RG 2898/1: The German military and excessive violence during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870/71 (SP 04)

This sub-project will question the emphasis in the historiography on a strict break between the war of 1870/71 and the First World War or, better said, qualify it in favour of the argument of a stronger continuity between these conflicts. Linked to an emphasis on lines of continuity is the theory that the breaking of taboos occurring in the context of excessive violence confirms the assumption that the real rupture is to be found in the 1870s / 1880s, when – in the words of Ulrich Herbert – the period of ‘high modernity’ began. In this way, the study, in addition to the knowledge gained about military history, will make a central contribution to the debate on the connection between violence and modernity. At the same time, the project questions the assumption that a de- or increase in violence in modern times follows certain physical laws or paths. The practices of excessive violence in the years 1870/71 were, ultimately, not new. Instead, they reflect patterns that had already taken shape in the Napoleonic Wars.