Kriegsbeendigung ohne Frieden: Neue Literatur zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs und zu den Friedensbemühungen nach 1918/19

Abstract

The centennial of the end of the First World War has brought forth a number of scholarly contributions which shed new light on some crucial aspects of the well-researched final phase of the Great War and its aftermath. This paper mainly refers to the broadening scope of the literature vis-a-vis the inevitability of the German defeat in 1918 as well as the more and more differentiated view of the merits and failures of the post-war international order established by the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. While the Versailles system has been experiencing a widening perception from a normative and legal as well as a post-colonial perspective in recent years, especially the interpretation of the end of the war in Germany derives considerable benefit from insights from military history and strategic studies.