War against war

by Douglas Kellner

Ernst Friedrichs 1924 zum ersten Mal erschienenes Buch "Krieg dem Kriege" ist ein Meilenstein der Friedensliteratur und der Friedenspädagogik. Das durchgehend viersprachig (Deutsch / Französisch / Englisch / Holländisch) gedruckte Werk wurde weltweit hundertausendfach verkauft und erregte wegen der drastischen Bilder von verstümmelten Soldaten und der klaren antimilitaristischen Sprache großes Aufsehen und viel Anstoß. Mehreren Generationen junger Menschen hat nicht zuletzt "Krieg dem Kriege" die Schrecken des Krieges vergegenwärtigt.
Die Neuauflage im Ch. Links Verlag macht dieses wichtige Werk wieder zugänglich und erschließt es durch eine fundierte historische Einleitung von Gerd Krumeich für die Gegenwart. Eine biografische Skizze Ernst Friedrichs von seinem Enkel Tommy Spree informiert erstmals ausführlich über das bewegte Leben des Verfassers von "Krieg dem Kriege".

Genres: History, War, Photography, Nonfiction, Politics, World War I, Sociology

Paperback

First published May 1, 1924

About the author

Douglas Kellner is a "third generation" critical theorist in the tradition of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School. Kellner was an early theorist of the field of critical media literacy and has been a leading theorist of media culture generally.[citation needed] In his recent work, he has increasingly argued that media culture has become dominated by the forms of spectacle and mega-spectacle. He also has contributed important studies of alter-globalization processes, and has always been concerned with counter-hegemonic movements and alternative cultural expressions in the name of a more radically democratic society.

Kellner has written with a number of authors, including (with Steven Best) an award-winning trilogy of books on postmodern turns in philosophy, the arts, and in science and technology. More recently, he is known for his work exploring the politically oppositional potentials of new media and attempted to delineate what they term "multiple technoliteracies" as a movement away from the present attempt to standardize a corporatist form of computer literacy. Previously, Kellner served as the literary executor of the famed documentary film maker Emile de Antonio and is presently overseeing the publication of six volumes of the collected papers of the critical theorist Herbert Marcuse. At present, Kellner is the George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Essareh · Rating 5 out of 5]

«جنگ علیه جنگ» مجموعه‌ای از عکس‌های جنگ جهانی اوله‌. اولش یادداشتی صلح‌طلبانه داره و کنار هر عکس هم توضیحاتی هست. نسخهٔ اصلی (که پی‌دی‌افش رو می‌تونید پیدا کنید) چهارزبانه‌ست: انگلیسی، آلمانی، فرانسوی و هلندی.
مجموعه از عکس اسباب‌بازی‌های جنگی شروع می‌شه؛ بعد تصاویری از نظامی‌های میدون جنگ رو نشون می‌ده. عکس‌های پساجنگ هم شامل خرابی‌ها، سربازایی که نقص عضو پیدا کردن و قبرستون کشته‌ها می‌شه.
توضیحات عکس، خیلی وقت‌ها برای تمسخر واژه‌هایی مثل افتخار و پیروزیه. چنین کلماتی که برای برحق بودن جنگ به‌کار می‌رن رو توی گیومه و پایین عکس‌هایی می‌نویسه که باهاش تضاد دارن. مثلاً عکسی از چند سرباز کنار چند زن نیمه‌برهنه که درباره‌ش نوشته: «قهرمان‌های» آلمانی در فاحشه‌خانهٔ بلژیکی («و فرهنگ آلمانی، باید روزی جهان رو احیا کنه.»)

اسم این کتاب رو توی «نظر به درد دیگران» سانتاگ دیدم و خوبه که اومدم سراغش. به‌شدت آزارنده‌ست ولی لازم بود ببینم و بخونمش.

