#### PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF EMOTIONS

# Feeling Political

# Emotions and Institutions since 1789

Ute Frevert · Kerstin Maria Pahl *et al.*

### Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions

Series Editors David Lemmings School of Humanities University of Adelaide Adelaide, Australia

William M. Reddy Department of History 226 Carr Bldg Duke University Durham, NC, USA

> Erin Sullivan University of Birmingham Birmingham, UK

Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions includes work that redefnes past defnitions of emotions; re-conceptualizes theories of emotional 'development' through history; undertakes research into the genesis and effects of mass emotions; and employs a variety of humanities disciplines and methodologies. In this way it produces a new interdisciplinary history of the emotions in Europe between 1100 and 2000.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14584

Ute Frevert • Kerstin Maria Pahl Francesco Buscemi • Philipp Nielsen Agnes Arndt • Michael Amico Karsten Lichau • Hannah Malone Julia Wambach • Juliane Brauer Caroline Moine

# Feeling Political

Emotions and Institutions since 1789

Ute Frevert Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Francesco Buscemi University of Groningen Groningen, Netherlands

Agnes Arndt Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Karsten Lichau Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Julia Wambach Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Caroline Moine Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Université Paris-Saclay, Paris, France

Kerstin Maria Pahl Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Philipp Nielsen Sarah Lawrence College Bronxville, USA

Michael Amico Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Hannah Malone University of Groningen Groningen, Netherlands

Juliane Brauer University of Wuppertal Wuppertal, Germany

Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions ISBN 978-3-030-89857-1 ISBN 978-3-030-89858-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2022. This book is an open access publication.

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### Preface

According to political lore, matters that occur twice are a recurrence, those that occur three times a tradition. If we take this as a yardstick, then we can confdently say that collaborative research projects by the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin have by now become custom and practice. *Feeling Political* is the fourth instalment in a series of co-authored monographs produced here: *Emotional Lexicons* appeared in 2011 (in German and in 2014 in English), followed by *Learning How to Feel* in 2014 (both Oxford University Press) and *Encounters with Emotions* in 2019 (Berghahn).

Preserving the best strategies from these previous undertakings, we pooled the interdisciplinary expertise of the Center's international team of researchers but went further in terms of topicality. *Feeling Political* is both a historical study and a contemporary commentary. It broaches a theme salient to the twenty-frst century: how emotions impact politics. By rigorously reconstructing the genealogy of contemporary phenomena, it looks not only at the public and political realm and their institutions but also, crucially, at the emotions and emotional templates at stake within them.

*Feeling Political* is more than just an edited volume. The writing process involved quarterly group meetings beginning at the end of 2019, inbetween meetings of sub-groups, the circulation of memos, the joint reading of secondary literature, and, most importantly, constant revisions and rewriting. This intense group work enabled mutual constructive criticism of an unusual depth, which helped to sharpen both the individual and the overarching arguments.

All authors were deeply committed to the project, but they would have stood no chance without the support of a dedicated, forward-thinking, quick, and resilient back offce. We express our gratitude to Kate Davison, Daniela Petrosino, Karola Rockmann, and Kerstin Singer, as well as our student assistants, among them Carlos Cruz Sanchez, Ruby Guyot, Lena Herenz, Philine Höhn, Pia Kleine, Kian Riedel, and Marlen Schulze for proofreading, formatting, securing the image rights, indexing, and many other indispensable tasks, small and large. Emily Russell of Palgrave took good care of us throughout the entire process. We acknowledge the fnancial support of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, which allowed us to make the book available to a broad readership via open access.

Berlin, Germany Ute Frevert Berlin, Germany Kerstin Maria Pahl Groningen, Netherlands Francesco Buscemi Bronxville, USA Philipp Nielsen Berlin, Germany Agnes Arndt Berlin, Germany Michael Amico Berlin, Germany Karsten Lichau Groningen, Netherlands Hannah Malone Berlin, Germany Julia Wambach Wuppertal, Germany Juliane Brauer Berlin, Germany / Paris, France Caroline Moine

Paris, France

### Acknowledgements

We acknowledge fnancial support by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

### Contents



### Notes on Contributors

**Michael Amico** is Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He holds a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. He has written about how to assess the importance of Abraham Lincoln's intimate relationships with men and the melodramatic politics of same-sex marriage. His methods are informed by poetic and dramatic structures and techniques. More generally he is interested in how emotion congeals around sexual identity and behaviour and challenges the stability of social hierarchies. He is the author, with Michael Bronski and Ann Pellegrini, of *'You Can Tell Just by Looking': And 20 Other Myths about LGTB Life and People* (2013) and a fnalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Nonfction.

**Agnes Arndt** is Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. She was a Gerald D. Feldman Fellow at the German Historical Institutes in London, Paris, and Warsaw and has published two award-winning monographs on the political transformation of East Central Europe: *Rote Bürger: Eine Milieu- und Beziehungsgeschichte linker Dissidenz in Polen* (2013) and *Intellektuelle in der Opposition: Diskurse zur Zivilgesellschaft in der Volksrepublik Polen* (2007). She is currently working on a third monograph on the relationship between emotions and capitalism in Germany from the 1840s to the present.

**Juliane Brauer** is Professor of History and History Didactics at the University of Wuppertal. She studied modern history and musicology at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and the University of Bielefeld. She specializes in modern German history, history of emotions, music, and the relationship between emotion and torture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her publications include *Zeitgefühle: Wie die DDR ihre Zukunft besang* (2020) 'Music, Body and Emotion Between Well-being, Manipulation and Torture in the Twentieth Century' in the *Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Well-being: Historical and Scientifc Perspectives* (2019), '"Stille Nacht" Time and Again: Christmas Songs and Christmas Feelings' in *The Public Work of Christmas: Difference & Belonging in Multicultural Societies* (2019), and 'How Can Music Be Torturous? Music in Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camps' in *Music and Politics* 10, no. 1 (2016).

**Francesco Buscemi** is Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Government and Politics in Modern Times at the University of Groningen. He holds a PhD in History from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. He was a Visiting Associate Fellow and Ermenegildo Zegna Founder's Scholar in the Department of History of the University of Warwick. His research interests span a broad range of eighteenth-century topics focusing on the cultural aspects of the French Revolution in Europe and the religious culture of the Counter-revolution. His forthcoming book deals with the history of modern political loyalty and oath-taking in France and Italy between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, he worked on a monograph on the birth of a new canon of public speaking and the emotional engagement of the audience. His publications include 'The Importance of Being Revolutionary: Oath-taking and the "Feeling Rules" of Violence (1789–1794)' in *French History* 33, no. 2 (2019).

