The land of deepening shadow; Germanyatwar Daniel Thomas Curtin Books
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The land of deepening shadow; Germanyatwar Daniel Thomas Curtin Books
This is an amazing account of an American newsman in Germany before the US entered WWI. I never realized how similar WWI Germany was to WWII Germany.Product details
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Tags : The land of deepening shadow; Germany-at-war [Daniel Thomas Curtin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work,Daniel Thomas Curtin,The land of deepening shadow; Germany-at-war,Ulan Press,B00AVTR8UU,HISTORY General
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The land of deepening shadow; Germanyatwar Daniel Thomas Curtin Books Reviews
In the early years of World War I, D. Thomas Curtin, an American journalist writing for British and U.S. newspapers, made five trips into the zone of the Central Empires, during which time he visited troops on both sides of several battle fronts, along with civilians. This book describes his time in Germany from late 1915 to the autumn of 1916. America was not yet in the war, so he was free to travel around the country, much of the time on foot, speaking to ordinary Germans. However, as U.S.-German relations deteriorated, he found himself coming under increasing suspicion by the authorities, and finally felt compelled to leave, in a stealthy journey to England that he describes in one of the chapters.
This book largely devotes itself to a description of the authoritarian nature of the German state and its means of indoctrinating the public. He describes this indoctrination as quite thorough and successful, largely because Germany is “a land of civil service,” in which professionals and workers are thoroughly vested in the state. Schoolchildren sing songs with lyrics such as “Over there in the cowardly trenches lie the enemy. We attack him, and only a dog will say that pardon should be given to-day. Strike dead everything which prays for mercy. Shoot everything down like dogs. ‘More enemies, more enemies,’ be your prayer in this time of retribution.”
The clergy, the professors, the journalists — all preach a similar gospel of hate, and the public — with no free press and no apparent inclination to clamor for one — largely accepts these views. But, as the war drags on and the Allied blockade begins to exert an increasing effect on the food supply, the German people become restive. On August 1, 1916, a munition strike is rumored to be scheduled, along with a demonstration in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz. This was where, two years before, joyous crowds had come together to cheer the outbreak of war, which was expected to result in victory in a matter of weeks. One especially exuberant youth is chided by an elderly man “War is a serious business, young fellow.” The man is jeered by the crowd. But this day, Curtin writes, “there were more police in the square than civilians. On Unter den Linden paced the blue patrol. There was still unity in Germany, but a unity maintained by revolver, sword and machine-gun.”
Curtin is a ventursome reporter, who manages to wangle his way into places where he’s not supposed to be. One particularly interesting account is his visit to Alsace-Lorraine, the historically disputed French-German region that the Prussians had seized in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. It’s strictly off limits to journalists, and he declines to say how he got in, but he provides an interesting description of German efforts to extinguish French culture and language. Among the other chapters devoted to economic, military and political matters, I found especially interesting a discussion of the role of German women — both in the war and in German society in general — and an encounter with a British POW.
This book is not a scholarly work; at least in my 1917 edition, there are no bibliography, footnotes or index — not even a note about the author. This is simply a first-person account written for a contemporary audience. So there are many unexplained references to people and events that a modern reader will be unfamiliar with, unless he or she has a good knowledge of the period. But I found it a highly interesting account.
Curtin seems to be appreciative of much of German culture — no “kill-the-Hun” rhetoric here — but he is clearly disillusioned by the course of events. Of course, in some sense, he has a binary vision of the world as well; he seems to take it as an article of faith that American intentions toward Germany are utterly devoid of any self-interest. And his criticisms of German oppression precede America’s own suppression of civil liberties the following year. Nevertheless, this book offers an intriguing firsthand account of German society as it came under increasing strain, along with the intensified efforts of the German state to quell unrest. Curtin strikes me as an observant and wide-ranging reporter who produced a book that I think should be of interest to any World War I history buff.
This is an amazing account of an American newsman in Germany before the US entered WWI. I never realized how similar WWI Germany was to WWII Germany.
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