Spanish flu
The Spanish flu is considered by some to be a forgotten pandemic, although there has been a significant increase in interest among historians in recent years. Three successive waves ravaged the world between 1918 and 1920.
The celebrations of 1 May 1919
Back in 1889 the International Workers' Congress of Paris had taken the decision to make May 1 an international labour day. The main goal was the implementation of the eight-hour day; this was to be promoted with rallies "in all countries".
The Deutsche Bücherei stages an exhibition
First war exhibition by the Deutsche Bücherei, 1915The discussion, which began immediately after the beginning of the war, as to which tasks should be assumed by archives, libraries, museums and exhibitions in German society was directed primarily at the problem of finding an appropriate kind of presentation for this historic event.It was a question that was also posed by the former Deutsche Bücherei, or German Library.
The War Collection of the Deutsche Bücherei 1914
Compared to other large academic libraries in Germany, the Deutsche Bücherei, founded in 1912, was an innovation: the institution belonged to the German Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Association in Leipzig, whose administrative organs determined the matters of the library until 1940. Particularly influential were the members of the board of management and the advisory council, which monitored and managed the business transactions and library-related tasks of the facility.
The War in the German Satirical Journals
Upon the outbreak of the war, the German satirical journals, which had certainly exercised political and social criticism beforehand, now also succumbed to the official line of solidarity.
War and Women
The First World War not only changed drastically the lives of countless men, but also posed new challenges to women. These women, whose domain had always been in the private sphere, according to the traditional understanding of roles, and whose main function was to raise children and support the adult family members, were suddenly faced with unfamiliar tasks, but also new opportunities.
War Bond Subscriptions
The German Reich financed most of its war costs by the nine war bonds that were issued between 1915 and 1918. In all, the bonds yielded a volume of 98 billion marks.
War Collections in Germany
Collections were started as early as in the first weeks of the war, preserving contemporary documents with state or private support, with the intention of passing these on to later generations. Following their own individual objectives, archives, authorities, libraries, museums, private individuals and associations competed with each other.
War literature
The First World War was marked by a veritable flood of paper; no wonder that one often hears of “storms of paper” and a “barrage of printed paper”(Paul von Hindenburg).As well as a large number of war novels, war stories, diaries, collections of war poems and letters, there were also countless speeches, flyers, manifestos, memoirs and collections of sermons.
War neurotics and military psychiatry
The enormous destructive power of the mechanised war left deep traces in the psychology of many soldiers. These traumas, caused for example by burial, artillery fire or by witnessing the most horrific mutilation of comrades, were expressed in many different ways by physical symptoms, despite the body part in question being uninjured.
