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Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany
In a book that is at once a major contribution to modern European history and a cautionary tale for today, Isabel V. Hull argues that the routines and practices of the Imperial German Army, unchecked by effective civilian institutions, increasingly sought the absolute destruction of its enemies as the only guarantee of the nation's security. So deeply embedded were the assumptions and procedures of this distinctively German military culture that the Army, in its drive to annihilate the enemy military, did not shrink from the utter destruction of civilian property and lives. Carried to its extreme, the logic of "military necessity" found real security only in extremities of destruction, in the "silence of the graveyard." Hull begins with a dramatic account, based on fresh archival work, of the German Army's slide from administrative murder to genocide in German Southwest Africa (1904–7). The author then moves back to 1870 and the war that inaugurated the Imperial era in German history, and analyzes the genesis and nature of this specifically German military culture and its operations in colonial warfare. In the First World War the routines perfected in the colonies were visited upon European populations. Hull focuses on one set of cases (Belgium and northern France) in which the transition to total destruction was checked (if barely) and on another (Armenia) in which "military necessity" caused Germany to accept its ally's genocidal policies even after these became militarily counterproductive. She then turns to the Endkampf (1918), the German General Staff's plan to achieve victory in the Great War even if the homeland were destroyed in the process―a seemingly insane campaign that completes the logic of this deeply institutionalized set of military routines and practices. Hull concludes by speculating on the role of this distinctive military culture in National Socialism's military and racial policies. Absolute Destruction has serious implications for the nature of warmaking in any modern power. At its heart is a warning about the blindness of bureaucratic routines, especially when those bureaucracies command the instruments of mass death.
400 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2004
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387 people want to read
About the author
Isabel V. Hull
5 books1 followerIsabel Virginia Hull is the John Stambaugh Professor of History and the former chair of the history department at Cornell University. She specializes in German history from 1700 to 1945, with a focus on sociopolitics, political theory, and gender/sexuality.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 19, 2018
Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany by Isabel Hull is a problematic and contradictory book. It is a good example of what happens when a historian begins with a thesis and then shoehorns data to fit that thesis.
Hull’s core argument is that the Imperial German military (between the years 1904 and 1918) practiced institutional extremism, which led to the unchecked extermination of civilian populations in Africa and Europe. The unlimited application of violence defined that extremism. This made the German military unique among the militaries of other European powers. She set out to show, “how and why the institution designed to wield controlled violence exceeded the reasonable, effective, or goal-oriented limits of its use.”
According to Hull, there were three reasons the use of violence appeared unchecked: the German military’s separation from civilian institutions, the use of violence through “quasi-automatic mechanisms,” and an institutional gravitation toward total solutions―“the establishment of perfect order and complete obedience by the enemy population” in a permanent form.
To prove her thesis, Hull examined the behavior of the German military in Southwest Africa (present day Namibia), German military culture, and the behavior of the German military during the First World War. She drew from a large number of German sources and personal letters, as well as the philosophy of Hannah Arendt.
To characterize the behavior of the German military during this period, Hull chose the 1903 Herero uprising in Southwest Africa. After the Herero tribe rose up against German colonial rule, Kaiser Wilhelm gave Lt. General Lothar von Trotha absolute authority to put down the rebellion. Free from civilian restraints, von Trotha prosecuted the war according to conventional German military tradition and demanded the complete submission of the Herero; an expectation for victory that was “unreasonably high,” according to Hull.
Lt. General von Trotha’s plan for complete victory over the Herero in one single battle failed, so he ordered a long and painful pursuit of the survivors into the desert. Prisoners of war were interned in camps where they were treated inhumanely.
Because the idea of a "knock out blow" was so entrenched in German military thinking, Hull argues, the German military was logistically unprepared for a long war, leading it to exploit the resources of occupied territories. Lack of long term planning led to improvised tactics to subdue the enemy population. The military employed violence as a short-term solution, often taking the form of prison camps for civilians that lacked basic supplies. This gap between the goal of total victory and lack of preparation was a fatal flaw in German strategy. “This gap is so great that failure seems, in retrospect, to have been preprogrammed,” she argued.