**Ute Frevert** is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where she founded the Research Center for the History of Emotions in 2008. She was Professor of German History at Yale University from 2003 to 2007, having previously taught history at the universities of Konstanz and Bielefeld and the Freie Universität in Berlin. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Tampere, Finland, and is an elected member of the governing bodies of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, as well as a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Among her best-known works are *The Politics of Humiliation: A Modern History* (2020), *Emotions in History—Lost and*  *Found* (2011), *A Nation in Barracks: Modern Germany, Military Conscription and Civil Society* (2004), *Men of Honour: A Social and Cultural History of the Duel* (1995), and *Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation* (1989). Her latest book is on *The Power of Emotions in Twentieth-Century Germany* (forthcoming 2022).

**Karsten Lichau** is Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. He has worked at the Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, and, as a Fellow, at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. His research interests include the historical anthropology of the body and the senses, with special focuses on the social and cultural history of the face, on sound history, and on the history of emotions. In his current book project, a history of the Minute's Silence in Great Britain, France, and Germany, he examines how silence, emotions, and the transformation of religious gestures in secular contexts interact in staging politics. Selected literature: 'Soundproof Silences? Towards a Sound History of Silence' in *International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity* 7, no. 1 (2019), 'Secularizing Silent Bodies: Emotional Practices in the Minute's Silence' in *Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions: European Confgurations*, ed. Monique Scheer, Nadia Fadil, and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen (2019).

**Hannah Malone** is Assistant Professor in Contemporary History at the University of Groningen. She is also the co-founder of a research network dedicated to the transnational and comparative study of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. She is currently writing a book on the use of grief as a political instrument in Fascist Italy. After completing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge, she worked as a Rome Fellow at the British School at Rome, as a Research Fellow and Lecturer at Magdalene College Cambridge, as a Humboldt Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, and most recently as a Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Her publications include *Architecture, Death and Nationhood: Monumental Cemeteries of Nineteenth-Century Italy* (2017) and a prize-winning article entitled 'The Republican Legacy of Italy's Fascist Ossuaries of the First World War' in *Modern Italy* 24, no. 2 (2019).

**Caroline Moine** is Assistant Professor for Modern History and member of the Centre d'histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines at the Université Paris-Saclay (UVSQ). She is Associate Researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin and Post-doctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. A specialist in the cultural history of the Cold War, her current research investigates international solidarity mobilizations in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Among her most recent publications are *Screened Encounters: The Leipzig Documentary Film Festival, 1955–1990* (2018), *Internationale Solidarität: Globales Engagement in der Bundesrepublik und der DDR* (edited with Frank Bösch and Stefanie Senger, 2018), and *Solidarité! Mobilisations politiques internationales* (edited with Alexandre Dupont, special issue of *Temps des Médias* 33, 2019).

**Philipp Nielsen** is Assistant Professor for Modern European History at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, and Associate Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. He received is PhD from Yale University in 2012. His publications include *Between Heimat and Hatred: Jews and the Right in Germany, 1871–1935* (2019), *Architecture, Democracy and Emotions: The Politics of Feeling after 1945* (edited with Till Großmann, 2019), and *Encounters with Emotions: Negotiating Cultural Differences since Early Modernity* (edited with Benno Gammerl and Magrit Pernau, 2019).

**Kerstin Maria Pahl** is Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and an Associate Research Fellow at the Université de Québec à Montréal's history department. She holds a BA in China Studies and an MA in Art History from Freie Universität Berlin as well as a joint PhD in Art and Visual History from Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and King's College London. She is currently fnishing her frst book manuscript on *Life Writing and the Portrait in England, c. 1680 to 1750* and working on a study of indifference, insensibility, and unfeelingness in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. Her publications include *Enlightened Citizens: Navigating Values, Rules, and Spaces in Eighteenth-Century Europe* (co-edited with Julien Puget, forthcoming 2022), 'Autographing the Self: Self-Portayal through Lettering in Eighteenth-Century England' in *Journal18*, no. 8 (2019), and 'An Intersectional Likeness: Godfrey Kneller's Portrait of Michael Alphonsus Shen Fuzong ("The Chinese Convert", 1687)' in *Revue Histoire de l'Art* 82, no. 1 (2018).

**Julia Wambach** is Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and an Associate Researcher at Centre Marc Bloch Berlin. She holds a PhD in Late Modern European History from University of California, Berkeley, and an MA from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She is currently working on a social and emotional history of deindustrialization in Germany and France through the lens of football. She is also fnishing a book manuscript based on her dissertation titled 'Learning from Defeat: The French Occupation of Germany after Two World Wars'. Her publications include 'Vichy in Baden-Baden—The Personnel of the French Occupation in Germany after 1945' in *Contemporary European History* 28, no. 3 (2019).

### List of Figures




### Introducing Political Feelings: Participatory Politics, Institutions, and Emotional Templates

*Ute Frevert and Kerstin Maria Pahl*

Politics in the early twenty-frst century, we are told, is buzzing with emotions. Around the globe, journalists and political scientists say they are observing a growing tendency by politicians to appeal to people's emotions and by citizens to act emotionally. Emotions, they contend, have invaded political campaign rhetoric, thanks to the rise of populist parties with their antagonistic and polarizing agendas and the ubiquity of social media.1

This book seeks to set the record straight. As historians, we argue that modern politics has always had a close affnity with emotions and embraced adversarial confrontation. Ever since politics ceased being the monopoly of an absolutist or semi-absolutist ruler with an entourage of ministers and councillors, the state has been confronted by increasing numbers of citizens who, having developed a growing awareness of themselves as political beings, have started 'feeling political'.2 In actively caring about the way they are governed, they have claimed the right to a say as well as the right to be heard. They have formed opinions about public matters and voiced and negotiated them in various forums and arenas of political communication. In the modern age of mass participation, 'feeling political' has

<sup>1</sup>On the growing literature on populism, see Mudde, *Populist*; Mofftt, *Populism*; Müller, *Populism*; Manow, *Populismus*; Rosanvallon, *Populisme*. See also Davies, 'How Feelings'; Wigura and Kuisz, 'Power of Human Emotion'.

<sup>2</sup>Rosanvallon, *Democracy*; Rosanvallon, *Society of Equals*, ch. 1.

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2022 1

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History

of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_1

become a shared experience, not only enabled but templated by and within a variety of institutions.

Written in close collaboration by a team of eleven historians, this book makes three interventions into the history and theory of modern politics. First, we highlight the different ways in which politics became or was imagined as participatory in Western Europe and North America since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century by paying attention to national and historical specifcities. Second, we focus on the role of institutions in organizing, enabling, motivating, channelling, or enforcing political participation in diverse formats and with different meanings. Third, we introduce the concept of emotional templating to analyse how institutions at various points in time have invited and incited their members to 'feel political'.

