War Land on the Eastern Front
Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I

This compelling study examines the experience of German soldiers on the Eastern front in World War I.

Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius (Author)

9780521661577, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 May 2000

320 pages, 5 maps
23.6 x 16 x 2.6 cm, 0.64 kg

"there can be no doubt that Liulevicius's study, arguably the first cultural history of the German occupation of eastern Europe in the First World War, is truly path-breaking." Canadian Journal of History

War Land on the Eastern Front is a study of a hidden legacy of World War I: the experience of German soldiers on the Eastern front and the long-term effects of their encounter with Eastern Europe. It presents an 'anatomy of an occupation', charting the ambitions and realities of the new German military state there. Using hitherto neglected sources from both occupiers and occupied, official documents, propaganda, memoirs, and novels, it reveals how German views of the East changed during total war. New categories for viewing the East took root along with the idea of a German cultural mission in these supposed wastelands. After Germany's defeat, the Eastern front's 'lessons' were taken up by the Nazis, radicalized, and enacted when German armies returned to the East in World War II. Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius's persuasive and compelling study fills a yawning gap in the literature of the Great War.

Introduction
1. Coming to war land
2. The military utopia
3. The movement policy
4. The Kultur program
5. The mindscape of the East
6. Crisis
7. Freikorps madness
8. The triumph of Raum
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: First World War [HBWN], European history [HBJD]