Love in the Trenches: German Soldiers’ Conceptions of Sexual Deviance and Hegemonic Masculinity in the First World War

Abstract

Germany’s traumatic experience with total war in 1914–18 presents challenges for historians dealing with the history of gender. The responses of common soldiers to the trauma of war, and their conceptions of masculinity and sexuality, were complex. While the all-pervasive image of the steel-nerved, disciplined warrior suggests an easily identifiable, militarized egemonic ideal, this masculine image was fragile and, as Monika Szczepaniak recently noted, tends to be oversimplified.¹ Sociologist R. W. Connell argues that while hegemonic masculinity was defined in opposition to subordinate forms of masculinity, perceptions and constructions of hegemonic masculinity were elusive, contested and always changing.² To what degree did soldiers embrace dominant images of masculinity? As Christa Hämmerle recently observed, it is difficult to uncover the degree to which hegemonic, militarized conceptions of masculinity were accepted by the majority of soldiers who experienced the Great War.³