BITTER WOUNDS: German Victims of the Great War, 1914-1939

by Robert Weldon Whalen

Examines the political and social problems caused in Germany by the disabled war veterans and victims after World War I

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1984

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the subtitle (German Victims of the Great War, 1914-1939) missing from the increasingly frustrating Goodreads, one will be lost as the subject of this excellent work of history.
The German side of the mauling, blistering, and meaningless catharsis of World War One gets short thrift in non-German scholarhip, but Whalen made a needed corrective at the time to show how the issue of German veterans, especially the disabled and maimed, was peculiarly formative in the rise of those bastards, the Nazis. More than this, though, Whalen digs deep into the German domestic experience, not only discussing the experience and effects of war, the various means of treatment, and even a study of psychological techniques of the time, but he looks at the homefront: widows, orphans, and the effects the mind-bogglingly inconceivable (at the time) loss of life and permanent injury had on society.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fairly short but illuminating look at the psychic and financial costs that the Great War exacted on the German people. Firsthand accounts from everyone affected by the War are interleaved with bits of literature (prose and poems) as well as tables and charts. This is also buttressed by some quality insights by Herr Whalen himself.

One of the challenges for any student of history is discovering that many historians tend to recycle the same theories, anecdotes, and even images, from one book to another. "Bitter Wounds" does an able job of introducing the subject of the Great War's tragedy to those who are coming to the subject cold, but also provides some insights and bits of research that must have involved some heavy spadework by the author, which were much appreciated by this reader.

Highlights include the political war between the far-left and the far-right for the soul of the soldier, who came to stand as a symbol for many things to different groups. The author shows how there was an inverse correlation between the soldier's rhetorical worth and the actual pensions that were willing to be paid out to soldiers. Notes on prostheses, and the retraining of mangled men for the workforce, were also fascinating, and sometimes haunting (as in the case of the "whistlers," those soldiers who had throat wounds and had trouble breathing, and therefore had to wear modified trachea rings that emitted a strange, high-pitched sound).

As mentioned earlier in this review, there are some charts and graphs, but Whalen doesn't allow things to get too wonkish or close to actuarial analysis (which can sometimes be a problem with books on the Great War). Things conclude with the initial electoral and cultural inroads made by the Nazis in the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The NSDP's beachhead with the common German was (Whalen argues) largely due to Hitler being able to promote himself as a living instantiation of the "Forgotten Soldier" wounded in the First World War, and either spurned or forgotten by elements on the home-front and now risen to avenge wounded Prussian pride. It probably does not need to be said in a review on a book on this subject, but I feel compelled to throw the caveat in anyway: this can be depressing, difficult, and sometimes maddening reading. Seeing many of the humiliations these soldiers were subjected to is hard, especially considering that they had just survived the overtaxing nightmare of trench warfare. That many men were maligned as shirkers or kicked off the dole (even when blind and maimed) or mocked for their injuries by callow young nurses, makes for a rough but necessary read. Sometimes one doesn't so much read as just bear witness to the testament of others. Recommended in any event, and Happy Memorial Day.