#### Politics and Emotion: A Special Affair

In political theory as much as in ideal notions of political practice, emotions have often occupied a diffcult position. Ideally, as many have claimed, politics should work without emotion or at least keep emotions at bay. At the same time, few have doubted the importance of emotional ties between rulers and ruled. Political authority, as Max Weber stated in the early twentieth century, can be based on multiple sources of legitimation: on tradition, faith in the law, and personal charisma.3 Charismatic leaders have come the closest to constructing strong emotional bonds with their followers in an obvious way. Yet, citizens who believe in the power of tradition or the rule of law and due process have likewise brought emotions into the political feld. The act of believing and keeping faith, of trusting and building confdence, has not solely relied on rational calculation but has involved emotions that have, in turn, been kindled by politicians and other activists. Weber knew by experience that activists are themselves led by a passionate commitment to certain goals, values, and interests. Even though politics is done 'with the head, not with other parts of the body, nor the soul', dedication to politics can 'only be born of and sustained by passion'.4

<sup>3</sup>Weber, *Theory*, part III; for a sketch of nineteenth-century emotional politics in Europe, see Frevert, 'In Public'.

<sup>4</sup>Weber, 'Politics', 181. See also Bruhns, 'Contribution'.

Weber's observations notwithstanding, political scientists have tended to neglect the intense and varied entanglement of politics and emotions. Recent decades, however, have seen a veritable surge of interest in this feld. So far, studies have mostly focused on contemporary times, which, to many researchers, appear to be extraordinarily emotional(ized). Using a range of approaches from political philosophy to empirical investigation, they have often subscribed to a brand of affect theory that reduces emotions to affective reactions to political stimuli.5 As historians, we favour a longer view on political institutions and mobilization, in order to distinguish between general trends and the specifcs of the current political moment. We offer a systematic, yet nuanced analysis of emotions as a historical phenomenon in modern politics.

'Modern' means the time period beginning around 1800, after the American Constitution had come into force and the impact of the French Revolution was being felt in many parts of Europe and beyond. Although participatory politics, taking off in 1789, has not been a straightforward development, it has, broadly speaking, contributed to the shape of current European democracies: it helped to demolish the political architecture of the Old Regime; it transformed or established institutions, such as constitutions, parliaments, courts of justice, administrative and executive bodies, political parties, and associations, that have proved astonishingly longlasting, effective, and sustainable. An ever-widening public sphere granted citizens the right to assemble and freely discuss public matters, allowing for new institutional settings like political rallies, parades, and demonstrations.6 Against this background, even the leaders of totalitarian regimes, such as Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, or, partly, the GDR, could not ignore the public. While they did not invite democratic participatory politics, they invested heavily in the politics of—forced—participation.

<sup>5</sup> See esp. Redlawsk, *Feeling Politics*; Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta, *Passionate Politics*; Hoggett and Thompson, *Politics*; Demertzis, *Emotions*; Staiger, Cvetkovich, and Reynolds, *Political Emotion*; Engelken-Jorge, Güell, and Rio, *Politics*. On political philosophy, see Sokolon, *Political Emotions*; Kingston and Ferry, *Passions*; Nussbaum, *Political Emotions*; Nussbaum, *Anger*.

6Habermas, *Transformation*; Negt and Kluge, *Public Sphere*; Calhoun, 'Civil Society'.

#### Institutions and Emotional Templates

Participation mostly took place in and through institutions, whether explicitly political or appropriated for a political cause. Such institutions carried emotional messages of many and varied kinds. They provided guidelines for their members on how to feel and navigate emotions and taught them which to express and which to eschew, at what intensity and through which kinds of behaviour. They offered suggestions for when and where certain emotions, but not others, should be addressed and performed. Institutions thus enabled, invited, incentivized, channelled, controlled, or prohibited emotional practices—that is, they developed templates for emotions.

This kind of emotion work, rarely addressed in the vast literature on the theory and practice of institutions, deserves more attention.7 Not surprisingly, social scientists have long since discovered institutions to be a crucial element of social life, especially when the defnition of what constitutes an institution goes beyond offcial organizational frameworks.8 An institution can be any body with a formal infrastructure (such as a parliament or an administration) or a system of relatively informal rules, incentives, and constraints (such as religion or the family) or both. This wider defnition of institutions captures not only the settings, but also the dynamics of political emotions: institutions are the sites where emotions play out, while also affecting their governing principles and enactments. Conceiving of 'institutions' both as a social pattern and as a methodological approach to emotions in politics allows us to unpick such misleading binaries as individual/social, private/public, unique/common, or subjective/collective, all of which fail to address the generative and performative complexity of emotions.

With this in mind, we follow the defnition suggested by James March and Johan Olsen: an institution is a 'relatively stable collection of rules and practices, embedded in structures of *resources* … and structures of *meaning*'. Organizational, fnancial, and personal resources enable political

7As an exception, see Hochschild, *Managed Heart*, 48–54, on 'institutional emotion management'. Recent years have seen a revived interest in institutions and emotions in sociological institutional theory and institutional economics which increasingly incorporates fndings from psychology and the science of perception. See, for instance, Zietsma and Toubiana, 'Valuable'; Markey-Towler, 'Rules'.

<sup>8</sup> Scott, *Institutions*.

action, while common purposes, beliefs, and feelings of belonging 'explain and justify behavior'. Institutions can thus be conceived of as

organizational arrangements that link roles/identities, accounts of situations, resources, and prescriptive rules and practices. They create actors and meeting places and organize the relations and interactions among actors. They guide behavior and stabilize expectations. Specifc institutional settings also provide vocabularies that frame thought and understandings and defne what are legitimate arguments and standards of justifcation and criticism.

Furthermore, institutions 'allocate resources and empower and constrain actors differently and make them more or less capable of acting according to prescribed rules. They affect whose justice and what rationality has primacy.'9

However, institutions are not just about 'justice' and 'rationality'. Apart from providing cognitive frames and maps of meaning, they offer emotional modes that are shared among their members and aligned with organizational goals. They create, in March and Olsen's words, a 'logic of appropriateness'. This includes the appropriateness of emotions: which emotions are deemed adequate and in what way should they be navigated and expressed? That institutions and their logics are often recognizable, even though not necessarily imitable, by outsiders makes them particularly effective as tools of political and social formation. The impact of emotions on political actions, as well as the emotions themselves, is shaped by institutional settings, structures of opportunity, and the particular languages spoken within institutions. 'Language' comes in multiple forms, including verbal utterances, bodily gestures and mimicry, or a tone of voice that could range from a whisper to a yell. Language in this broader sense contains cognitive content and expresses, channels, and modulates emotions. It elicits and communicates them, tunes their intensity, silences them, and can, perhaps, even make them disappear.

