Of “Manly Valor” and “German Honor”

Nation, War, and Masculinity in the Age of the Prussian Uprising Against Napoleon

Bibliographic Data

ID9644236
AuthorsKaren Hagemann (Technische Universität Berlin, corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume30
Issue2
Pages187-220
Publication date1997-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCentral European History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-9389 • E-ISSN: 1569-1616
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0008938900014023
OpenAlexW2100766856
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited46

These words introduced a collection entitled Deutsche Wehrlieder für das Königlich-Preussische Frei-Corps (German Military Songs for the Royal Prussian Volunteer Corps), that appeared in March 1813 immediately after Prussia declared war on France. It was not only in this songbook that the patriotic national mobilization for the struggle against Napoleonic rule was closely linked to the propagation of “valorous manliness” ( wehrhafte Mannlichkeit ). In the period of the Wars of Liberation between 1813 and 1815, the press and topical literature teemed with similar phrases and cultivated a veritable cult of manliness. A new breed of “patriotically”-minded, “combat-ready” men was needed if, as intended, a “people's army” of conscripts was to fight a successful “national war” against France. This phenomenon has generated scant interest in the extensive historical literature about the time between 1806 and 1815, which is considered as the birth period of the German national movement

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Cult · Economic history · German · Honor · Masculinity · Period (music · Political science · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Classics · European history and politics · European Political History Analysis · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Law

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