism across the coun-try – including within the churches – the General War-Time Commission, under the control of Robert E. Speer, tried to curb any irresponsible theological speeches. As a result of this process, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, established in 1908, became one of the most influential religious organisations of American Protestantism.94 Because of the War, the various churches – including the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish Community – were required to work together. They all demonstrated their unity with respect to the war goals. They were dealing with a conflict between despotic central empires and the realisation of freedom and democracy – a line of argument the American President Woodrow Wilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister, would later make his own.95 In contrast to Europe, all the American denominations emerged stronger from the War. The wartime experience did more than just consolidate believers’ religiosity; it perfectly replenished the generally soft pre-war religious culture in the USA, in the sense that Christianity became »re-masculinised«.96

There have been very few historical critical studies of the role of the Rus-sian-Orthodox churches in the First World War,97 which, to a certain extent, is due to the fact that the Tsarist Empire is only now once again being celebrated and honoured in official Russian historiography. Dietrich Beyrau has recently investigated the role of Orthodox military chaplains, who saw themselves as a key part of the ruling culture within the context of the patriotic mobilisation.98

91 Cf. Piper, The American Churches in World War I (op. cit. note 86), 149.92 Cf. John Tracy Ellis, American Catholicism, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,

1956, esp. 138.93 Cf. Charles S. Macfarland (ed.), The Churches of Christ in Time of War, New York: Mis-

sionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1917, esp. 9; 106.94 Cf. John A. Hutchison, We are not Divided, New York: Round Table Press, Inc., 1941,

esp. 175.95 Cf. Michael Salewski, Der Erste Weltkrieg, Paderborn-Munich-Vienna-Zürich: Ferdi-

nand Schöningh, 22004, 292 ff.; 318 ff.; G. Besier, The Concept of Freedom in the Anglo-American World, in Totalitarismus und Demokratie 2 (2005), 375–388; here 328 f.

96 Cf. Jonathan H. Ebel, Faith in the Fight. Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, esp. 3; 8; 63; 128.

97 Cf. Hubertus F. Jahn, Patriotic Culture in Russia during World War One, Ithaca-New York: Cornell University Press, 1995; William G. Rosenberg, Reading Soldiers’ Moods: Russian Military Censorship and the Configuration of Feeling in World War I in Ameri-can Historical Review 119 (2014), 714–740.

98 Dietrich Beyrau, Projektionen, Imaginationen und Visionen im Ersten Weltkrieg: Die orthodoxen Militärgeistlichen im Einsatz für Glauben, Zar und Vaterland, in Jahrbücher für die Geschichte Osteuropas 52 (2004), 402–420.


38 Gerhard Besier

Obviously, the erosion of the Church’s acceptance was far more advanced in Rus-sia than in Central and Western Europe, as the widespread contempt and ridicule among the officers suggests. Due to the ritual demands of their religion, priests were frequently unable to offer or fulfil pastoral care duties, including admin-istering the last rites, because they simply did not have the relevant and appro-priate equipment. Beyrau suspects that it was not so much the daily care or the cognitive religious instruction and religious literature, but the mastery of rituals that had an effect on the soldiers. The ceremony and splendour of the religious services, the choral music and the peregrination of famous icons – especially at Easter and Christmas – appeared to be the strongest emotional means of influ-ence for the church. It was their function on behalf of the faithful to take care of the highest spiritual uplifting, to evoke an »ecstasy of the national spirit«, and in this way to create »unity of the whole nation with God in their thoughts and in prayer«.99 With the most exalted variants of »heroic-priests« as a shining role model for the troops, to encourage the infantrymen to hurry out into the battle with the cross held high, one could only be dealing with propaganda images that bore little resemblance to reality. The fact that the priests preached according to orders against defeatism, a peace settlement, and defenceless imprisonment is considered highly likely, in contrast with the likely success rate of any reli-gious-patriotic agitation. As in the West, there were patriotic mass-demonstra-tions at the outbreak of war, especially among the urban elite in centres such as St Petersburg. At these mass gatherings of effervescent national patriotism, even the church rites, ceremonies and symbols seemed to assume a new prestige. Even in Russia, the »August experiences« appeared to arrest the secularisation and religious plurality among intellectuals and farmers’ representatives in the con-gested industrial areas. From the perceived moral upturn among the population, it was hoped that success might also be achieved in the Anti-Alcohol Campaign, in which the clergy played a significant role. Far from seeking a dialogue with the faithful, the Imperial Orthodox Church aimed all their energies at achieving an »instructive monologue of dominance, while always demanding obedience«.100 This was achieved to an even greater extent than occurred in the West. As a re-sult, and because of the liturgical nature of the Orthodox Church, the spiritual leaders were only able to register limited success for themselves with their reli-gious-patriotic communications. Due to the close alliance between the Throne and Altar, the Church was considered to be largely discredited by the time of the Revolution between February and October 1917. Their claim to power as the State Church was long since gone. The eschatological anticipation potential now shifted to the Revolution.

Alfons Brüning certainly refers to the fact that, as far back as the first Russian Revolution in 1905, many bishops and priests had wanted to end the very close connection between autocracy and orthodoxy, in order that they not lose trust

99 Cf. Beyrau, Projektionen (op. cit. note 97), 405.100 Ibid., 415.



within the population.101 In the period between the two revolutions, the church found itself in a phase of upheaval and separation, in which the symphonia, or complementary state of mutual respect, between Church and State was being steadily eroded. For this reason, the Orthodox Church did not develop a the-ology of war like that of Western Christianity, the more so in that the teaching of a »just-war« was unknown in orthodox theology. Nonetheless, war could still be justified, because the defence of »Russian soil« was at stake, not the preserva-tion of the Romanov Dynasty, whose ultimate end the Church leadership simply accepted. Just like in the West, the war was understood as a metaphysical con-frontation, where it was appropriate to defend the spiritual values of Orthodox Russia. In this sense, »Russia was assigned messianic duties in the spirit of a new Slavophilia, including the greater spiritual unity of Europe – or at the very least, the unity of Orthodox Christianity.«102 These also incorporated the concept of overcoming the divisions within Orthodoxy, and to free Constantinople from Ottoman rule. According to Brüning, there was a definite sense of the »Spirit of 1914« in the Russian metropolises, but it did not last for anywhere near the same length of time as in the West. The Church’s endeavours were effective in allevi-ating suffering caused by the war – including the building of hospitals, pastoral and material care for the wounded and for relatives of those killed in action. War propaganda implemented by Russian clergy was particularly successful, especial-ly in the area of establishing an image of the enemy. An abhorrence of the West, represented especially by means of the monstrosity of the German aggressor – that was seen as no less than a horde of evil barbarians – was at the forefront of this concept of the enemy.

In his description of the sacral unity of nation and Empire as practised by parts of the Church, as with his representation of stereotypes and images of the enemy, Beyrau calls on the social-psychological categories of inclusion and ex-clusion to support his interpretation.103 Likewise, Martin Schulze Wessel deter-mines that in both the Russian Empire and Habsburg Monarchy, there was just as big a religious emphasis on and creation of a sense of »Us« as there was proc-lamation of »Them«, the enemy.104 The longer the war dragged on, the greater

101 Cf. Alfons Brüning, Katastrophe und Epochenwende. Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Rus-sische Orthodoxe Kirche, in Osteuropa 64 (2014), 263–278.

102 Ibid., 269103 Cf. G. Besier, Neither Good Nor Bad (op. cit. note 23), 111 ff.104 Cf. Martin Schulze Wessel, Religion im Russländischen Reich und in der Habsburger

Monarchie im Ersten Weltkrieg, in Andreas Holzem (ed.), Krieg im Christentum. Reli-giöse Gewalttheorien in der Kriegserfahrung des Westens, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schö-ningh, 2009, 736–751; here: 745 f. This article appeared in a revised version with the title Religion, Dynastie und Erster Weltkrieg – Zarenreich und Habsburger Monarchie, in: Osteuropa 64 (2014), 247–262; Alfons Brüning, Katastrophe und Epochenwende. Die Russische Orthodoxe Kirche im Weltkrieg (op. cit. note 100), 263–278. For the pheno-menon of »Religious Nationalism« in the region, cf. Emanuel Turzynski, Konfession und Nation. Zur Frühgeschichte der serbischen und rumänischen Nationsbildung, Düssel-dorf: Schwann, 1976; see also Irina Morin, Contested Frontiers in the Balkans. Ottoman and Habsburg Rivalries in Eastern Europe, London: I. B. Tauris, 2012; Helmut Kuzmics/


40 Gerhard Besier

the association of »our own« with godliness, and the correlation of »the enemy« with the Satanic. In contrast to the modern nation states like France or Germany – according to Schulze Wessel’s thesis – the multi-ethnic and multi-denomina-tional empires relied far more heavily on the cohesive forces of a State Church, because a State Church gave religious legitimacy to the pious ruler and his uni-versal kingdom, interlinked with universal belief. The State Church represented »the imperial concept of the congruence of politics and religion«.105 Wars were waged as crusades against those of other faiths, and were therefore considered to be transcendentally legitimised. The notion of empire underlies the fight for the true belief. The humble ruler who is prepared to suffer was elevated to a Christ-like figure;106 the soldiers of the Empire were bound to him and to the Empire by their sacral oath of loyalty, which promised religious salvation to the defenders of the Orthodox belief, the Tsar and the Empire. They equated the heroism of the »victim« to martyrs of Christ, their spilt blood cleansing the land. Even Russia’s war goals – the conquering of Constantinople and the return of Galicia to Ortho-dox belief – had the stamp of religion on them. Similar statements can be made about the religious identity of the Habsburg Empire, including their conflicts with Muslim and Orthodox Bosnians. In this respect, the issue of Serbia’s reli-gious connection to Russia and the religious contrast between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic empires played a central role in the conflict.

