Germany, the First World War, and Cultural Trauma – Perspectives on a Lifeworld in Time of Catastrophe

Uses the concept of the lifeworld to explore how sociologist Eugen Rosenstock, revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, novelist Hermann Hesse, and artist Käthe Kollwitz navigated the catastrophic effects of the First World War in Germany.


What happens when the deep assumptions used for making sense of things can no longer be relied on, when faith in the world itself comes into question? At such times, we speak of catastrophe, an experience of profound disorientation that challenges the very core of identity. This book analyzes how a quartet of figures-the sociologist Eugen Rosenstock, the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, the novelist Hermann Hesse, and the artist Käthe Kollwitz-reckoned with the shattering of identity in Germany, where the First World War, defeat, and revolution touched off profound, and competing, attempts to rethink identity. It explores how these figures wrestled with the calamity confronting Germany from the perspective of the lifeworld, a concept that refers to the tacit assumptions and cognitive routines that keep us feeling secure and oriented in the world. In a series of case studies, it examines how these figures struggled with a loss of faith in the fragile presumption of continuity with the world as they had known it. The lifeworld offers a way to understand the convulsive effects of cultural trauma on the deep structure of human sense-making and an innovative way to rethink Germany's transition from the Kaiserreich to the Weimar Republic.

RICHARD SCHAEFER is Professor of History at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.