Jason Crouthamel. Trauma, Religion, and Spirituality in Germany during the First World War.

Abstract

The cultural history of the First World War is a key moment for assessing how traditional religiosity adapted to the unprecedented horrors of industrial warfare. Given the global prominence of German culture in 1914, and the war’s devastating collective meaning for societies that lost the war, German spirituality underwent a harsh trial by fire. There was a wide spectrum of belief and unbelief in radically new contexts. Jason Crouthamel’s excellent book, Trauma, Religion, and Spirituality in Germany during the First World War, looks at these phenomena of trauma not simply as medical diagnosis but as a question of reformulated spiritual beliefs and practices. He examines how religion and spirituality influenced narratives of trauma, and vice versa, allowing participants to comprehend and explain the war. The book’s central argument is that beyond providing a coping mechanism, “religion was the primary prism through which German soldiers in the Great War articulated and processed trauma” (2). That is a strong claim for a difficult and elusive subject, and perhaps some readers will remain less than fully convinced.