need a summary Reading analysis, for my history class
Book: Ziemann, Benjamin. War Experiences in Rural Germany, 1914-1923. Translated by Alex Skinner. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2007.Author Information:Benjamin Ziemann is currently Lecturer of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. He received his M.A. from the Free University of Berlin, and his Ph.D. from the University of Bielefeld. He is the author of several books and articles on modern European history, most recently Katholische Kirche und Sozialwissenschaften 1945-1975, a work that analyzes the “scientization of the social” by looking at the role and work of the Catholic Church in West Germany after World War II. His current interests are the social, political and cultural history of Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the First World War, and the history of protest movements in Western Europe since 1945.Thesis:War Experiences in Rural Germany examines Bavarian social experiences of the First World War. Ziemann’s work attempts to dispute traditional stereotypes about social experience during World War I, both in the trenches and on the home front. His main thesis challenges the notion that the Great War caused a traumatic break in modern German values and traditions. “Most people in fact fell back on the ‘traditional sources of stability’ within rural society,” Ziemann argues, “such as the peasant family, religiosity and subsistence farming, particularly during the years of crisis from 1914 to 1923, demonstrating their ongoing significance. Despite the upheaval of war and inflation, continuity outweighed change” (273).Supporting Arguments and Evidence:Ziemann divides the work into six chapters that examine the social experiences and mentalities of soldiers, farmers, and families from 1914 to 1923. The first chapter challenges the myth of patriotic zeal in 1914, by noting widespread pessimism in the first few months of the war. The next three chapters deal with the wartime social experiences of Bavarian farmers: life in the trenches, their understanding of the war, and how they became more disgruntled with the war as it wore on. Chapter five analyzes the sexual experiences of women on the home front, the new economic responsibilities they had to take on as men were siphoned off to the Western Front, the experience of wartime inflation in southern Bavaria, and the increasing political consciousness of farmers. The last chapter examines demobilization and the soldiers’ homecoming.Ziemann’s two most important supporting points deal with the blurring of the line between the home front and the trenches. In short, he argues that the experience of the war was not as traumatic for Bavarian soldiers because a number of mitigating factors helped these farmer- soldiers to maintain ties to their peacetime lives. Ziemann’s thesis is highly compelling here, as he highlights all the privileges granted to Bavarian farmers that helped them deal with the most terrorizing aspects of the war. Perhaps more important, Ziemann makes the case that the1experience of the war was much less horrific than historians have traditionally believed. He highlights all the reasons for this assertion, including the pattern of deployment that rotated German soldiers rapidly through dangerous and quiet zones to minimize the most harrowing aspects of fighting on the Western Front, and the use of furloughs to soften the impact of the trauma of the trenches. In addition, because farmers were often used behind the lines—their rural experiences with livestock were useful here—the casualty rate among Bavarian soldiers was smaller in comparison to other segments of German society.Analysis:Because Ziemann’s main arguments deal with frontline experiences, it is surprising how little he focuses on the actual fighting in the trenches. More detail about life at the front and a comparison of the experiences of different kinds of units—e.g., the artillery versus the infantry— may have actually strengthened his argument. Moreover, some chapters do not seem to fit into the larger theme of the work—chapter five is the most important example—detracting from the overall unity of the work. Further, Ziemann’s central focus on rural soldiers leads to the same kinds of problems he sees with the earlier over-reliance on bourgeois sources he notes in the introduction; perhaps the average Bavarian’s experience of the war was not so terrifying precisely because he was a farmer, which would mean this was particular and maybe even unique compared to other German soldiers. Finally, Ziemmann could make a clearer connection between his more subtle understanding of the war’s brutality and his larger thesis that the war does not represent a break in German history.Discussion Questions:(1) What factors does Ziemann argue help to mitigate the most brutal aspects of fighting on the Western Front for Bavarian soldiers?(2) What connections did Bavarian farmers maintain to their families and communities back home, and why were those connections importa