The power of embodied language to mould and shape emotions has frequently been the subject of commentary. The expression of emotions, Charles Darwin stated in 1872, 'intensifes' their feeling, while the repression 'of all outward signs softens our emotions'. Similar observations were

<sup>9</sup>March and Olsen, 'Appropriateness', emphasis in original; March and Olsen, *Rediscovering Institutions*; Powell and DiMaggio, *New Institutionalism*.

made by a great number of contemporary and future physicians and psychologists.10 Building on their work and drawing on J. L. Austin's speech act theory, historian William Reddy has introduced the term 'emotive', which denotes the 'performative utterance' of emotion, in order to capture the feedback loops and intermingling between emotional words or phrases, the emotions to which they refer, and the situational context they are trying to make sense of.11

Here, institutions are crucial. As broader systems of rules, incentives, and constraints, institutions defne and develop 'languages of emotion' (Darwin) they consider appropriate for the purposes they pursue and effect. Different purposes call for different languages. Religious institutions have different emotion words and gestures to those of the family or sports clubs. So too have economics and politics. Precisely because of their distinct emotional registers, institutions can borrow from one another, in order to solemnize the mundane, for instance, or functionalize the experiential. Even if emotives consist of the same sequence of letters, they carry different meanings depending on their institutional context and the institution's time and place. 'Trust me' is an emotional appeal that can be heard in more than one context: in intimate love relationships, between parents and children, between the seller and potential buyer of a used car, or between politicians and voters. In these various settings, the quality and qualifcations of trust change. Trust can become thicker or thinner, have stronger or weaker consequences, or be given freely or hesitantly. It also involves and results in a variety of social practices, which in turn impact the emotional investment involved and shape any associated behaviour, whether present or future. Trusting a lover not to cheat on you involves different, arguably more immediately felt, demands than trusting your baker not to sell you old bread, or your political representative not to make unwanted decisions.

People learn through experience to distinguish between references to and objects and feelings of trust. Membership in institutions with distinct guidelines for emotions provides such experience. By joining an institution, whether by act of personal consent or through structural habituation, people acquire knowledge about those precepts and become accustomed to acting accordingly. This is what we mean by 'templating': institutions convey ideas and draw up maps and hierarchies about right or

<sup>10</sup>Darwin, *Expression*, 359–60; Maudsley, *Mind*, 387–88; Wundt, 'Gemüthsbewegungen'.

<sup>11</sup>Reddy*, Navigation*, 96–111.

wrong, but also about appropriate or unacceptable feelings and related practices. Written and unwritten rules, sometimes just emerging, sometimes established over centuries, help their members adapt to institutional expectations about emotions, pursue the institution's goal, and enact its purpose. At the same time, members contribute to defning and moulding those rules. The templating process does not work exclusively from the top down or from the inside towards the outside in ever wider circles. People can also act collectively, rather than individually, towards developing new templates of thought and feeling and bringing them to life. Newcomers or unforeseen events can catalyse an institution's re-orientation in spite of a reigning template.

Why use the concept of the template? It is a commonplace in the history of emotions that emotions are 'shaped', 'scripted', 'framed', 'formed', or 'modelled' by a complex, and indivisible, interaction between biological dispositions, individual variation, and cultural context. Ranging from 'emotionology' to 'emotional regimes' and 'feeling rules', scholars and social scientists have generated numerous terminologies to apprehend the norms and standards of emotional expression and management in given times and places.12 While those theories are valuable in accounting for an overarching system of norms—and acknowledging a system's often substantial incongruence with lived experience—they do not offer a conceptual and methodological tool for assessing the interplay between rules and how they play out in specifc contexts. They also, implicitly, disconnect the rules from the ruled and set up binaries between social structure and individual experience, limiting potential behaviour to a simplifed model of compliance and resistance (and their respective variations). By contrast, pairing emotion with 'template' creates a tool for assessing the formation of emotions as a dynamic process within ever-changing institutional settings.

A template is a set of organizing signs geared towards a particular purpose or goal. An emotional template comes into being when an institution or institutional programme is aligned with emotions. To template emotions does not simply mean to form or shape them: templates communicate between the larger structure, that is, the institution, and individuals by offering them a loosely outlined, yet reliable mode of feeling. Templates intersect with, but are not identical with, the 'emotion script'. Although

<sup>12</sup> Stearns and Stearns, 'Emotionology'; Reddy, *Navigation*, 55, on 'emotional regimes'; Hochschild, *Managed Heart*, 56–75, on 'feeling rules'.

defnitions of 'script' differ, depending on whether the term is used in affect theory, emotion history, or psychological emotion research, it is, broadly speaking, understood as 'emotion knowledge structures': 'people acquire socially-shared, culturally-specifc knowledge about emotions, including details of what typically causes them, what they feel like, how people feeling them are likely to behave, and what their likely outcomes are.'13 Although templates are about emotion knowledge too, they differ from scripts in that they do not share the latter's sequential organization: scripts, maybe because of their conceptual link to narratives with their succession of incidents, are mostly understood as sequences or episodes, as 'a list of component events linked in a temporal and causal order'.14 In brief: scripts are patterns for acts. Templates, in contrast, do not imply a consecutive sequence of scenes—although this is of course possible—since they are not limited to behaviour, but can include symbols, tropes, and images.15 As they are no action, they are neither a habitus nor a practice nor a style.16 Rather, as they consolidate narratives, values, strategies, and practices, they are best understood to not only provide a pattern for emotion, but also epitomize an institution's emotion policy. As such, templates transcend the dichotomy between adherence and opposition to rules, because they necessarily encompass both at the same time. As every institutional template is enacted by an individual, each enactment is unique. Yet, if one abstracts from the individual, a pattern of enactment becomes discernible. A template offers a map, but there is more than one path to

13Fitness, 'Anger', 148.

14Widen, 'Children's Concepts', 314. See also Fehr and Russell 'Concept', 482 (emphasis in original): 'to know the meaning of the word fear is to know some such sequence. It is to know a *script* … in which events unfold in a certain order.' For the sequence of the script in affect theory, see Tomkins, 'Script Theory', 320 (emphasis in original): 'the scene, a happening with a perceived beginning and end, is the basic unit of analysis. The whole connected set of scenes lived in sequence is called the *plot* of a life. The script, in contrast, does not deal with all the scenes or the plot of a life, but rather with the individual's rules for predicting, interpreting, responding to, and controlling a magnifed set of scenes.' See also Lucas, 'Glossary'.

15Although Barbara Rosenwein likewise rejects the script, she emphasizes the sequentiality associated by it. Rosenwein herself opts für 'emotional sequences' to refer to the fact that 'emotional episodes often consist in a variety of emotions and emotional gestures, one after the other': 'Sequences … tell us how emotions are felt differently according to the company they keep. If I feel angry and then guilty, that is a very different *feeling* of anger than if I feel angry and the euphoric. The sequence reveals how an emotion is valued' (Rosenwein, *Generations*, 8, emphasis in original).

<sup>16</sup> Scheer, 'Are Emotions'; Gammerl, 'Emotional Style'.

emotional expression. Each individual action towards the institution's programme helps solidify the template.

Templates contextualize and complement emotives. Just as emotives can alter and regenerate an individual's emotional mode, templates convey the emotional mode that an institution expects and invites from its members, in an ongoing process. This is not to say that institutions, or templates for that matter, have agency as disembodied actors. Institutions are made up of people; templates are constructed by people for people. In giving a sense of coherence, however, institutional structures help people orient these templates towards a specifc cause. As templates develop over time, they are malleable without being arbitrary. Institutional structures limit the potentially innumerable ways in which emotions can be felt and expressed, so that they can be understood and followed.

