The Wehrmann in Eisen: nailed statues as barometers of Habsburg social order during the First World War

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Beginning in early 1915, large nailed statues appeared across Austria-Hungary. These statues, which were carved of wood and covered in nails, took different forms. The most common was a shield or medieval knight, the Wehrmann in Eisen. Often placed in prominent public spaces, these statues became focal points for ceremonies aimed at uniting the local population in support of the Habsburg war effort. The rhetoric concerning these statues, used by officials in unveiling ceremonies and reproduced in newspapers, reinforced notions of wartime sacrifice expected of all citizens. This paper examines these nailed statues in both halves of the Dual Monarchy, arguing that these statues served an important function in the Habsburg wartime project to promote widespread patriotism and in the process upheld traditional gendered social order. Ultimately, these nailed statues and the events that took place at them exemplify efforts by those in positions of authority to maintain traditional gendered social order in wartime through this symbol of male battlefront sacrifice. The varied afterlives of these statues indicate the degree to which the statues failed to unite the Monarchy around a common Habsburg wartime project and were subject to use for political ends in the successor states.