The Great War and Urban Life in Germany: Freiburg, 1914-1918

Description

In deference to the principle that total war requires total history, Roger Chickering traces the all-embracing impact of the First World War on life in the German city of Freiburg. His book shows how the war took over every facet of life in the city, from industrial production to the supply of basic material resources, above all food and fuel. It documents the breakdown of distinctions between the home front and the fighting front, as the city fell victim to strategic bombing. It analyzes the war as a sensory experience, which could be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted as it exhausted the city, drained it of residents, and eroded civic bonds among those who remained. Roger Chickering offers the most comprehensive history ever written of a German city at war. The book will appeal to urban and military historians, as well as to social and cultural historians.

Roger Chickering is Professor of History, BMW Center for German and European Studies, at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. His numerous works on modern German and European history include, as editor with Stig Forster, The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919-1939 (2003), and Imperial Germany and the Great War (1998, 2004).

'Chickering's unfailingly observant, detailed and comprehensive study of civilian life in Freiburg in Breisgua during World War I is a marvel of nuance and insight.' Michael Geyer, The Journal of Central European History