In the Habsburg Empire and Monarchy, Roman Catholicism not only fulfilled a similar function to religion in the modern nation-states,107 but it also played a central role in legitimisation of the regime: Religion confirmed the legitimacy of the empire and its rulers. The Empire’s soldiers stood in the footsteps of Christ; their willing sacrifice for »our imperial Lord«, the Roman Catholic Church and the Empire justi-fied the national sacral community and endowed eternal life on the soldiers.

Like the Protestant minorities in France, Protestant minorities in Aus-tria sought to surpass one another with demonstrations of patriotic loyalty.108

Sabine A. Haring, Emotion, Habitus und Erster Weltkrieg. Soziologische Studien zum militärischen Untergang der Habsburger Monarchie, Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2014, esp. 321 ff.

105 Schulze Wessel, Religion im Russländischen Reich (op. cit. note 103), 738.106 See Maureen Perrie, Uspenskii and Zhivov on Tsar, God, and Pretenders, in: Kritika.

Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 15 (2014), 133–149. In this case, it is stat-ed, »We are of course entitled to wonder just how many Russians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did actually consider the tsar to be a divine being« (ibid, 146)

107 Cf. Wilhelm Achleitner, Gott im Krieg / die Theologie der österreichischen Bischöfe in den Hirtenbriefen zum Ersten Weltkrieg, Salzburg: Universität Salzburg, 1997, esp. 14 ff.; 161. See also Ottokár Prohászka, Die Kirche am Vorabend und zur Zeit des Ersten Weltkrieges, in Adam Wandruszka/Peter Urbanitsch (Eds.), Die Habsburgermo-narchie 1848–1948, vol. 4: Die Konfessionen, Vienna 1995, 326–331.

108 Cf. Karl Völker, Evangelisch-soziale Kriegsbereitschaft: Speech presented on 19. No-vember 1914 in the Lutheran City Church A. B. in Vienna: Zentralverein für Innere Mis-sion in Österreich (Association for the City Mission in Austria), 1914; Walter Winkler, Aus dem Leben der evangelischen Kirche Österreichs in der Kriegszeit in Volksschriften zum großen Krieg 46/47, Berlin: Verl. d. Evang. Bundes, 1915.



In Hungarian Protestantism, on the other hand, a new sense of contemplation and reflection entered the essence of Christian belief.109 The Roman Catholic Church under the Habsburg Monarchy still enjoyed great respect in 1914, even in the great metropolitan cities such as Vienna, where spiritual emancipation and technical progress were steadily diminishing the influence of belief.110 The Catholic bishop, Ottokár Prohászka, from Hungarian Székesfehérvár, observed these changes of secularisation of daily lifestyle with great concern, and hoped for a purifying or cathartic effect from the war – God’s answer to the negative social developments.111 The struggle of the Catholic Church was also valid against Modernism – and didn’t the War lead people back to their basic and fundamental interdependencies? Nevertheless, it is easy to doubt the relevance of religion for those in the trenches, especially if one were to undertake an emotion-sociological study into the Empire’s soldiers on the Eastern Front and, in the process, fail to find any genuine expression of religious emotion.112 In any case, in the Habsburg Empire, just as for Russia, the political exploitation of the privileged State Church for the sake of the War effort clearly contributed to an »ultimate loss of prestige and reputation«. »The revolutions of 1917 and 1918 also bore witness to the loss of authority among the erstwhile State churches.«113

Theologically as well as culturally, Lutheranism in the neutral Nordic coun-tries predominantly inclined more to the situation in the German Empire. This is clearly the case when one considers the Swedish Archbishop, Nathan Söderblom, who held the Chair of Religious Sciences in Breslau from 1912–1914. In 1917, the Churches of the Entente Powers seriously doubted whether he could be entrust-ed with an independent mediation role – and this was despite the fact that he had spent two years working as Embassy Chaplain in Paris, and that he grad-uated from the Sorbonne in 1901.114 In 1914 – after the dissolution of the Union

109 Cf. Juliane Brandt, Jesus und der Weltkrieg. Das Schicksal nationalen Gedankenguts des ungarischen Protestantismus im Ersten Weltkrieg, in Martin Schulze Wessel (ed.), Nationalisierung der Religion und Sakralisierung der Nation im östlichen Europa, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2006, 155–179.

110 Cf. Edgard Haider, Wien 1914. Alltag am Rande des Abgrunds, Vienna-Cologne-Wei-mar: Böhlau, 2013, 70–74.

111 Cf. Bettina Reichmann, »Die Seele des Krieges«. Zur religiösen Kriegsdeutung des Ers-ten Weltkrieges: Bischof Ottokár Prohászka (Ungarn), in Holzem, Krieg und Christen-tum (op. cit. note 103), 719–735. See also Pavlina Bobič, War and Faith: The Catholic Church in Slovenia 1914–1918, Boston-Leiden: Brill, 2012.

112 See Sabine A. Haring, K. u. K. Soldaten an der Ostfront im Sommer und Herbst 1914. Eine emotionssoziologische Analyse, in Bernhard Bachinger/Wolfram Dornik (eds.), Jenseits des Schützengrabens. Der Erste Weltkrieg im Osten: Erfahrung – Wahrneh-mung – Kontext, Innsbruck-Vienna-Bozen: StudienVerlag, 2013, 65–86.

113 Schulze Wessel, Religion in Russländischem Reich und Habsburger Monarchie (op. cit note 103), 748 f.

114 Cf. G. Besier, Krieg – Frieden – Abrüstung (op. cit. note 34), 79–86; Bengt Sundkler, Na-than Söderblom. His Life and Work, Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968; Dietz Lange, Na-than Söderblom und seine Zeit, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011. See also the special magazine issue of the KZG/CCH (1/2015): The First World War and the Role of Religion and Reconciliation (Religiöse Inszenierung im Dienst von Krieg und Versöh-


42 Gerhard Besier

in 1905 – Norway and Sweden continued to find themselves in an unstable state of far-reaching social change.115 Modernisation and a new sense of Scandinavia with a strong emphasis on neutrality were firmly on the agenda. Regardless of the romantic nationalism, there was a sense of solidarity and belonging between the Nordic states of Denmark, Norway and Sweden with their Lutheran ›people’s churches‹. Under Söderblom’s leadership, a national-romantic Lutheranism de-veloped, that was nevertheless liberal-minded, and yet also curbed the influence of Revival movement. In the post 1945 era, church history research on the part of Nordic churches concentrated primarily on the ecumenical-reconciliatory im-petus in the first decades of the twentieth century, especially as the Church had been a strong participant in the movement.116

Contemporary text collections, as well as examples from the 1970s to 1990s, give a very effective indication of the content of sermons, and the types of policies that clergy and theologians were drawing up and signing their name to.117 With the wartime deployment, Theology professors were able to regain for themselves the highest positions at the universities, which their academic discipline had long since lost to the Sciences. With regard to Germany, Herfried Münkler speaks of an »intellectual fall from grace«, in which he includes not only clergy and theolo-gians but also writers,118 artists and scientists.119

Nowadays, research specialises in reports from unknown soldiers, their cor-respondence with loved ones and diaries.120 These types of mostly digitised doc-uments from across Europe should make the World War from the perspective of the participants far more understandable and approachable.121 In these reports,

nung). Ref. Denmark see Michael H. Clemmesen, Det lille land før den store krig [Das kleine Land vor dem Großen Krieg], Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2012; Mi-chael H. Clemmesen, Det lille land før den store krig [Das kleine Land vor dem Großen Krieg], Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2012; Carsten Due-Nielsen, Denmark and the First World War, in Scandinavian Journal of History 10 (1985), 1–18.

115 Cf. Ingun Montgomery, Schweden im Jahre 1914, in Katarzyna Stokłosa/Andrea Strü-bind (eds.), Glaube – Freiheit – Diktatur in Europa und den USA. FS G. Besier, Göttin-gen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007, 673–685.

116 Cf. Nils Karlström, Kristna Samförstandssträvanden under världkriget 1914–1918, Stockholm 1947.

117 Cf. Klaus Böhme (ed.), Aufrufe und Reden deutscher Professoren im Ersten Weltkrieg, Stuttgart: Reclam 1975; G. Besier, Die Protestantischen Kirchen Europas im Ersten Weltkrieg (op. cit. note 34).

118 Cf. Jan Süselbeck, Im Angesicht der Grausamkeit. Emotionale Effekte literarischer und audiovisueller Kriegsdarstellungen vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Wall-stein, 2013, 63–202. See also Horst Lauinger, Über den Feldern. Der Erste Weltkrieg in großen Erzählungen der Weltliteratur, Zürich: Manesse, 2014.

119 H. Münkler, Der Große Krieg (op. cit. note 1), 248.120 See Dorothee Wierling, Eine Familie im Krieg. Leben, Sterben und Schreiben 1914–

1918, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014; Mélanie Morin-Pelletier, »The Anxious Waiting Ones at Home«: Deux familles canadiennes plongées dans le tourment de la Grande Guerre in Histoire sociale/Social History 47 (2014), 353–368.

