Rape of Belgium

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The ruins of the library of the University of Leuven in 1914
The destroyed city of Leuven in 1915
Western Front 1915-1916

Allied propaganda referred to the facts and circumstances of the German invasion of Belgium during the First World War as the Rape of Belgium ( German  desecration of Belgium ) . The term initially had a symbolic meaning and described the violation of Belgian neutrality. Reports of actual and supposed German atrocities gave it its real meaning, which came closer to the literal sense, even in the first months of the war. In more recent English-language publications, the term is used in the narrower sense to describe a series of German war crimes in the first months of the war.

prehistory

The neutrality of Belgium was guaranteed in the Treaty of London , the Kingdom of Prussia was one of the signatories. The Treaty of London was ratified in 1871. When it was founded, the German Reich assumed the obligations of the corresponding treaties.

Occupation of Belgium

The German Schlieffen Plan , however, included a German advance through Belgium, disregarding its neutrality, in order to strategically bypass the French army concentrated in eastern France and the numerous fortresses there. The German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg described the Treaty of London as a “scrap of paper” in this context, which caused particular outrage in England and elsewhere.

Luxembourg was occupied by German troops on the night of August 1st to 2nd, 1914 ; on August 2, 1914, Germany gave Belgium an ultimatum ; in the morning of August 4, 1914, the invasion of Belgium began. The first attacks took place in Gemmenich .

The " race to the sea " with the Allied troops extended to the area around the Yser , which could be held by Belgian troops. The First Battle of Flanders took place here from October 20 to November 18, 1914.

Occupied Belgium was divided into two administrative areas:

  1. The operational and stage area in East and West Flanders, in the south of the province of Hennegau (Hainaut) and Luxembourg were under the command of the German 4th Army .
  2. The General Government of Belgium with the remaining areas was under the General Governor, who was directly subordinate to the Emperor.

The high-voltage barrier was erected on the northern border of Belgium to prevent refugee movements to the Netherlands .

War crimes

After Belgium's unexpectedly strong resistance to the invasion, deliberate acts of violence against the civilian population and several thousand Belgian civilians were killed in the early stages of the war. The German troops feared and often suspected Belgian guerrillas and franc tireurs in the towns without a specific reason , they burned houses and executed civilians. There were isolated shootings in Liège, later in Aarschot (156 dead), Andenne (211 dead), Tamines ( Tamines massacre , 383 dead) and in Dinant ( Dinant massacre , 674 dead). Women and children were among the victims. Whether there was any major partisan activity at all is debatable today (see Franc-tireurs ).

The German army was charged with numerous attacks and atrocities against the Belgian population as well as numerous destruction and violations of the Hague Land Warfare Regulations ; 6,000 Belgians were killed and 25,000 buildings in 837 parishes destroyed. 1,500,000 Belgians fled the German invasion (20 percent of the total Belgian population). The massacres, extensively cannibalized by the Allied propaganda, were justified by the German leadership with reference to alleged rioters.

On August 25, 1914, the German army devastated the city of Leuven (see Destruction of Leuven in World War I ) and deliberately burned the University Library of Leuven , burning 1,000 manuscripts, 800 incunabula and 300,000 books that had been accumulated over 500 years of work. 248 civilians arrested were shot. The 17th Reserve Division had pulled through Löwen for the first frontline deployment when a shot went off and panic broke out, which broke out in a wild shootout. The soldiers broke into the houses that were actually or allegedly shot, killed all armed people and set the buildings on fire. There are many indications that the German units scattered throughout the city accidentally set each other on fire in the shooting. On August 29th, the remaining population had to leave Leuven, a total of 1,081 houses burned down and numerous art treasures were lost.

The Times of August 29, 1914 wrote that German " Huns " had attacked the "Belgian Oxford ". The fall of Leuven ultimately turned into a moral and propaganda catastrophe for the Central Powers . The appeal “ To the cultural world! "German scientist, in which it was categorically denied that innocent Belgian citizens had been harmed (" It is not true that the life and property of a single Belgian citizen was touched by our soldiers without the bitterest self-defense required. ") further deteriorated the image of Germany and the German armies abroad.

In Brabant nuns had to undress on the pretext that they were spies; Violence against women occurred in Aarschot in August and September. Looting, murder and rape were common.

Adolf Hitler later praised the shootings and deportations in occupied Belgium as a suitable and exemplary means of retaliation for sabotage.

War propaganda

US propaganda poster
British propaganda poster
Representation on a house gable in Edinburgh : Belgian women are murdered by German soldiers.