#### Emotion Work and 'Moments of Emergence'

This book draws on a concept of emotions that emphasizes social embeddedness over psychobiological factuality and the primacy of subjectivity. In contrast to many strands of affect theory, emotions are neither conceived of as nonintentional, noncognitive, and noncultural, nor are they considered as wholly cognitive, strategic, and instrumental.17 Instead, they feature as bodily experiences that are, however, refected upon and communicated to others through a variety of appropriate or inappropriate practices. Both the experimental basis and communicative functions of emotions depend, here, on social and cultural prerequisites and framings that encompass—to varying degrees—notions of the human body as well as judgements on the desirability or tabooing of individual sensibility and collective passion.

There can be little doubt that emotions do not belong exclusively to the realm of subjective experience. This by no means denies the fact that emotions occur in, and are constructed and expressed by, real people. Only a living being, with a responsive body and mind, can feel (this includes both human and non-human animals). But even though feelings are expressed individually, they follow a logic that is shared by more than one person. Emotions are genuinely social. They have to be readable, understandable, digestible—both by the individual who feels them and by others in her or his social environment. If emotions are, as Darwin noted,

<sup>17</sup>Leys, *Affect*; Frevert, 'Affect Theory'.

essential 'means of communication', they must follow certain grammatical and syntactical patterns and be able to translate into distinct performative practices. None of these communicative elements—grammar, syntax, practice—is innate, universal, or timeless. Instead, they are learnt, negotiated, and passed on in human interactions that vary across time, space, and social formation.

Since it began to fourish as a new feld in the 2000s, the history of emotions has built an impressive catalogue of theoretical and methodological approaches to emotions, feelings, and related phenomena such as affects, passions, moods, atmospheres, and the like.18 These contributions break with the idea of emotions as feeting, volatile, merely superfcial epiphenomena. Instead, they emphasize the materiality, historicity, and transformative power of emotions and the rationality or strategic wisdom they possess. They often support the theory of 'constructed emotions' introduced by neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Barrett's approach is based on the idea that emotions are both biologically evident and socially constructed. Typically, they begin with 'a momentary array of sensations from the world (light, sound, smell, touch, and taste) combined with sensations from the body'. These sensations only count as an experience or perception of emotion 'when categorized as such during a situated conceptualization'. Through this process of categorization, 'sensations acquire functions that are not intrinsic to them; this occurs by adding information from past experience'. Language plays a crucial role since it both represents and forms the categories and concepts that transform content-weak sensations into content-rich emotions.19 Thus, while we are aware that emotion terms and statements do not capture the entire richness of emotions, we also do not discount them as 'just the lexicalized residue of what happens when the data of life are processed in a particular way'.20 They are, as our enquiries into textual sources show, a way to describe, engender, and enact emotions.

In contrast to affective neuroscience and affect studies more broadly, which mostly concentrate on physical and mental levels of transformation, historians and other social scientists are better equipped to investigate the social processes of constructing emotions and the role emotions play in

<sup>18</sup>For historically constituted differences between these phenomena, see Frevert et al., *Emotional Lexicons*, as well as Dixon, *Passions to Emotions*.

<sup>19</sup>Barrett, 'Emotions Are Real', 420; Barrett, *How Emotions Are Made*.

<sup>20</sup>Kaster, *Emotion*, 8.

social formations. We bring these threads together by focusing on institutions, which, given the fundamental role they play in impacting emotions, deserve much greater attention from emotion researchers.21 As noted above, institutions provide both meaning and essential resources to their members. This includes contextual information, but also ways of categorizing the emotions that members learn and adopt through templates. In other words, institutions form emotional templates and incentivize their members to absorb or habituate to them and act accordingly.

But how, exactly, do they do it? As historians, we are used to combining how-questions with whens, wheres, and, possibly, whys. We keep a close eye on circumstances and conditions, on enabling and constraining factors. We analyse the work done by emotions—as sayings and doings—in social encounters and modes of communication and the tasks they fulfl. We also look at the effects of such emotion work on the institution concerned, and beyond it.

In order to get a full and dynamic picture of emotional templating within institutions, our chapters focus on what we call 'moments of emergence'. In such moments, when institutions come into being, or undergo signifcant changes, the very structures and processes through which institutional logics are being formed, contested, and negotiated are revealed. A template is something that is not yet completely instilled and converted into undisputed practices or language. Templates therefore lend themselves to close and detailed scrutiny. In the realm of politics, we can detect and identify templating whenever we come across conversations and controversies concerning the appropriate amount of emotional investment and expression. During the nineteenth century, for instance, women increasingly demanded a say in political matters. Their claims were usually rejected because their alleged emotionality was not suited to the sober and rational, and therefore manly, profession of politics. Yet even men, as Philipp Nielsen's chapter shows, brought such strong emotions to the political arena that institutions such as parliaments or election rallies made every effort to formalize and channel their passionate fervour.

Conversely, Francesco Buscemi's analysis of French bureaucracies illustrates how revolutionary times have placed particular emotional demands on, especially male, civil servants that defy the modern picture of disinterested and impersonal administrators. Citizens have expected their offcials to possess certain emotional qualifcations and thus bridge the political

<sup>21</sup> See, for instance, Levin, *Time to Build*.

gap between the state and the people. In 1876, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche remarked on the 'social expressions of a friendly disposition, those smiles of the eyes, those handclasps' that offcials had added to their repertoire of professional duties. Even small doses of 'benevolence' and 'politeness of the heart' now played a prominent role 'in the construction of culture'.22 A century later, those emotional templates were emphasized even more when societies began to conceive of civil servants less as servants of the state (*Staatsdiener* in German or *serviteurs de l'État* in French) and more as servants of citizens and civil society, or even of humanity, as Agnes Arndt argues, by way of the International Criminal Court.

#### Political Institutions and Change

Emotional templating as it is done by and within institutions thus alters its characteristics in response to new social challenges, new political ideas and ideologies, or new institutional functions. The political sphere has been particularly prone to such challenges due to the enormous quantitative and qualitative expansion it has undergone during the modern age. Liberal-democratic politics is understood as a space of communication, where citizens negotiate how to live together. Since the nineteenth century, many European and North American societies have shown a marked tendency to let more and more people intervene in politics (by, for instance, expanding suffrage to women, non-property holding men, religious minorities, and black people and allowing them to join political parties and associations). But the twentieth century has also witnessed reverse developments with the space of political communication narrowing and being tightly controlled by the ruling party. As Ute Frevert's investigation of street politics demonstrates, citizens' interventions were by no means confned to executive and legislative institutions.23 They also targeted parties, trade unions, civic associations, and NGOs—Juliane Brauer's study of political youth organizations and Caroline Moine's overview of international solidarity movements will explore these in more detail. Politics might have even, as Julia Wambach's foray into the intricacies of the German Bundesliga carves out, reached so far as football clubs, which have at times become politicized and served political ends.

