Vom “Flugtraum” zum “Luftmord”: Der österreichische Luftdiskurs im Kontext des Ersten Weltkrieges

Abstract

Abstract: This article looks at the literary and visual legacies of the development of weapons technologies and the prospect of aerial warfare in the early twentieth century, analyzing the literary and iconographic discourse on air warfare in the context of the First World War, as a development from “flight dream” to “air murder.” Even if Austria-Hungary represented a “remote province of international aerial activity” (F. P. Ingold), the rapid development of aerial technology in the form of aerodynamic airships and motorized flying machines did not go unnoticed there. Airspace acquires power as a political and military factor that is increasingly mobilized for national and imperial purposes. The article shows how these developments found their way into Austrian debates, literary production, and iconographic representation with reliance on the critical reading of texts and cartoons that announce something evil “in the air,” as if portending the use of air power in bombing civilian populations.