Soldier games
According to the systematics of game science, the term soldier games includes a group of game forms in the role-playing category . They stand in line with other games that imitate professions, such as teacher games, doctor games , pastor games or parenting games. Soldier games can be arranged with historical figures as so-called table or tableau games, but also with personnel.
Concept and history
As the term already suggests, in the soldier games the figure of the soldier is the focus of interest and events. The splendid uniforms, ranks, medals and badges of the different times and armies, the parades and parades are fascinating. For more than a century, museums and private individuals have been collecting the artistically and historically valuable figures of Prussian, Russian, Austrian, French and Italian soldiers, some of which are elaborated in great detail. When purchasing and on the exchange markets, great importance is attached to the greatest possible completeness of the individual contingents, including those of colonial soldiers or Chinese imperial armies.
Soldier games are centuries old. The philanthropist Johann Bernhard Basedow (1724–1790) already mentions it in his "Elementarwerk" and practiced it in the Philanthropinum he founded in Dessau, which inspired the artist Daniel Chodowiecki to visualize it on various copper panels. Until the end of the Second World War, tin soldiers as toys were particularly popular in children's rooms, especially in boys. Generations of families sang the song written by Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1835 with their children under the Christmas tree :
Santa Claus
is coming tomorrow, comes with his gifts.
Drum, pipe and rifle,
flag and saber and more,
yes,
I would like to have a whole war army .
'Bring' us, dear Santa Claus,
bring 'tomorrow too, bring
musketeer and grenadier,
shaggy bear and panther animal,
horse and donkey, sheep and bull,
lots of beautiful things.
It was only with the emergence of the peace movement that military war toys and soldiers' games increasingly came under suspicion of promoting a militaristic attitude. Today, after the long phase of euphoric enthusiasm and a phase of resistance awakened by war experiences, the discussion has become more objective and has entered a phase of sober, game-science-based perspective that - less ideologically and dogmatically oriented - does more justice to the actual game character.
In personal soldier games, children in particular slip into the role of soldiers themselves. For obvious reasons, soldier games are increasingly found during times of war, in which the profession plays a prominent role, and in areas where the military is particularly present in the streets and thus inspires the children's attention and imitation.
Soldier games and war games
Soldier games are not to be equated with war games , although overlaps in the reality of the game are obvious and frequent: While the soldier games focus on the figure of the soldier, in the war games it is the symbolically reproduced event of the war. Soldier games are e.g. B. as changing of the guard, parade or formation games, also possible without simulated acts of war and are often practiced in this form.
Soldier games as table games
In the so-called table or tableau games, soldiers become toys. The most widely used material is tin. The detailed cast and painted tin soldiers can be set up according to rank, integrated into formations, positioned in the area and brought into play in numerous actions. You can escort the soldiers with a significant cargo, give and carry out orders, march over a drawbridge into a castle, play changing of the guard, admire yourself as a music corps or have a parade held. The joy of the historically accurate replicas of the soldiers is the main motif of the game.
Soldier games as paradise games
In his poem The Music Comes from 1883, the poet Detlev von Liliencron describes in great detail a military musical train with cymbals, cymbals, drums, kettledrum and trumpets, the colorful uniforms and imposing rank symbols of the soldiers and the corresponding effect on the audience. The impressive lyrical representation is also reflected in the repertoire of the collectors. The poem can also be found in the most important volumes of poetry and is still dealt with in German lessons in lower secondary schools to this day.
Similar to the more than 250-year-old depiction of a scene from the Dessau Philanthropinum by Daniel Chodowiecki, children of today usually only need fantasy uniforms and fantasy equipment to imitate an observed changing of the guard, the parade step and the reporting of the guards. A stick placed over the shoulder can represent the rifle. A saucepan serves as the drum body. Attitudes and practices are imitated by foot soldiers and riders. But also campfire watchdogs, patrols, raids, flag stealing are still part of the repertoire of children and young people today in games in tent camps and off-road adventures.
evaluation
Game experts warn against prematurely condemning soldier games, for example automatically associating the word “soldier” with “war”:
Unreflected prejudices do not do justice to the character of the game forms and the intentions of the game collectors and players. In order to be able to come to an appropriate assessment, a well-founded knowledge of the essence of the game, its symbolism and a reflective examination of the phenomena "reality" and "as if happening" are required, as is fundamentally characteristic of the game is.
literature
- Detlev von Liliencron: The music is coming. In: Fischer Bücherei (Hrsg. :) Das Deutsche Gedicht. Frankfurt and Hamburg 1957, pages 273 + 274
- Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: War and peace games. In: Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: From the sense of playing. Reflections and ideas for games , 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 , pp. 126–151.
- Gisela Wegener-Spöhring: The meaning of "war toys" in the world of elementary school children. In: Journal for Pedagogy. No. 6/1986, pp. 797-810
- Gisela Wegener-Spöhring: War toys and computer games in the world of elementary school children: a crisis of “balanced aggressiveness” ? In: Titus Guldimann: Education of 4- to 8-year-old children. (Waxmann Verlag) 2005. pp. 169-188, ISBN 3-8309-1533-0 .
Web link
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben: Collected Works , ed. v. H. Gerstenberg, Berlin 1890-1893
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: War and Peace Games. In: The sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 126–151
- ↑ Detlev von Liliencron: The music is coming. In: Fischer Bücherei (Hrsg. :) Das Deutsche Gedicht. Frankfurt and Hamburg 157, pages 273-274
- ↑ Children playing soldiers from Basedow's elementary work. Copper plate by Daniel Chodowiecki (1726–1801)
- ↑ Gisela Wegener-Spöhring: War Toys and Computer Games in the World of Elementary School Children: A Crisis of “Balanced Aggression” ? In: Titus Guldimann: Education of 4- to 8-year-old children. (Waxmann Verlag) 2005. pp. 169-188
- ↑ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: War and Peace Games , In: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 , pp. 126–151
