I am researching the use of the expressions _Schrecklichkeit_ and the
slogan and toast _Der Tag_ (or _An den Tag_, or _Auf dem Tag_) by the
Germans themselves before and during the First World War.

I have found numerous uses of these two expressions by Allied authors,
in English-language texts, but have been unable to find any uses of
either expression in German texts, official or unofficial.

The English-language words used by writers in English to denote the
practice of _Schrecklichkeit_ in Belgium in 1914 are legion:
frightfulness, ruthlessness, ghastliness, terror-frightfulness, and so
on.

Secondary evidence leads me to believe that there was a single word
commonly used by Germans to sum up their policy and practice, perhaps
only colloquially or off guard, and, on the law of probability, that
word ought to be _Schrecklichkeit_. However, apart from one instance
(see below) I have not come across the use by the Germans themselves
of the word.

The same applies to the slogan or toast _Der Tag_ and its variants.
Allied sources frequently refer to the slogan or toast, but I have not
found a single reference in a German-language authority to the use of
the expression(s).

The single exception I mention above to my failure to find a German
use of _Schrecklichkeit_ appeared in an extract I read from a
contemporaneous report by an Amrican newspaperman I read some time ago
but somehow cannot retrieve. The American newspaperman was eminent in
his field. He was accorded full reporting privileges by the German
High Command. He interviewed a German private soldier about atrocities
both the newsman and the soldier had witnessed in Belgium and asked
what accounted for the savagery of the occupiers' conduct. The soldier
replied "Schrecklichkeit". The newsman asked again, not believing what
he had heard. The soldier repeated, "Schrechklichkeit".

It would be very helpful if that account could be traced.

The principal object of this question is to establish from
unimpeachable sources whether or not the Germans themselves used the
expressions I'm concerned with, and I should for that reason be
extremely grateful for chapter and verse in the original language with
a working translation thereof.

If, on the other hand, the Germans used eupemisms, I should be very
grateful for information about those possible euphemisms.

If this question is in any respect ambigous, I should be happy to clarify it.

Regards

J L A Hartley

______________________________________________________________________________

---

Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 08 Oct 2004 11:45 PDT

Dear jlahartley,

no answer, just some thoughts of a native speaker of German. I have
always been puzzled by the frequent use of the word "Schrecklichkeit"
in English books about World War I. The way the word is used simply
sounds "wrong" in my ears. Of course, the word "Schrecklichkeit"
exists. It is the substantivation of the adjective "schrecklich",
meaning horrid or frightful. But in German, it would not be used to
describe a concept. Rather, it characterizes a state (the German
language is, alas, very vulnerable to forming substantivations). A
typical use would be:
"Dieses Ereignis zeigte die ganze Schrecklichkeit des Krieges" - "This
incident showed the entire frightfulness of war".
But a sentence where "Schrecklichkeit" is used to denote a concept, an
idea or even a strategy has the wrong linguistic feeling:
"Wir müssen das Mittel der Schrecklichkeit einsetzen" - "We need to
use the means of frightfulness".
It is not easy to explain, but it simply does not work.

It is interesting that German works on the First World War do not use
that word to describe German occupation terror in Belgium - that
means, the terror itself is described without extenuation, but it is
never labelled as a strategy of "Schrecklichkeit". Neither have I ever
read quotations of high-ranking German officers who used that word as
a generic term or proper noun for the occupation in Belgium.

I tend to believe, without being able to prove it, that this term has
been coined by someone on the Allied side, to give the enemy's
occupation policy a name that is both memorable and very
German-looking in a brutal way (I could imagine that this long word
with the sequence of sch, ck, and ch appears very ugly in the eyes of
French and British).

These are my thoughts on the issue. Maybe one of my colleagues has a
definite answer, but I wanted to let you know what I as a native
speaker of German think about it.

Regards,
Scriptor

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 09 Oct 2004 07:10 PDT

Is this 19th century excerpt from Neitzsche (who else...?) of any help:


http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/zurgenealogie2.htm

Friedrich Nietzsche
Zur Genealogie der Moral

...Man möchte selbst sagen, dass es Überall, wo es jetzt noch auf
Erden Feierlichkeit, Ernst, Geheimnis, düstere Farben im Leben von
Mensch und Volk gibt, etwas von der Schrecklichkeit nachwirkt, mit der
ehemals überall auf Erden versprochen, verpfändet, gelobt worden ist:
die Vergangenheit, die längste tiefste härteste Vergangenheit, haucht
uns an und quillt in uns herauf, wenn wir "ernst" werden.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 10 Oct 2004 10:20 PDT

Madley, in this article:


http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/Madley.pdf


Journal of Genocide Research 

Patterns of frontier genocide 1803?1910: the Aboriginal
Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia


cites this publication:


Rust, C. (1905) Krieg und Frieden im Hererolande (Leipzig: Kittler).


as the source of information for a reference to Schrecklichkeitin
1905--it's ambiguous though, as to whether the term was actually used
in 1905, or whether Mandel is projecting a modern usage onto an
earlier situation.

