Dbq Civil Peace Analysis

Civil Peace: The “Who” and “What” of the 20th Century

Peace is the universal goal with non universal means of achieving it. During the 20th century in Germany, civil peace was to be achieved by briefly burying pre war conflicts in order to unite against the enemy. Civil peace was a controversial concept because civilians would either resolve small conflicts before moving onto a larger conflict or set aside current conflicts to end World War I. During World War I, Germans struggled to fight a two-front war against Russia and France. By 1918, Germany was devastated and surrendered to the Allies. The concept of civil peace was strong and virtually unbreakable when it first spread during 1914. Many politicians and civilians advocated
Many Germans believed that civil peace was the most effective method of uniting Germany with nationalism in order to win World War I. For example, German Emperor Wilhelm II expresses his gratitude of civil peace at his royal palace in Berlin by saying“I see no more political parties, only Germans...All that matters now is that we Germans stand together like brothers,”(Doc 1). Emperor Wilhelm II emphasizes the importance of German unity to combat the Allies, which means that he supports civil peace; after all, civil peace requires unity in order to defend Germany. Though the concept of civil peace, Emperor Wilhelm II believes that foreign conflicts are far more crucial to the safety of his Germans than domestic issues. However, Emperor Wilhelm II is only semi-credible because he may be insensitive and only view the German soldiers or farmers as pawns on a chessboard rather than valuable human life; this is because he is the person who gives orders, but is not the person who receives the orders. To the German emperor, peace was the most essential element in the
For instance, a German soldier reports to the Daily Observer in 1915 that he was enraged because of high prices and food shortages in Germany. The German soldier expresses his strong displeasure over high class citizens who take the soldiers’ inhuman sacrifices for granted and mistreated the women and children(Doc 7). The German soldier is very reliable because he first hand experiences total war, especially because he loses his morality in killing opposing soldiers. Fighting for a country with national pride is one thing, but knowing that civilians who are not “doing the dirty work” and exploiting a community at home is very frustrating, especially for a soldier. Also, German soldiers were unable to return home to protect or check up on their families in the middle of war efforts; this act is a defiance of orders if the soldier neglects to notify his supervisor or is classified as desertion, which is punishable by death. Due to this dissatisfaction with conditions in German cities, many soldiers do not want to fight if it benefits a civilian who is “dead weight.” Also, another example of a German who observes the effects of total war is Evelyn Blucher von Wahlstatt, who records in her diary that several women protest, “The state that called on us to fight cannot even give us decent food, does not treat our men as human beings,”(Doc 8).