Gifts of love
In the German Empire, relief goods shipments that were sent by the population to the soldiers at the front during the First World War, for example, were referred to as gifts of love . But they also went to war wounded in hospitals and to German prisoners of war abroad. These were gift packages that mainly contained clothing and groceries .
The packages were sent by non-profit organizations such as the Red Cross and women's associations , but also by students from the respective schools, companies and private donors. The idea for this kind of support was not new. For example, the Meinerzhagen Women's Association had already been founded during the Franco-German War and called for women's help, gifts of love and warriors' thanks.
Gifts
In the war year 1870, for example, the troops of the Braunschweig Infantry Regiment No. 92 , which took part in the siege of Metz , were supported by such donations from the Duchy of Braunschweig . It was not only the purely practical usefulness of these items, but also the moral support, as they contributed to the memory of the relatives back home and were an incentive to prove yourself worthy of this love. These were brought in four transports from Braunschweig and Blankenburg. The first consignment of love gifts had previously come from Hildesheim for the soldiers of Infantry Regiment No. 79 , who had all departments, including soldiers from other regiments, involved in the award. This principle was then retained and new gifts could be distributed to the soldiers of the 20th Division almost on a weekly basis. In 1870 the doctor, politician and social medicine specialist Rudolf Virchow also helped distribute such gifts of love in a hospital in France .
The gift consignments with gifts of love mainly contained clothing, food and beverages , reading material and everyday items such as soap, candles, handkerchiefs and washcloths. Specifically, it was mainly about warming clothing such as head guards and knee warmers , tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, chocolate, newspapers, books, prayer books and accompanying letters with some of the poems you wrote yourself.
Collection points during the First World War
To collect and pass on these gifts, there were public collection points and magazines in many German cities that reported on the delivery.
In an article in the Bavarian Wiesentboten from November 6, 1914, for example, the content of such a broadcast is described as follows:
"The local collection committee for Waischenfeld and the surrounding area was able to deliver a shipment of gifts of love to the district collection point in Bamberg last Saturday, namely: 1 wagon potatoes, 15 pounds of clarified butter, 1 tobacco pipe, 2 woolen and 13 white sheets, 2 colored and 12 white pillowcases, 6 unbleached and 1 colored woolen underpants, 2 colored shirts, 24 different bags, 5 waist belts, 4 pairs of gloves, three pairs of socks, 1 pair of knee warmers, 17 pairs of wrist warmers, 26 triangular towels, 8 pairs of white and 5 pairs of woolen foot cloths, six pairs of insoles and 6 handkerchiefs. "
Berlin
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In Berlin, the love gifts donated were mainly passed on to those units in which the city's citizens served. In addition, the sponsored ships of the city, the cruiser Berlin and the auxiliary cruiser Berlin were given aid deliveries. While warm clothing and food were mainly sent at the beginning of the war, the love gifts of 1917 included in particular smoking and tobacco products, books and water bottles, which were sent in over 62,000 parcels by the National Women's Service alone .
From the beginning of the war to March 1917, around 10 million books were collected and distributed in the Royal Library , which were labeled “From the war collection of the German book trade - Not for sale” in order to prevent these gifts from being traded.
Donations came together z. B. for the Stephanienheim for the establishment of a medico-mechanical institute for orthopedic follow-up treatment of mutilated warriors. (According to the Daily Rundschau, Berlin on April 25, 1915 together Mark 291.20)
Braunschweig
In Braunschweig , there were shortly after the war began its own "gifts of love-committee" of donations for the soldiers at the front gathered. Tobacco goods, wallets, stationery, field postcards and fountain pens as well as mirrors, pocket knives, toothbrushes, but also suspenders, footcloths, hand towels or handkerchiefs were particularly popular with the soldiers at the front. In addition, the Braunschweiger Allgemeine Anzeiger called for donations of "binoculars and pistols for NCOs". The Braunschweig shops also offered special goods such as weatherproof, warm clothing for the trenches or Köstritzer black beer to support the recovery of wounded soldiers. One of the organizations that carried out such collections was the “Collection point for love gifts of the United Men's and Women's Associations of the Red Cross in the Duchy of Braunschweig ”. There were also special “Sacrifice days for Christmas gifts”, for example November 17, 1916 (the birthday of Duke Ernst August ) or October 2, 1918 (birthday of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg ). The Georg Westermann Verlag printed for the occasion special postcards with a covering note.
Bremen
In Bremen there was a separate “department of love gifts” of the Red Cross. whose managing director was Constantin Frick . This published a report on the activities of the love gifts department of the Central Aid Committee of the Red Cross in Bremen over the period from August 1 to December 31, 1914 . There were also other appeals for donations and collections.
Frankfurt
In Frankfurt is dedicated Lina of Schauroth , a student of the poster painter Ludwig Hohlwein by designing for the campaign "Donate gifts of love for our troops in the field" posters and himself accomplished collections.