ممنون که خوندید.💙

۲۷ تیر‌ ۱۴۰۴
تخت

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book by Ernst Friedrich is a collection of photos from the Great War, ranging in character from the somber to the horrific. Many of the photos feature ironic captions, mocking patriotism and the idea of glory as farcical. As I'm sure almost any review of this work will mention, these photos are not for the squeamish. There are decapitations, hangings, and charred bodies on display in this book. Even somehow sadder and more gruesome are those images of soldiers. Many of these soldiers were no doubt handsome young men. Now their faces are mangled, indistinct masses of putty after thirty or forty unsuccessful operations. Prosthetics were in the stone age at this time, so there are images of men with metal claws for hands, one of whom is working at a lathe/grindstone of some kind in a photo after returning from the war, with his own sorry state juxtaposed to some member of royalty who missed out on the war and is playing tennis on a clay court in an idyllic setting.

This book is definitely an emotional roller coaster, especially considering I'm a vet (though of nothing as brutal or total in its destructive nature as the Great War). Friedrich-a Nobel Prize candidate- has a childlike, ironclad belief in communism as a panacea for all world ills (including war), but the interjections about the proletariat and the capitalists need to be taken in context. This was a book assembled in a time before the real effects of the 'Great Soviet Experiment' were known, while wars waged supposedly for profit and outdated martial abstractions had already shown their horrible consequences. Recommended, but with the massive caveat that the reader/onlooker should be prepared to be saddened, enraged, and reminded of the character of war; maybe if they're lucky this will be their first acquaintance with the terrible beast.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's pure propaganda, but indicative of the post-war sense of urgency overwhelming the pacifist zeitgeist. The copy I read was printed in English, German, Dutch and French; a pan-European appeal to the people to face the harrowing images of the Great War. "All Quiet On the Western Front" is a more nuanced work of art, but this book is just as historically significant. Not to mention macabre - now - in its ultimate ineffectuality.

Friedrich was one of many socialist pacifists, who hoped the tragedies of the First World War sufficed to ensure that it had been the last. He initially expressed the hope that the warmongers would eventually kill themselves off, a cynical optimism consistent with his socialist ideals, but he admitted the class structure prevented this governing tier from suffering the true experience of war. Both his pacifism and socialism brought him to strictly anti-nationalist conclusions.

The word "socialist" today elicits images either of the Soviet experiment or of Nazis, Islamists and anyone else Middle America has been told to fear. The pre-WWII German socialists were divided and unsuccessful, but they were the number one enemies of the Nazis and most likely would have been disgusted by the Soviet bloc. In the United States, outside of college history courses, their cause remains widely unknown.

[Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humphrey Cobb, author of Paths of Glory, said that "The only effective anti-war propaganda that I know is photographs of butchered bodies-the more horrible the better."
Ernst Friedrich provides that requirement in War Against War which should be able to slap the militarism out of many a hardened patriot. Friedrich serves as compiler and editor, allowing the photographs to serve their own ends coated by sparse text in four languages and arranged in crescendo from childhood toy soldiers thru poor debilitated veterans and the untouched plutocrats-mashed faces, ripped limbs, sunken trenches, bones and graves. The whole world here has become a cemetery of soldiers but also glory.
The only denouement is for fine turns of phrase: 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' ignominiously slaughtered while the human dead are disinterred (often literally) and yet roam as broken men- the more horrible the more undead.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anybody who has ever thought of joining the Armed Forces to fight in a war should read this book. It will turn your stomach.

[Iz · Rating 5 out of 5]

lesen.

[Seb5253 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Think of every modern day veteran soldier gleefully paraded on our screens by the likes of the BBC and Hollywood with accompanying stories of " triumph" and "heroism"....the obvious reality is that the vast numbers of veterans with severely disfiguring injuries, those with catastrophic brain injuries , those requiring life long care and the psychologically shattered have always been seen as too distasteful to be exposed to the masses. This book is a slap in the face to those virtue signaling nationalists and has never been more relevant... Sadly almost 100 years of intermittent warfare later we've learnt nothing.
This book serves as very , very rare corrective to the absolute BS of films like the facile "1917" or Peter Jackson's heavily sanitized "WW1 in colour" ( curated to make the screaming hell of the trenches look like a jolly adventure with -and I quote - : " the spice of danger" .. for f's sake Mr Jackson , you moron) . Unless we can recognise the reality of warfare , honestly- what's the point in the flag waving beneficent smugness of remembrance Sunday, which it seems , serves only to perpetuate the myth of a noble death in the service of an indifferent monarchy or granite cold state ?
If every parent of a prospective recruit saw this, there would be no armies to wage war on each other for the financial benefit of corporations, landed gentry or a corrupt church.

