Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War PDF
Preview Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War
R R R HITLE ’S FI ST WA This page intentionally left blank R HITLE ’S R R FI ST WA adolf hitler, the men of the list regiment, and the first world war R THOMAS WEBE 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto WithoYcesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork #ThomasWeber2010 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2010 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritianonacid-freepaperby ClaysLtd.,StIvesplc ISBN:978–0–19–923320–5 135798642 For Edna Cooper and Kay and Morry Rotman and InlovingmemoryofIrvingCooper,HeinrichandMarianne Wantier,andGu¨nterandMargareteWeber This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements This bookstartedits lifeone dayin 2004 inthe SeniorCommonRoom of PembrokeCollege,Oxford,whenAdrianGregoryfirstsuggestedtomethe idea of writing a book on Hitler’s regiment in the First World War. I was immediatelyenthusedbyhissuggestion.AsAdrianpacedupanddownthe SCR, consuming a seemingly bottomless cup of black coffee, the idea for thisbooktookshape,aswesketchedouthowthebookcouldberesearched and written. My greatest thanks are thus due to Adrian Gregory. Onthelongroadfromtheinceptionofthebooktoitscompletion,Iwas helped and inspired by a great number of extraordinarily generous, enjoy- able, and intelligent people, without whom I could not have possibly reached the end of the road. IshouldparticularlyliketosingleoutthehelpIreceivedfromanumber of outstanding research assistants: without the good humour, stamina, and detectiveworkofKoljaKro€ger,Iwouldhaveneverfoundhalfthesources onwhichthisbookisbased;KaceyBaylesandAlecOfsevithelpedwiththe painstaking, almost impossible task of checking hundreds of names against theNaziPartymembershiprecords;KristenPaga´ndidmuchtohelpmeto makesensetothemilitaryjusticefilesoftheListRegimentandmuchmore. DanielRittenauerundertookthemonumentaltaskofhelping tocompilea databaseof thesoldiersof1st Companyof Hitler’s regiment,and Dominik Witkowski made his way with unfaltering energy through countless de- nazification records as well as many other files. I would also like to thank Kristen Paga´n, Helen Kincey, Sarah Davidson, Hannah Starritt, and my wifeSarahforhelpwithtranslationsofquotationsfromGermanandFrench into English. I have greatly benefited from the comments of Jackson Armstrong, Alexander Watson, and my wife, who all read the manuscript of this book. Others who have read and commented on parts of the book or my initial research and book proposal include Anne Allmeling, Hendrik Kafsack, Kolja Kro€ger, my father, Conan Fischer, Sir Ian Kershaw, viii acknowledgements WilliamMulligan,andJamesWilson.Iamalsogratefulforthereportsofthe anonymous expert readers of Oxford University Press. Special thanks are also due to Niall Ferguson—to whom I owe most intellectually as a historian—for having been an inspiring and unfaltering mentor for more than a decade. Thefollowingpeoplewillfindmanyoftheideas,oratleastechoesofthe ideas,theyputinfrontofmeoverthelastfewyearsrepresentedinthepages of this book: Richard Abels, Alan Allport, Simon Ball, Annette Becker, Chris Boot, Michael Brenner, Frank Bialystok, Sandra Bialystok, Joseph Blasi,PhilipBullock,CarolineBynum,DavidCannadine,JustineChilders, Tom Childers, Nicola di Cosmo, Martin Eisner, Annette and Carsten Fischer, Moritz Fo€llmer, Detlef Garz, Philipp Gassert, Robert Gerwarth, Martin Geyer, Michael Geyer, Geoffrey Giles, Udi Greenberg, Thomas Gruber, Dagmar Herzog, Gerhard Hirschfeld, Peter Holquist, Harold James,HeatherJones,YosefKaplan,PeterKlein,BarbaraKowalzig,Thomas Ku¨hne, Alan Kramer, Ferdinand Kramer, Daniel Krebs, Christiane Kuller,IrvingLavin,Jo€rgLau,ElizabethMacknight,CharlesMaier,Avishai Margalit, Peter Meyers, Amos Morris-Reich, Philip Nord, Phil O’Brien, MuireannO(cid:2) Cinne´ide,CormacO´ Gra´da,PeterParet,RobertJanvanPelt, Steven Pfaff, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, So€nke Neitzel, Helke Rausch, Chris Reed, Sven Reichardt, Andreas Rose, Ben Shepherd, Hilary Silver, Mishka Sinha, Thomas Sonders, Heinrich von Staden, Nick Star- gardt, Jonathan Steinberg, David Stevenson, Fritz Stern, Yael Sternhell, Christof Strauß, Kristen Stromberg Childers, Frank Trommler, Bernard Wasserstein, William Whyte, and Daniel Ziblatt. Without the people mentioned here, this book would be a much poorer one. Needless to say, Ialoneamresponsibleforanyremaininglimitations. Audiences at research seminars and conferences at the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Center for European Studies at Harvard, the History Department of Princeton University,theHebrewUniversity,theUniversityofAberdeen,Strathclyde University, the University of Tu¨bingen, and the University of Waterloo werealsoextremelygenerous,incisive,andfarmorepatientthanIdeserved intheirfeedbackontheideasonHitler’sregimentthatIputinfrontofthem. Whileresearchingandwritingthisbook,Iwasfortunateenoughtohave beengivenanintellectualhomeandbeenwelcomedinturnsattheUniversity of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Harvard University, and the University of Aberdeen. acknowledgements ix IwouldliketothankmycolleaguesinChicagoandatPennforprovidinga perfecttestinggroundformyresearchonHitler’sregimentasitevolved.It was humbling and intellectually stimulating to be surrounded for a year by some of world’s brightest minds amidst the tranquil beauty and excellent cuisineoftheInstituteforAdvancedStudy.Harvard’sCenterforEuropean Studies and the riches of Harvard’s libraries provided the perfect place to writemostofthemanuscriptofthisbook.IwouldalsoliketothankDiana EckandDorothyAustinforinvitingmetojoinLowellHouseatHarvardas a resident scholar. They got it exactly right in how they set up an inter- generational academic community that knows equally well how to work andhowtocelebrate.SincearrivinginAberdeen,itsDepartmentofHistory has proved a wonderfully welcoming and dynamic place. IalsooweanimmensedebtofgratitudeforthehospitalityIreceivedon my research trips to Munich to Anke and Rainer Fischer, Dorothea and JohannesFriedrich,ConstanzeandSteffenMetzger,EvaandFlorianWeig, Andreas and Anne-Katrin Rose, and Magdalena and Boris Schmid-Noerr. Moreoverthestaffofthefollowingarchivesandlibrarieshavebeengreatly supportive: the Bayerisches Haupstaatsarchiv (and, in particular, the Kriegsarchiv), the Staatsarchiv, the Stadtarchiv Mu¨nchen, the Institut fu¨r Zeitgeschichte, the Archiv des Erzbistums Mu¨nchen und Freising, the Provinzarchiv der Bayerischen Kapuziner, and the Archiv der Ludwig- Maximilians-Universit€at in Munich; the Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelischen Landeskirche von Bayern in Nuremberg; the Evangelisches Pfarramt Feldkirchen; the Stadtarchiv Augsburg; the Bundesarchiv Mili- t€arachiv in Freiburg; the Stadtarchiv Braunschweig; the Archives De´parte- mentale du Nord in Lille; the National Archives of the United States of AmericainCollegePark,MD;theLeoBaeckInstituteinNewYorkCity; Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum in Norwich; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; the Stadtbu¨cherei Mu¨nchen; the library of the Historicum of Munich University; the libraries of the universities of Bochum and Essen; Locke Library, Robarts Library, and the Toronto Reference Library in Toronto; Regenstein Library at the UniversityofChicago,vanPeltLibraryatPenn;FirestoneLibraryatPrinceton University; the History and Social Sciences Library of the Institute for AdvancedStudy;WidenerLibraryatHarvard;theDevonCountyCouncil Library in Exeter; Aberdeen’s Queen Mother Library; the University Library of Edinburgh University, the National Library of Scotland; and theBodleianLibraryatOxford.
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