Still...it's a lead, of sorts...

---

Clarification of Question by jlahartley-ga on 30 Oct 2004 17:35 PDT

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Kirsten

I know your comment was addressed to fp, but would you mind if I
communicated with you?

I noted some while ago General Lothar von Trotha's uncompromising term
_Vernichtungsproklamation_. Elsewhere I've noted _die Hunnenrede_.
Moreover, I've seen, very occasionally, words such as _Grauen_, which
you refer to, and also _Kriegsgräuel_. The word _Terrorismus_ is
sometimes used, with the authority of Bismarck. I've even come across
the word _Höllenschrecken_, defined by the sexologist Magnus
Hirschfeld as "the superlative form of _Schrecklichkeit_".

But I have still not come across a single German document with any
claim to beiog official that uses the word _Schrecklichkeit_ or
anything resembling it.

How can one account for that?

Kind regards    J L A Hartley

________________________________________________________________________________

---

Clarification of Question by jlahartley-ga on 06 Nov 2004 03:05 PST

Dear Frank

Thank you very much for your response. I found it extremely interesting.

Could I, for the moment, merely acknowledge receipt of your message. I
shall immediately study it and then respond as soon as possible.

In the meantime, thank you again for your very helpful message.

Regards   J L A Hartley

________________________________________________________________________________

---

Clarification of Question by jlahartley-ga on 06 Nov 2004 22:18 PST

To frank-berlin-ga, pafalafa-ga and all the correspondents to this thread

I am most grateful to everyone who has contributed information on this
topic, most recently to frank-berlin-ga for his comments and
exhaustive reading-list.

It has not proved possible to attribute even a single use of the word
_Schrecklichkeit_ or comparable words to any official German source.
That has led some correspondents (outside this thread) to declare
that, thus, there was _no_ official German use of the word or its
congeners, but in fact that conclusion is impossible to support. The
indirect evidence to the contrary is very strong indeed. In a figure
of speech, we see the shadow but we do not yet see the substance.

The _facts_ concerning Belgium in the last five months of 1914 are
nowadays not in dispute among scholars. The work of scholars in this
field has culminated in Horne & Kramer's _German Atrocities, 1914: A
History of Denial_.

However, as far as I am aware, there has been no evidence adduced to
prove or even suggest that the German forces in Belgium in 1914 were
ordered to apply a policy of _Schrecklichkeit_ by that name or any
similar name.

That remains very surprising. There is an abundance of evidence that
_Allied_ sources used that specific term or an English translation,
"frightfulness", in every reference they made to the conduct of German
troops in 1914. There is a complete unanimity, on the Allied side, in
the use of _Schrecklichkeit_ or "frightfulness" whenever there is
occasion to refer to the motivation the General Staff must be taken to
have inculcated on their troops in Belgium.

I have remarked that it is as likely that the German High Command
didn't have a term for their policy as it is that Mayor Giuliani
didn't have a term for "zero tolerance" in New York.

I shall continue to pursue this inquiry and shall do what I can to
revert to the matter through Google as soon as I have something of
importance to report.

In the meantime, as this Question expires, I quote the only evidence
of a German use of _Schrecklichkeit_, though from WWII, that I've come
across to date. It's from an Italian website:

http://fun.supereva.it/arse.freeweb/projeckt_schrecklichkeit.htm?p

Here is a translation, followed by the original Italian.

>>

Space platforms for strategic bombardment


Projects carried out at Zell and Loneghof, such as the ?Luftkeisel?
turbo missiles, might well have seemed like pure fantasy to their own
German engineers, in the dark about the particular systems of aircraft
nuclear propulsion. Yet, in an attempt to avert the dangerous interest
shown by allied espionage operatives in the Zellsee research stations,
the Germans went one step further.
  
They actually set up a project that was impracticable except in the
long term --the Schrecklichkeit (?Horror?) project-- to give the
secret agents present in the area the impression that the stations
were working on a weapon that manifestly could not have been
constructed in time to be used during the war even if the war were to
continue for several years more.
 
The ploy succeeded in part. In fact, some US Army officers --part of
the Field Information Agency Technical (FIAT), a special unit assigned
to investigate German research stations in American-occupied
territories, which was working closely with the ?Alsos? Mission and
various CAFT teams-- held a press conference in Paris in July 1945
that had as its principal objective to talk about a ?master secret
weapon?, a formidable secret weapon that they had discovered the
Germans had been working on in the West of Austria but had not yet
brought to completion.