121 Cf. Alessandra Sorbello Staub, Der Große Krieg. Netzangebote zum Gedenkjahr 2014 in Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 65 (2014), 380 f. See also Aleksandra



religion appears to be an integral component of rituals that have been handed down over time – burials form a good illustration here. For example, Dumitru Nistor, a Rumanian in the service of the Austrian Navy describes the burial after the fall of Tsingtao on November 9, 1914:

»In the afternoon, we organized a burial with full honours for them [the fallen]. A German priest held a wonderful service, we all shed tears, and then we buried them, fired three rounds into the air and finished the ceremony with music.«122

At that time, the religious component belonged just as much to the makeup of a worthy burial to these men as the military and musical ceremony. Written on March 15, 1915, a letter from the soldier Richard Albert Eduard Pick to his wife describes fear, regret and the hope that God will protect him:

»I want to commit my last thoughts here to paper before my deployment, thoughts that weigh heavily on me, and I ask you, I beg of you, that you don’t read this letter until after my deployment. I couldn’t sleep last night, I just tossed and turned, because in my thoughts I was truly with you. I saw myself out there in a field, whether sick, wounded or dead, I didn’t know. And yet I continued to think of you and the children and I cried burning tears at the thought that I might never see you and the children ever again, I pray to God that he keeps me safe for you and the children. And I deeply regret all the wrongs that I believe I have done to you in the long years of our marriage, and I truly beg you for forgiveness, my love! Place your hope in God and pray for me, as I will for you, in this way He will protect me and allow me to return in full health to you.«123

From these words of an ordinary soldier, there is no patriotic spirit or a religious upraising of what was happening. Instead, it was far more a desperate man in an extraordinary situation who was clinging to the Prussian-united religious so-cialisation of his childhood. Just three months later the Grenadier fell in Polish Czernova Gora. Satirical »professions of faith« also circulated freely, based on themes such as the worsening supply situation for the general population, like the following anonymous account from 1914:

»I believe in the Gerry, the universal provider of the German people. I believe in the marmalade, given from the War Food Office, suffered under Central Purchase Centre, collected and compressed, thrown down to Earth. On the third day it rose again as a dessert apple, thence to come again, and becomes sandwich spread for Germany’s sons. I believe in the holy prophets and malt racketeers, in general profiteering, the community of hoarders, raising of taxes, reduction of bread ra-tions and an eternal state of war. Amen.«124

Pawlicek, Der Erste Weltkrieg im digitalen Gedächtnis. Archivquellen zwischen Ubi-quität und Fragmentierung, in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 62 (2014), 685–704.

122 See http://www.europeana1914–1918.eu/de#sthash.gMg2YvRs.dpuf.123 See http://www.europeana1914–1918.eu/de/contributions/4027#sthash.u92XyV22.dpuf.124 See more at: http://www.europeana1914–1918.eu/de/contributions/1421#sthash.mOsER

hzr.dpuf.


44 Gerhard Besier

A true belief or patriotic disposition cannot be read into these lines. Ernst Karl Robert Grünwald from Plön was conscripted to the medical service because of his poor eyesight. Serving on the Eastern Front, he wrote »a series of poems, ded-icated to his mother, in which he expressed his beliefs, his trust in God, but also his fears.«125 Within these collections of letters there are also some from Wilhelm Roth, who later became the Dominican Father Thaddäus. On September 15, 1914 he wrote a letter to the Front from his hometown on the Rhine, in which he man-aged to include effectively every stereotype available to the religious repertoire.

»Yes young men, now we can only pray for you, but we don’t want to continue to pray alone, but where possible we will double our prayers, so that God will hear the intercession of His Holy Mother + that your guardian angel will protect you from harm. You must also pray fervently + maintain your trust in God, because those who build on God + can truly hope that they build on firm ground. You are fighting for a noble, great thing; you are fighting for all of us. Stay valiant + and good.«126

This small selection from the European-Project,127 found through a simple Search using the key words »God«, »Belief« and »Religion« demonstrates how wide the spectrum of forms of expression extends, and how deeply the affected individu-als were imprisoned by the fear and worry about their own fate. These personal messages confirm what Anne Lipp established in her study of newspapers in the trenches. Even as early as August 1914, any talk of extensive enthusiasm for the War had long since waned.128

With God for King, Country and the people – the church’s claim to a religious meaning in the emotions of war

Harnack’s observation, made to his students shortly after the outbreak of war, corresponded to a wider perception: In the bigger cities at least – and not only in Germany – many people, particularly academics, greeted the war as the source of salvation, like a revelation from God.129 In this way, citizens of the warring nations placed their faith in the firm commitment from their national churches

125 See more at: http://www.europeana1914–1918.eu/de/contributions/2026#sthash.APIf MpdD.dpuf.

126 See more at: http://www.europeana1914–1918.eu/de/contributions/628#sthash.ovjs Tont.dpuf.

127 In addition to this European project, there are further initiatives at a national level. The Imperial War Museum (London) has made a vast archive of portrait photographs, let-ters and drawings by soldiers from the war available on the Internet (http://www.iwm.org.uk/centanary).

128 Cf. Anne Lipp, Meinungslenkung im Krieg. Kriegserfahrungen deutscher Soldaten und ihre Deutung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003.

129 Cf. Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Der Erste Weltkrieg. Anfang vom Ende des bürgerlichen Zeitalters, Frankfurt a. M.: S. Fischer, 2004, 169; Matthias Kroeger, Friedrich Gogarten, Vol. 1: Leben und Werk in zeitgeschichtlicher Perspektive, Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln: W. Kohlhammer, 1997, 136 ff.



that God would be with them, if they faithfully fulfilled their patriotic duty. Each of the warring nations was to fight in the belief that they were God’s »chosen people«. The war was interpreted by all sides, if in varying levels of intensity, as a form of crusade:130 from Germany’s perspective, for the Christian-German culture and against the moral decay of the West; for the French it was likewise a fight for Christian-French civilisation but also against the German barbarism; from the point of view of Great Britain and the USA, this was a fight for demo-cratic freedom, Anglo-American provenance and against the raw despotism of the Central Powers. On its own, this religious message of assurance of divine support would have essentially lacked credibility, especially as the obvious dis-crepancies – the alliance of the Western powers with Russia and non-Christian colonial peoples – quickly placed a question mark over the credibility of the no-ble motive. Without the national frenzy,131 and the rapid expansion of patriot-ism about the »Great War«, the definitely secondary, religious charging of the military conflict would not have been able to occur. »The war provided the [to a large extent already cooling] Christian message with new validity ›on the back of the national attitudes, as it were‹.«132 As the otherwise mostly empty church-es suddenly filled with enthusiastic attendees, even though it was neither Easter nor Christmas, as the religious culture shifted from the periphery into public attention and spirituality was once again in demand as the people’s advocate, theologians suddenly recognised the massive power of this revival, and saw their specific mission in the events, with God’s support for the enormous work of re-newal. Because signs and miracles did occur. The »return to the altars« was not the only wonder; difficult internal conflicts, such as the secular-religious tensions in societies, suddenly seemed to have disappeared into the mist in these »Unions sacrées«133 (Sacred unions). Once again the people stood firmly together in a sense of unity. This was perhaps the birth of the »Volksgemeinschaft«134 (people’s com-munity) – documented not only in the parliaments but also in the urban mass

130 Cf. Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau/Annette Becker 14–18, retrouver la Guerre, Paris: Galli-mard, 2000, esp. 127 ff.

131 Cf. Etienne François/Hannes Sigrist/Jakob Vogel (eds.), Nation und Emotion. Deutsch-land und Frankreich im Vergleich im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995, esp. 13 ff.

132 Beyrau, Projektionen (op. cit. note 97), 406.133 Cf. Jean-Jacques Becker, Unions sacrés et sentiment des responsabilités, in Stéphane Au-

doin-Rouzeau/Jean-Jacques Becker (eds.), Encyclopédie de la Grande Guerre 1914–1918. Histoire et Culture, Paris: Bayard, 2004; Carsten Kretschmann, Burgfrieden und Uni-on sacrée. Sakralisierungsstrategien im Ersten Weltkrieg in Historisches Jahrbuch 134 (2014), 61–76.

134 Cf. Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914. Militarism, Myth and Mobilization in Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Steffen Bruendel, Volksgemeinschaft oder Volksstaat. Die »Ideen von 1914« und die Neuordnung Deutschlands im Ersten Weltkrieg, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003; see also Detlef Schmiechen-Ackermann (Ed.) »Volksgemeinschaft«: Mythos, wirkungsmächtige soziale Verheißung oder soziale Realität im »Dritten Reich«? Zwischenbilanz einer kontroversen Debatte, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2011.


46 Gerhard Besier

demonstrations; effervescent jubilation over the liberating experience of finally awakening, an escape from numbing everyday routine, people didn’t want this to end; full of excitement for heroic adventure and eagerness to survive the chival-rous duel, young men registered in droves for the Front – just to be free of school, university135 and the workbench – they didn’t want to miss anything, they didn’t want to arrive too late. It was hardly different in France.136 This combination of the seemingly contradictory patriotic and religious sentiments could have quick-ly escalated into a »Holy War«, where the despised enemy would have relentless-ly plundered their national soil – especially in Belgium and France.137 After the first German war crimes in neutral Belgium,138 the conviction grew among the affected people and their helpers that they were, in fact, fighting a righteous war against the barbarity of the »Huns«; this was a »Holy war« for civilisation.139 For the Germans, it was more difficult to create an explanation for going to war, to elicit for themselves a sacral side to the conflict. Nevertheless, they also intended to wage a »Holy War«.140 And so the »German fate« was portrayed as difficult and gloomy, the situation of a cultured nation that was surrounded by malicious enviers, it was a tragic fight for survival for the benefit of the national commu-nity – an apocalyptic war against »a world of enemies«141 – clearly comparable with the struggle that befell the »people of Israel« in the Old Testament. What is more, into this picture of misunderstood greatness and moral integrity came the perfect match in the form of Luther, the »German Reformer«, for whom, mirac-

135 Cf. Karl-Reinhart Trauner, Vom Hörsaal in den Schützengraben. Evangelische Theolo-giestudenten im Ersten Weltkrieg, Szentendre: Péter Tillinger, 2004, esp. 23 ff.; Stephan Fuchs, »Vom Segen des Krieges«: Katholische Gebildete im Ersten Weltkrieg. Eine Stu-die zur Kriegsdeutung im akademischen Katholizismus, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004.

