14 - Cities

Summary

This chapter describes the urban or metropolitan history of total war, integrating the histories of social relations and cultural representations. In the industrial cities of Western Europe, the war gave bargaining power to labourers in strategically important sectors such as armaments or shipyards. It is important to note the war's differential impact on sectors within the war economy and on sub-groups within social classes, and not only in the cities of the major belligerents, but also in those neutral European countries whose economies thrived on the extra demand from abroad. In German cities, large scale heavy industry enjoyed unparalleled prosperity, whereas big shipping lines, small merchant houses and corporate banks went into decline. With urban-dwellers increasingly preoccupied with obtaining basic goods, cultural life in cities throughout Central Europe lost its swagger, particularly in the second half of the war.