Freigeister und Pragmatiker. Die preußischen Feldprediger 1750–1806

Abstract

Strauß’s declared aim in this book, based on her 2019 PhD thesis in modern history at the University of Tübingen, is to challenge the narrative—still dominant in scholarship—that Prussian military chaplains played an essential part in creating ‘a “religious bond” between soldiers and the authorities’, epitomized by the infamous slogan ‘For God, King and Fatherland’ (p. 11). While Strauß does not neglect that military chaplains were indeed concerned with matters of war, she argues that in the second half of the eighteenth century military chaplains’ work also comprised engagement in general theological debates, soldiers’ and commoners’ education, and entailed ‘a claim for having a political effect’ (p. 12). Based on these assumptions she concludes that military chaplains were a ‘special group among early modern clergymen’ (p. 17). The book addresses three questions. Firstly, how ‘did military chaplains understand their role in the military and society’, and did experiences of war bind the clergymen closer to the Prussian monarchy or rather strengthen a process of ‘self- and group consciousness’ formation (p. 17)? What function did religion fulfil in the military, especially with regards to ‘social and mental binding forces’ (p. 18)? And finally, in what way did clergymen’s consciousness and behaviour alter in the period of the late Enlightenment (Spätaufklärung), and did this result in a change in the concept of religion in the military (p. 18)? Combining previous research on military chaplains within Prussian studies with approaches such as ‘the social history of the Enlightenment’, ‘modern military history’ and ‘the history of religion’, Strauß seeks to contribute to a ‘social history of religion’ (Gesellschaftsgeschichte der Religion) which combines ‘the history of ideas and discourse, the history of eighteenth-century religion and reflections on change in the early modern period’ (p. 29). In methodological terms, the book combines the approach of collective biography, by analysing the biographies of 800 Lutheran clergymen between the years 1750 and 1806, with conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) in the tradition of Rolf Reinhardt, Pasi Ihalainen and Kari Palonen (pp. 31–2).