Missing from this analysis is a comparison with other colonial powers during the period. Was the German military’s treatment of the Herero any more brutal than British or French responses to colonial uprisings? How do we know the Herero uprising wouldn’t have dragged on longer if the German military had been more restrained? How did the distance between Germany and its African colony affect military logistics? The answer to any of these questions could seriously undermine Hull’s argument.
Contradictions also plague this book. For example, Hull claimed Germany entered the First World War without war aims, and then went on to dismiss the war aims given by the German government as “unattainable” and “a negative goal.” Aside from the fact that preservation of a nation, territorial ambition, or defeat of a powerful rival have long been used as legitimate war aims, you cannot claim something does not exist and then criticize it.
In another example, she undermined her notion that the German military went unchecked by civilian institutions when she described how the German General Staff’s plan for a “final struggle” (endkampf), which was never carried out, “had to be stopped by external intervention, from the cabinet, the Reichstag, and popular revolt.” If civilian institutions stopped the German General Staff’s plan for a “final struggle,” how was it operating “unchecked”?
Isabel Hull failed to provide convincing evidence that the unlimited application of violence was unique to the German military during the period. Furthermore, her characterization of the German General Staff as robotically adhering to doctrine regardless of effectiveness during the First World War disregarded the success and ingenuity of German tactics in the face of unfavorable numerical odds. For a much better analysis of German military culture and the German General Staff, I recommend Trevor N. Dupuy’s A Genius For War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945.
Hull’s core argument is that the Imperial German military (between the years 1904 and 1918) practiced institutional extremism, which led to the unchecked extermination of civilian populations in Africa and Europe. The unlimited application of violence defined that extremism. This made the German military unique among the militaries of other European powers. She set out to show, “how and why the institution designed to wield controlled violence exceeded the reasonable, effective, or goal-oriented limits of its use.”
According to Hull, there were three reasons the use of violence appeared unchecked: the German military’s separation from civilian institutions, the use of violence through “quasi-automatic mechanisms,” and an institutional gravitation toward total solutions―“the establishment of perfect order and complete obedience by the enemy population” in a permanent form.
To prove her thesis, Hull examined the behavior of the German military in Southwest Africa (present day Namibia), German military culture, and the behavior of the German military during the First World War. She drew from a large number of German sources and personal letters, as well as the philosophy of Hannah Arendt.
To characterize the behavior of the German military during this period, Hull chose the 1903 Herero uprising in Southwest Africa. After the Herero tribe rose up against German colonial rule, Kaiser Wilhelm gave Lt. General Lothar von Trotha absolute authority to put down the rebellion. Free from civilian restraints, von Trotha prosecuted the war according to conventional German military tradition and demanded the complete submission of the Herero; an expectation for victory that was “unreasonably high,” according to Hull.
Lt. General von Trotha’s plan for complete victory over the Herero in one single battle failed, so he ordered a long and painful pursuit of the survivors into the desert. Prisoners of war were interned in camps where they were treated inhumanely.
Because the idea of a "knock out blow" was so entrenched in German military thinking, Hull argues, the German military was logistically unprepared for a long war, leading it to exploit the resources of occupied territories. Lack of long term planning led to improvised tactics to subdue the enemy population. The military employed violence as a short-term solution, often taking the form of prison camps for civilians that lacked basic supplies. This gap between the goal of total victory and lack of preparation was a fatal flaw in German strategy. “This gap is so great that failure seems, in retrospect, to have been preprogrammed,” she argued.
Missing from this analysis is a comparison with other colonial powers during the period. Was the German military’s treatment of the Herero any more brutal than British or French responses to colonial uprisings? How do we know the Herero uprising wouldn’t have dragged on longer if the German military had been more restrained? How did the distance between Germany and its African colony affect military logistics? The answer to any of these questions could seriously undermine Hull’s argument.
Contradictions also plague this book. For example, Hull claimed Germany entered the First World War without war aims, and then went on to dismiss the war aims given by the German government as “unattainable” and “a negative goal.” Aside from the fact that preservation of a nation, territorial ambition, or defeat of a powerful rival have long been used as legitimate war aims, you cannot claim something does not exist and then criticize it.