Historians describe the representation on the Allied side: “The invasion of Belgium with its very real suffering [was] nevertheless presented in a very stylized form […], which is expressed in perverse sexual acts, bloodthirsty mutilations and graphic depictions of child abuse, mostly with questionable truth he went."

In Great Britain, many "patriotic" publicists adopted such representations. For example, William Le Queux described the German army as "one vast gang of Jack-the-Rippers" ("a large gang of murderers modeled on Jack the Ripper ") and depicted fictitious events in drawings, such as a person hung naked and mutilated nanny, the killing of a baby with a bayonet or the “screams of dying women”, desecrated and horribly mutilated by German soldiers; he accused the Germans of further excesses such as having their hands, feet and breasts cut off. "British propagandists were eager to divert the declaration of war from the focus of the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince and his wife by Serbian nationalists on the morally unambiguous question of the invasion of neutral Belgium." Lord Bryce , one of the authors of the Bryce Report , wrote: "Something is wrong with our so-called civilization when it slides into such a terrible catastrophe in Europe because of this Serbian incident". A short time later, however, a letter said: "There is one thing we can console ourselves with in this war: we are all convinced of the justice of the cause and, since the invasion of Belgium, of our duty, for which we have taken up the sword".

Although the notorious “German” designation (on the part of the Chancellor) of the Treaty of London from 1839 (guarantee of Belgium's neutrality by the major European powers) as “scraps of paper” could win over a large number of intellectuals in support of the war, it could Be less persuasive in working class circles. For example, the Labor politician Ramsay MacDonald said : “We have never had less reason than this to arm our people and to risk their lives”. British Army recruiters reported problems in convincing the reasons for the war.

As the German advance in Belgium continued, British newspapers began to publish reports of German atrocities. Both the reputable newspapers and the tabloids showed less interest in the official reports from Belgium, which were perceived as "an endless list of stolen wealth and requisitioned goods". Instead, lists of desecrations and bizarre mutilations increasingly flooded the British press. The intellectual discourse on the “scrap of paper” was then mixed with metaphorical depictions of Belgium as a raped woman, for example in the cartoons by Louis Raemaekers , whose work was also widely used in the USA.

Sections of the press, such as the Times editor and Edward Tyas Cook, expressed concern that arbitrary and wild reports, some of which turned out to be entirely fabricated forgeries, would weaken the overall powerful metaphor. So they called for a more structured approach. The American press also questioned the veracity of many reports. The fact that the UK Press Bureau did not censor questionable reports put the UK government in a delicate position.

The Committee on Alleged German Outrages (committee on alleged German atrocities) may have been originally appointed in December 1914 only to investigate these cases. Bryce was considered particularly suitable for this role because he was pro-German before the war and had a good reputation in the United States, where he had worked as British ambassador. Investigative efforts, however, have been limited by the limited number of testimonies available. So "the commission was essentially asked (...) to fake a poll that replaced the good name of Lord Bryce for the thousands of missing names of anonymous victims and stories." The commission published its report in May 1915. Charles Masterman , the director of the British War Propaganda Bureau , wrote to Bryce: “Your report has overwhelmed America. As you probably know, even the greatest skeptics are now declaring themselves converted, precisely because they signed it! "

After the Bryce Report had been translated into ten languages ​​by June, it served as the basis for many subsequent war propaganda, was used as a source for many other publications, and was the reason that these war atrocities became a leitmotif of war propaganda up to the Hang-the-Kaiser Campaign was. For example, Arnold J. Toynbee published The German Terror in Belgium in 1917 , which focused on the mostly graphic representation of sexually motivated acts of violence; For example, it was said here: “In the market square in Gembloux , a Belgian rider saw the body of a woman nailed to a house door with a sword that had pierced her chest. The breasts of the naked body were cut off. "

The British government regularly produced bizarre stories and presented them to the public, such as the story of Belgian nuns being tied to the clappers of church bells and beaten to death as the bells rang. These reports paved the way for similar war propaganda.