[Judith Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw a review of this book many years ago and looked for a copy for a long time (this was pre-internet!) before finally finding it on sale at the excellent war museum in Peronne.

There are plenty of reviews giving full details on Goodreads, so I will just add that I keep it on a high shelf as I wouldn’t want my small granddaughters to find it and open it unawares.

I have a post-it note on the front page on which I’ve written ‘Warning! Contains very graphic images’, and tucked in between pages are two postcards of art by Otto Dix, whose deeply disturbing work was featured in an exhibition on my visit to Peronne.

We need to continue to be disturbed.

[han · Rating 5 out of 5]

yup still checks out

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overwhelming pictorial essay on the horrors of the Great War, compiled by the proprietor of a German anti-war museum ransacked by the Nazis. This is not war porn -- it's about the pointless suffering of war casualties and their survivors. His point is that this level of suffering is simply not imaginable to the innocents who buy their children war toys, then send those children proudly off top the front. He complied this books in hopes of educating such people, to prevent the next one from happening. Well, he can say he tried.

[Alberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Todos los libros, películas, cómics, series o videojuegos que tratan el conflicto armado deberían mostrar el sufrimiento, el dolor y la deformación del hombre y de la mujer que las armas conllevan. Este libro lo hace y corta la respiración. Cada fotografía es un clavo al ataúd de la épica guerrera. Muy bueno.

[Lisa of Troy]

A Book Owned by F. Scott Fitzgerald: https://static-prod.lib.princeton.edu...

[Ben Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have had this book on my shelf since reading Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others about a year and a half ago, when she referenced the portraits of the mutilated soldiers in her writings and it sparked intrigue.

I have finally read/ viewed the book in its entirety, coinciding with me watching the amazing and incredibly courageous documentary For Sama (on Amazon prime, about the Siege in Alleppo, HIGHLY RECOMMEND!), and it really does deliver its message effectively in that war is often beneficial for little but a few, for everyone else it is completely beyond devastating. Reading over 2 days, the photographs from page 50 up until its last page can be quite hard to get through, a silent read and one that should be respectfully passed on to others, which I suppose is exactly the action that Ernst Friedrich desired!!

Reason for my 3 stars were that due to the books pages each being written in 4 languages (English, German, French and Dutch) it was an incredibly short read, and left me wanting more context on the images and more passages from Friedrichs campaigning career.

[daniella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humankind is absolutely absurd. Written 100 years ago, just as relevant today. Capitalism and hierarchy and racism even in death. Visual. Striking. Eerie. Nothing I haven't seen before though. Revolutionary for its era. Media bias. Indoctrination. Manipulation. Die as hero of the Fatherland. Wtf is a Fatherland.

People today dont give a shit about one another, like like, scroll scroll. Ghosting. Shaming. Swipe left, swipe right. What does it take for people to care? I dont even know. Do we really learn to care through pain? Must we go through pain to feel humanity? How can we feel pain and not be absorbed by it? Is it easier to remain shallow and superficial, and just hope Im never the one in pain. Let others be in pain. Its not my problem.

Seems like greed, ego, war, violence, in inherent of mankind. I never say mankind, but men are the sole war lovers in this world. Yet all humankind is victim of it. All. In way or another. 9-5. Nature a huge victim, but that's a talk for another day kids.

Ernst you radical man.

[Salim · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most graphic and gruesome books I have ever read, it is not for the faint of heart. Nonetheless, it is one of the most powerful works advocating against war. It shows war for what it truly is, its destructive nature. Behind every haunting image, there is a story. The story we are told is one of national pride, resilience, sacrifice, and courage. However, the real story is one of victims and misery everywhere.