In another example, she undermined her notion that the German military went unchecked by civilian institutions when she described how the German General Staff’s plan for a “final struggle” (endkampf), which was never carried out, “had to be stopped by external intervention, from the cabinet, the Reichstag, and popular revolt.” If civilian institutions stopped the German General Staff’s plan for a “final struggle,” how was it operating “unchecked”?
Isabel Hull failed to provide convincing evidence that the unlimited application of violence was unique to the German military during the period. Furthermore, her characterization of the German General Staff as robotically adhering to doctrine regardless of effectiveness during the First World War disregarded the success and ingenuity of German tactics in the face of unfavorable numerical odds. For a much better analysis of German military culture and the German General Staff, I recommend Trevor N. Dupuy’s A Genius For War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945.
January 31, 2024
Never expected to like a military history but this one was good
March 26, 2015
Isabel Hull uses Part 1 of her book on military culture in the Imperial German Army to show their military culture in practice in the colony of Southwest Africa (SWA). Hull describes the German response to the Herero Revolts from 1904-1907 as escalating towards genocide because of German military culture. In the rebellion’s early stages, the Germans failed to achieve their institutional concept of victory, defined as a total and decisive crushing of the opponent by military means, or Vernichtungssieg. Although the Herero resistance was essentially broken, the failure to achieve Vernichtungssieg meant from the German perspective that the Herero still viewed them as weak, which would encourage further rebellion. This mentality led the Germans to rapidly escalate their methods from battle to a host of increasingly violent practices: pursuit of the entire Herero population into the desert, massacres, prisoner abuse, and deliberate starvation. Hull emphasizes that these practices actually preceded the orders of SWA’s military governor to exterminate the Herero, showing how military culture “set the expectations…that suffused operations” (91).
After providing a sense of German military culture in action in Part 1, in Part 2 Hull more thoroughly identifies the origins and major traits of German military culture. Hull argues that German military culture emerged from the social and political position of the German Army. The Army had virtually no oversight from civilian authorities, no structural obligation to coordinate policy with civilian agencies like the Foreign Office, and a privileged social status as a symbol of the nation. Consequently, the Army leadership tended to focus on purely military concerns at the expense of broader political goals and reflexively respond to setbacks by simply escalating the use of violence, even to the point of inhumane and/or counterproductive policies. In addition, Hull shows how German military culture influenced doctrine. For instance, the Schlieffen Plan reflected military cultural values such as the narrow focus on military factors over a broader political context, an even narrower focus on operations and tactics, the pursuit of total annihilation of enemy forces, the view that all wars were existential conflicts, and the obsession with the offensive.
In Part 3, Hull discusses how German military culture shaped German strategy and occupation policy during World War I. She argues that military culture led the German Army to pursue strategies were needlessly wasteful and ignorant of broader political factors. For example, she notes that in the all-out offensive of March 1918 the strategic reality of German exhaustion was trumped by the military culture’s faith in the superior willpower of their soldiers, emphasis on technical solutions such as wonder weapons, and bias for the offensive. Furthermore, Hull finds that military culture pushed occupational policies towards the “instrumentalizing of the civilian population” because Germans held that civilians in occupied territory owed absolute obedience to the occupying authority, could be used for labor and resources in the name of military necessity, and could be violently suppressed at the first sign of resistance (248).
Hull’s thesis is that military culture best explains why the German Army consistently moved towards extremes in these conflicts. One crucial implication of this argument is that a military’s “doctrines, habits, and basic assumptions (the military culture)” may be enough to generate atrocities without serious ideological motivations like racism (324). The fact that Germans pursued similar scripts of violence against a racial other in Africa and white Belgians in Europe supports her claim that military culture was the essential cause of radicalization.