The project --based on theoretical work begun way back in 1923 by
Hermann Oberth, the renowned German rocket engineer-- involved the
positioning of several orbiting platforms 5,000 miles high fitted with
large parabolic mirrors covered in metallic sodium to reflect and
focus the sun?s rays onto given points on the earth?s surface, thus
causing inextinguishable fires and spreading panic and shock as these
inexplicable fires grew rapidly and swept across the land.


However, the work carried out on these ?space reflectors?, called
Fliegende Artillerie ?Hitler? (?Hitler? Flying Artillery), hid other
activity that was far more real and menacing.

<<
 

>>

Piattaforme extra-atmosferiche per il bombardamento strategico

Sebbene i progetti studiati a Zell e a Loneghof, come i turboproietti
?Luftkeisel?, potessero sembrare fantastici agli stessi tecnici
tedeschi all'oscuro dei particolari sistemi di propulsione
aero-nucleare, nel tentativo di stornare dai centri sperimentali dello
Zellsee il pericoloso interesse dello spionaggio alleato i tedeschi
fecero ancora di più.

Impostarono davvero un progetto irrealizzabile, se non a lunghissima
scadenza --il progetto Schrecklichkeit (?Orrore?)-- per indurre gli
agenti segreti presenti nella zona l'impressione che quei centri si
stessero occupando di un'arma che non avrebbe avuto il tempo di far
sentire il suo peso nella condotta della guerra neppure se questa
fosse durata ancora diversi anni.
Lo stratagemma riuscì solo a metà. Infatti alcuni ufficiali dell'US
Army --inquadrati in una speciale unità incaricata di investigare i
centri sperimentali tedeschi inclusi nelle zone d'occupazione
americane, la Field Information Agency Technical (FIAT), operante in
stretta collaborazione con la missione ?Alsos? e i vari CAFT
divisionali-- nel luglio del ?45 tennero a Parigi una
conferenza-stampa che aveva per argomento principale la descrizione di
una ?master secret weapon?, una formidabile arma segreta tedesca da
essi rinvenuta nell?Austria occidentale allo stadio di progetto
incompiuto.
Il progetto --ispirato a certi lavori teorici iniziati nel lontano
1923 dal noto razzotecnico tedesco Hermann Oberth-- riguardava la
collocazione a 5.000 miglia d'altezza di alcune piattaforme orbitanti
provviste di grandi specchi parabolici, ricoperti di sodio metallico,
per riflettere e focalizzare le radiazioni solari su determinati punti
della superficie terrestre sorvolata in modo da provocarvi degli
incendi inestinguibili, seminando inoltre panico e sgomento per il
rapido moltiplicarsi ed estendersi di quegli incendi inesplicabili.

I lavori relativi ai pretesi ?riflettori extra-atmosferici?, chiamati
Fliegende Artillerie ?Hitler? (Artiglieria volante "Hitler")
mascheravano, comunque, delle attività ben più concrete e minacciose.

<<


I thank once more everyone who has helped in this Question. As I say,
I hope to revrt to the subject when I have more to tell.

With best wishes to all


J L A Hartley

________________________________________________________________________________

According to
http://www.ku.edu/carrie/archives/wwi-l/2003/05/msg00103.html
"The big recent study of all this is":

German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial, by John Horne and Alan
Kramer, Yale U. Press, 2001
624 pp. 41 illus., 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Cloth ISBN 0-300-08975-9 $40.00

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/viewbook.asp?isbn=0300089759

German translation:
http://www.his-online.de/edition_e/publications/094engl.htm

"Kramer und Horne weisen nach, dass die Regierungen der alliierten
Länder Berichte von Vertriebenen über Gräueltaten wie etwa die Legende
der Kinder mit den abgehackten Händen als Metapher deutscher
"Schrecklichkeit" in einer bis dahin einmaligen Propagandakampagne um
die Meinung der neutralen Staaten nutzten":
http://www.wdr.de/tv/kulturweltspiegel/20040425/1.html

I suppose that you do not need a German translation?

Presumably, you have already read this page:
http://www.haverford.edu/engl/english354/GreatWar/Belgium/schreck.html

I'm most grateful to Scriptor and fp-ga for their comments. Might I
comment in turn as follows?


To Scriptor

I must say straight away that the native speakers of German and those
English speakers who are versed in German that I have already
consulted have unanimously come to the same conclusion as you have
done about the word Schrecklichkeit. To them, unanimously, it sounded
"wrong".

The English word most often used to characterize the mind-set of the
German army in Belgium in 1914 ---a mind-set, it must be said, that
has been amply corroborated very recently in German Atrocities, 1914:
A History of Denial, by John Horne and Alan Kramer--- is
"frightfulness".

