The Great War and Urban Life in Germany
Freiburg, 1914–1918

Roger Chickering offers the most comprehensive history ever written of a German city at war.

Roger Chickering (Author)

9780521852562, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 February 2007

646 pages, 18 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 4 cm, 1.15 kg

'Chickering's unfailingly observant, detailed and comprehensive study of civilian life in Freiburg in Breisgua during World War I is a marvel of nuance and insight.' Michael Geyer, The Journal of Central European History

In deference to the principle that total war requires total history, Roger Chickering traces the all-embracing impact of the First World War on life in the German city of Freiburg. His book shows how the war took over every facet of life in the city, from industrial production to the supply of basic material resources, above all food and fuel. It documents the breakdown of distinctions between the home front and the fighting front, as the city fell victim to strategic bombing. It analyzes the war as a sensory experience, which could be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted as it exhausted the city, drained it of residents, and eroded civic bonds among those who remained. Roger Chickering offers the most comprehensive history ever written of a German city at war. The book will appeal to urban and military historians, as well as to social and cultural historians.

Introduction: total war and total history
1. The loveliest place to live in Germany
2. The beginning
3. Visitations
4. Tools and toils of war
5. Collecting things
6. Breakdown
7. The war on the senses
8. Public intimacies
9. War and locality
10. The national community in town
11. Class
12. Transections
13. Fragmentation
14. Exhaustion.

Subject Areas: Second World War [HBWQ], Military history [HBW], Social & cultural history [HBTB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]