Hull, a senior German historian at Cornell University, successfully supports her argument. She uses an impressive set of mostly German sources, including communiqués, personal accounts, and government reports. The utility of her choice to use military culture to analyze the German army is that it allows her to look at conscious doctrines and practices and the unexamined assumptions underlying those elements. The fact that German soldiers and officers reacted to different conflicts with highly similar mentalities and practices strongly suggests a pervasive military culture. Furthermore, she bolsters her argument by comparing the German Army to the British Army. She shows that the British Army shared many of the practices and assumptions of German military culture. Nevertheless, civilian oversight of the military often prevented the British Army’s behavior from spiraling into extreme violence, as exemplified by the amelioration of Britain’s harshest policies in the Boer War. Overall, Hull gives historians an innovative way to understand military atrocities and an excellent account of the power of military culture to shape and ultimately warp the practices of warfare.
This is a profoundly interesting and messed-up book.
After providing a sense of German military culture in action in Part 1, in Part 2 Hull more thoroughly identifies the origins and major traits of German military culture. Hull argues that German military culture emerged from the social and political position of the German Army. The Army had virtually no oversight from civilian authorities, no structural obligation to coordinate policy with civilian agencies like the Foreign Office, and a privileged social status as a symbol of the nation. Consequently, the Army leadership tended to focus on purely military concerns at the expense of broader political goals and reflexively respond to setbacks by simply escalating the use of violence, even to the point of inhumane and/or counterproductive policies. In addition, Hull shows how German military culture influenced doctrine. For instance, the Schlieffen Plan reflected military cultural values such as the narrow focus on military factors over a broader political context, an even narrower focus on operations and tactics, the pursuit of total annihilation of enemy forces, the view that all wars were existential conflicts, and the obsession with the offensive.
In Part 3, Hull discusses how German military culture shaped German strategy and occupation policy during World War I. She argues that military culture led the German Army to pursue strategies were needlessly wasteful and ignorant of broader political factors. For example, she notes that in the all-out offensive of March 1918 the strategic reality of German exhaustion was trumped by the military culture’s faith in the superior willpower of their soldiers, emphasis on technical solutions such as wonder weapons, and bias for the offensive. Furthermore, Hull finds that military culture pushed occupational policies towards the “instrumentalizing of the civilian population” because Germans held that civilians in occupied territory owed absolute obedience to the occupying authority, could be used for labor and resources in the name of military necessity, and could be violently suppressed at the first sign of resistance (248).
Hull’s thesis is that military culture best explains why the German Army consistently moved towards extremes in these conflicts. One crucial implication of this argument is that a military’s “doctrines, habits, and basic assumptions (the military culture)” may be enough to generate atrocities without serious ideological motivations like racism (324). The fact that Germans pursued similar scripts of violence against a racial other in Africa and white Belgians in Europe supports her claim that military culture was the essential cause of radicalization.
Hull, a senior German historian at Cornell University, successfully supports her argument. She uses an impressive set of mostly German sources, including communiqués, personal accounts, and government reports. The utility of her choice to use military culture to analyze the German army is that it allows her to look at conscious doctrines and practices and the unexamined assumptions underlying those elements. The fact that German soldiers and officers reacted to different conflicts with highly similar mentalities and practices strongly suggests a pervasive military culture. Furthermore, she bolsters her argument by comparing the German Army to the British Army. She shows that the British Army shared many of the practices and assumptions of German military culture. Nevertheless, civilian oversight of the military often prevented the British Army’s behavior from spiraling into extreme violence, as exemplified by the amelioration of Britain’s harshest policies in the Boer War. Overall, Hull gives historians an innovative way to understand military atrocities and an excellent account of the power of military culture to shape and ultimately warp the practices of warfare.
This is a profoundly interesting and messed-up book.
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November 9, 2023Very interesting information on the question of "Why Germany?" Hull described that Military Culture is the only logic used in war and it is stronger than any ideology, such as racism, anti-semitism, and social Darwinism.
May 13, 2019
This was largely a solid history with a thesis about continuities in German military culture that led to its practices in WWI. I generally agree with her thesis, although some of her evidence is weak and I felt on some matters she wasn’t entirely up to date on (when discussing the Allies she quotes on Tim Travers who occupies one extreme of the ‘learning curve’ and Haig debates) and her comparisons to the Allies tend to be a bit weak (and mainly in the end), as even she herself states that no one had really looked at the military culture of the Allies.
Part one, about the Herero and Nama Genocide is especially important, easily the strongest part of the book.
