Reception of Aviation in World War I in Germany

You can fill many bibliotheks with German books about World War II, but there is nearly nothing about aviation in World War I.
One cause could be, that German historians, when they write about new history, are too focused on "Weimar" and the time after 1933.
What is Your opinion, why aviation in World War I is not quite popular in official German history writing?

P.S.: I hope not only the German visitors will discuss lively!

Balloonbuster

[AOK4]

You mean recent publications? Interest in WW1 in general is almost non-existent in Germany...

Jan

You're right. The interest in WW I in general is very low, but some recent German books are existing (for example from Wolfgang Michalka, Michael Salewski).

But I don't know any historian, who writes about aviation.

Balloonbuster

Not being a German, I can only guess, but I believe one reason may be general for all Europe, and it´s the fact that actually except for the UK you get little literature about WWI. In Spain and Italy there is very little work done about that, and when ýou find something it may be false or invalid information. In Italy they still believe that Franco Baracca shot down MvR, and you may even find historians who will try to convince you that, in spite of the fact that they both fought in fronts a thousend kilometers apart (that´s about 625 miles for those of you not using the decimal system). In Spain, being a country that managed to avoid participation in any of the two world wars, they concentrate a lot more on the Spanish Civil War, and since it was the testground for most of Hitler´s new toys, when they talk about the WW they tend to concentrate on WWII.
So I would say that most historians here in Europe tend to dismiss WWI altogether, and concentrate, when they talk about wars, in the Second World War and the wars that came afterwards.
Why the rest of the worlds admires some of the main German characters in WWI and Germans don´t really know about them, now that´s a mistery for which I have no answer, and no guess either.

[Immo_Frese]

Ballonbuster,

after loosing two World Wars Germany had to start from the beginning two times in the last century. With the help of the allied nations, the re-education after WW2 started the complete modification of ideas.

Patriotism and all military aspects are still souspicious for most german people. See the german government attitude to the Iraque-crisis and compare it with France or the UK.

Military history of WW2 only atracts some attention because of the connection to the Holocaust. WW2 veterans in Germany have no lobby.

WW1 attracted huge publicity in German during the 1920-1930 years, afterwards it was totally covered by the catastrophy of WW2.

Well, of course another fact is, that most documents of german WW1 military were destroyed by germann troops in November 1918 or by allied bombing in WW2... 1. it's hard for a historian to get new facts - 2. why writing books when nobody is interested in reading them, especially when you know that you can't make some money with your books...

: Immo

P.S. BTW, I know the books from Michalka and Salewski you mentioned, but these authors are (as all others are) focussed on the political history of WW1. Up to know I'm not aware of a german historian who is writing books like John Keegan or Martin Middlebrook...

[AGO]

Flying Circus,

I really hope not to hurt you, and if so excuse me, but I fear that
it's you who are nearly to spreading 'false or invalid informations'.

Did you ever read any of the Italian titles published in the
last, say, five years?
Take for example the two books published by the Stato Maggiore
dell'Aeronautica on the Italian WWI units and Italian WWI aces.
Or the book by Basilio di Martino on tactic reconnaissance on
the Italian front in WWI.Or the one on the Belluno (Dolomites)
front by Rech, Musizza & De Donà. Or etc.

These works may not manage to cover completely
the argument they describe (...and how could they?) or even contain
some errors but usually they are the result of serious researches,
far kilometers (or miles, if you prefer) *from such foolishnesses
as the one you've stated about Baracca and MvR.

The bare truth is that, unfortunately, also in Italy these works
are still few and interest in WWI aviation (or, better in WWI in
general) is not widespread.I don't know how many copies have
been sold to-date of the books *cited above, but I fear
selling figures are not even comparable with those of English
or American books.

Three month ago I had a talk with the owner of the only library
in Rome that sells almost only aviation books. I asked him
why did he have so many English titles on WWII aviation and
so few about WWI. He answered me he had ordered WWI books
in the past but they had remained almost all on the shelves.

Best regards,

AGO

[Volker_Nemsch]

Hello Balloonbuster!

First of all, you´re right! If you are looking for "new" books concerning WW I aviation almost all literature is written in English. In my opinion less than 1 percent of the German speaking people (including those from Austria, Switzerland, and others) are interested in early military aviation.

I have several "new" aircraft-encyclopaedia in my shelves but they mostly focus on WW II, the Jet-age and the civil aircraft. Only few of the most famous aircraft of WW I are mentioned the way they deserve.

Why is it like this? Immo mentioned the two lost World Wars and I agree to this argument. The experiences of airwar from 1943 - 45 still have their influence on our behaviour concerning military aviation. A friend of my father was a famous fighter pilot in WW II (Mr. Seifert, he received the Ritterkreuz during his service) but he never talked about it without being asked by another person. To me it seems that he is glad when people are discussing other topics. Airwar has something negative for the Germans and among the post war generations it seems that something like a suspicious behaviour or very slight pacifist tendency concerning military as a whole is commonly accepted.

OK, you´ll find those "kill them all" and "peace, no matter what happened" idiots everywhere. The thruth is between it! Finding out the own point of view concerning military conflicts takes some time in our minds. In this connection the black-white propaganda of the future combatants in the next Iraq-war makes people very suspicious here.

If you don´t like a thing you are mosty not interested in it. If something is difficult to understand from today´s point of view many people don´t even start thinking about it.

The reason for the lack of German WW I aviation books is simple:

NO interest -- NO sales -- NO publications!

Just an idea ...
:-/

[Frank_Olynyk]

AGO,
Can you send me (email or instant message, or even post it here) the address(s) of the bookstore in Rome that handles aviation books (physical address, email, web site)? I am looking for some recent books (Baracca, Scaroni), and some (long) out of print books, and would really like to find a decent Italian source.

Many thanks.

Frank.

Volker,

>NO interest -- NO sales -- NO publications!

AFC books have similar problems, they are a minority interest in an already minority interest topic ( WWI Aviation ). Australia also has a smaller domestic market than the US or Europe so AFC dead-tree publications have difficulty making money or selling their print runs.

Yet if you have a look on the web the AFC is the best represented WWI Aviation Force in terms of information. It costs me less than 100 USD to keep that site alive each year and all sorts of folks contribute to it, increasing the diversity and validity of the data.

The AFC site is also written as "Australian history in Australian words". It is taken and presented from the Australian point of view.
I think a German interested in WWI German aviation history should do the same for the German WWI Aviation services. I am looking forward to reading on the web any histories from anyone who takes up that challenge.

The same for the British, Canadian, French, American, Italian, Austrian, Turkish, Scots, Irish ,........

:)

cam

[AGO]

Frank,

the link below should take you to their site, which contains
address and telephone :

http://www.aviolibri.it/

Once in the catalogue of the library you should choose
'Storici Italiani'.

VBR
AGO