That English word was not considered apt or appropriate by no less an
authority than H W Fowler, called The Warden of English by Jenny
McMorris in her book of that title, published in 2001. Writing in
1928, he said of frightful and frightfulness:

The words ought to revert in due time to their true English meaning.
They have properly no implication of terrorism, and owe that sense
merely to ignorance of English on the part of the journalists who
seized on them as as the handiest translation of German words that had
that implication. The felt unnaturalness of the words had a certain
value while war lasted, as suggesting the unnatural state of mind of a
people that confused honest fighting with brutal cruelty; but we do
not want our language permanently corrupted by such accidents. (Modern
English Usage, s. v. Frightful(ness) ).

He goes on to speak of these words, "frightful" and "frightfulness",
as mistranslations of German words, but he neglects to specify those
German words.

You rightly remark on the tendency in the German language to form
substantives. It seems to me, therefore, that we might justifiably
have expected some word (or perhaps a couple or so) to emerge from
original German texts that denote substantivally what Fowler calls
"the state of mind" of the invading German forces.

That state of mind would have derived, one supposes, from a state of
mind inculcated over the years before 1914 and crystalizing in the
Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege published by the German General Staff in
1902, in which we certainly see the propensity you mention for
substantivation. One see, for instance, Sentimentatität und weicheler
Gefühlsschwärmerei. One sees, also, such words as Scheußlichkeit.
Moreover, words such as Terrorismus were not unknown in the writings
of Treitschke, Goltz and Bernhardi. (I needn't mention other examples
of substantivation, such as Lebensraum, Herrenvolk and Deutschstum.)

In your opinion, is there any generic word that was used by the
General Staff and by the Officer Corps, and that perhaps also
percolated down, that was used to characterize the state of mind that
permitted the atrocities in Belgium in 1914? (Those atrocities are,
once again, thanks in large measure to German Atrocities, 1914: A
History of Denial, by John Horne and Alan Kramer, now admitted on
pretty well all sides.)

Once again, let me express my gratitude to you for your measured
comment. I have often myself verged on accepting that what one might
call "the Schrecklichkeit Campaign" was a gambit played with extreme
finesse by the British Political Warfare personnel, but, to be frank,
they were really not equal to that. You no doubt know the English
saying, "There's no smoke without fire". The British spooks could make
smoke, but not without a pre-existing veritable conflagration!

At the moment, I'm veering towards the belief that there was indeed a
sort of verbal shorthand, a sort of Masonic code, current in Germany
before 1914, to convey the notion of iron discipline as the invariable
stance vis-à-vis the enemy, military or civil, but there's a good deal
of evidence that a certain reticence prevented many people in both the
"War Party" and the "Peace Party" from coming out into the open with
the terminology. Both parties in their own ways appreciated the
importance of world opinion.

Lastly, perhaps I could just diffidently mention that, in this
context, I see an impressive volume of evidence that the many, many
adherents to the notion of Deutschtum have colluded, under the Weimar
régime and under National Socialism, to soft pedal the "down-side" of
Deutschtum. It is not simply that they have colluded to muddy the
waters: it increasingly seems to me that there has been a concerted
effort to indulge in that curse of history, suppressio veri.

As an instance of that policy, might I quote to you an extract from a
German Lexicon that some friends and I are compiling to demonstrate
the profound influence the German language has had on English
speaking? The Lexicon takes the ordinary form of a dictionary, and the
following extract is typical.

?Soldaten! Seid wie die Hunnen!? (literally, ?Soldiers! Be as the
Huns!?) One of several journalistic condensations of a speech made at
Bremerhaven in 1900 by Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany. The speech was
largely responsible for the subsequent widespread use of the
opprobrious word Hun in application to German troops. The Kaiser?s
speech was made to German troops about to depart for China to assist
in putting down the Boxer Uprising, in which the German Ambassador to
the Chinese Empire had been murdered. The Kaiser?s words, as taken
down in shorthand by a journalist at the cerem­ony, were as follows
?the official version as released later omits all reference to Attila
and the Huns:

?Kommt ihr vor den Feind, so wird derselbe geschlagen! Pardon wird
nicht gegeben! Gefangene werden nicht gemacht! Wer euch in die hände
fällt, sei euch verfallen! Wie vor tausend Jahren die Hunnen, unter
ihren König Etzel [Attila] sich einen Namen gemacht, der sie noch
jetzt in Überlieferung und Märchen gewaltig erscheinen läßt, so möge
der Name Deutscher in China auf 1000 Jahre durch euch in einer Weise
bestätigt werden, daß es niemals wieder ein Chinese wagt, einen
Deutschen scheel anzusehen!?: Kaiser Wilhelm II, Rede (Hunnenrede) in
der inoffiziellen, nicht korrigierten, Variante der ent­scheidenden
Passage.?