I don’t agree that she had a thesis first and tried to fit evidence to it, as one other reviewer stated, but I do feel that her evidence wasn’t always the strongest.
Part one, about the Herero and Nama Genocide is especially important, easily the strongest part of the book.
I don’t agree that she had a thesis first and tried to fit evidence to it, as one other reviewer stated, but I do feel that her evidence wasn’t always the strongest.
December 11, 2021
A fascinating book for anyone who is interested in how culture, systems, and people interact. Isabel Hull looks at the Imperial German army from 1870 to 1918, and analyses how the processes and ingrained culture of the army and Germany itself led to the army committing atrocities without explicitly meaning to, and often when doing so was counterproductive to success.
She compares the German state and army to other countries of the time, and teases out how they were similar and how they were different by looking at a number of conflicts - colonial conflicts in Africa and China, and then the First World War. Her argument is that rather than ideology or individual actors with racist or destructive views encouraging and carrying out atrocities, atrocities were most often the result of German military culture, which was insufficiently restrained by any civilian power.
Hull brings an enormous amount of evidence to the table. Just a few examples: the governmental structure of Imperial Germany which often left civilian and military authorities acting without reference to each other; national mythology which led the army to feel that they had to be undefeatable and made sensible peace treaties harder, instead leading to the 'absolute destruction' of the book's title; a focus on aggressive action and unrealistic thinking as a way to cope with Germany's weaker position within Europe; disdain for logistics which meant that prisoners suffered greatly with lack of proper food and shelter, and led to civilians being victimized as the army tried to live off the land (and often also left German soldiers themselves suffering)... there are many many more points.
It's an academic book and there's a lot of information in footnotes, but I found it mostly clear and easy to read even without being an academic myself. Everything was interesting and relevant, and I feel I learned a lot - not just about the Imperial German Army itself, but also about human nature and how the systems we create and live within can lead to unintended consequences - sometimes horrific ones.
She compares the German state and army to other countries of the time, and teases out how they were similar and how they were different by looking at a number of conflicts - colonial conflicts in Africa and China, and then the First World War. Her argument is that rather than ideology or individual actors with racist or destructive views encouraging and carrying out atrocities, atrocities were most often the result of German military culture, which was insufficiently restrained by any civilian power.
Hull brings an enormous amount of evidence to the table. Just a few examples: the governmental structure of Imperial Germany which often left civilian and military authorities acting without reference to each other; national mythology which led the army to feel that they had to be undefeatable and made sensible peace treaties harder, instead leading to the 'absolute destruction' of the book's title; a focus on aggressive action and unrealistic thinking as a way to cope with Germany's weaker position within Europe; disdain for logistics which meant that prisoners suffered greatly with lack of proper food and shelter, and led to civilians being victimized as the army tried to live off the land (and often also left German soldiers themselves suffering)... there are many many more points.
It's an academic book and there's a lot of information in footnotes, but I found it mostly clear and easy to read even without being an academic myself. Everything was interesting and relevant, and I feel I learned a lot - not just about the Imperial German Army itself, but also about human nature and how the systems we create and live within can lead to unintended consequences - sometimes horrific ones.
April 19, 2025
Hull's Absolute Destruction is extremely disturbing, highly researched, and clearly articulated. Hull lays out her argument and sticks to it, returning again and again to the creation of violence by military culture and a default to extremes. Hull's argument is particularly compelling in that it explains both how German military culture was quite closely related to that in the rest of Europe, and yet highly distinct, protected from external influence by the German constitutional arrangement, and the "double militarism" of imperial Germany.
The problems of the Imperial German military are familiar from Imperial Japan in the second world war, and from many others: an overemphasis on tactics and operations, with those allowed to take the place of strategy, mated to a military kept siloed and allowed to act nearly independently of strategic actors. On the surface, this appears unrelated to atrocity, but, as Hull explains, the dismissal of strategy, in fact its impossibility in the Imperial German system, required annihilation of an enemy force, followed by complete submission and total order. When this would prove impossible, as it always did, the system would begin to spiral into greater and greater violence, with no authority able to check it.
