Fourteen thousand World War I poems digitised

Many Germans viewed the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 with satisfaction. They welcomed the “great era” and celebrated the outbreak of hostilities. The Centre for Popular Culture and Music (ZPKM) of the University of Freiburg has digitised fourteen thousand war poems published in newspapers between 1914 und 1918. They are now accessible online. The texts have been written by both academics and laypeople. The authors praised the country. They glorified the battle at the front and reviled the enemy. Critical, or even pacifist voices, are barely present.

“This unique testimony of patriotism, nationalism, and militarism in Germany is an enormous treasure for interdisciplinary research, above all into the history of the culture, mentalities, and media of World War I,” emphasises the ZPKM’s Managing Director, Prof. Dr. Dr. Michael Fischer. “At the same time, the historical sources are an appeal for peace. Two million German war dead are juxtaposed with the fourteen thousand poems, as are the more than nine million people who were killed in the entire war,” he adds.

The poetry collection was set up by Germanist and Ethnologist John Meier, the founder of the “Deutsche Volksliedarchiv” a collection of German folksongs also known as the “DVA”. At that time, Meier took part in gathering what were known as “world war collections”. Between 1914 and 1918, the DVA was interested in lyric texts – on the one hand of soldiers’ songs, and on the other, poetry, which back then was euphemistically classified as “war poetry”.