?When you meet the enemy, he will be defeated! Neither shall quarter
be given, nor prisoners taken! Whoever falls into your hands is in
your power! Just as a thousand years ago the Huns, under their king,
Attila, achieved such fame, that even today their name resounds with
their might in story and fable, let your conduct so impress the German
name for a thousand years in China, that no Chinaman shall ever again
dare to raise his eyes to a German!?:  Emperor Wilhelm II, Speech (Hun
Speech), as in the unofficial, uncorrected variant of the definitive
version.

The cleaning up that Bülow had to do after the Kaiser had been there
is really quite riveting. That's what I mean by suppressio veri.
 
I apologize for taking so much of your time. However, the tone of your
comment leads me to believe that you won't be entirely indifferent to
this message.

Yours very truly

J L A Hartley

____________________________________________________________________


To fp-ga

Thank you very much for your comments.

I had in fact read the links you mention, and agree that they are
helpful, although it was the Haverford one that was largely
responsible, some time ago, for my perplexity over Schrecklichkeit.

I simply couldn't understand how a word could play such an important
rôle on one side of the Great War and so insignificant or even
invisible a rôle on the other side, especially when the word in
question is a part of the vocabulary of the nation that doesn't use
it.

I think the comment above, addressed primarily to Scriptor, will give
you a good idea of the state of my mind at the present moment.

Thank you very much once again for your comment.

Yours very truly


J L A Hartley

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­___________________________________________________________________

J L A Hartley, thank you for your comment.

Apparently, a thesis on "Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Belgien 1914
bis 1918" is currently being written at the University of Düsseldorf
http://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/geschichte/xneuegeschichte/personal/roolf.html

The author, Christoph Roolf, may be able to answer your question.

Regards,
fp

Lost in translation:
the kaiser mentions china as a metaphor for a large, old empire, far
away; but he also uses it to ventilate some blatant racism:
"will dare to lay his cross-eyed eyes on a german"

To fp

Many thanks for the information on Christoph Roolf and the thesis in
preparation, "Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Belgien 1914 bis 1918".
I'll make contact. Thank you once again for your help. Regards J L A
Hartley

____________________________________________________________________________________

To xpetise

Thank you for the pointer. Coincidentally, I'd quoted from that very
speech of Wilhelm II, die Hunnenrede, in my thanks to Scriptor in this
thread. Very nice of you to draw my attention to it.  Regards  J L A
Hartley

________________________________________________________________________________

To pafalafa

Thank you for the reference. Very useful. Nietzsche's use of
Schrecklichkeit had evaded at least a dozen searches through Google,
Copernic and Wanadoo. Very grateful indeed! Regards    J L A Hartley

jlahartley-ga ,

If you have the chance, I'd be curious to know a bit more about the
context of Neitzsche's use of the term.  I'm not a German-speaker, so
I can only search for it...not make any sense out of it!

Thanks.

pafalafa-ga

To xpertise-ga:

There is no racism in the Hun Speech quotation you cite. The original
German sentecne is: "...daß es niemals wieder ein Chinese wagt, einen
Deutschen scheel anzusehen!"

"Cross-eyed eyes" are NOT mentioned in the German text. What the Kaiser said is:
"...so that never again a Chinese will dare to look at a German in a
disrespectful way!"

The adjective "scheel" has nothing at all to do with Asian
physiognomy. It simply is a Northern German word meaning as much as
disrespectful, contumelious.

So much for the problems of translation.
Regards,
Scriptor

____________________________________________________________________________________

To palafala

Could I return to you over the Nietzsche extract? I have great
difficulty with him myself.   Regards    J L A Hartley

___________________________________________________________________________________

To Scriptor

Might I take advantage of your comment to palafala on the word
_scheele_? I recognized that any allusion to squinting was irrelevant,
but your use of the word "disrespectful" makes me think I ought to
change my own translation of the Kaiser's last sentence. I didn't know
_scheel_ conveyed the meaning in North Germany of "disrespectful".

Regards    J L A Hartley

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear J L A Hartley,

Please feel free to use that translation from my comment.

Regards,
Scriptor

The German language version of the order by General von Trotha as
referred to by Pafalafa:

http://www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de/von_trotha.htm
or
http://www.gfbv.de/voelker/afrika/herero.htm

Apparently, the term "Schrecklichkeit" is not mentioned by Throtha himself.

"Schrecklichkeit", 1904:

"On October 2, 1904, von Trotha promulgated his famous Schrecklichkeit
order, basically a shoot-on-sight order, in an attempt to stamp out
the last embers of the revolt before the end of the year":
http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/v/extra/waterberg.html

"At the same time, Kirsten has interesting comments on the evolution
of schrecklichkeit under von Trotha in German South-West Africa,
pursued, but deliberately so, only once a clear-cut military victory
no longer appeared possible":
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/beckettIan.html

Kirsten Zirkel (as mentioned in my previous comment) wrote "Military
power in German colonial policy: the Schutztruppen and their leaders
in East and South-West Africa, 1888-1918"

in: Guardians of Empire: The Armed Forces of the Colonial Powers,
c.1700-1964 (ISBN 0-7190-5734-5), ed. by David Killingray and David
Omissi

http://catalogue.mup.man.ac.uk/acatalog/search.html
http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear fp

Many thanks. 