136 Cf. Annette Becker, War and Faith: The religious imagination in France, 1914–1918, New York: Berg, 1998.

137 The clearly traumatic experience for Germany of the invasion of Russian troops in East-ern Prussia is often forgotten.

138 Cf. John Horne/Alan Kramer (eds.), German Atrocities, 1914: A History of the Denial, New Haven (CT): Yale University Press, 2001; Sophie de Schaepdrijver, De Groote Oor-log. Het koninkrijk België tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog, Amsterdam: Olympus, 2002, esp. 41 ff.

139 Cf. John N. Horne/Alan Kramer (eds.), German Atrocities, 1914. A History of Denial, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Likewise, the attack on Belgium’s neutrality turned the balance leading to a change of heart for the pacifist Free Churches in Great Britain. Cf. John Clifford, Our Fight for Belgium and What It Means, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1917. See also Mark Hutchinson/John Wolffe, A Short History of Global Evangelicalism, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 153 ff. For current discus-sion of the issue regarding a »just-war«, see also Nigel Biggar, In Defence of War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

140 Cf. the matriculation essays from the Viktoria Grammar School, Essen, from the year 1915. The topic reads, »When will we be able to speak of a Holy War?« This is a very good example of how middle class teachers and students reproduced the official German explanation for the justification of the War, and how they repeated the prepared expres-sions and phrasing. See Die Zeit No. 17 of 16/4/2014, 65 f.

141 Wilhelm II. in his appeal on 6/8/1914, printed in Ernst Johann (ed.), Reden des Kaisers. Ansprachen, Predigten und Trinksprüche Wilhelms II, Munich: dtv, 1966,126.



ulously, the 400th anniversary of his nailing of the 95 theses was to be celebrated in the autumn of 1917. The elaborate Luther celebrations were a highly welcome basis for self-justification for their role in the Great War.142 The magic of continu-ing victories spoke volumes for German confidence – from the wars of liberation from Napoleon to the »German-French war«, God had been »with the fathers«,143 and had He not established beyond any doubt his steadfast loyalty in these wars?

For all parties, it was a justifiable war and therefore a war with God’s bless-ing. The religious explanations did vary according to the situation of the war. If the French had feared a deserved »punishment for being a godless France,«144 even before their defeat at the beginning of September 1914, very soon afterwards they could recognise the supporting hand of God for their civilising mission in the »Miracle on the Marne«.145 Difficult military challenges were interpreted as a »God testing the people,« demanding greater sacrifices from His people; lost battles were counted as a form of catharsis, separating the wheat from the chaff. Many sermons portrayed the »time of war« as a »time of penance«, to be under-stood as God’s awakening call for His people who have strayed from the true path of belief.146 On the other hand, postcards circulated with the inscription »May God punish England«147 – a slogan that the soldiers made their own, as a means of justifying their actions. Incentive for a fervent willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice came not only from different saints, who had given themselves

142 Cf. Hartmut Lehmann, »Er ist wir selber: der ewige Deutsche.« Zur langanhaltenden Wirkung der Lutherdeutung von Heinrich von Treitschke, in idem, Luthergedächtnis 1817–2017, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, 126–137; Thomas Gerhards, Heinrich von Treitschke. Wirkung und Wahrnehmung eines Historikers im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2013; Gottfried Maron, Luther 1917. Beobachtungen zur Literatur des 400. Reformationsjubiläums, in Zeitschrift für Kir-chengeschichte 93 (1982), 177–221.

143 Wilhelm II. in his appeal to the German people on 6/8/2014, printed in Hammer, Deutsche Kriegstheologie (op. cit. note 46), 205. In 1870, Willhelm I had invoked God’s assistance »as he was with our fathers«. Kurt Pinthus, Deutsche Kriegsreden, Munich: Georg Müller, 1916, 415.

144 Cf. Houlihan, Local Catholicism (op. cit. note 81), 251 f.145 Cf. Bruno Cabanes/Anne Duménil, Der Erste Weltkrieg. Eine europäische Katastrophe,

Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 2013, 59 ff.; Allan Mallinson, 1914: Fight the Good Fight. Britain, the Army and the Coming of the First World War, London-Toronto-Syd-ney: Bantam Press, 2013, esp. 418 f.

146 The Munich Archbishop Michael Faulhaber in his pastoral letter of December 1914, re-printed in Faulhaber, Waffen des Lichtes. Gesammelte Kriegsreden, Freiburg i. Br. 41916, 23–51. See also Ria Blaicher, Gottes Strafgericht. Hirtenbriefe der deutschen Bischöfe während des Ersten Weltkrieges, in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 62 (2014), 315–328.

147 See G. Besier, Die protestantischen Kirchen Europas (op. cit. note 34), 41; Stephanie Böß, »Gott strafe England« – zur Kriegspropaganda auf Bildpostkarten, in Heidrun Alzheimer (ed.), Glaubenssache Krieg. Religiöse Motive auf Bildpostkarten des Ersten Weltkriegs, Bad Windsheim: Fränkisches Freilandmuseum, 2009, 221–228. Ref the vi-sual incentives see also Ludger Derenthal/Stefanie Klamm (eds.), Fotografie im Ersten Weltkrieg, Berlin: E. A. Seemann, 2014, esp. 32 ff. Cf. in general Klaus-Jürgen Bremm, Propaganda im Ersten Weltkrieg, Stuttgart: Theiss Verlag, 2013.


48 Gerhard Besier

for the greater good, but from the Lord himself. Mothers and wives of fallen he-roes saw themselves as being one with the suffering of the Virgin Mary. In this way, the Christian tradition not only offered a rich repertoire of victories, but they also provided images of comfort and perseverance. This repertoire appeared to be flexible enough to be able to find a satisfying sense of meaning for every conceivable turn of phrase. This extended from the fear of God’s punishment to hope for His protection, from the darkest moments of Good Friday to the shining miracle of Whitsuntide. The Golgotha of the Front was rich with conversions, but it also led to a devastating loss of true belief. The French contemporary his-torian, Étienne Fouilloux, aptly asked, »How is a person still supposed to be able to believe after living through Tannenberg or Verdun?«148 Religious emotion and profound emptiness were side by side in the roller coaster of wartime emotions. The ultimate sacrifice – the death of a beloved hero – was considered the eternal and consummate act of martyrdom, but at the same time it was also the deepest of family tragedies for their loved ones. In this respect, national elation and the most profound sorrow and pain merged cruelly in an almost bewildering ambiv-alence one into the other.

Even belief and superstition united into a difficult and tangled alliance.149 The war was the ultimate hour of devotional objects. Pictures of loved ones or of a saint, letters, medals, devotional books, Bibles and other amulets secreted in the field pack guaranteed safety from bullets and death. It is interesting to note, however, that possession alone of the Holy book concealed in the combat pack promised protection, not the actual words within the Holy Scripture. Dreams as premonitions of coming events belonged just as much to these forms of belief, ranging from the spiritualist to the miraculous; each of them as irrational as the concept of somehow enjoying a unique version of invulnerability. Ultimately, signs and miracles did occur in the trenches, which, on occasions, were attribut-ed to the direct intervention of angels.150

»As the [German] attackers are about to over-run the position, an ›unseen host‹ of angels, led by the archangel Michael, comes to the aid of the British survivors. […] What religion they [the soldiers] did hold tended to be a ›trench fatalism‹, a vague belief that a soldier would only die when his number was up, or only be killed by

148 »Comment croire après Tannenberg ou Verdun?«, Étienne Fouilloux, Au Cœr Du XXe Siècle Religieux, Paris: Les Éditions Ouvrières, 1993, 130. Cf. idem, Une Eglise en quête de liberté. La pensée catholique française entre modernism et Vatican II (1914–1962), Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1998 (rééd. 2006). See also Joanna Bourke, An Intimate His-tory of Killing. Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth-Century Warfare, New York: Basic Books, 1999.

149 Cf. Ralf Winkle, »Connaître à fond l’âme du soldat«. Französische Aberglaubens-forschung während des Ersten Weltkriegs, in Korff, Alliierte im Himmel (op. cit. note 79), 349–370.

150 Cf. Diana Voigt, Engel – allzeit bereit, in Alzheimer, Glaubenssache Krieg (op. cit. note 147), 131–144. See also David Clarke, The Angel of Mons: Phantom, Soldiers and Ghostly Guardians, Chichester: Wiley, 2007.



the bullet or shell with his name on it. God was an inscrutable and arbitrary be-ing, who either would not or could not stop the appalling slaughter.«151

Gerd Krumeich and Hartmut Lehmann justifiably state that since the French Revolution in modern Europe, »Nation and religion continuously remain closely linked together«.152 In spite of their established position within German society, both arms of the German church had been increasingly suffering a loss of mean-ing at the end of the nineteenth century. The great era of Christianity appeared to be over; materialism, atheism and increasing faith in science seemed to be marginalising traditional religions more and more. Church leadership, Faculties of Theology and conservative social circles were increasingly coming to fear the growing trend towards secularisation.153 Churches clung to accounts from na-tional surveys – 1813, 1848 und 1870/71154 – in which, according to the narrative, religion maintained a significant degree of importance and relevance.155 The spir-it of optimism at the beginning of the war seemed to take up the great national history of salvation – or so it seemed – carried it forward, and through God’s own hand, led the fatherland to its true destiny as the instrument of God within the divine plan for the world. In »such a powerful event«156 as the outbreak of war, the Church would not countenance being anything other than the sole appointed interpreter of God’s will. The religious awakening of the masses, that the church had every intention of pursuing, clearly called for spiritual leadership.

