7 - The myth of the “spirit of 1914” in German propaganda, 1916–1918

Summary

On 1 January 1917 Theodor Wolff attended a meeting called by the German War Press Office. It was a bitterly cold morning in a bitterly cold winter. There was not enough coal to keep most people comfortably warm. The blockade and poor harvests forced the population to eat turnips; this would later be known as the Turnip Winter. Most important of all, the war continued to extract its toll among loved ones at the front.

The meeting had been called to discuss morale, and, given the material conditions, it is not surprising that morale was dismal. Yet there was little the government could do to improve material conditions. All they could do to improve morale was to influence the way the German people read the news, the way they interpreted events. That they had few ideas, Wolff noted in his diary, was shown by the outcome of the meeting. The head of the German War Press office, Erhard Deutelmoser, called for all to work to reawaken the “spirit of 1914.”

The peculiarity of this moment would not have been lost on Wolff. An official narrative of the history of German public opinion in 1914, one which had been invented in 1914 as part of a discourse of legitimation, was now being employed as a means to win the war. This version of the “spirit of 1914” was told not so much to describe “Germany” to itself than as a vehicle for faith.