I, too, have been looking at the record of Lieut-General Lothar von
Trotha in what's now Namibia. The recent claim by the Hereros for
compensation has highlighted Trotha's régime. See, for example:
 
http://www.namibweb.com/hererohol.htm

The willow-the-wisp here again is, "What was the ordinary, every-day
German word for the widespread policy of 'zero-tolerance' towards
resistance of all forms?"

I think my original question might be re-formulated along those
specific lines, using the graphic, modern, self-explanatory term,
"zero tolerance".

There seem to me to be two chief obstacles in the way of anyone
researching the Wilhelmine policy of "zero tolerance".

The first is the startling paucity of information in the German
language itself bearing on the use of the word _Schrecklichkeit_, even
of literature protesting about what German critics clearly believe is
a misuse of a German word. That observable reticence has, no doubt,
several explanations.

The second obstacle is the multiplicity of names _Schrecklichkeit_
acquired when translated into English in Allied hands. I have counted
twenty different English words for the phenomenon.

It might well be that there are twenty German words in circulation for
the phenomenon, since, as Scriptor has made clear, there is general
dissatisfaction among German speakers with the word _Schrecklichkeit"_
for what I'm now calling "Wilhelmine Zero Tolerance".

I wonder whether anyone "out there" has come across what I believe
must have been in existence ---some single, convenient word used by
German speakers themselves to allude to the declared policy of, for
example, the _Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege_ in dealing with resisting
irregulars.

I believe one would be justified in going back at least to the
Franco-Prussian War, since the policy of "zero resistance" was, I
think, first unambiguously formulated or at least first formally
enunciated in application to the _francs tireurs_ who were said to be
such a painful thorn in the flesh of the German troops in their
advance on Paris.

With renewed thanks.

J L A Hartley

________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

To palafala

I recently replied to you in connection with Nietzsche, "Could I
return to you over the Nietzsche extract? I have great difficulty with
him myself".

Well, I still do. Might I suggest that you visit 

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/history.htm

if you haven't already done so. I believe you'll find, there, an
extremely useful trove of information, together with details of
translations that Johnston has produced. In my view, they read as well
as any translation of Nietzsche can possibly read. Paragraph after
paragraph, they are positively limpid.

As I've said, I was extremely grateful for your pointing me in the
direction of Nietsche's own use of the dreaded Sch-word. My renewed
thanks!

Regards   J L A Hartley
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To palafala-ga

You kindly said recently: 

"Madley, in this article: http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/Madley.pdf,
_Journal of Genocide Research_,"Patterns of frontier genocide
1803?1910: the Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the
Herero of Namibia" cites this publication: Rust, C. (1905) _Krieg und
Frieden im Hererolande_ (Leipzig: Kittler)as the source of information
for a reference to _Schrecklichkeit_ in
1905--it's ambiguous though, as to whether the term was actually used
in 1905, or whether Mandel is projecting a modern usage onto an
earlier situation. Still...it's a lead, of sorts... "

It certainly does seem as though you're absolutely right. Scholars
very readily project back a present-day usage onto the distant scene.
Often, though, they *have* to: they have no alternative. The
scorched-earth policies of the vanquished are often tantamount to the
burning of the library of Alexandria.

What non-German-speaker can quote, off the top of his head, the
official German expression for "the final solution"? Who can prove
that Adolf Hitler was at all aware of "the final solution"?

We profess to being utterly scandalized by Enron's shredding the
evidence. What, then, ought we to feel about an entire century of
"burning the books"?

Regards

J L A Hartley

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Oxford English Dictionary, "Schrecklichkeit" (print and online edition):

G. B. Shaw: "As to the deliberate Schrecklichkeit of the Germans in
Belgium .." (New Republic, 6 Jan 1917)

Apparently, Shaw was referring to the use of this word in the English
language prior to January 1917. The OED, however, does not mention
earlier occurences of "Schrecklichkeit".

http://dictionary.oed.com/ (local library)

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Dear fp-ga

Many thanks for the OED information. I've attached a good of
importance to the following, originally picked up from the OED
(combining "frightfulness" with Schrecklichkeit), the first two
because their dates are important as establishing the very early date
at which "frightfulness" was being used:

?Belgium is the country where three civilians have been killed to
every one soldier. That damnable policy of  ?frightfulness? succeeded
for a time?: Rupert Brooke,  Letters. 11 Nov 1914. (1968) 632.

?It was only when special orders for ?frightfulness? had been issued ?
that the rank and file of the enemy?s army committed its brutalities?:
P. Gibbs Soul of War 155 (1915).

