The Outbreak of the First World War and German War Aims
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10073968 |
|---|---|
| Authors | IMANUEL GEISS (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1966 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 75-91 |
| Publication date | 1966-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/002200946600100304 |
| OpenAlex | W126291674 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
German innocence or at least relative innocence for the outbreak of the I9I4 war had for decades been something that could not be questioned in Germany. The function of this taboo varied according to the circumstances: in early August I914 it was designed to impress both the SPD and Britain, in order to get the former into the war, and if possible to keep the latter out of it. During the war it was to convince neutrals and Germans alike of the righteousness of the Reich's cause. Immediately after the war, even the left-wing governments of 1918-I9 clung in dealing with the Allies to the concept of German relative innocence, in the hope of getting a more lenient peace settlement. When they failed, later governments and public opinion in the Weimar Republic retreated from the relatively critical line of these earlier governments which, after all, had published the German documents and set up a Commission of Enquiry into the causes of Germany's defeat. The Weimar Republic opened a sustained campaign against article 23I of the Versailles treaty; it hoped, by disputing Germany's responsibility for the war, to dismantle the treaty as a whole. The campaign had started at Versailles itself, where Billow (later Secretary of State in the Auswartiges Amt) mapped out and initiated the strategy.1 In the Auswirtiges Amt a small sub-section, the Kriegsschuldreferat, inspired, directed, and financed the German innocence propaganda. Its chief instruments were two organizations, the Arbeitsausschuss Deutscher Verbande (ADV)
Ancient history · Archaeology · Economic history · First world war · German · Outbreak · Political science · World War II · European history and politics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Medicine · Virology · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,09 |
| Citation span | 1973 - 2011 (39) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |