LEADER 04373nam 2200637Ia 450 001 9910813218603321 005 20220127200039.0 010 $a0-8014-6708-X 010 $a1-322-50050-9 010 $a0-8014-6709-8 024 7 $a10.7591/9780801467097 035 $a(CKB)2550000001039184 035 $a(OCoLC)836762911 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10672833 035 $a(SSID)ssj0001074022 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11663234 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0001074022 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)11212613 035 $a(PQKB)11380366 035 $a(DE-B1597)535878 035 $a(OCoLC)1121052514 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780801467097 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3138447 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10672833 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL681332 035 $a(OCoLC)922998378 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3138447 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000001039184 100 $a20040607d2005 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aAbsolute destruction$emilitary culture and the practices of war in Imperial Germany /$fIsabel V. Hull 210 $aIthaca $cCornell University Press$d2005 215 $a1 online resource (399 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-8014-4258-3 311 $a0-8014-7293-8 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 335-368) and index. 327 $tFrontmatter --$tContents --$tMaps --$tAcknowledgments --$tAbbreviations --$tIntroduction --$tPART I. Suppression Becomes Annihilation: Southwest Africa, 1904-1907 --$tPART II. Military Culture --$tPART III. The First World War --$tConclusions and Implications --$tBibliography --$tIndex 330 $aIn a book that is at once a major contribution to modern European history and a cautionary tale for today, Isabel V. Hull argues that the routines and practices of the Imperial German Army, unchecked by effective civilian institutions, increasingly sought the absolute destruction of its enemies as the only guarantee of the nation's security. So deeply embedded were the assumptions and procedures of this distinctively German military culture that the Army, in its drive to annihilate the enemy military, did not shrink from the utter destruction of civilian property and lives. Carried to its extreme, the logic of "military necessity" found real security only in extremities of destruction, in the "silence of the graveyard."Hull begins with a dramatic account, based on fresh archival work, of the German Army's slide from administrative murder to genocide in German Southwest Africa (1904-7). The author then moves back to 1870 and the war that inaugurated the Imperial era in German history, and analyzes the genesis and nature of this specifically German military culture and its operations in colonial warfare. In the First World War the routines perfected in the colonies were visited upon European populations. Hull focuses on one set of cases (Belgium and northern France) in which the transition to total destruction was checked (if barely) and on another (Armenia) in which "military necessity" caused Germany to accept its ally's genocidal policies even after these became militarily counterproductive. She then turns to the Endkampf (1918), the German General Staff's plan to achieve victory in the Great War even if the homeland were destroyed in the process-a seemingly insane campaign that completes the logic of this deeply institutionalized set of military routines and practices. Hull concludes by speculating on the role of this distinctive military culture in National Socialism's military and racial policies.Absolute Destruction has serious implications for the nature of warmaking in any modern power. At its heart is a warning about the blindness of bureaucratic routines, especially when those bureaucracies command the instruments of mass death. 606 $aMilitarism$zGermany$xHistory 607 $aGermany$xHistory, Military$y19th century 607 $aGermany$xHistory, Military$y20th century 615 0$aMilitarism$xHistory. 676 $a355.02/13/094309034 700 $aHull$b Isabel V$0512129 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910813218603321 996 $aAbsolute destruction$9764929 997 $aUNINA