?As to the deliberate Schrecklichkeit of the Germans in Belgium no man
should judge unless he knows the military history of all invasions,
and of that very British institution, the punitive expedition?: G. B.
Shaw in New Republic 6 Jan. 274/1, 1917.

By 1917 we see Shaw using the German word. Unfortunately, I've
detected nothing that establishes how either the German word or the
English word came to be used, eventually so widely, to denote German
brutality, expecially to civilians.

Even more unfortunately, a great deal of relevant material in
libraries was discarded between 1918 and relatively recently in the
belief that it was worthless and discredited Allied propaganda.

Thank you once again.   J L A Hartley

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Dear fp,

first of all thanks a lot for your friendly comment on my essay about
the German "Schutztruppen" in South West Africa. Maybe I can help you
with the correct term concerning General von Trotha's order to the
Herero. German historians use the term "Vernichtungsproklamation" -
proclamation of extermination. "Schrecklichkeit" has a different
meaning, comparable with the word "Grauen" (horror).

Kind regards
Kirsten

Hello J L A Hartley,

I am a German native speaker from Berlin.
Maybe this as the answer for your question:

Schrecklichkeit

 

Schrecklichkeit, or terror--frightfulness--was an instrument of the
German invasion of Belgium and France, and it was intended to disarm
or destroy any civilian resistance to the advance of the German
armies. Out of the initial haste and rush of the invading forces were
born the atrocities against civilians that in turn spawned many of the
initial (and enduring) images, in the Allied press, of the invading
forces. Note these passages from Winter and Baggett's The Great War
and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996):

 

"Since speed was of the essence, no civilian harassment or irregular
warfare would be tolerated by the Germans. They used heavy artillery,
including the siege gun 'Big Bertha' . . . on the town centre of the
city of Louvain; they shot hostages; burnt villages, and when women
were raped by German soldiers, their commanders did little about it"
(p. 67).

"The old traditions [of war in Europe] . . . called for the end of a
country's hostilities when its army was beaten on the battlefield.
Belgium fought differently--and the German response was savage. 'Our
advance in Belgium,' wrote Moltke on 5 August, 'is certainly brutal,
but we are fighting for our lives and all who get in the way must take
the consequences.' On that day a number of Belgian priests had been
executed for encouraging resistance to the invasion. But the Belgians
needed little encouragement from their priests, as snipers shot at
German soldiers laden with 25 kg packs on their backs through fields
and villages. The invading forces and their commanders responded with
an iron fist, burning homes, rounding up villagers--men, women, and in
some cases children--and shooting groups of them: six at Warsage,
fifty at Seilles, nearly four hundred at Tamines and over six hundred
at Dinant. The medieval town of Louvain was heavily shelled and its
university's library, a treasure-house of ancient manuscripts, was
torched. 'We shall wipe it out,' declared one German officer. 'Not one
stone will stand upon another. We will teach them to respect Germany.
For generations people will come here and see what we have done' "(pp.
65-6).

 

In this way, the fresh German army, heady with its cake-walk through
ineptly defended Belgium, committed initial abuses that were to haunt
it ever after. The events in Belgium were terrible, and Germany was
the over-whelming victor, but Moltke's 'brutal advance' actually
represented a disaster for Germany, in regard to propaganda and the
Allied waging of the newspaper war.

Source: http://www.haverford.edu/engl/english354/GreatWar/Belgium/schreck.html

It's not a very common word, but it's used in German language.

Translation like this:
Schrecklichkeit {f}	awfulness
Schrecklichkeit {f}	devilishness
Schrecklichkeit {f}	frightfulness
Schrecklichkeit {f}	horribleness
Schrecklichkeit {f}	terribleness

Source: http://www.dict.cc/blaettern/490.php

Your question should be for a toast "Auf den Tag!" (it's not a common
toast nowadays, but you can use it and everybody will understand in
the right situation, e.g. instead of "Cheers" when you drink a beer or
similar)

"den Tag" is the accusative of "der Tag". To drink to /somebody's
health/somebody/something you need accusative in German, expressed
through the German male article "der" (nominative) which changes to
"den" (accusative)
In our case: Auf den Tag! means to "drink to the day".
You can also "auf den Tag trinken" (drink a toast to the day) by a
toast to the day.

I am sure you will find there
http://www.bundesarchiv.de/aufgaben_organisation/geschichte/
the
following books (from the "Deutsches Reichsarchiv Potsdam 1917-1945)
which will help you.

