Extract

In The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in the Great War and Beyond, Brian K. Feltman studies the experiences of German POWs from the First World War through the Weimar Republic and into the early years of Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Through an examination of their emotional and material lives both during and after captivity, Feltman sheds new light on the impact of World War I on German constructions of gender, military-civil relations, and feelings of national belonging. Unlike studies that have focused on the emotional experiences of front-line soldiers (e.g., Jason Crouthamel, An Intimate History of the Front: Masculinity, Sexuality, and German Soldiers in the First World War [2014]), Feltman’s study concentrates on those servicemen caught in the liminal geographic and emotional spaces of forced captivity and on how they dealt with the social stigma and personal shame that accompanied their internment. Using a broad array of sources—including prisoner correspondence, camp newspapers, military records, and government archives—the author reveals how these men negotiated their captivity and tried to maintain their membership in the social and national fabric of German society.

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