reactions to WWI in Germany

How did the Germans react to the outbreak of the Great War? Not an alternate history scenario, but I'm writing an assignment on the topic and thus far haven't found a lot of material. Any input would be greatly welcome.
 
By and large, happy. The experience of war over the past two generations had been: Men march off, spome peple do extremely heroic things, some die, which is sad in a heroic kind of way, and they come back next spring and we party. The expectation was that this would be repeated, only on a grander scale (and thus by extension with a bigger victory). War, to the popular culture of the time, was, if not an unalloyed good, then an overall positive thing. It allowed you to prove yourself, it made you better people, and of course, you would win. And it ended the interminable sense of crisis. All problems would be resolved now.

Even those people- and they were quite afew - who were unhappy about it did not consider war in general a horror as much as a deplorable necessity, a bad thing with good sides. Look at the reaction of the majority of the SPD - regret, patriotic resolve, and the general conviction that this would soon be over and then one could go back to business as usual, and have proven one's loyalty. Not everyone was in the streets partying, but most people were at least willing to take it in their stride and do their bit.
 
I'd be rather careful in describing it as general happiness. Certainly, there were some scenes of jubilation, especially in the great cities, where most of the upper classes were at home.

But when you leave the big cities and go to the many, many small towns and villages, the jubilation gets rather subdued if not muted. Photographs here show a lot of people - including soldiers - with demure faces. One was doing one's duty, but one wasn't celebrating the outbreak of war.

It would thus appear that joy and happiness were very much restricted to the upper classes and educated people in the big cities.

This doesn't mean that didn't have a lot of trigger-happy rhetoric everywhere, delivered by the inevitable 'Oberlehrer' or some other official, only the reaction in the countryside was far less enthousiastic.
 
A German history professor of mine strongly criticized the "spirit of 1914" as a myth. There were people who reacted with euphoria, large crowds, patriotic music, etc., but if you look beyond the newspaper stories and look at what people wrote in their diaries, the reaction tended to be one of forboding and angst rather than patriotic enthusiasm.
 
How did the Germans react to the outbreak of the Great War? Not an alternate history scenario, but I'm writing an assignment on the topic and thus far haven't found a lot of material. Any input would be greatly welcome.

There was Socialist opposition to the war in Germany and across Europe but events moved too quickly for any organized opposition to develop.
 

Deleted member 1487

There was Socialist opposition to the war in Germany and across Europe but events moved too quickly for any organized opposition to develop.

I wouldn't say that. The Socialist by and large decided they were members of their nation rather than Socialists and supported the war effort. Burgfrieden, Union Sacree- these were the terms of a unified society and government that supported the war. In France the expected socialist agitation and mobilization resistance did not occur, much to the surprise of the military. In Germany the Socialists in the government, the largest elected party, voted war credits after the party decided to be patriotic Germans by supporting the war in a private party session (minus one voice Karl Liebkneckt, who went on to lead the Spartakist uprisings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Liebknecht)

There is a myth of 1914, as the soldiers were not fully behind the war, but they did their duty and the nation was unified because of the war in just about every country. So rather than the narrative being incorrect, it was much more complex than commonly presented, much like the Iraq war in the US (sorry to draw a modern parallel, but a lot of the rationale for voting for the war among the German left was remarkably similar to that of the Democratic party in 2002).
 
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