DFG-Project

Catholic Discourses on War and Peace (1914/18–1939/1945)

Munich Between Cultural Pluralism and Its Status As “Capital of the National Socialist Movement”

Time Frame: 1 September 2010 – 31 August 2015

The discourse of war dominated the private and public spheres not only during the two World Wars (1914–18 and 1939–45) but also left its mark on the discourse of peace in the phase between these conflicts. While “war experiences” could be shared against the backdrop of an undeniable “war reality,” the period between the wars was not a fitting backdrop for “peace experiences” because “peace” was not judged to be as “real.” There was an ongoing discursive “battle” over a “true” peace, which would necessitate the much hoped-for revision of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Yet the discourse referred to here as “war-peace-discourse” itself harbored the potential to legitimize and justify the coming world war without necessarily being identical to the National Socialist legitimation for the war of conquest and destruction that ensued.

The DFG-project analyzes these discursive interwar battles in the context of the religiously, culturally, socially, and politically diverse metropolis of Munich, which nevertheless became the “capital of the National Socialist movement” during the Weimar Republic. Using the city on the Isar as a case study, the project juxtaposes—for the first time—Catholic “war-peace-discourse” with further concepts of war and peace advanced by other religions, confessions, political parties, and social groups. To what extent did this very participation in a “war-peace-discourse” in the interwar period serve the social-political positioning of Catholics in the pluralist Weimar Republic? Did this lead—following the acceptance of the “peace” discourse, and the revisionary and expansionist politics under Hitler up to the Second World War—to their being forced in 1939 into an ambivalent stance for “international responsibility” for a “better Germany”? Based on the internal communications of relevant Catholic networks whose members were involved in the two World Wars, this project seeks to appraise the role of the motifs of this “war-peace-discourse” in terms of its legitimation and justification.