The art of defeat

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The art of defeat: A story of surrender is a historical work by Holger Afflerbach . It was first published by CHBeck on March 13, 2013 and deals with the history of surrender from the Stone Age to the present. The focus is on cultural technology and how to deal with the losers.

content

The book spans a wide timeframe. He starts thinking about the surrender in the Stone Age and records the historical course up to the present. Spatially, it is mainly focused on Europe, where the tool of surrender has been used more and more frequently over time.

The book differentiates between “ systemic ” and “ unsystemic ” wars and works out that in the latter, surrender occurred and was accepted less often due to a lack of common cultural basis.

One of the scenes analyzed in the book: GFM Wilhelm Keitel signs the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces after the Second World War .

According to the author, in the Stone Age, the defeated people fought until the death. In ancient times, there was a strict concept of honor which exposed those who capitulated to social ostracism, expropriation or the death penalty. Even so, there were regular examples. The Romans, for example, only accepted unconditional surrender at their wedding. In the Middle Ages, rules were then introduced - for the aristocratic class - that concerned giving up in combat. The nobles who were captured in this way could often be triggered by large sums of money. These mechanisms were expanded up to the world wars. After 1945, especially in the West , there was an additional element of self-commitment on the part of the victor - mainly through public control. Afflerbach evaluates the more frequent use of surrender as a civilizational advance, since it creates a possibility to end the battle or the war before it is completely annihilated.

As the most important reason for the spread of the surrender over time, Afflerbach cites the self-interest of the victors, who can limit their own losses by giving up the defeated prematurely. The losers usually had to choose between losing their honor or their life.

Afflerbach sees international regulations against excesses of violence less as a driving force, but as a record of what has emerged as practice on the battlefield.

criticism

In his book review for H-Soz-u-Kult , Wolfgang Kruse describes the perspective chosen by Afflerbach as " well suited to working out the problems of the end of the war and its developmental tendencies " and believes that the work offers "an impressive as well as stimulating insight into the history of the War ". However, he opposes the thesis expressed in the book of a “ change for the better in the war ” with “ some skepticism ”.

Martin Hubert from Deutschlandfunk praised the book as " worth reading " and claims that the reader is " precisely informed about contradicting facts ". In his review for Deutschlandradio Kultur, Arno Orzessek speaks of a " learned plea for the fight option" quit "and calls the work" original ".

In his review for Die Zeit , Franz Schuh described the book as “ learned ” and was impressed by the quotations it contained, “ which incite the reader to see the problem appropriately ”.

output

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Martin Hubert: The logic of war. In: Deutschlandfunk. June 3, 2013, accessed May 13, 2014 .
  2. ↑ a b c The art of surrender. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . September 19, 2013, accessed May 13, 2014 .
  3. ↑ a b Thomas Speckmann: Who will protect the loser from arbitrariness? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . August 18, 2013, accessed May 15, 2014 .
  4. ^ A b Franz Schuh: Knowing when the end is. In: The time . August 14, 2013, accessed May 13, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Kruse: H. Afflerbach: The art of defeat. In: H-Soz-u-Kult. Retrieved May 15, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Arno Orzessek: From dealing with war losers. In: Deutschlandradio Kultur. August 22, 2013, accessed May 15, 2014 .