Der deutsche Krieg im Osten von 1914 bis 1919: Ein Vorläufer des Vernichtungskriegs?

In recent years, mostly in Anglophone circles, there has been a discussion regarding a "German Way of War". According to this thesis, the German Empire embarked on a military "Sonderweg" [special path] in contrast to other states. This was supposedly particularly evident in a more radical form of warfare exhibited during colonial wars and the First World War. This view postulates a continuity of German military culture between the First and the Second World War. The present article tests this thesis by means of an examination of the Eastern Front during the First World War and concludes that the supposition of a specifically German military culture during the German Empire and a continuity between the form of warfare practised on the Eastern Front of the First World War and "Operation Barbarossa" often bears the markings of a backward-looking projection. In comparison to the Austro-Hungarian as well as the Russian Army, the German military was the most restrained until late 1917. Ultimately the success of Bolshevism since late 1917 led to a radical mental change; the state of command now exasperated, as the counterinsurgency in Ukraine in 1918 demonstrated. Simultaneously the German Army also largely tried to go easy on the civilian population. A further surge of radicalisation was revealed in the conflicts in the Baltic States in 1919. These may have possessed a formative character for the later Nazi movement, but not for the military, who saw the "Baltic fighters" as "undisciplined rabble". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]