The image of the soldier: Portrayals and concepts of martial masculinity from the Wars of liberation to the First World War in Germany

Abstract

Heroic soldiers represented the masculine ideal throughout nineteenth-century Germany. The Wars of Liberation and Unification reinforced the political and cultural construction of martial masculinity and were influential in securing enthusiastic support for the outbreak of war in 1914. Drawing on wartime self-portraits produced by German soldier-artists during World War I, this article argues that the war experience led men to challenge and redefine traditional male identities based on heroic soldiering. The confrontation with violent mass death engendered an existential crisis that invalidated old notions of wartime bravery and heroism. For mobilized German artists, self-portraiture represented a means of defining alternative wartime roles and presenting the soldier as survivor.