<sup>22</sup>Nietzsche, *Human*, 38.

<sup>23</sup>Frevert, 'Neue Politikgeschichte'.

Modern political communication, as practised in multiple forums since the nineteenth century, necessarily evolved with a high amount of discord and confict. As former subjects morphed into citizens with a right to actively participate in political debates and decision-making, politics became ever more controversial and antagonistic, sometimes to the point of reversing those hard-won rights. Even though not all citizens were keen on spending their free time in political assemblies or at election rallies, many were politically engaged, either individually or as members of a political club, association, or party. With the introduction of universal male suffrage, a political 'mass market' came into being.24 Newspapers proliferated and diversifed, providing both factual information and judgements on political matters. They published opinion pieces, but they also summed up parliamentary proceedings or printed and quoted from stenographic reports. Many papers were owned and run by parties that used them to impress, infuence, and mobilize members and voters.

Mobilization was especially crucial during election campaigns and involved a great number of strategies and media formats. These campaigns—a term borrowed from the military—were usually fought with no holds barred. The German expression of *Wahlkampf*, election battle, is especially militaristic, neatly capturing the intensity of struggle and fghting that could—and can—be observed before polling days. The notion of struggle, *Kampf*, also pertained to other political disputes. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's 1870s policy to curtail the power of the Catholic Church in Prussia and Germany was labelled by the liberal MP Rudolf Virchow as a *Kulturkampf*, or culture war. Socialists in the nineteenth century began to speak of class struggle when they addressed the need for workers to resist capitalist repression and the state supporting it. Struggle has a propensity of pitting adversaries against one another, verbally and, at times, physically as well. This is what Carl Schmitt, a conservative constitutional theorist, had in mind when in 1932 he coined the famous defnition of politics as 'the intensity of an association or dissociation of human beings whose motives can be religious, national (in the ethnic or cultural sense), economic, or of another kind and can effect at different times different coalitions and separations'.25

24Rosenberg, *Große Depression*, 18. See Retallack, 'Authoritarian State', esp. 88–92.

<sup>25</sup> Schmitt, *Concept*, 38. In 1933, Schmitt became an ardent supporter of the new National Socialist state that granted him infuential positions and favours. His theoretical writings have inspired political thinkers of diverse political leanings and in many countries.

When Schmitt spoke of intensity, he was referring to a state of emotional arousal engendered by politics as a highly confictual and potentially antagonistic feld.26 Confict, in turn, points to the dynamics that institutions harbouring political intensity must deal and put up with. Change, strife, and malleability are some of their central features. At the same time and partly because they are not identical with the system in which they exist, political institutions have shown an astonishing degree of structural stability and continuity. Parliaments, presidencies, assemblies, parties, clubs, associations, courts, rallies, and demonstrations all emerged during the turbulent period following the French Revolution, and they are still with us, sometimes even in the same architectural and organizational shape they acquired centuries ago. But due to new claims made by new participants and the ensuing contestations of these claims, emotional practices within political institutions have changed, sometimes visibly, sometimes subcutaneously. Old and new media—from prints and paintings of the eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century photography to radio in the 1920s, television in the 1950s, and web-based digital media since the 1990s—have radically altered the structure of political communication and developed their own styles and formats of emotional messaging, with considerable impact on how people have constructed, shared, and performed emotions in politics. Portraits of US presidents, analysed by Kerstin Maria Pahl, changed the medium, yet retained something of their purpose to both provide exemplary attitudes for incumbents and present a relatable leader for the public to identify with. By contrast, as Michael Amico argues, the development of radio communication gave Franklin D. Roosevelt the opportunity to create a feeling community unprecedented in its reach and intimacy.

At times, these alterations were connected to radical changes of the political system over the course of the nineteenth and especially twentieth centuries. France, for instance, saw eight different political regimes between 1792 and the First World War, spanning the frst republic, which ended in 1804, Napoleon's imperial rule, two monarchies, the second republic in 1848, and its transformation of the republican president into Emperor Napoleon III. The third republic, proclaimed in 1871, adopted a new constitution, but also new political emotions of revenge (against Germany) and hatred on the domestic front. The highly emotionalized policies of separating church and state that resurfaced in the institutional

<sup>26</sup>Negt and Kluge, *Maßverhältnisse*, 89–100.

struggles over commemoration ceremonies are explored by Karsten Lichau in his contribution on French Armistice Day. Germany's twentieth century counted six political regimes, from the semi-autocratic Empire that lasted until 1918 to the Weimar Republic, followed by National Socialist dictatorship. After 1949, two Germanies lived side by side: a liberaldemocratic Federal Republic and a socialist republic whose democratic plumage obscured the dictatorial rule of its singular party. Interestingly, reunifcation in 1990 left political institutions as they had developed in the West largely intact. But it also saw the emergence of new parties on both left and right that successfully sought to template negative emotions of resentment, alienation, and rejection among their respective followers.

In surveying this succession of political regimes and institutional formations, there is a temptation to draw strict lines of separation between liberal democracies on the one hand and authoritarian dictatorships on the other. Yet even dictatorships have relied upon and made use of citizens' participation as a new feature of politics in the modern age. The German National Socialist and Italian Fascist regimes—the latter features in Hannah Malone's investigation of the political use of cemeteries—as well as the Soviet Union and other so-called People's Democracies of Central and Eastern Europe prided themselves not only on representing will and sovereignty of their people, but on giving them a voice and getting them involved in politics. They established mass organizations and either incentivized or forced women, men, children, and adolescents to join them. They staged inclusionary political festivities with strong emotional appeals to unity and cooperation, and created symbols and rituals that were designed to speak to people's hearts and enlist them for the common cause. Although some ceremonies were retained from earlier times, this was done from the top-down and with clear, potentially even lethal defnitions of who should be excluded or was undeserving of compassion and solidarity. Still, even the US under Roosevelt, which many today would consider the epitome of democratic, liberal anti-fascism deployed common instruments of political persuasion, such as modern media, and harboured factions who were impressed by the way Adolf Hitler had captivated the German population.

Twentieth-century dictatorships thus bought into the appeal of participatory politics as it had been invented and won by 'progressive' forces during the nineteenth century. They did so, however, not in order to grant citizens a real say in politics and enable them to present their own ideas about how they wanted to live, love, work, and play. Instead, they aimed at streamlining consent and enforcing affective ties between top and bottom. Feeling political took on radically different meanings and built on other institutional resources. Trusting and publicly worshipping the leader (and ruling party) through celebratory mass events replaced the bottomup protests and demonstrations that were common in liberal democracies and forbidden in fascist and state socialist countries. While competing parties often were outlawed and confict was ruled out, authoritarian regimes employed elaborate policies of emotional agitation and manipulation. Although system change was suspended, they spread the illusion of people always on the move, never standing still. They had them marching in columns, waving hands and fags, and cheering and singing collectively, all at frequent intervals. Emotional templating thus continued, albeit its latitude of expression and manifestation of purpose were constantly adjusted and fne-tuned to instigate particular kinds of involvement.