Band Nummer / Verfasser oder Bearbeiter / Titel / Erscheinungsjahr / Seitenanzahl

001 / Werner Beumelburg: Douaumont 1916 / 1923 / 188 S.
002 / Genltn.a.D. Fr.v.Friedeburg: Karpathen- und Dnjesterschlacht
1915 / 1926 / 160 S.
003 / Genltn.Erich v.Tschischwitz: Antwerpen 1914 / 1925 /108 S.
004 / ObGenArzt a.D.Dr.Steuber: Jildirim - Dt.Streiter auf heiligem
Boden / 1926 / 174 S.
005 / Hptm.a.D. Dr.Georg Strutz: Herbstschlacht in Macedonien 1916 /1925 /120 S.
006 / Gen.Ludw.Frhr.v.Gebsattel: Von Nancy bis zum Camp de Romains / 1922 / 159 S.
07a / Maj.a.D. Kurt Heydemann: Die Schlacht bei St.Quentin 1914, Teil
I. / 1924 / 213 S.
07b /  Maj.a.D. Kurt Heydemann: Die Schlacht b. St.Quentin 1914, Teil
II. / 1928 / 251 S.
008 / Hptm.a.D. Franz Bettag: Die Eroberung von Nowo Georgiewsk /1926 / 127 S.
009 / Maj. Walther Vogel:  Die Kämpfe um Baranowitschi 1916 / 1927 / 122 S.
010 / Werner Beumelburg:  Ypern 1914 / 1928 / 223 S.
011 / Genltn.a.D. Dieterich:  Weltkriegsende an der mazedon. Front / 1928 / 187 S.
12a / Gen.d.Art.a.D.Krafft v. Dellmensingen: Der Durchbruch am Isonzo
Teil I. / 1928 / 210 S.
12b / Gen.d.Art.a.D.Krafft v. Dellmensingen: Der Durchbruch am Isonzo
Teil II. /1928 / 296 S.
013 / Studienart Ludwig Gold: Die Tragödie von Verdun 1916, Teil I. / 1928 / 272 S.
014 / Obstltn.a.d. Alex.Schwencke: Die Tragödie von Verdun 1916, Teil
II. / 1928 / 223 S.
015 / Studienart Ludwig Gold: Die Trag.v.Verdun 1916, Teil III.u.IV. /
1929 / 206 S.
016 / Maj.a.D. Dr.Carl Mühlmann: Der Kampf um die Dardanellen 1915 / 1927 /195 S.
017 / Werner Beumelburg: Loretto / 1928 / 219 S.
018 / Maj.a.D. Ernst Schmidt: Argonnen / 1928 / 244 S.
019 / Obstltn.a.D.Theob.v.Schäfer: Tannenberg / 1927 / 272 S.
020 / Obstltn.a.D.Albrecht v. Stosch: Somme-Nord, Teil I. /1928 / 280 S.
021 / Obstltn.a.D.Albrecht v. Stosch: Somme-Nord, Teil II. /1927 / 260 S.
022 / Maj.a.D. Thilo v. Bose: Das Marnedrama, Teil I. / 1928 / 202 S.
023 / Maj.a.D. Thilo v. Bose: Das Marnedrama, Teil II. / 1928 / 179 S.
024 / Maj.a.D. Thilo v. Bose: Das Marnedrama, Teil III. 1.Abschnitt  /
1928 / 266 S.
025 / Maj.a.D. Thilo v. Bose: Das Marnedrama, Teil III. 2.Abschnitt  /
1928 / 236 S.
026 / Hptm.a.D. R.Dahlmann: Das Marnedrama, Teil IV. / 1928 / 352 S.
027 / Werner Beumelburg: Flandern 1917 / 1928 / 169 S.
028 / Franz Behrmann: Die Osterschlacht bei Arras 1917, Teil I. / 1929 / 183 S.
029 / Franz Behrmann: Die Osterschlacht b.Arras 1917, Teil II. / 1929 / 208 S.
030 / Obstltn.a.D. Thilo v. Kalm: Gorlice / 1930 / 202 S.
031 / Hptm.a.D. Dr.Georg Strutz: Die Tankschlacht bei Cambrai 1917 / 1929 / 192 S.
032 / Maj.a.D. Thilo v. Bose: Deutsche Siege 1918 / 1929 / 198 S.
033 / Maj.a.D. Thilo v. Bose: Wachsende Schwierigkeiten (1918) / 1930 / 192 S.
034 / Archivrat Alfr.Stenger: Der letzte dt.Angriff Reims 1918 / 1930 / 208 S.
035 / Archivrat Alfr.Stenger: Schicksalswende 1918 / 1930 / 226 S.
036 / Maj.a.D. Thilo v. Bose: Die Katastrophe des 8.August 1918 / 1930 / 201 S.

Sincerly

Frank

It's a shame no one came up with a clear cut answer on this one...I
was really getting quite curious about the whole thing.

Best of luck...and Let us know if you ever uncover a true, German source.

paf

Searching the Imperial War Museum's Collections Online could lead to new results:

http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/

http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/qryMain.asp