Many of these "reports" were published in Britain to promote American assistance in the war. An article published in The Nation in 1929 states: “In 1916, the Allies brought up all sorts of atrocity stories in an attempt to gain neutral sympathy and American support. Every day we were presented with [...] stories such as those of Belgian children whose hands had been cut off, a Canadian soldier crucified on a house door, nuns with cut off breasts, the alleged German habit of extracting glycerine and fat for lubricants from the fallen, and more. "

The fourth Liberty Bond campaign in 1918 used a poster entitled Remember Belgium , which showed the silhouette of a young Belgian girl being dragged away by a German soldier against the backdrop of a burning town; the "poster demonstrates that the political leaders could assume a general knowledge of rape during the German invasion of Belgium in the American public." The "Germans [could] simply not find a way [...] of effective British propaganda about the" rape of Belgium "and other alleged atrocities". Regarding the legacy of this propaganda, Gullace believes that "real suffering has been made suspect by produced fairy tales."

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler spoke of the ingenious Allied atrocity propaganda from which he had "learned an infinite amount".

Work-up

dishes

The Leipzig trials between 1921 and 1927 are considered a failure; of around 900 German military and civilians, only ten were ultimately sentenced to imprisonment. None of the proceedings that occurred during the German advance in Belgium resulted in a verdict. In Belgium and France, hundreds of Germans were convicted in absentia from 1922 onwards, because the ruling practice of the Reichsgericht was viewed as a farce. However, there was no extradition, and all proceedings in Germany against those convicted in this way were discontinued on instructions from the Reich Ministry of Justice .

German federal government

On May 6, 2001, State Secretary Walter Kolbow laid a wreath at the memorial for the victims of the Dinant massacre in Dinant . The memorial bears the inscription: “Dedicated to the 674 martyrs of Dinant, innocent victims of German barbarism”. To mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre, commemorative events were held in Dinant, in which the King of the Belgians took part. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel had turned down an early invitation to the commemoration.

Historical research

According to the British author Simon Winder, the German army in Belgium undoubtedly behaved brutally, but there is only a degree of difference to the behavior of the British in China or South Africa.

The central explanations of John Horne and Alan Kramer are as follows:

“The 'great fear' that gripped the invading German armies took the form of a collective madness, according to which hostile civilians put up massive resistance in a franc-shooter war. This complex of myths was brought about by the traumatic experiences in the fighting in combination with ideological and cultural predispositions - the expectation of a levée en masse based on the model of 1870/71 and the paranoid worldview of part of the officer corps. The madness developed such a dynamic that it convinced a million men of the reality of the illusion. "

“Inexperience led to indiscipline among German soldiers; Drunkenness, friendly fire , accidents caused by panic, regular clashes with the Belgian and French rearguards led to confusion; Anger at the persistent and initially successful defense of Liege during the Battle of Liege , anger at the Belgian resistance as a whole, which was not seen as self-defense; mostly prevailing hatred of the Roman Catholic clergy in Belgium and France; unclear or inadequate German frontline regulations to protect civilians and failure of German logistics - all of this led to uncontrolled looting and riots etc. "

In 2016, the retired Pirmasens director of studies, Gunter Spraul, presented a comprehensive book that contradicts the central points of Horne and Kramer. Spraul leaves allied sources aside and bases his criticism of John Horne and Alan Kramer essentially on problematic regimental histories of German units, which often emerged only years later, did not reveal their foundations and were in some cases falsified. Why Belgian old men, women, children and infants were killed as alleged Franktireure, Spraul is not interested. Michael Epkenhans calls this font an “annoying, right-wing conservative piece of work”.

The German-American art historian Ulrich Keller undertook a reassessment with his archive-based study "questions of guilt" . The central thesis of the book is that there actually was a large-scale Belgian franc shooter war (fighting by civilians, snipers, attacks on the wounded, attacks on troops at rest) and that these irregular and illegal attacks on the German troops gave rise to the war crimes in August and August Formed September 1914. Keller's work was the occasion for a conference among specialist historians.