Fraught with tension and yet, at the same time, quite euphoric, this extraordi-nary situation released a truly contradictory state of excitement among the gen-eral populace,157 and demanded authoritative interpretation without any hint of ambiguity. It caused insecure and anxious people, together with lapsed parish-ioners, once again to flock to God’s house and seek out answers. Emboldened by this overwhelming increase in relevance, many pastors and theologians inflated the national events further still. As they effectively sanctified the still unspecified excitement and tension, religious leaders took the people’s fears and uncertainty, and whipped up the otherwise definitely ambivalent national awakening into an

151 Quoted according to Stewart J. Brown, A Solemn Purification by Fire (op. cit. note 56), 88; 95. See also Moynihan, God On Our Side (op. cit. note 61), 16.

152 G. Krumeich/H. Lehmann, Nation, Religion und Gewalt: Zur Einführung, in: »Gott mit uns« (op. cit. note 48).

153 Cf. Lucian Hölscher, Säkularisierungsängste in der neuzeitlichen Gesellschaft, in: Gai-lus/Lehmann, Nationalprotestantische Mentalitäten (op. cit. note 35), 133–147.

154 Cf. Frank Becker, Protestantische Euphorien. 1870/71, 1914 und 1933, in: Gailus/ Leh-mann, Nationalprotestantische Mentalitäten (op. cit. note 35), 19–44.

155 Cf. Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Die nationalgeschichtliche Umdeutung der christlichen Botschaft im Ersten Weltkrieg, in: Krumeich/Lehmann, »Gott mit uns« (op. cit. note 48), 249–261.

156 Cf. Anne Christine Nagel, Martin Rade – Theologe und Politiker des sozialen Liberalis-mus. Eine politische Biographie, Gütersloh: Kaiser, 1996, 134 ff.

157 Cf. Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 72 ff. See also Sarah C. Williams, Popular Culture and Religious Beliefs: Southwark 1880–1939, Oxford: Oxford Universi-ty Press, 1999.


50 Gerhard Besier

absolute fever pitch of religious revival. The sense of unknown awaiting the mass-es, evoking dark premonitions of what was to come, achieved an ultimate clarity through the words of the clergy, quelling all questions and doubts. Not only the Fatherland, but God Himself demanded their deployment. This was not just a matter of the earthy salvation of the nation; the people now truly faced a fight for spiritual salvation in Heaven. Against this background, the deeper meaning of the soldier’s sacrifice and death truly manifest itself. Just as Christ sacrificed His life for the redemption of mankind, now these fallen soldiers would make the ul-timate sacrifice in His steps in the name of the Lord. Military service became the service of God; a soldier’s heroism became true Christianity.158 Even feelings that customarily didn’t belong in the realms of the Christian community were bap-tised into the service of the war – such as the vitriolic attacks on Great Britain, in particular, directed against its immoral trading and merchant mentality.159 Ger-man poets and scholars transformed their abhorrence to the highest form of love, so that this feeling would be compatible with the Christian culture: »Because this hate, Lord Jesus Christ, is the fruit of the most perfect love. My fatherland is in its hour of need. We must hate all enemies to their death.«160

As far as religious influence was concerned, the scenario hardly varied in the other warring countries. In France, there was a similar religiously determined world of emotions, contextualised through religion and the fatherland.161 The re-ligious pathos, whereby the war was sanctified, was certainly not inferior to that in Germany. Driven by profound conviction, the hate of the German barbarians and their atrocities on the holy French soil was actively stirred up.162 Just like the Germans, the French and British intellectuals hoped for a kind of collective re-

158 Cf. Wilhelm Pressel, Die evangelische Kriegspredigt im Ersten Weltkrieg, Göttingen: V&R, 1968, 166 f.; Frank Betker/Almut Kriele (eds.), Pro fide et Patria. Die Kriegstage-bücher von Ludwig Berg 1914/18, Köln 1998, 352.

159 Cf. Werner Sombart, Händler und Helden. Patriotische Besinnungen, Munich-Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1915, 145. Franz Rosenzweig wrote to his parents: »Die Engländer für unanständig zu halten haben wir das unbedingte Recht; ein Volk, für das der Krieg eine einfache Geldfrage ist, kann gar nicht Recht haben, selbst wenn es so aussähe.« (»We have the unconditional right to consider the English to be obscene; a people for whom the war is primarily a question of money cannot have right on their side, even if this ap-pears to be the case.«) Wolfgang D. Herzfeld (ed.), Franz Rosenzweig. Feldpostbriefe. Die Korrespondenz mit den Eltern (1914–1917, Freiburg i. Br.-Munich: Karl Alber, 2013, 41; See also idem., Franz Rosenzweig, ›Mitteleuropa‹ und der Erste Weltkrieg. Rosenzweigs politische Ideen im zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext, Freiburg i. Br.-Munich: Karl Alber, 2013.

160 Will Vesper, Kranz des Lebens. Gesamtausgabe meiner Gedichte, Munich 1934, 83. See also Wilhelm Meyer, Vom ehrlichen Krieg: Ein Büchlein von Gott und uns Deutschen, Marburg, Elwert n. d., 1914, 73 ff. Cf. Geert Buelens, Europas Dichter und der Erste Weltkrieg, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014.

161 Cf. Annette Becker/Gerd Krumeich, Der große Krieg. Deutschland und Frankreich 1914–1918, Essen: Klartext, 2010, 107.

162 Cf. Annette Jantzen, Priester im Krieg. Elsässische und französisch-lothringische Geist-liche im Ersten Weltkrieg, Paderborn-Munich-Vienna-Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2010, esp. 27 ff.



naissance from the war.163 They anticipated new ideas and the creation of an ideal »community of the people« beyond the increasingly stale, liberal individualism.164 The longer the war lasted and the more the chances of winning turned in the favour of the Entente powers, then the greater the level of self-confidence in the French culture self-representation. However, the religiously substantiated promises did not materialise for Germany. Consequently, a »reversal of mentalities«165 occurred, that they were only minimally able to follow. Although there were a few theologians and pastors, including Harnack, who had started to revise their national Protestant viewpoint by the spring of 1917,166 the church leaders, in the main, indignantly re-jected any such self-correction, so that little or no attention was bestowed on these revisionist thinkers. In the history of salvation, the connection of the Christian message with the fate of the German nation proved to be increasingly ominous in the light of the ongoing defeats. The course of the war had falsified any notion that »God is by our side,« and as a result, the gaping hole between the church leaders and their parishioners became ever wider. Even while the vast majority continued to preach their motivating exhortations, calling for even greater willingness to make sacrifices, privately they longed for a cessation of hostilities, whereby the suffering, deprivations and death might finally cease. To the same extent that this gulf stead-ily widened, the church leadership lost its credibility and moral authority. »The consequence of this development was the Church increasingly forfeited its role as the advocate and guardian of religious needs and of religious sentiments among the population as a whole. Christian attitudes and piety moved, as it were, out of the church arena.«167 But in the end, even the churches in the victorious countries lost out. According to a British survey, only a bare 20 percent of soldiers expressed any »vital connection« to one church or another.168 »The Great War seriously weakened the influence and authority of the churches, and undermined efforts to achieve the Christian commonwealth.«169 With hindsight, the religious fervour of 1914 was

163 See Stewart J. Brown, A Solemn Purification by Fire (op. cit. note 56), 89.164 Cf. Wolfgang J. Mommsen (ed.), Kultur und Krieg. Die Rolle der Intellektuellen, Künst-

ler und Schriftsteller im Ersten Weltkrieg, Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1995, 31–47; 65–76.165 Becker/Krumeich, Der große Krieg (op cit. note 160), 20.166 Cf. Brakelmann, Der deutsche Protestantismus im Epochenjahr 1917 (op. cit. note 46),

esp. 269 ff.; idem, Krieg und Gewissen. Otto Baumgarten als Politiker und Theologe im Ersten Weltkrieg, Göttingen: V & R, 1991, esp. 130 ff.; 146 ff.; 149.

167 Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Die nationalgeschichtliche Umdeutung der christlichen Bot-schaft (op. cit. note 48), 260.

168 Cf. Moynihan, God on Our Side (op. cit. note 61), 212 f.169 Stewart J. Brown, A Solemn Purification by Fire (op. cit. note 56), 83; see also Adrian Greg-

ory, Beliefs and religion (op. cit. note 2), 442 f. More ambiguous argues Philip Jenkins in The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade (New York: Harper-Collins, 2014), who is of the opinion that WWI was not only a »thoroughly religious event« but an event which drew the global religious map as we understand it today. »The First World War was a thoroughly religious event, in the sense that overwhelmingly Christian nations fought each other in what many viewed as a holy war, a spiritual conflict. Religion is essential to understanding the war, to understanding why people went to war, what they hoped to achieve through war, and why they stayed at war.« Jenkin’s conclusion is: »In religion, as in politics and culture, we should see the pace of change not as steady, gradu-


52 Gerhard Besier

merely a flash in the pan. When measured against attendance at worship services, participation was already decreasing once more in 1915, and by 1917 had fallen be-low the numbers in the pre-war period.170 It was no different in Scotland.171

The »Holy War« that had been declared by the Church hierarchy proved to be a religious catastrophe from the outset, and resulted in deep disillusionment among the greater church community. This was especially the case for Protestantism, be-cause the Roman Catholic Church could reflect back on its predominantly Euro-pean, but effectively universal structure, and close ranks anew with Rome.172 The Lutheran and Reformed Churches, on the other hand, had to establish anew the fragile ecumenical threads once more that they had abruptly torn apart after Ko-blenz in the light of their nationalist aspirations. This new beginning proved, at the very least, to be extremely challenging from the outset.173 It was difficult to develop any genuine religious drawing power that true believers could have taken back to their communities and that might have lessened the nationalistic attitudes. While religion had suffered irreparable damage through the culture of war, the self-serv-ing national consciousness emerged as the victor from the military conflict – not only among the Entente Powers, but also on the side of the losers. This insistence on a true self-image becomes particularly clear when one looks deeper into the example of the annexationist war objectives submission from the Berlin systematic theologian, Reinhold Seeberg (1859–1935). Referring to Germany’s terrible sacrific-es in mid 1915, Seeberg suggested that Belgium, Luxembourg and significant tracts of the French and Russian territories should be incorporated into the German Em-pire. This body of thought – which in this context is obviously both nationalist and racist – promoting the war as the ultimate battle between German and Slavic forces, was by no means disavowed post 1918. On the contrary, it remained a high-ly respectable concept in Germanic and conservative circles, and can, to a large degree, be seen as a precursor to attitudes propagated and implemented within National Socialism.174

al evolution but as what biologists call punctuated equilibrium – long periods of relative stasis and stability interrupted by rare but very fast-moving moments of revolutionary or cataclysmic transformation. These radical innovations then take decades or centuries for the mainstream to absorb fully, until they are in their turn overthrown by a new wave of turmoil. […] Might another such realignment occur at some future point, a new moment of tectonic faith, with all that implies for innovation and transformation? […] When we trace the southward movement of Christianity, we also see faith becoming synonymous with the most volatile and ecologically threatened area of the world. […] Catastrophe might once more precipitate a worldwide religious transformation.« (pp. 4 f.; 375 f.)

