''Krieg dem Kriege! Guerre à la Guerre! War against War! Oorlog aan den Oorlog!'' is a book by

Ernst Friedrich Ernst Friedrich (25 February 1894 – 2 May 1967) was a German anarcho-pacifist. Life Childhood and youth Ernst Friedrich was born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) as the 13th child of a cleaning lady and a saddler. After finishing el ...

, published for the first time in 1924. It examines the human cost of the First World War and shows the true face of war (injuries, mutilations, executions, suffering, misery and death)."When antiwar commemorative demonstrations took place all over Germany during the 1924 anniversary year, Friedrich published ''War Against War'' in Berlin with text and captions in four languages".Dora Apel,"Cultural Battlegrounds: Weimar Photographic Narratives of War". New German Critique No. 76, (Winter, 1999), (pp. 49-84) The original version written in four languages (German, French, English, Dutch) has since been translated into 50+ languages.

Description

The German

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

Ernst Friedrich wished to enlighten people with this book by demonstrating the horrors of the First World War. The work becomes a "

bible" that rallies the movement under the slogan "No more war." Following the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, the book makes use of images of war. One picture shows toys imitating weapons of war, below a caption reads : "Do not give these toys to your children!" It denounces the euphemistic language of war propaganda by pairing these words with violent photographs from the battlefield. A picture entitled "The field of honour" shows the naked corpse of a soldier dead from typhoid, interred in a hole in the ground. Another shows a mass of bodies collected in a ditch intended to be a mass grave, with the title "The Heroes' Tomb." The juxtapositions turn the

jingoistic Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inter ...

language into

sarcastic Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...

commentary. The book shows soldiers and their battlefield mutilations. It shows a bedridden soldier with the mouth and lower jaw completely torn off. Friedrich quotes Marshal Paul Von Hindenburg: "War treats me like a spa bath!" Another quotes the words of Count von Moltke: "The most noble virtues of people are exposed in war!"

Selected publication history

* ''Krieg dem Kriege!'' Berlin: Freie Jugend, 1924. First edition. * ''Krieg dem Kriege! / Bd. 1 Krieg dem Kriege! = Guerre à la guerre! = War against war! = Vojnu vojně!'' Berlin: Freie Jugend, 1926. 8th-10th editions. Includes German, French, Dutch, English and Czech. * ''Krieg dem Kriege!'' Frankfurt am Main : Zweitausendeins, 1981. Includes German, Dutch, and English. * ''Krieg dem Kriege''. Berlin: Anti-Kriegs-Museum Berlin, 2015.

References

External links

* Ernst Friedrich,
Krieg dem Kriege
' - online edition 1924 non-fiction books Anti-war books Photojournalistic books Photography controversies World War I books {{WWI-book-stub