Conclusion

Abstract

Focusing on murder and collective violence, we argue that these two forms of violence took on hitherto different meanings and importance for individuals and societies, shedding light on the mental horizons of societies that had been destabilized and then reconstructed in the postwar years. The concluding chapter provides readers with a summary of how the perception and narratives around murder developed from the periods before, during, and after the First World War. The public saw “bloody images” of murder through the narratives constructed by the press, but also through new scientific understandings in the courts. However, in Austria, in the Czech lands, and in South Tyrol local circumstances, the different views or lack of expert opinion, and in the postwar period their new situations following the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy all influenced their understanding of murder differently. Collective violence, “bloody streets,” in many of its aspects was a new phenomenon in the last two years of the war and in the postwar period. The novelty was to be found in the growing number of collective excesses and in the composition of the crowds. Examining these two forms of violence helps us understand how societies that had been destabilized by the apocalypse of war and then embarked on different paths out of it, gave meaning to their unique, yet widely shared experiences.