A Nation in Barracks: Conscription, Military Service and Civil Society in Modern Germany

by Ute Frevert

'German militarism' has long been understood to be a central element of German society. Considering the role of militarism, this book investigates how conscription has contributed to instilling a strong sense of military commitment amongst the German public.A Nation in Barracks tells the story of how military-civil relations have evolved in Germany during the last two hundred years. Focusing on the introduction and development of military conscription, the author looks at its relationship to state citizenship, nation building, gender formation and the concept of violence. She begins with the early nineteenth century, when conscription was first used in Prussia and initially met with harsh criticism from all aspects of society, and continues through to the two Germanies of the post-1949 period. The book covers the Prussian model used during World War I, the Weimar Republic when no conscription was enforced and the mass military mobilization of the Third Reich.Throughout this comprehensive account, acclaimed historian Ute Frevert examines how civil society deals with institutionalized violence and how this affects models of citizenship and gender relations.

Genres: History

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

German historian. She is a specialist in modern and contemporary German history, as well as social and gender history. In January 2008, she was appointed managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and director of the Institute's Center for History of Emotions in Berlin.

Frevert worked at several research institutions. She held research fellowships at Berlin Institute for Advanced Study from 1989–1990 and 2004–2005 and at Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University from 2000–2001. She was professor for modern history at Free University of Berlin in 1991–1992 and at the University of Konstanz from 1992–1997. After being appointed professor for general history at the University of Bielefeld, she proceeded to hold a professorship for German history at Yale University. Since the winter semester 2008/2009 she is an honorary professor at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut at Free University of Berlin.

Frevert was a visiting professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1997, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 2002 at the Institute for Human Sciences in 2003 as well as the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

Her research has focused on social and cultural history, evaluating gender relations, and the impact of policies, like military conscription and customs like dueling have impacted the human experience.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a history of conscription in Germany, looked at through three lenses: citizenship, nation-building, and the gender order. Frevert ties German conscription together with European (largely French) concepts of national identity, which allowed the private citizen to see himself as part of the larger national community, and to dedicate himself to it (the "himself" here is quite conscious and specific, of course). She points out in the introduction, however, that a competing model for a Western army has long existed, in the form of the professional volunteer armies of Britain and the United States, and she argues that since the Second World War, this model has gained currency in Germany and is likely the future for the German military. In that sense, although conscription continues in Germany to this day, her book may be seen as a more-or-less complete history of the subject.
The narrative begins before German unification (more or less with Napoleon), although the move towards unification is neatly linked with her subject. Where nation building in France ("Peasants into Frenchmen," to use Eugen Weber's term) was a process of including the people who had previously been "subjects" of a monarch into a national community which ostensibly represented them, in Germany it meant first and foremost the right of Germans to consider themselves part of one community, while their representation or "voice" within that community was a secondary consideration at best. The metaphor of a "nation in barracks," therefore implied a relationship of service from duty, not one of service to gain a reward (such as enfranchisement).
Military historians may be confused or annoyed by the emphasis on the maintenance of a peacetime army, but this serves to support Frevert's argument that the real value of conscription was domestic unity, not strength in international relations. She uses a wide variety of interesting sources, from traditional soldiers' songs, to newspaper accounts to training manuals to government documents, to trace a narrative which is not obvious to the "naked eye" of military campaigns and battles. Most of the book is dedicated to the 19th century, although the final chapter includes a very good analysis of the twentieth, pointing out how certain aspects of traditional conscription rose and fell as Germany left its imperial era, moved fumblingly through democracy into totalitarianism and back to a more stable democratic model.
Some feminist historians will be disappointed or concerned by the use of gender analysis to support a book which is more or less entirely about men and the male experience, but Frevert deftly applies gender to teach us about both sides of the equation. She asks why military service and thus "citizenship" have been perceived as male provenances and also discusses the debates and effects of female service in the military and its invisibility throughout much of German history. As with any good history, this tells us not merely the story of specific individuals or populations, but allows us to learn something of our own lives and values and their origins.