Cannibals, Poachers, and Deserters

Abstract

The period of the First World War saw a small decline in the number of murders committed in the Habsburg Monarchy. Even so, because of a lack of personnel and despite the advances of forensic techniques, the police still needed the cooperation of the local population in solving crimes in big cities. Mass media was one of the tools that the state used during the war to this end. The press reporting often admonished the public to be more vigilant of their surroundings, not only so that they could potentially help the police in solving crimes, but also for their own safety, further strengthening the feeling of an ever-present danger in the modern city. During the war, the surveillance of the press allowed the state to exercise a greater oversight of newspapers than in peacetime. However, this chapter shows that this more robust control meant not only censorship, but also that the state could influence what the newspapers printed, using the press to strengthen alertness for potential criminals, such as prisoners of war, and to reinforce the loyalty of the population toward the state. Even so, reports were often exaggerated or even made up, such as the urban legend of human flesh in Vienna slaughterhouses. This chapter shows that the strategy of reporting on violence in the Austrian lands, the Czech lands, and in South Tyrol played a substantial role in the production of a culture of surveillance on the wartime home front and became an integral element of wartime mobilization.