literature

  • Gerhard Hirschfeld , Gerd Krumeich , Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War. Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76578-9 , pp. 46 f., 282 f., 682 f.
  • Nicoletta Gullace: The blood of our sons: men, women, and the renegotiation of British citizenship during the Great War. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 (Chapter 1: The Rape of Belgium and Wartime Imagination , pp. 17-33).
  • John Horne, Alan Kramer: German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial . Yale University, New Haven 2001, ISBN 0-300-08975-9 . German edition:
    • John Horne, Alan Kramer: German war atrocities 1914. The controversial truth . Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-930908-94-8 (Critical to this: Review by Peter Hoeres in sehepunkte ).
  • Ulrich Keller: Questions of Guilt: Belgian Underground War and German Retaliation in August 1914 . With a foreword by Gerd Krumeich. Schöningh, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-506-78744-6 ( limited preview in Google Book Search ).
  • Alan Kramer: Dynamic of destruction. Culture and mass killing in the first world war , Oxford University Press 2007.
  • Alan Kramer: "Atrocities". On the problem of German war crimes in Belgium and France in 1914. In: Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irene Renz (eds.): “Nobody feels more human here” .. - Experience and impact of the First World War. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1993, ISBN 3-88474-004-0 , pp. 85-114.
  • Sophie de Schaepsdrijver: La Belgique et la Première Guerre mondiale, Presses Ineruniversitaires Européennes, Brussels 2 2005, ISBN 90-5201-215-6 .
  • Jeff Lipkes: Rehearsals. The German Army in Belgium, August 1914. Leuven University Press, Leuven 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09159-6 .
  • Wolfgang Schivelbusch : The library of Löwen , Hanser 1988, Spiegel article on it, Furore Teutonico , 12/1988
  • Peter Schöller: Der Fall Löwen and the White Book - A critical examination of the German documentation about the events in Löwen from 25th to 28th August 1914. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 1958. With an explanation of German and Belgian historians on the problem and an introduction by Franz Petri . (Criticism: The acquittal . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1958 ( online ). )
  • Martin Schramm: The image of Germany in the British press 1912-1919 . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-05-004422-4 .
  • Gunter Spraul: The Franktireurkrieg 1914. Investigations on the decline of a science and on dealing with national myths . Frank & Timme 2016, ISBN 978-3-7329-0242-2 .
  • Larry Zuckerman: The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I . New York University Press 2004, ISBN 0-8147-9704-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. Compare:
  2. Larry Zuckerman: The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I . New York University Press, New York 2004, ISBN 0-8147-9704-0 ( h-net.org ).
  3. ^ Scott Manning: Belgium's Neutrality was More than a "Scrap of Paper". ( Memento of July 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) March 9, 2009.
  4. ^ Memoirs of Prince Von Bulow - The World War and Germany's Collapse 1909-1919. Translated from German by Geoffrey Dunlop, FA Voight. Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1932.
  5. Laurence van Ypersele: Belgium in the "Grande Guerre". (PDF; 91 kB)
  6. Herbert Ruland: Refugee movements on the German-Belgian border and in Innerbelgien against the background of the historical development 1914-1945. ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 281 kB)
  7. ^ German occupation in Belgium during the First World War. In: Critical online edition of the Nunciature reports by Eugenio Pacellis (1917–1929).
  8. Figures from: John Horne, Alan Kramer: Deutsche Kriegsgreuel 1914. The controversial truth. Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-930908-94-8 , p. 636 ff.
  9. ^ Alan Kramer Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-280342-9 , pp. 1-24.
  10. Jeff Lipkes: Rehearsals. The German Army in Belgium, August 1914. Leuven University Press, Leuven 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09159-6 , pp. 543-574.
  11. John Horne, Alan Kramer: German war horrors 1914. The controversial truth. Hamburg 2004, p. 72 ff.
  12. On the thesis that the German troops mostly only imagined the “Franc-tireurs” because of enemy images and exaggerated fears, cf. John Horne, Alan Kramer: German war atrocities 1914. The controversial truth. Hamburg 2004. Critical of this is the review by Peter Hoeres in sehepunkte .
  13. Jeff Lipkes: Rehearsals. The German Army in Belgium, August 1914. Leuven University Press, Leuven 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09159-6 , p. 13.
  14. a b Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War. Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76578-9 , p. 682 f.
  15. ^ Laurence van Ypersele: Belgium. In: Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War. Paderborn 2009, p. 46.
  16. Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts, et al. a .: World War I: encyclopedia. Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, Greenwood 2005, p. 714.
  17. ^ Klaus-Jürgen Bremm : Propaganda in the First World War . Theiss, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-8062-2754-3 . P. 39.
  18. Peter Schöller: The lion case and the white book. A critical examination of the German documentation about the events in Leuven from August 25th to 28th, 1914. Verlag Böhlau, Cologne / Graz 1958.