Hamburg
In Hamburg, the organization of the Red Cross had taken over the "general love gifts". The main collection point for these donations was in the Zippelhaus . There, all requirement lists and wish lists from the war zones as well as the collected supplies and goods were stored, allocated and compiled into wagon loads. In addition to this organization, there was the Patriotic Women's Aid Association , which had its collection points in the Natural History Museum and at the main train station. This association was particularly concerned with supplying the Hamburg hospitals with gifts of love. For this alone, around 50,000 cigars were required every week. There was also a Hamburg Committee for War Libraries, which supplied the soldiers with books, notebooks, magazines and pictures.
Kusel
The Kusel Red Cross Association described in its overview of the activities from the beginning of the war until December 31, 1915 that there was a district collection point in Kusel, where the gifts of love from the local collection points in Wolfstein , Lauterecken and Altenglan were brought together. From there the parcels were partly forwarded to the acceptance point of the II Army Corps in Landau or sent directly to the soldiers in the field. The Christmas donations for 1914 went to the district collecting committee in Speyer . The income from the Reichswollwoche went to Ludwigshafen and those from the Metallwoche went to Ingolstadt .
Prussia
In Prussia , immediately after the start of the war, on August 1, 1914 , the Patriotic Women's Association asked the Prussian Minister of Commerce and Industry whether it was permissible to make gifts of love for soldiers at the front in schools for handicraft lessons for young women. The minister advocated the "use of schools to produce gifts of love for the troops in the field" with the restriction that this would not deprive wage workers of the opportunity to work. He saw knitting stockings and wrist warmers as harmless, but not sewing sheets, shirts and other linen.
On August 18, 1914, the Prussian school minister issued a decree to schools on August 18, 1914 , according to which only love gifts for soldiers at the front are to be made in the manual labor hours. These included, in particular, wool stockings, knitted waist bands and knitted under jackets. At first, the Red Cross collection points and the Patriotic Women's Associations passed on the gifts to the soldiers. The schools later packed the packages themselves and sent them off.
Direct shipments
It was also possible for love gifts programs to be organized through direct contacts. One example are the packages that the entrepreneur Bernhard Dräger , head of the Drägerwerk in Lübeck , and his wife Elfriede sent to the crews of the submarine commander Max Valentiner . Valentiner turned to Bernhard Dräger and asked for gifts of love for his crew. Dräger fulfilled Valentin's request and kept sending boxes to the ports in which Valentin's submarine was, such as Kiel or the Austro-Hungarian naval port of Cattaro . Around November 1917 a shipment consisted of: 2 harmonica, 23 gramophone records, 20 pipes, 600 cigars, 3 boxes of tobacco, 5,250 cigarettes, 1 match lighter, 8 puzzles, 250 letterheads and envelopes, 25 ink pens, 10 knives, 10 Neck pouch and 48 books.
schools
With the beginning of the war, the making, packing and sending of gifts of love took up a large part of everyday school life. School children and teachers performed these tasks with enthusiasm and patriotism. The girls knitted clothing as part of their handicraft lessons. This also included the youngest pupils, who did not get any larger pieces, but at least knitted washcloths and cleaning cloths.
The Silesian city of Wroclaw provides an example to illustrate the extent to which schools produce gifts of love . From the beginning of the war on August 1 through December 19, 1914, 2,800 elementary school students produced "6333 pairs of stockings, 2055 pairs of wrist warmers, 261 pairs of gloves, 368 head and earmuffs, 187 waist belts, 91 chest and lung protectors, so around 9700 woolen items."
While the love gifts of the schoolgirls initially mostly consisted of knitwear, in later years of the war other things were also sent "that pleased the soldier's heart". This also made it possible for schoolchildren to take part in the package campaigns. For this they collected cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, pipes, tobacco pouches, lighters and everyday items. As the war went on, the students' commitment to the gifts of love decreased. From 1916 onwards, there was already a noticeably poorer supply for the population. At the end of 1917, the military asked the schools to refrain from sending Christmas parcels due to insufficient transport capacity. Donations should be made available so that the military could buy cheaper and deliver the goods to the soldiers on time for Christmas. This led to a noticeable decrease in love gift programs.
advertising
The shops and mail order companies quickly adapted their advertising to the new situation in the course of the war. The preferred gifts of love such as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, tonics or body care products were advertised with additional advertising slogans. It was said, for example, “our product is indispensable in the field” or it has already received “a lot of recognition in the field”. In addition, the products were often offered with the appropriate field post packaging.
The children's books initially heralded heroism and glorification of war. The soldiers did not die in them, they were more invulnerable and strong. The reality of the children soon looked different, however, they suffered hunger or were confronted with the horrors of the war or with the loss of loved ones through reports in the letters from the field post. The contents of the books were adapted accordingly, so that they dealt with children, who collected donations or visited soldiers in the hospital, for example.
Propagandist effect
Gifts of love from home, hundreds of thousands of which were sent to the front, helped to improve the mood of the soldiers. The programs gave them the feeling that they were morally and materially supported by the " home front ", which in turn was significant for their morale . During the First World War, gifts of love were one of numerous forms of action on the “home front” in order to support the continuation of the war in a material and ideal way. Other actions included war and school nailing , war bonds and collections of raw and old materials.
reception
There were exhibitions on this topic in several cities in Germany, among others
- 1994: Gifts of love for the trenches, 1914–18. in the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg
- 2014: "Love gifts" brought to the front in the open-air museum in Kommern
- 2014: Appeals and posters 1914–1918. in the Bremen State Archives
Theater reading
- 2013: Thematic reading A City at War: Bremen 1914–1918 , in which, in addition to the gifts of love, the nailing of the “iron Roland” was dealt with.
See also
- Winter Relief Organization of the German People
- Care Paket
- Imonbukuro , in Japan during WWII
- Western package
literature
- Karl von Amira: gifts of love from the German Empire. (in favor of the Austrian War Welfare Office). In: Österreichische Rundschau. (Special print from February 15, 1915). Fromme, Vienna 1915, OCLC 698961802
- Birte Gaethke, Gerhard Kaufmann (ed.): Gifts of love for the trenches, 1914-18. (Exhibition catalog: Altonaer Museum in Hamburg, North German Museum). Das Museum, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-927637-20-3 .
- Friedrich Wilhelm Louis Hubrich: With Christmas gifts of love to the western front. German Postal Association, Berlin 1915, OCLC 840052682 ( staatsbibliothek-berlin.de ).
- Martin Kronenberg: The importance of the school for the "home front" in the First World War Collections, relief services, celebrations and nailing in the German Reich. (= The Importance of School for the 'Home Front' during World War I. , Dissertation, Universität Göttingen 2010) Göttingen 2010, OCLC 838290876
- NN : Report of the collection point for love gifts of the United Men and Women's associations from the Red Cross in the Duchy of Braunschweig. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1914-1918, OCLC 649383740
- Hugo Seifert: Report on the Christmas love gifts broadcast by the city of Leipzig and the other city and rural communities in the districts of the XIXth century. Army corps to the western theater of war December 1914. Pries, Leipzig around 1915, OCLC 314198611
- Ernst Anton Wuelfing: With Baden troops on the western front with a love- gift transport. C. Winter, Heidelberg 1916, OCLC 493124529
- Judith A. Sägesser: University of Hohenheim in the First World War Propaganda and gifts of love. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . June 27, 2014.
Web links
- Gifts of love on nordheim.de (PDF)
- Gifts of love to the front - collections during the war 1914–1918. on karlsruhe.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Women's Aid, Love Gifts, Warrior Thanksgiving at collections.ulb.uni-muenster.de.
- ^ Gustav Franz Achatius von Kortzfleisch , Lieutenant General a. D. von Otto: History of the Braunschweig Infantry Regiment No. 92. Volume 3: The Franco-German War and the Time of Peace since 1871. Albert Limbach, Braunschweig 1903, OCLC 751605842 , pp. 95-97 ( publikationsserver.tu-braunschweig. de PDF).
- ^ Heinz Otremba: Rudolf Virchow. Founder of cellular pathology. A documentation. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 1991, p. 23.
- ↑ Help for those involved in the war. ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at archiv.uni-leipzig.de
- ↑ First World War: Underpants for loved ones at the front on infranken.de
- ↑ The love gifts of the city of Berlin. in: Daily review of May 19, 1917.
- ^ Books for the troops. In: History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Part 1. The Empire 1871–1918. Booksellers Association, Frankfurt 2001, OCLC 50205520 , pp. 457/458.
- ↑ At home, the armaments industry is booming on der-loewe.info.
- ↑ GND 10371581-2 - Entry of the organization “Collection point for love gifts in the Duchy of Braunschweig” in the German National Library
- ↑ a b Appeals and posters 1914–1918. (PDF) at staatsarchiv.bremen.de.
- ↑ Donates gifts of love for our troops in the field ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at landesmuseum-oldenburg.niedersachsen.de
- ↑ Victims at the front and at home. on drk-hamburg.de.
- ↑ Collecting activity. in: Overview of activities from the beginning of the war to December 31, 1915 Red Cross Association, Kusel 1916.
- ↑ a b Martin Kronenberg: The importance of the school for the “home front” in the First World War, collections, aid services, celebrations and nailing in the German Reich. Pp. 166-174.
- ^ Michael Kamp : Bernhard Dräger: Inventor, Entrepreneur, Citizen. 1870 to 1928. Wachholtz Verlag GmbH, 2017, ISBN 978-3-52906-369-5 , pp. 392 f., And 395 f.
- ↑ Soldiers become the courted target group of the advertisement on chroniknet.de
- ↑ Children's books from 1914 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on hr-online.de
- ↑ "Love gifts" brought to the front on ksta.de.
- ↑ Perspektiven (2): Love gifts for the trenches 1914–1918 on sprechende-akten.uni-bremen.de and Eine Stadt im Krieg - Bremen 1914–1918. ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on shakespeare-company.com