170 Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Die nationalgeschichtliche Umdeutung der christlichen Bot-schaft (op. cit. note 48), 254.

171 Cf. Brown, A Solemn Purification by fire (op. cit note 56), 92.172 Cf. Richard van Dülmen, Der deutsche Katholizismus und der Erste Weltkrieg, in:

Francia 1974, 347–376, esp. 357.173 Cf. Besier, Krieg – Frieden – Abrüstung (op. cit. note 34), 111 ff.174 Cf. Peter Graf Kielmansegg, Deutschland und der Erste Weltkrieg, Stuttgart: Clett-Cotta,

21980, 259 f.; Klaus Schwabe, Wissenschaft und Kriegsmoral, Die deutschen Hochschul-lehrer und die politischen Grundfragen des Ersten Weltkrieges, Göttingen: Muster-



While traditions like these in Germany, together with commemoration of the First World War, were abandoned at the latest by the end of the Second World War – concepts that the Germans have long since rejected out of hand, dissect-ed in school debates175 and that nowadays seem incomprehensible – on the side of the victors, the heroic world of the Great War and its goals remain eternally alive. Furthermore, the Great War has now deeply embedded itself in the collec-tive memory in the form of heroic mythology, a patriotic master-narrative of the highest emotional appeal. The War and its symbols are constantly called upon from school lessons to commemorative celebrations as national sources of inspi-ration for unity, courage, willingness to make sacrifices and the country’s ability to overcome diversity. It is only out of respect for their current-day German allies that these countries now shun more triumphal gestures of victory.

Religious-patriotic arousal and existential fear – the collective emotional experience of the romance of war, misery and peace

The scent of war had been in the wind for a long time. With steadily increasing tension and intensity, people anticipated that a final decision was near. The »July Crisis« seemed to drag on endlessly; collective feelings such as pride and honour176 in this environment of national boasting were easily able to evolve into a far strong-er power in the public domain than any premonition of the pain of separation and the fear of death – particularly in the general atmosphere of threatening gestures and posturing. But it wasn’t yet truly serious. A war of words and pictures preceded the actual war, emphasising the country’s own strength and others’ weakness. In the tense and dangerous atmosphere of threatening war, many newspapers, and later the special editions, created strongly expressive images that fixed themselves deeply in the minds of the populace. People spoke of a »sense of fate«, there was an overwhelming »enthusiasm for war«, a »storm of enthusiasm« and an »over-powering expression of love for the Kaiser and the Empire«.177 Not only the Court Chaplain, Ernst von Dryander178 but, in his speech of August 2, 1914, the monarch

schmidt, 1969, 70 ff.; Günter Brakelmann, Protestantische Kriegstheologie im 1. Weltkrieg (op. cit note 46), 89 ff. The submission that had been initiated by Seeborg and signed by 1,347 leading figures, including 352 professors, is printed in K. Böhme (ed.), Aufrufe und Reden deutscher Professoren im Ersten Weltkrieg (op. cit. note 116), 125–135.

175 Cf. G. Besier, »Durch uns ist unendliches Leid über viele Völker und Länder gebracht worden.« Schulderkenntnis und Schuldbekenntnis in der Geschichte unseres Jahrhun-derts, in: Glaube und Lernen. Zeitschrift für theologische Urteilsbildung 1 (1986), 120–129. See also Gerd Krumeich, Juli 1914. Eine Bilanz, Paderborn-Munich-Vienna-Zürich, 2014, 183–203 (100 Jahre Diskussion um die Schuld am Krieg); Friedrich Kießling, Ver-gesst die Schulddebatte! Die Forschung zum Ersten Weltkrieg überwindet liebgeworde-ne Denkblockaden, in Mittelweg 36, Jg. 23 (2014), 4–15.

176 Cf. Besier, Neither Good Nor Bad (op. cit. note 23), 288 ff.177 See here and in the following: Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 64 ff.178 See G. Besier, Ernst Hermann von Dryander (op. cit. note 8), 249–260; Bernd Andresen,

Ernst von Dryander (0p. cit. note 8).


54 Gerhard Besier

himself, combined the patriotic feeling of elation with the burning belief in God’s good guidance, and in this way established a national-religious interpretation of the masses’ experience. This was principally supplying the common man’s world of emotions an option for interpretation that gave the working classes little room for manoeuvre, workers who had previously been estranged from religion. Neither this was especially relevant for workers in the countryside, where there was gener-ally a lack of patriotic memorial sites – those emotionally-laden places from which exciting and infectious parades of enthusiasm stepped off, ultimately to receive their definitive consecration in the grounds of religious sites such as the Berlin Ca-thedral – symbolically standing across the way from the palace. Jeffrey Verhey has demonstrated that this skilfully evoked frenzy of enthusiasm for the war did not actually break out across all small towns and among the rural population. In this way, the concept of a universal enthusiasm for the war has now become one of the »great historical myths of the twentieth century«.179 The mass feeling of tension cer-tainly spread across the entire land, but it was associated with other explanations and psycho-physiological forms of expression. From such rural corners it has been reported that people were deeply shocked and cried out, »Horror filled the souls«,180 as described in a background story from the Southern German town of Ebingen. In a similar way, a minister from Odenwald described how a »depressed atmos-phere« reigned over the market square as he and the mayor informed the gathered crowds of the outbreak of war. Even though the ringing out of the church bells had summoned the people to the square, there was no triumphant jubilation. In reality, tears flowed; »[…] not a sound could be heard, a sombre, heavy mood pressed in on everyone, as if a terrible fate had laid its hand heavily on the township«.181 Im-mense sadness and fear were reported across many towns, a »quiet emotion«182 at the sound of the tolling of the bells. Quite apart from the public communication,183 it is not unreasonable to assume that in the big cities there was more of a depressed atmosphere than otherwise depicted – not least because in so many families184 the memory was still very much alive of the horrors of war, namely the 1870/71 war. Munich’s Latest News (Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten) described the attitude among the people: »There was no noisy, echoing expression of boastful swagger, but an awareness of the terrible significance of this hour, and therefore a deep, deep seriousness.«185 At this point, it should be noted that the outbreak of war in 1914

179 Janz, Der Große Krieg (op. cit. note 1), 179. See also Roger Chickering, The Great War and Urban Life in Germany: Freiburg 1914–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

180 Quoted according to Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 69.181 Quoted according to Jeffrey Verhey, Der »Geist von 1914« und die Erfindung der Volks-

gemeinschaft, Hamburg: Hamburger Edition HIS Verlagsges. mbH, 2000, 124, note 64 (this quote is omitted in the English edition).

182 Quoted according to Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 69.183 See Klaus Beck, Kommunikationswissenschaft, Konstanz-Munich: UTB basics, 32013,

esp. 57 ff.; 129 ff.184 Cf. Besier, Neither Good Nor Bad (op. cit. note 23), 127 ff.185 Quoted according to Verhey, Der »Geist von 1914« (op. cit. note 180), 127, note 74.



represented an experience of the masses, arousing strong collective emotions on the part of the population; there was a widespread excitement, but, quite definitely, differing cognitive assessments of this extraordinary emotional state. Responses varied according to factors such as social class, people’s age and the region where they lived.186 The most enthusiastic recruits were to be found among the middle classes in the West. Volunteers – primarily drunken singing young men, at the time euphemistically called »heroic German youth« (heldendeutsche Jünglinge),187 with an age-appropriate potential to violence188 – were descended from the same social background, and followed in the main part the peer pressure of their sub-culture.189 Who would want to stand aside when absolutely everyone else was applying? Oth-ers dreamed of adventure, trial by fire as a form of »initiation as a man«.190 A confir-mation of this atmosphere can be seen in the festive departure atmosphere at train stations, especially among young women – a previously unheard of occurrence. Decorated with oak leaves and accompanied by exciting military marches191 the volunteers cheerfully went to war. Before they had even fired a single shot, these young men were hailed as heroes. Furthermore, participation in the patriotic mass rallies should not be interpreted from the outset as a sign of enthusiastic approval. On the contrary, often as not it was simply curiosity and a desire to be involved in the excitement that drove people to the central squares of the towns. It may well be that once there, they were simply »infected« by the moving experience of com-

186 For examples of regional historic studies, see Christian Geinitz, Der Weltkrieg als Welt-gericht. Nationalisierung und Kriegstheologie der deutschen Katholiken zu Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs am Beispiel der Erzdiözese Freiburg, in: Holzem, Krieg und Chris-tentum (op. cit. note 103), 680–704; Annette Jantzen, Mit Gott im Krieg. Elsässische und lothringische Geistliche im Ersten Weltkrieg, in idem, 705–735; Birgit Siekmann/Peter Schmidtsiefer (Eds.), Feldgraue Mentalitäten. Der Erste Weltkrieg in religiösen Perspektiven aus dem Wuppertal, Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2011; Heinrich Pich/Jürgen Müller/Katja Alt, Hessische Landgemeinden im Ersten Weltkrieg, Hanau: Co-Con Verlag, 2014.

