War Memoir as Entertainment: Walter Bloem's Vormarsch (1916)

Publication Title

Humor Entertainment and Popular Culture During World War I

Document Type

Book Chapter

Department or Program

German and Russian Studies

Publication Date

5-6-2015

Keywords

English Translation, National Unity, Weimar Republic, German Publication, Recruitment Station

Abstract

Walter Bloem’s World War I memoir Vormarsch (The Advance from Mons 1914: The Experiences of a German Infantry Officer), published in 1916, was counted among the most popular German war narratives until the 1940s. Its author, born in 1868, took Germany’s literary market by storm in 1910, when he published the first part of his monumental novel trilogy commemorating Prussia’s victory over France in 1870-1871 and continued with his career as the author of Unterhaltungsromane, quality entertainment novels in the years of the Weimar Republic. Between 1911 and 1922, Bloem was Germany’s bestselling author, loved by his readers and respected by officials (among them Kaiser Wilhelm II). Despite Bloem’s literary successes, his Great War memoirs escaped closer attention so far, as his writing was overshadowed by the author’s later support of the Third Reich and his professional involvement in the regime’s writers’ associations. Today, Bloem’s work is almost completely forgotten, as he is perceived as a “Nazi apologist” and “Nazi fellow traveler” and there are no re-editions of his works.

Using the sociological theories of humor (by William H. Martineau, Chris Powell, and George E. C. Paton, among others), the chapter focuses on the ways in which Bloem entertains his reader in order to present a conservative view on issues that were debated at the time, such as the violation of Belgium’s neutrality by the German troops and lack of the fighting spirit during the mid-war stagnation. These deficiencies, as perceived by Bloem, needed a literary vehicle to convince the German population at the home front of the war goals. The chapter argues that Bloem’s preference for using humor that creates inter- and intragroup hierarchies and patriarchal structures is an expression of the narrator’s desire to transfer these structures onto the German society as a guarantee of the success in the war under a strong leader.

Comments

Original version is available from the publisher at: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137436436_6

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