I would highly recommend this book. Hull's arguments are convincing, her language clear, and the style of the book is modern. The book would prove an excellent introduction to modern military history, as well as civil-military relations.
On a side note, I particularly approve of Hull limiting her use of German military phrases. She uses Auftragstaktik in the German once or twice, and otherwise sticks with the English "mission command" or "mission tactics." While in other contexts perhaps it would be for the best (though I generally find it annoying) to use terms untranslated, the use of German military-technical phrases in specific is a pernicious bug. To constantly refer to "Auftragstaktik," is ultimately to accept the primacy of the tactical and the operational over the strategic, of annihilation over restraint, and to accept the worldview of the "Prussian military culture" that Hull so comprehensively dismantles in her book. German tactical superiority (which did occur, at times) rather noticeably did not win them any world wars. I'll leave it here, but, basically, Hull is right, stop idolizing German military culture because first of all it sucked, second of all scoreboard, and as part of this, stop incessantly using only German military terms in transliteration. Rather prominently, the greatest German military thinker had his greatest insight in placing the political, the strategic, first, a lesson that Prussia and its successor states were only too willing to ignore.
The problems of the Imperial German military are familiar from Imperial Japan in the second world war, and from many others: an overemphasis on tactics and operations, with those allowed to take the place of strategy, mated to a military kept siloed and allowed to act nearly independently of strategic actors. On the surface, this appears unrelated to atrocity, but, as Hull explains, the dismissal of strategy, in fact its impossibility in the Imperial German system, required annihilation of an enemy force, followed by complete submission and total order. When this would prove impossible, as it always did, the system would begin to spiral into greater and greater violence, with no authority able to check it.
I would highly recommend this book. Hull's arguments are convincing, her language clear, and the style of the book is modern. The book would prove an excellent introduction to modern military history, as well as civil-military relations.
On a side note, I particularly approve of Hull limiting her use of German military phrases. She uses Auftragstaktik in the German once or twice, and otherwise sticks with the English "mission command" or "mission tactics." While in other contexts perhaps it would be for the best (though I generally find it annoying) to use terms untranslated, the use of German military-technical phrases in specific is a pernicious bug. To constantly refer to "Auftragstaktik," is ultimately to accept the primacy of the tactical and the operational over the strategic, of annihilation over restraint, and to accept the worldview of the "Prussian military culture" that Hull so comprehensively dismantles in her book. German tactical superiority (which did occur, at times) rather noticeably did not win them any world wars. I'll leave it here, but, basically, Hull is right, stop idolizing German military culture because first of all it sucked, second of all scoreboard, and as part of this, stop incessantly using only German military terms in transliteration. Rather prominently, the greatest German military thinker had his greatest insight in placing the political, the strategic, first, a lesson that Prussia and its successor states were only too willing to ignore.
June 4, 2025
This is a very thorough account of German military culture from 1900 until 1918. it studies the German campaigns in SW Africa and in WW1 in detail.
the author makes some very good points. Germany had a unique military culture because its constitution made the military answerable only to the Kaiser and so it was shielded from popular criticism.
Perhaps the best chapter compares and contrasts the British in South Africa with the Germans in SWA. Both armies began with an attempt at total war and destroying the enemy and both used similar tactics but in the end the British army was reigned in as it was answerable to the British cabinet which in turn had to answer to parliament. So parliamentary enquiries took place etc and policy was changed.
I also liked the author's view that the German military was uniquely invested in the daring strategy and the win at all costs approach, which was summed up by the Schlieffen plan. I can't help but think that there were 2 lessons from the Schlieffen plan - don't try to fight a war on 2 fronts and if you really have to, try to stop the British from joining the French. but this summed up the German problem. the Schlieffen plan was a military response to a diplomatic problem when Germany needed a diplomatic response.
