Beschädigte Helden: Kriegsinvalidität und Körperbilder 1914-1923

The publicly visible figure of the war veterans belongs to the shocking consequences of the First World War. In Germany alone, there were about 2.7 million men of all ages and social strata who survived the war as helpless human wrecks. As a living relict of the war, the disabled war veterans was an open symbol, which could be interpreted differently according to the perspective and interests: it embodied the military defeat and served pacifists as a reminder, as well as revanchists and war drifters as an option. With their industrially manufactured prostheses, they were at the same time a national symbol for the victory of German engineering and the medical and technical overcoming of the war sequences.