  19. ^ Laurence van Ypersele: Belgium. In: Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War. Paderborn 2009, p. 45 ff.
  20. www.thetimes.co.uk
  21. ^ Commission d'Enquete: Rapports et Documents d'Enquete. vol. 1, book 1, pp. 679-704, vol. 1, book 2. 1922, pp. 605-615.
  22. Jeff Lipkes: Rehearsals. The German Army in Belgium, August 1914. Leuven University Press, Leuven 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09159-6 , pp. 164-165.
  23. ^ Adolf Hitler : Hitler's Secret Conversations . Farrar, Straus and Young, New York 1953, p. 25.
  24. John Horne, Alan Kramer: German war horrors 1914. The controversial truth. Hamburg 2004, p. 600.
  25. Werner Jochmann (Ed.): Monologues in the Führer Headquarters 1941–1944. Recorded by Heinrich Heim. Munich 2000, p. 59.
  26. ^ Tom Slater, Marsh Dixey, James L. Halperin: Political and Americana memorabilia auction. Heritage Auctions, 2005, ISBN 1-59967-012-7 , p. 317. (online at: books.google.com )
  27. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 19 .
  28. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 18th f .
  29. a b Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 20 .
  30. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 21st ff .
  31. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 23 .
  32. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 .
  33. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 24 .
  34. Cynthia Wachtell: Representations of German Soldiers in American World War I Literature . In: Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): "Huns" vs. "Corned beef": representations of the other in American and German literature and film on World War I . V&R unipress, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89971-385-5 , p. 68.
  35. For more details see also Martin Schramm : Das Deutschlandbild in the British press 1912–1919. Akad.-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-05-004422-4 , Chapter 5.
  36. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 26th ff .
  37. a b Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 30 .
  38. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 31 f .
  39. Cynthia Wachtell: Representations of German Soldiers in American World War I Literature . In: Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): "Huns" vs. "Corned beef": representations of the other in American and German literature and film on World War I . V&R unipress, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89971-385-5 , p. 65.
  40. ^ A b Simon Winder: Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History . Macmillan Publishers, 2010, ISBN 0-374-25400-1 , p. 387.
  41. a b Cynthia Wachtell: Representations of German Soldiers in American World War I Literature . In: Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): "Huns" vs. "Corned beef": representations of the other in American and German literature and film on World War I . V&R unipress, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89971-385-5 , p. 64.
  42. Kimberly Jensen: Mobilizing Minerva: American women in the First World War . Ed .: University of Illinois Press. 2008, ISBN 978-0-252-07496-7 , pp. 30 .
  43. ^ Robert E. Herzstein: Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to war. John & Sons, 1994 (Reprint), ISBN 978-0-471-03341-7 , p. 8.
  44. Nicoletta Gullace: The Blood of Our Sons. Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29446-8 , pp. 32 .
  45. Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf . (PDF; 74.9 MB) Munich 1936, p. 193 f., 201 f.
  46. John Horne, Alan Kramer: German war horrors 1914. The controversial truth . Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-930908-94-8 , p. 551.
  47. ^ Gerd Hankel: The Leipzig trials. German war crimes and their prosecution after the First World War. Hamburg 2003, p. 210; see. Blurb ( memento from September 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.6 MB).
  48. ^ Gerd Hankel: The Leipzig trials. German war crimes and their prosecution after the First World War. Hamburg 2003, p. 494 f.
  49. ^ The Leipzig Trials (1921–1927). Between national shame and legal farce. Retrieved November 8, 2017.
  50. ^ Clive Emsley: War, Culture and Memory. The Open University, Milton Keynes 2003, ISBN 0-7492-9611-9 , p. 28.
  51. ^ Andrew Osborn: Belgians want money after German war apology . In: The Guardian , May 11, 2001. 
  52. Michael Müller : Silence about German guilt , in: Frankfurter Rundschau , 23 August 2014, p. 10.
  53. Critical to this: Peter Hoeres on Sehepunkte
  54. John Horne, Alan Kramer: German war horrors 1914. The controversial truth. Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-930908-94-8 , p. 618.
  55. WWI Resource Center (summary by: John Horne, Alan Kramer: Deutsche Kriegsgreuel 1914. The controversial truth. Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-930908-94-8 , pp. 17-136.)
  56. ^ Gunter Spraul: Der Franktireurkrieg 1914. Frank & Timme , Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7329-0242-2 .
  57. Michael Epkenhans: Review. Spraul, Gunter: The Franktireurkrieg 1914. ISBN 978-3-7329-0242-2 . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , November 1, 2016.
  58. Ulrich Keller: questions of guilt: Belgian underground war and German retaliation in August 1914 . With a foreword by Gerd Krumeich. Schöningh, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-506-78744-6 .
  59. Bastian Matteo Scianna: Conference report: German Atrocities 1914 - Revisited, October 27, 2017 Potsdam , in: H-Soz-Kult , November 24, 2017, accessed on December 21, 2017.