I think a small chapter on German military history would have been useful. Germany became a military state as it was unified by Prussia. Prussia existed in North East Germany where it had no natural borders. As such it was constantly faced by hostile powers who could easily invade it's territory and in the 30 years' war and Napoleonic wars actually did. this made Prussia almost an army with a state in the 18th century as it had to fight for it survival and by 1800 it had successfully carved out a viable state in modern day eastern Germany and Western Poland. But this meant that Prussia had a uniquely military culture as it owned its very existence to its army in a way few other countries did. this carried forward into the Kaiserreich as it was the Prussian army which unified Germany in the wars of 1864-71.
my only slight criticism is that the author tended to refer to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as "England", when I think better names would be "Britain", "Great Britain" or even the more modern "UK." England sounds anachronistic unless you are quoting a contemporary source.
the author makes some very good points. Germany had a unique military culture because its constitution made the military answerable only to the Kaiser and so it was shielded from popular criticism.
Perhaps the best chapter compares and contrasts the British in South Africa with the Germans in SWA. Both armies began with an attempt at total war and destroying the enemy and both used similar tactics but in the end the British army was reigned in as it was answerable to the British cabinet which in turn had to answer to parliament. So parliamentary enquiries took place etc and policy was changed.
I also liked the author's view that the German military was uniquely invested in the daring strategy and the win at all costs approach, which was summed up by the Schlieffen plan. I can't help but think that there were 2 lessons from the Schlieffen plan - don't try to fight a war on 2 fronts and if you really have to, try to stop the British from joining the French. but this summed up the German problem. the Schlieffen plan was a military response to a diplomatic problem when Germany needed a diplomatic response.
I think a small chapter on German military history would have been useful. Germany became a military state as it was unified by Prussia. Prussia existed in North East Germany where it had no natural borders. As such it was constantly faced by hostile powers who could easily invade it's territory and in the 30 years' war and Napoleonic wars actually did. this made Prussia almost an army with a state in the 18th century as it had to fight for it survival and by 1800 it had successfully carved out a viable state in modern day eastern Germany and Western Poland. But this meant that Prussia had a uniquely military culture as it owned its very existence to its army in a way few other countries did. this carried forward into the Kaiserreich as it was the Prussian army which unified Germany in the wars of 1864-71.
my only slight criticism is that the author tended to refer to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as "England", when I think better names would be "Britain", "Great Britain" or even the more modern "UK." England sounds anachronistic unless you are quoting a contemporary source.
March 29, 2025
In 1904, learning that German colonial administrators were considering, even for appearance sake, negotiations with indigenous groups in now-Namibia, the Berlin newspaper Tägliche Rundschau expressed liberal common sense:
"Humanity belongs in the right place—for the moment, however, the national honor and the future of the colony require punishment and suppression of the rebels via force of weapons and the superiority of the white man, but not via peace negotiations, which would recognize the mutineers as legitimate combatants."
In this important book, Hull clearly explains the spiral of militarized white supremacy mobilized to defend colonial territory seized with dreams of riches from farming and mining. Shockingly, inhabitants of land seized by colonizers fought back, often brutally -- attacks which colonial masters reacted to with increasing ferocity and devastation. Blessed by God, of course, and guided by a historial mandate to bring civilization to a land infested by sub-human others, German officials attacked, surrounded, and destroyed people who accidently lived where Germans wanted to settle. When not rounded up into brutal concentration camps, villagers were chased into the desert and then "sealed off" and left to die. "The entire Herero people must be exterminated," as German General von Trotha uncouthly said.
Hull's is a military history, analyzing the "slide from pursuit to outright annihilation." A cautionary tale, pressing in today's climate. Racism, religious superiority, ugly masculinity -- all are mobilized to serve military needs. Hull shows the *development* of genocide, which in this case as others, does not begin with a full plan, but unfolds over time in the context of resistance. Germans saw themselves as victims of native violence, adding further justification.
Hull avoids, for the most part, explaining why Germans were there in the first place. Though mining for diamonds fueled colonialism in now-Namibia, Hull makes no mention. Hull's story begins when the colonial project has been fully implemented; readers will need to look elsewhere to discover how and why that happened.
Nevertheless, a sobering and insightful book, relevant today more than ever.
"Humanity belongs in the right place—for the moment, however, the national honor and the future of the colony require punishment and suppression of the rebels via force of weapons and the superiority of the white man, but not via peace negotiations, which would recognize the mutineers as legitimate combatants."