It should be required reading for every warmonger and world leader. First released in 1924, the book remains painfully relevant. Since then, war has only grown worse and more brutal. The sequence in which the images are presented is remarkably effective. It begins with innocent symbols and shows how societies beautify war from early childhood, presenting it as something noble. From there, the images grow gradually more horrific, accompanied by satirical statements that expose the absurdity and cruelty of war. Many of these images will stay with me for a long time.

[Clarice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Descobri este livro através do ensaio da Susan Sontag, "Diante da dor dos outros". Existe, para mim, uma compreensão sobre a guerra antes e outra após a leitura desse livro. E, particularmente, eu sempre ficava entre a curiosidade e a repulsa por esse tipo de livro com fotografias "gore", mas este não é um livro qualquer. Ele é um manifesto anti-guerra, uma denúncia social e moral sobre o significado dos conflitos bélicos no início do século XX. Enquanto avancei na leitura (super rápido, leva menos de 1 hora) lembrei muito do filme Nada de Novo no Front (2022), que também é inspirado em livro da mesma época, o que acentua para mim esse sentimento de dor, desesperança e impotência diante de muitos acontecimentos do período.

[Thomas Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This indictment on war is a radicalist pacifist's attack on militarism based largely on WW I photographs. The material, mostly visual, is basically three acts: I don't start children off with war games, II photographs of the horrors of war often contrasted with morale-boosting shots, and III the ravages left behind in mutilated faces and full cemeteries.

[Peter Hession · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great idea but suffers now because of its age. The pictures are all black and white and of quality of the time. This is not at all the fault of the book but it has lost what I would imagine was its initial shock value. The idea, however, is a great one.

[Melissa Kh]

This was published in 1924. It’s now 2025, a whole century later, 101 years, to be exact.
We still need a constant reminder of the atrocities committed by mankind, because we clearly haven’t learned anything from our past.

[Twan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cynical, bitter and frightening. Those words are exemplary for War Against War. It is one of the most horrifying books I've ever read. Friedrich, himself a well-known pacifist and socialist, portrays here the 'true' horrors of the First World War, and therefore war in itself.

The part where the mutilated soldier's faces are shown is horrible. But still, it is worth seeing.

[Daniela Solaroli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un'opera d'arte...

[Miriam Quiñones · Rating 5 out of 5]

"El verdadero heroísmo no es el asesinato, sino la negativa a cometerlo”

[sejal]

powerful, vital, incredible juxtaposition and truly raw in it’s authenticity of the atrocity of war

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

scary

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Le facce delle vittime [...] restano l'unica verità della guerra."
- Gino Strada, Introduzione, p. 7

[Zioluc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raccolta fotografica a tutto campo sulla prima guerra mondiale e i suoi effetti, creata del pacifista Ernst Friederich per sostenere la sua causa.

Le didascalie, a volte pompose ma sempre accorate, servono a contestualizzare immagini violentissime (i volti sfigurati dei feriti sono difficili da sostenere), desolanti o a volte ironiche e per togliere ogni alone di gloria e rispettabilità alla retorica della guerra. Un'opera singolare, un inno alla pace e un'interessante raccolta di immagini con qualità di stampa purtroppo pessima.
Introduzione di Gino Strada di Emergency.

[Lukáš Palán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ernst byl solidni pacifista, coz je s podivem, protoze to byl nemec a u Pacifiku nikdy nezil, hihi. Jeho Valka proti valce je pusobiva "fotoreportazova" valba i po sto letech, a to i prestoze jsem jiz videl daleko otresnejsi veci nez masovy hroby a obesence - treba papriku v Bille za 90 kc, nebo vyliteho jaggermeistera...

Sarkasticke popisky u fotek to vytahuji na pet hvezd, ale jelikoz tam zaroven byly vsechny tanky vybuchly nebo rozbity, musim ubrat na ctyri.


https://libcom.org/forums/history/war...

[Dick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book, which is published in German, English, French and Dutch together, and looking at the pictures, it is easy to understand why this book was taken out of circulation or not published in many countries for a long time. It shows the horrors of the First World War. Not only by pictures of the fron, but also of soldiers of various nations who have been disfigured in horrible ways.