Emotional templates are part and parcel of modern politics, be they democratic or authoritarian. They become the means by which institutions continue to affect people, even as those institutions adapt their programme to changing circumstances. This makes emotional templates key mechanisms of historical change, both driving and incorporating transformation. As templates encompass both emotions themselves and their enactment, they continue to evolve and are subject to further change while also retaining links to earlier ideas and forms of enactment. Templates offer individuals the opportunity to express an institution's programme for themselves and feel connected to it. Conversely, they can be used to force people into acquiescence and to erase alternative responses.

It is the ambiguity of templates that makes our historical endeavour timely. Rather than limiting our analysis of emotions in politics to the domain of populist politicians and parties, we look at the political arena's inherent challenges when it comes to emotions: the drift towards polarization and the concurrent loss of more nuanced emotional styles, as well as a disappearing capacity to contain emotional struggle within certain limits.27 Schmitt's defnition of politics as a state of 'intensity' expresses this in a nutshell: the distinction between friend and enemy, between allies who can be co-opted and opponents who must be fought, is at the heart of 'association and dissociation'.28 It is through templates that struggles over the best way forward for a good life become forcefully expressed.

27Prinz, 'Polarization'.

<sup>28</sup> Schmitt, *Concept*, 27.

#### Organization of the Book

Feeling political as a manifestation of institutional templating has taken on distinctive features and meanings depending on ideological resources, shared purposes and visions, and 'logics of appropriateness'. It has not been limited to single emotions such as fear, rage, empathy, or trust, but evolved as a historically variable mixture of tradition, experience, and circumstance. It concerns modes of feeling about how people want to live and work together, defne the common good, and take or accept binding decisions on its behalf. By investigating different moments of emergence and subsequent change within political institutions in a variety of systems and cultures, this book suggests a new approach to explore the relationship between modern politics and emotions. Feeling political, we argue, does not come about as something individual and singular, nor does it simply follow the dominant norms of entire societies. Rather, it depends on collectively mobilized and shared attitudes, inclinations, and sensibilities, which are learnt, acquired, and negotiated in institutions. Emotion is thus a pivotal factor in institutional processes, political change, and social transformation.

Eleven case studies explore how the institutional templating of emotions has worked historically, focusing on decisive moments of emergence from European and US history from the end of the eighteenth century to today.

The book's selective geographical settings make it possible to foreground how emotional templating both refected and contributed to the increasingly participatory character of nineteenth- and twentieth-century politics. This was due to the continuity of concepts throughout this period: while politics, institutions, emotion, and participation played out differently across Europe, the historical interdependence of countries now known as the Western world permits a comparative and integrative analysis. Each case study clarifes how emotions became crucial to people's political involvement and their propagation and/or transformation of institutional work.

Combining in-depth analyses of individual cases with a foray into the methods of the history of emotions, the book's chapters focus on some of the most prominent political institutions as they have developed during the modern age. They cover parliaments and bureaucracies as well as open-air rallies and demonstrations, courts of justice, and clubs and associations. They pay attention to how political feelings are templated through visual and auditory media. They zoom in on meticulously arranged sites and spaces designed to elicit particular feelings in those who visited them.

Our account is guided by a focus on institutions. We begin with case studies that explore the establishment of institutions, in order to analyse how feeling rules are set up and learnt. Francesco Buscemi looks at French bureaucracy since its establishment in 1789, given that public administration is a major element of modern political institutions. Contrary to current opinion—and perhaps counter-intuitively—it is heavily imbued with emotions. In post-revolutionary France, civil servants were encouraged to develop particular kinds of feelings in order to be considered good republicans and loyal servants to the sovereign state. While the absolute monarchy and Napoleon built the political framework of what is now the French Fifth Republic, the real life of state institutions was moulded by the changing emotions of the public servants who worked in and for them, and the visible tensions between their emotional templates and practices. Synchronized civic oaths and certifcates attest that all state employees were expected to share the same political faith during the French Revolution. The design and goals of two different National Schools of Administration, one founded in 1848 and one in 1945, show how different regimes nurtured the political emotions that were considered a requirement for bureaucratic service.

This is followed by Philipp Nielsen's investigation of how emotions have been navigated within German parliamentary buildings. With the rise of participatory politics in the nineteenth century, parliaments were established and buildings constructed or appropriated across Europe and the US. The history of such buildings, among them the Reichstag in Berlin, shows that emotions were not only felt within their walls, but built into their architectural spaces. Parliamentarians created their own rules of behaviour, all of which had a spatial dimension: how to sit, where to sit, when to speak, when not to speak, and how to deal with those not following these rules, for instance, by expelling them from the chambers or assembly halls. In their relationality to the bodies of parliamentarians, these spaces and rules refected assumptions about emotions, democratic or otherwise.

Scaling up to the International Criminal Court (ICC), Agnes Arndt contributes a study on the emotionality and emotion work leading up to its founding. Like bureaucracy, international criminal jurisprudence is designed to be strictly neutral, apolitical, and unemotional. At the same time, it faces a challenge in reconciling globally differing feelings about what constitutes justice and how it should be administered. Drawing on the role played by Benjamin Ferencz, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, in establishing the ICC, this chapter examines how emotions were present from the outset in the discussions about the court's jurisdiction: the institutionalization of the ICC was a reaction to individually and collectively articulated emotions.

The next two chapters investigate how institutions communicate with a wider public. The rise of new technologies, such as the newspaper, radio, television, and the internet, expanded the audience of political speech beyond the walls of parliament and the physical proximity of the speaker. Continuing the thread of institutional founding from the frst three chapters, but shifting attention to the media as decisive in political communication, Kerstin Maria Pahl's chapter on portrayals of American presidents explores both the set-up of a new template—the 'statesman-like' style and discusses how institutions connect with and shape the populace. Through careful emotion management, curated portrayals of politicians address the population, direct political opinion, promote certain types of leaders, convey moral values, and bolster narratives. Analysing the painted portraits of three American presidents, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Barack Obama, the chapter shows how these images not only depict emotional styles as a sort of code of conduct for the incumbent, but also spur emotions by fostering either support or, conversely, disaffection. Presidential portraits project notions of belonging by making their subjects both relatable and exceptional.

Michael Amico's study of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fireside Chats (1933–1944) complements the longue durée approach of the previous chapter by zooming in on the case of a president directly addressing the people, seeking to foreground their active participation. Roosevelt's broadcasts, a series of thirty-one radio speeches heard by a majority of Americans between 1933 and 1945, transformed institutional tasks and obligations into a highly exciting conversation. In a world of competing political rhetoric and much division, and in the middle of the Great Depression, these radio chats put the power of change in every American's hands by making them feel a new sense of confdence and trust in the federal government. Even those who were not directly helped by Roosevelt's 'New Deal' legislation wrote to him to say how his words and images had converted their anxiety, grievance, and fury into courage and hope. They promised to do all they could to help him and the country, a commitment that served to boost morale and further unite the country during the Second World War. The particular style and means of Roosevelt's emotional templates were informed by his personality as a politician, his philosophy of democracy, and the medium of radio itself.