187 Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 87.188 Cf. Besier, Neither Good Nor Bad (op. cit. note 23), 263 ff.; Michael A. Hogg/Graham M.

Vaughan, Social Psychology, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 72014, 492.189 Cf. Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 101 f. See also Philip Zimbardo, The

Lucifer Effect. Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, New York: Random House, 2007, 262 ff.

190 Ernst Jünger, Kriegsausbruch 1914, in: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 1, Stuttgart: Klett-Cot-ta, 1978, 544.

191 See Patrick N. Juslin & John A. Sloboda (eds.), Music and emotion: Theory and research, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011; Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht, »Trumpeting Down the Walls of Jericho: The Politics of Art, Music and Emotion in German-American Re-lations 1870–1920«, in Journal of Social History 36.3. (2003), 585–613; Glenn Watkins, Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War, Berkley, CA: University of Cali-fornia Press, 2003; Joseph Jordania, Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution, Tbilisi: Logos, 2011. Jordania proposed the term »battle trance« for this mental state, when combatants do not feel fear and pain, and when they lose their individual identity and acquire a collective identity. Cf. also Daniel Morat, Der Sound der Heimatfront. Klanghandeln im Berlin des Ersten Weltkriegs in Historische Anthropologie 22 (2014), 350–363.


56 Gerhard Besier

munal adventure.192 But how long did this feeling actually last, once people had left the gathering? Did all the everyday worries and fears for family members at the Front come flooding back? Ultimately, it may well have simply been a feeling of duty in many cases that led the young men to the recruitment offices – a motive that was definitely in the number one position in Great Britain.193 For the clergy, the collective experience was linked with a feeling of growing acceptance within the community. In this way, a Protestant describes, with more than a hint of satisfac-tion, how the local Catholics had always greeted him simply by his surname before the war, but now he has become »Pastor« (Herr Pfarrer) for them.194 In order to influence the interpretation of this complex emotional state in the desired manner, in order to make it completely unambiguous, the mainstream press, government and church leadership all portrayed the stereotypical picture of an atmosphere of unanimous patriotic excitement – as commonly perceived among the general pub-lic. The subsequent fascination with sensationalism first came to light as the first waves of wounded and prisoners of war arrived in Berlin. Fascinated spectators streamed to the stations to gain a glimpse of other people’s suffering and misfor-tune.195 An important aspect of this extraordinary situation was that social controls that had always been in place to this time were relaxed markedly, and patterns of behaviour were displayed that would never otherwise have been considered within the established social values and norms.196 In this respect, clergymen soon realised they had deluded themselves when they had enthused about the return of discipline and order in relation to the outbreak of war.197 In reality, not only a social sense of free indulgence in sensual pleasures ran rampant in the light of men’s potentially imminent end, but also a hysterical brutality. In one incident, after a French priest was picked up carrying a pistol, a furious mob fell upon him and abused him so viciously that he died shortly thereafter.198 Spying on others reached such a fever pitch among the highly agitated populace that dozens of innocent fell victim to false accusations.199

192 Cf. Besier, Neither Good Nor Bad (op. cit. note 23), 135 ff., 222 ff.; 225 ff.193 Cf. Jay M. Winter, The Experience of World War I, London: Macmillan, 1988, 118. See

also Allan Mallinson, 1914 (op. cit. note 144), 262 ff. (»Do your duty bravely, Fear God. Honour the King.«)

194 Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 75.195 Cf. ibid, 80 f.196 Cf. On Women’s emancipation as literary evidence, such as Arnold Zweig, Junge Frau

von 1914 (1931), Berlin: Aufbau, 2014. See also Philipp Blom, The Vertigo Years. Eu-rope, 1900–1914, New York: Basic Books, 2008, 219 ff.; Christa Hämmerle, Heimat/Front. Geschlechtergeschichte(n) des Ersten Weltkriegs in Österreich-Ungarn. Vienna: Böhlau, 2014; Christa Hämmerle/Oswald Überegger/Briitta Bader Zaar (eds.), Gender and the First World War. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014; Adrian Gregory/An-nette Becker, Religious sites and practices, in Jay Winter/Jean-Louis Robert (eds.) Capi-tal Cites at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914–1919, vol. II: A Cultural History, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 383–427.

197 Cf. z. B. Geinitz, Der Weltkrieg als Weltgericht (op. cit. note 184), 695 f.198 Cf. Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit note 133), 84, note 48.199 Cf. ibid, 86 f.



Reports abounded of negative emotions, panicked reactions and depressed masses, especially from lower middle class residential areas and for working class districts. These reports also extended to the border region of Elsass-Lothringen, along the Saar, in the North200 and in the East. Long queues started to form in front of banks and grocery stores as frightened individuals withdrew their sav-ings, changed their notes into coins and started to panic buy.201 After war was declared on Russia, panicked masses – some 20 to 30 percent of the population – left the Eastern regions for the West. »They were anxious days,« reminisced a pastor from Danzig, »as the far superior number of Russian troops broke through the lines in Eastern Prussia.«202 In places like these the churches also overflowed with worshippers, but those same worshippers showed neither excitement nor curiosity, instead the atmosphere was gloomy; worries and fears plagued them. Under these circumstances, the people did not flock to the churches for a reli-gious affirmation of their enthusiasm for war; they were there to seek consolation in the face of the misery. As a pastor from a regional area near Halle/S noted, in the countryside, even the marching beat of troops moving out took second place to the farmer’s fears and worries, concern not only for their own sons but also for the requisitioning of their horses and wagons.203 In working class districts, a deep sense of despondency took hold. Wages fell and unemployment steadily in-creased as the encroaching recession drastically impacted on families’ ability to make ends meet.204 A minister in Stuttgart described the atmosphere in the early days of August, »The declaration of war left people stunned – it was horrible.«205 A confused mixture of fear, aversion and hate towards the majority population predominated among the national minorities in the West, North and East of Ger-many. There was definitely no excitement or anticipation over the declaration of war among these groupings. Because of the government’s and the Chief Military Command’s heavy-handed insistence on conformity, the minorities’ fear, panic, grief and despondency grew by the day – and yet there was no resistance, even though priests in the former French West and the Eastern regions among the

200 See Claus Bundgård Christensen, Fighting for the Kaiser. The Danish minority in the German Army, 1914–1918, in Claes Ahlund (ed.), Scandinavia in the First World War. Studies in the War Experience of the Northern Neutrals, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2012, 267–282: Inge Adriansen, Offenbarungen aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg, in RSG 14 (2013), 199–222; Artillerist på Vestfronten. Thomas Sølbecks erindringer fra Første Veredenskrig. Forord af Claus Bungård Christensen, København: Gyldendal, 2010; Krestens breve og dagbøger. En dansker på vestfronten I Første Verdenskrig. Redigeret af Claus Bundgård Christensen, København: Gyldendal, 2012, 12–14 (Identitätskonf-likte dänischer Soldaten in der deutschen Armee). Similarly in the East: Julia Eichen-berg, In fremder Uniform: In Polen wird ein vergessener Krieg wiederentdeckt, in: Mit-telweg 36, Jg. 23 (2014), 74–88.

201 Cf. Verhay, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 89 f.202 Verhey, Der »Geist von 1914« (op. cit, note 180), 157 (quote is omitted in the English edi-

tion).203 Cf. Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 92.204 Cf. Brown, A Solemn Purification by Fire (op. cit. note 56), 91.205 Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 94.


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Polish population were considered to be potential agitators, and a number were consequently executed.206

In any case, the negative, as well as positive, emotions described here had reached such a fever pitch that they could hardly be held under control any more. Against the background of learned assessment and regulation patterns – hon-our and pride in the collective group playing a central role207 –instructions from the »emotional program« dictated human behaviour. An individual sends out relevant emotional signals to his environment208 and in this way evokes a group phenomenon, a feeling of »us«, leading to an increased sense of solidarity and inner cohesion. However, towards the »others«, the individual would demon-strate distinct tendencies of devaluation, scorn and aggressive behaviour209 – il-lustrated, for example, by the slogans scrawled over train carriages »We want to thrash them« or by bloodthirsty poems, such as describing how it would rain Russian heads and snow French heads. »Then we will ask the Lord God that the weather remain so.«210 Feelings like these freed up instinctive actions, especially among those institutions that might otherwise have been able to curb them, such as churches, which were themselves drawn into the melee of collective emotions. Instead of calming the tempers, many clerics fuelled the emotions, so that they were able to judge an event as being in accord with the feelings of their communi-ty, thereby justifying and confirming their own actions. Furthermore, they could focus on the fact that believers – insofar as they had successfully passed through the socialisation process – would follow the pastors’ explanations of their emo-tions.211 »The crowd is a living, social phenomenon – not only for those who are involved themselves, but also for others who witness the event first hand, or even those who learn about it through different literature or the media.«212 While the course of the war evoked extreme positive emotions, negative collective emotions and also physical feelings213 – directed and intensified by government, church and print media – the peace initiatives from the Pope, the Socialist Peace Conference,

206 Cf. Jacques Fontana, Les Catholiques Français pendant la Grande Guerre, Paris: Cerf, 1990, 211 f.; Jochen Böhler/Włodimierz Borodziej/Joachim von Puttkamer (eds.), Lega-cies of Violence. Eastern Europe’s First World War, Munich: Oldenbourg, 2014.

