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Military Folklore and Folkloremilitarismus in Germany and France

Abstract

In this article, the author describes the development and expansion of a spontaneous and essentially unpolitical, popular ,military folklore' in Germany and France following the war of 1870-71. Two typical instances of this phenomenon are used to illustrate the argument: military festivals, and the activities of civil associations which enjoyed close links with the military. Despite the generally favourable attitude of state officials towards the social and cultural forms taken by the popular appropriation of military symbols and practices, the respective social elites in Germany and France displayed a deep- rooted hostility to the phenomenon. The folkloristic character of this popular militarism, particularly its concentration on naive and colourful representations of a peacetime army, was a decisive factor in the dissemination of a widespread military consciousness, precisely because of its capacity for repressing the brutal reality of warfare.