In this important book, Hull clearly explains the spiral of militarized white supremacy mobilized to defend colonial territory seized with dreams of riches from farming and mining. Shockingly, inhabitants of land seized by colonizers fought back, often brutally -- attacks which colonial masters reacted to with increasing ferocity and devastation. Blessed by God, of course, and guided by a historial mandate to bring civilization to a land infested by sub-human others, German officials attacked, surrounded, and destroyed people who accidently lived where Germans wanted to settle. When not rounded up into brutal concentration camps, villagers were chased into the desert and then "sealed off" and left to die. "The entire Herero people must be exterminated," as German General von Trotha uncouthly said.
Hull's is a military history, analyzing the "slide from pursuit to outright annihilation." A cautionary tale, pressing in today's climate. Racism, religious superiority, ugly masculinity -- all are mobilized to serve military needs. Hull shows the *development* of genocide, which in this case as others, does not begin with a full plan, but unfolds over time in the context of resistance. Germans saw themselves as victims of native violence, adding further justification.
Hull avoids, for the most part, explaining why Germans were there in the first place. Though mining for diamonds fueled colonialism in now-Namibia, Hull makes no mention. Hull's story begins when the colonial project has been fully implemented; readers will need to look elsewhere to discover how and why that happened.
Nevertheless, a sobering and insightful book, relevant today more than ever.
March 13, 2024
Apparently, the Imperial German military culture really was uniquely brutal. Hull explores how, from colonial wars through World War I, they were uniquely consumed by the idea of decisive military victory from destroying the enemy's military through the application of force. When this didn't happen (whether in a colonial rebellion in Southwest Africa or on the Western Front) they merely tried applying more force.
What's more, all other fields were subordinated to the military. Hull contrasts British parliamentary investigations into the military with the German Reichstag's reticence.
This helps remind me that individual countries - even inside "the West" - can be so culturally unique due to factors in their individual history. I could say similar things about the idea of the Austrian state (one of the factors that was developed in that recent book), but this stretches beyond that.
What's more, all other fields were subordinated to the military. Hull contrasts British parliamentary investigations into the military with the German Reichstag's reticence.
This helps remind me that individual countries - even inside "the West" - can be so culturally unique due to factors in their individual history. I could say similar things about the idea of the Austrian state (one of the factors that was developed in that recent book), but this stretches beyond that.
October 3, 2023
This book was definitely a good read to learn more about the military culture of Imperial Germany during WWI. It held so mush information that was extremely interesting and if you are interested in Germany during WWI I would recommend this book.
March 13, 2023
The driest thing I’ve ever read
November 24, 2024
4 stars
November 19, 2012
Absolute Destruction is the most compelling work I have read about military practice, which typically bores me to tears. Hull unexpectedly relies on some anthropological/sociological concepts to support her work, which I found fascinating. Her writing style kept me involved; she is the only historian I have seen utilize lists throughout their work for brevity and clarity. Hull is extremely concise, yet her thesis is well supported. Her writing style should be looked to as a historical standard, IMO.
April 6, 2008
She gives a nice framework and a new angle to explain what people vaguely stereotype about German soldiers. It is interesting because her argument (especially the implicit stickiness of "German" military culture) is politically sensitive. I do not buy her clear distinction of 'culture' from ideologies. Overall the argument is theory-driven, and I see how (sociological) theories could be helpful in forming a new historical narrative.
May 11, 2010
A little dry - but one of those wonderful books that show that what everyone says, but can't be true, is true - in this case, that the Imperial German army was unusually bloodthirsty and cruel, even by white male standards, and that the colonial wars in SW Africa predicted the Hun and the Nazi, and their toleration by bien-pensant German civilian opinion.
Want to read
August 28, 2019A look at the German army and how it's experiences in South Western Africa and the primacy of military reasoning resulted in brutal behaviour by German forces in WWI and disregard for the needs of the civilian population at home.
September 8, 2008
A very interesting take on Germany before and during the First World War. Highly Recommended.
October 14, 2011
More to follow...
May 21, 2013
Too dull. It took an interesting topic and dissected it so much that it became too stretched out
May 19, 2015
Appreciably forceful, but ultimately reductionist, argument.
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