207 Cf. Ute Frevert, Honor, Gender and Power: The Politics of Satisfaction in Pre-war Eu-rope, in: Holger Afflerbach/David Stevenson (eds.), An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture Before 1914, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007, 233–255.

208 Cf. Paul Ekman, Emotions revealed: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve commu-nication and emotional life, New York: Owl Books, 2007, 80 ff.

209 Cf. Hogg/Vaughan, Social Psychology (op. cit. note 186), 429 ff.210 Quoted according to Verhey, The Spirit of 1914 (op. cit. note 133), 103.211 Cf. G. Besier, Religiöse Phänomene und ihre Geschichte als Gegenstand anthropologi-

scher, psychologischer und biologischer Forschung, in Schweizer Zeitschrift für Reli-gions- und Kulturgeschichte (SZRKG) 107 (2013), 115–142.

212 Hogg/Vaughan, Social Psychology (op. cit. note 186), 430.213 See also the literary treatment of contact and proximity in Santanu Das, Touch and

Intimacy in First World War Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, bes. 211–219.



the Archbishop of Uppsala and the English Quakers214 hardly inspired positive emotions, and were consequently not able to motivate people to respective ac-tion. What is more, they actually triggered mistrust more than anything, caused almost no affective impact, and so their involvement remained limited to just small groups, who also had to constantly defend themselves against the taint of »unpatriotic« pacifism. For this reason, supporters of peace initiatives simply had no chance against the over-sized emotions typifying the romance of the war – with one notable exception.

In December 1918, when the devout American President Woodrow Wilson was greeted and cheered on his arrival in Paris, later in London and then re-ceived like a Prince of Peace and »Saviour of Western Europe«215 in Rome, his wife Edith was initially quite astonished. »Every last corner was covered with jubilant, joyfully shouting people […].«216 His devoted follower, Herbert Hoo-ver, expressed, »To them [the masses everywhere in the world], no such man of moral and political power and no such an evangel of peace had appeared since Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount. Everywhere men believed that a new era had come to all mankind. It was the star of Bethlehem rising again.«217 His bodyguard, Edmund W. Starling, also recalled, »The people literally hailed the President as a god – »The God of Peace«.218 Wilson symbolised more than just the end of the war. For those cheering masses, who had suffered death and hunger for four long years, he represented a completely new age. The definitive end to all wars, a »cooperatively organised peace« with no victors and vanquished, just freedom, democracy and self-determination for all nations – all guaranteed by the soon to be established League of Nations.219 It was a truly emotional moment, in which peace could potentially have been able to outstrip war. Sadly, however, Wilson, the idealist, could not push through his 14 Point Plan against the will of the power-realists in London and especially Paris, but also against the Republi-cans in Washington D. C. The French Premier, George Clemenceau, mocked cyn-ically, »Even the good Lord contented Himself with only Ten Commandments; Wilson has fourteen!«220 In spite of all warnings and reservations, the Paris Peace

214 Cf. Besier, Krieg – Frieden – Abrüstung (op. cit. note 34), 79 f.215 So Lewis L. Gould (ed.), American First Ladies. Their Lives and Their Legacy, Routledge:

New York-London, 22001, 361 f.216 Alden Hatch, Edith Bolling Wilson. First Lady Extraordinary, New York: Dodd, Mead

& Company, 1961, 143. See also James S. McCallops, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson: The Unintended President, New York: Nova History Publications Inc., 2003, 51.

217 Herbert Hoover, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, Washington D. C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, (1958) 1992, 68 f.

218 Edmund W. Starling, Starling of the White House, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1946, 124.

219 See Jörg Fisch, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker. Die Domestizierung einer Illu-sion, Munich: C. H. Beck, 2010, esp. 151 ff.

220 Quoted according to William Ralph Inge, The End of an Age, and Other Essays, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949, 150. See also Robert Hanks, Culture Versus Di-plomacy: Georges Clemenceau and Anglo-American Relations during the First World War, Diss. phil., University of Toronto, 2002.


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Treaties were signed off, giving peace an ugly face by assigning moral guilt and approving economic exploitation.

Appendix

The Peacemaker 1914, 20–22[20]Extracts from a speech by Dr. von HarnackDelivered on the occasion of a meeting of the German Council, at Berlin, on April 28th, 1914221

I should like to ask you, with reference to the friendly relations between England and Germany from an historical point of view, to go back with me to far-gone ages, although I know that history is just at present not highly appreciated, and especially ancient history. But you cannot expect the historian to go with the times in this respect. You must allow him the privilege of keeping to this subject. I think I may be able with regard to the depth and seriousness of our relations to England to accomplish something which cannot be done in any other way. Will you accompany me in thought back to centuries about which many educated people have but a vague impression?

In the fifth century Christianity was brought to our fatherland at three dif-ferent periods. Firstly, by the Romans; after the building of Roman towns in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, the population of the towns was Christian Ro-man. The influence spread from the towns into the country. The second period is quite dark, but we have ascertained its existence. The Goths, who accepted Arian-ism under the Romans, must have had some sort of Christian literary intercourse with their tribe in Germany. Here and there, near Würzburg, and by the Swiss Jura Mountains, Arianism is found, whose existence cannot be in any other way explained. Thirdly, after the Great Chlodwig had overthrown the power of the Romans in Gaul, the Catholic Church being dominant, a Christian and Frank-ish mission penetrated into Germany. By the middle of the sixth century the work of the Romans hat perished. Little remained [21] of the work of the Goths. The Franks brought a Christianity which was purely external, an undisciplined organization of the State, with bishops who could neither read nor write. There was no question of deeply influencing the people. It was a sad state of things; the Church existed simply in the abstract.

In the year 590 Columba landed on the Continent with twelve followers, firstly with the object of leading an ascetic life in accordance with the commandment of Christ – like Abraham leaving fatherland and friends behind him, knowing well that these bind us to the world even more strongly than possessions and

221 We are indebted to Dr. Siegmund-Schultze for handing us the English translation of this speech. See special Number, page 23. – Ed., Peacemaker



riches. Missionary work was a secondary matter. They settled in the Jura Moun-tains. Their chief work was to found monasteries, as was the custom at home; and from here they went among the people round about. Other followed them from Ireland; more monasteries sprang up: St. Gallen, Reichenau, etc. They had great defects, which probably led to their ruin. The Celts with their weakly natures had no inclination for firm organization – a gentle, rather sentimental people, who could manage nothing more than the co-operation of those in perfect unison, which is nevertheless the first step in organization. Those who did not live in the monasteries were very loosely associated. There was no attempt to form the mon-asteries into a sort of provincial Church organization. We see here how certain a Church is to perish when each congregation is independent – although it looks as if they enjoy much liberty. History teaches that large communities can last only if they are bound together in an organic body.

There was no provision for strict discipline for those who did live in the mon-asteries. There were a few small powder magazines, but without the match which should ignite the whole.

But even for this we must be grateful to the English. A hundred and twenty years later the Saxon Boniface landed in Friesland. In the meanwhile in England, the Christian Celts had been driven back by the heathen Anglo-Saxons. One hun-dred years later the Anglo-Saxons had been raised to an unexampled standard in morals and learning. This was due to the close connection with Rome; from thence they received all that was necessary for their education, manuscripts, etc. Hundred of Saxons made the journey to Rome. Italy and France had no such learned men as the Venerable Bede. Boniface was the child of this civilization. He had entered a monastery, might have become abbot, but refused, desiring as a monk to go forth out into the world, well prepared, to convert the kindred Fri-sians. At first he had no success, but that did not discourage him. I will mention only a few facts about him. Firstly, in Thuringia and Hesse he sowed the seeds of Christianity, and it grew and flourished. Secondly, he arranged all the constitu-tional organizations of the Bavarians, Allemani, South Thuringians – govern-ment, worship, monastic life, and education. At his death there were hundreds of German ecclesiastics. Thirdly, perhaps his greatest work, even though he did not see it accomplished, was to remodel the worldly Frankish Church chiefly with the help of Pippin. How did he do that? He was firmly convinced that the English Church organizations were the only right ones; what was accepted there must be accepted in Germany. For instance, he appointed English-men only to the most important positions. Although he had studied very much, there was nothing to disturb the perfect harmony of the mission circles. All stood on the same level.

For this the unconditional submission to Rome was necessary. »There sits God incarnate«, he once said. He certainly often criticizes Rome, but only to express astonishment – opposition never occurs him. He was an extraordinary character, if not a great man of genius. He was, in fact, greater in what he accomplished than in what he was. His individuality consisted, as is the case with many Englishmen, rather in the energy with which he worked than in his personality. He recognized


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it to be God’s will that he should bring the Gospel to the kindred people. He was not a politician, he was simply a missionary. But he naturally applied to the ruling powers when they existed. These are a few of his characteristics. [22] He was killed by the heathen Frisians between Westphalia and Holland. Through Boniface we became Christians by accepting the English Church which stood under the rule of Rome. Luther said of the Germans. »They are a people who are not easily touched as a body, except under great pressure.« We had first to accept the Church in its authorized form. Lately many historians have condemned Bon-iface as a man who brought us misfortune. We can say that only if the historian takes as his standard what, in his opinion, should have happened. So our friendly relations – for which we must be grateful – begun with Boniface the Apostle to the Germans.

Prof. Dr. theol. habil. Dr. phil. Dr. h. c. Gerhard Besier, The Europe Center, Encina Hall C243, 616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA 94305; E-Mail: [email protected]

The Great War and Religion in Comparative Perspective Why the Christian culture of war prevailed...

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