The First World War massively changed the scale and nature of the “military veteran question” in Europe. The enormous impact of mass deaths and destruction, the demise of old empires, and the rise of new nation states resulting from total war made the fate of ex-soldiers into a key issue that shaped all societies in interwar Europe. The unprecedented number of combatants, together with the severity and frequency of injuries incurred in industrialized warfare, meant that the relationship between ex-soldiers and the state became a crucial issue for all governments, raising major questions about welfare provisions, social policy, party politics and national memory cultures.While there has been much recent research on war veterans in Germany and other European countries, other regions of Central and East-Central Europe have attracted noticeably less attention. For this reason, this special issue presents research on the comparative history of World War One veterans in Austria and Czechoslovakia. This transnational investigation breaks new ground by investigating two neighbouring states that showed distinct patterns of immediate post-war reconstruction, as well as of subsequent development.
Contents
Laurence Cole / Rudolf KuceraEditorial7
Articles
Rudolf Kucera / Hannes LeidingerChallenges for Science, Threats to the Nation. Austrian and Czech War Neurotics as Examples of a Transnational History of Trauma (1914–1938)15
Verena MoritzHalf-hearted Reconciliation: The “Federal Association of former Austrian POWs” and the Question of Veterans’ Internationalism in Interwar Austria33
Julia Walleczek-FritzStaying Mobilized: Veterans’ Associations in Austria’s Border Regions Carinthia and Styria during the Interwar Period59
Vaclav SmidrkalThe Defeated in a Victorious State: Veterans of the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Bohemian Lands and Their (Re)mobilization in the 1930s81
Radka SustrovaThe Struggle for Respect: The State, World War One Veterans, and Social Welfare Policy in Interwar Czechoslovakia107
Abstracts135
Reviews
Linda ErkerEmmerich Talos, unter Mitarbeit von Florian Wenninger, Das austrofaschistische Österreich 1933–1938141
Andreas HuberLisa Rettl, Jüdische Studierende und Absolventen der Wiener Tierärztlichen Hochschule 1930–1947 / Lisa Rettl, Die Wiener Tierärztliche Hochschule und der Nationalsozialismus. Eine Universitätsgeschichte zwischen dynamischer Antizipation und willfähriger Anpassung144
Nathalie Patricia SoursosJohannes Hürter/Hermann Wentker (Hg.), Diktaturen. Perspektiven der zeithistorischen Forschung149
Authors153