Comradeship: Gender Confusion and Gender Order in the German Military, 1918-1945

TitleComradeship: Gender Confusion and Gender Order in the German Military, 1918-1945
Publication TypeBook Chapter
Year of Publication2002
AuthorsKühne, Thomas
EditorHagemann, Karen, and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum
Book TitleHome/Front: The Military, War, and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany
Pagination233-254
PublisherBerg
CityOxford and New York
Abstract

This book chapter in the edited volume Home/Front: The Military, War, and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany  by Thomas Kuehne analyzes  the notion of comradeship and the related gender confusion and gender order in the German Military between 1918 and 1945. It  addresses the complexity of notions of masculinity by focusing on the male military bond in war, comradeship, and argues that masculinity in a male wartime community exhibited an essential female component of sociability alongside the warrior's masculinity. In this way, the nexus of comradeship provided mutual support as a surrogate family that allowed men to cope with the pressure of war, including participation in executions. According to the author, this male-female duality as an imagined construct stabilized the gender order, and the feminine side provided "a symbolic connection between home and the front, between the real family and the real military society of male bonding that largely excluded women."

URLhttps://www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9781350048379
Original PublicationHeimat-Front: Militär und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Zeitalter der Weltkriege
Entry by GWC Assistants / Work by GWC Assistants : 
BH

Type of Literature:

Countries:

Library Location: 
Call Number: 
53923555

Library: