total war, totalitarianism, & the arts. world war i: causes 1.extreme nationalism (roots in the...
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World War I: Causes
1. Extreme nationalism (roots in the 19th century)
2. Militaristic view of war as heroic; highest expression of nation and individual
3. Hostile alliance system
What countries were allies in WW I?
• France• Germany• Russia• Great Britain• Serbia
• Ottoman Empire• United States• Italy• Austria-Hungary• Belgium
World War I
Allied Powers• Great Britain• France• Russia• Belgium• Serbia• United States• Italy• Japan
Central Powers• Germany• Austria-Hungary• Ottoman Empire
World War II
Allied Powers• France• Great Britain• United States• Soviet Union
Axis Powers• Germany• Italy• Bulgaria• Hungary• Japan
Romantic Language of War
• Horse = steed, charger
• Enemy= the foe• Danger= peril• Conquer= vanquish• Brave= gallant• The dead= the fallen• To die= perish
• Warfare= strife• Actions= deeds• To win= conquer• Quick= swift• Sleep= slumber• Enlist= join the colors• Draft-notice=
summons
Modern Warfare: WW I
• Trenches, barbed wire, machine guns
• Long battles without consequence (600,000 killed at Verdun, but no real consequence)
• Propaganda necessary to keep soldiers and civilians supporting the war
NOTHING is to be written on this side except the date and signature of the sender. Sentences not
required may be erased.
I am quite well.I have been admitted into hospital{sick, wounded} and am going on well.
and hope to be discharged soon.I have received your letter dated________I have received no letter from you {lately/ for a long
time}Signature onlyDate____________________________________
War and Irony in Literature
• Yeats, “The Second Coming” (1921) (p. 868)
• Jarrell, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (1945) (p. 878)
• Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1955) (p. 878)
• Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove (Film, 1964)
Rise of German Fascism: Causes
• Humiliation from defeat in WW I
• Treaty of Versailles: $33 billion war debt; German army limited to 100,000
• Inflation: Gov. printed more money to pay debt; money becomes almost worthless—then Great Depression came in 1929
Adolf Hitler
• Born 1889, Austria: undisciplined, poor student
• Went to Vienna to study art, rejected from art academy
• Became anti-Semitic, and his hatred of Jews meant hatred of Marxism too (Marx was Jewish)
Rise of Hitler and National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nazi)
• 1928: 12 seats in Reichstag (800,000 voters)
• 1930: 107 seats in Reichstag (6.5 mill voters)
• 1933: Hitler becomes chancellor, then Reichstag gives him dictatorial power
Note: Hitler was a product of democracy
Nazi ideology
• Celebrated German soil and German blood
• Romantic view of German peasants
• The enemy: the city, industry, modernity
• The scapegoat: the Jews
Nazi View of Jews
• Outsiders: from outside Europe (corrupting the German blood)
• Urbanites (corrupting the German land)
• Businessmen/financiers (corrupting the German economy)
• Intellectuals and artists (corrupting German culture) [Marx and Freud were both Jewish]
Nazi View of Art
• Classicism and Romanticism are best
• Subjects: Good-looking German peasants; rural scenes
• Form: Representational art (experimental, distorted, and non-representational arts are “degenerate”)
The Holocaust
• The Nazis passed laws to put Jews in ghettos
• Then they passed laws to move Jews to concentration camps, where 6,000,000 were murdered
• 5,000,000 non-Jews also died in the death camps
The Holocaust: uniqueness
1. Focused: singled out Jews as target ethnic group—but Roman Catholics, gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped also killed
2. Official: it was the law3. Systematic: technology, bureaucracy,
industry all work toward this goal4. Effective: 2/3 of Jewish population of
Europe murdered
Existentialism
• “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”—Jean Paul Sartre (Fiero 887)– Our choices define our nature—no preexisting
nature
• Existence precedes essence
• “man first of all is the being who hurls himself into the future”—Sartre