Broadening the outlook, the next chapters depart from a singleinstitution focus to show how institutions also compete for the emotions of citizens. Together, they offer a comparison between how different political systems—democratic or fascist—templated emotions. After 1918, many European countries grappled with the establishment of a ceremony to commemorate fallen soldiers. Karsten Lichau illustrates how, in France, the emotional set-up of these ceremonies articulated the disputes between different institutions such as the state, the church, and veterans' organizations. While most ex-soldiers' groups favoured an event centring a posture of humble mourning and devotion, and although the Catholic Church sided with the veterans' 'funereal physiognomy', the state was opposed to this, preferring a more traditional approach of 'glorifcation and triumph'. Over the course of several years, the confict gave rise to new emotional templates that in turn transformed and restructured the emotional framework of those institutions.

Roughly two decades later, Mussolini's Fascist regime politicized the remembrance of the First World War by linking a narrative of heroism to specifc notions of grief. Hannah Malone's study reveals that, given the scale of Italy's losses in the war, commemoration of the fallen was a highly emotional issue and thus gave the regime a powerful means of political communication. As the Fascist authorities sought to exploit feelings towards the dead for the purpose of mobilizing the living Italian population, emotions came to defne the political agenda. In seeking a high degree of emotional control, the Italian dictatorship elaborated on strategies of manipulation that were later imitated by other authoritarian powers, including Hitler's Germany and Franco's Spain. Ossuaries from the time provide evidence of the political intentions of the Fascist regime and the emotional responses that visitors were meant to feel. Architecture and its surrounding discourse thus acted as carriers of emotional messages with political intent.

The book then moves away from clearly delineated 'institutions' and turns toward more diversifed and non-traditional institutions and institutional forms. The exploration of shared mourning in the previous chapters continues, surprisingly, with a study of sport. The German football club FC Schalke 04 derives its current image and emotional templates from the mourning practices marking the end of coal mining in the region. Throughout the twentieth century, Schalke repeatedly became involved in participatory politics, despite its allegedly apolitical nature as a leisure club. Governments, political parties, and local magistrates sought to use Schalke fans' emotional relationship with the club for their own ends. Because of its capacity to unite people in times of crisis, the club itself developed into a signifcant political player in its home city of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, during the crises of deindustrialization in the mid-1990s.

Staying within the culture of clubs and associations, the next chapter explores yet another seemingly non-political institution, which, through its capacity to create a community, was used for spreading political feelings and messages. Communal singing was one of the main practices in youth organizations of the twentieth century. Singing specifc songs, especially from the labour movement, made it possible for young people to learn political emotions and attitudes. Singing in a community could convey desired values, attitudes, and emotions and, ideally, harmonize them. The song *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* (When we stride side by side, 1913) was the most important song of the social democratic youth movement in the 1920s, subsequently adapted and modifed by the Hitler Youth during the National Socialist era and later sung by youth organizations in both Germanies. Its history shows how the repeated, communal singing of certain songs, even in very different contexts, could establish political emotions such as hope for a better future.

The last two chapters connect with the togetherness inherent in clubs and associations. But they also circle back to the beginning of the book to show how new forms that challenge traditional institutions eventually become new institutions in their own right. The long history of international solidarity movements throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries bears witness, as Caroline Moine demonstrates, to the role emotions played in political mobilizations that transcended national borders. Emotions fostered a sense of common belonging in the name of so-called universal brotherhood, solidarity of peoples, or human rights. Investigating exemplary political mobilizations in Europe, such as the Philhellenism of the 1820s, the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and against the Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s helps to illustrate the strengths but also the limits of feelings of international solidarity. These movements, which shaped and were shaped by individual and collective emotions such as compassion, fear, and anger, but also enthusiasm and hope, developed a complex relationship with patriotism and universalism, as well as with the state and other political institutions.

Moving back to the national level, but further elaborating on social movements, the book concludes with Ute Frevert's chapter on street politics in Germany. Before the establishment of elected parliaments, there were social movements in which citizens united to make public demands for political representation. The practice of democracy in such associations was synonymous with practising political feelings—democracy involved a high level of emotional excitement and dynamism. The decades preceding the 1848 revolution, the post-revolutionary 1920s and early 1930s (including National Socialist mobilization), and the social movements of the 1970s and 1980s illustrate how emotions served as mobilizing forces and were necessary for sustaining personal involvement and political activism. Yet these examples also shed light on the problematic side of political emotions, which could sometimes block or polarize political debate and obstruct collective action. The more action in the public sphere was defned by passion, the more exclusionary politics could become: this was the argument mounted by early liberalism against women's political participation. This fnal chapter should be read in lieu of a general conclusion. Rather than risking dilution of our complex fndings, we close with a study that neatly exemplifes the overall aims, claims, and concepts of the book.

#### Bibliography


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# Feeling Political in Public Administration: French Bureaucracy between Militancy and *Sens de l'État*, 1789–2019

*Francesco Buscemi*

Paris, 25 April 2019: French President Emmanuel Macron was about to deliver an important speech. His country was in turmoil. A rise in the tax on diesel and petrol in November 2018 had provoked a backlash among many voters, especially those coming from lower-income and rural households. The protests soon escalated, epitomizing age-old issues of trust between state élite and normal citizens. Right-wing politicians like Marine Le Pen and populists of various stripes sought to capitalize on the outrage of the *gilets jaunes*, or yellow vests, as the protest movement came to be called. The President's speech was crafted as a response to the people giving voice to a general sense of decline in citizen effcacy.1 In the months leading up to the April speech, the French state had collected lists of grievances from around the country and hosted town hall events to hear the

1Taylor, Nanz, and Taylor, *Reconstructing Democracy*, 4.

I would like to thank Vanda Nazzari di Calabiana Wilcox for scanning journals for me at the BNF and Amanda Maffei for taking high-resolution pictures at the Archives Nationales. Both made it possible to write such a chapter in times when travelling to Paris was not an option.

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2022 27

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_2

opinions of citizens who felt unable to impact the political agenda, despite suffering its economic and social consequences. How could Macron effectively respond to these feelings?

Among other things, he announced a great transformation of the French state, underlining that such a radical endeavour had to come with a 'reform of our high civil service'.2 Macron's target was the ENA, the National School of Administration (*École Nationale d'Administration*), the primary higher education training ground for French state elites since 1945 from which he himself graduated in 2004. Was this, as the chief political columnist of the conservative newspaper *Le Figaro* conjectured, a 'scalp offered to the *gilets jaunes*'?3 Most observers thought so. Macron acknowledged that it was unfair that a lifelong career in the civil service could be guaranteed simply by attending the ENA or another of the French higher education institutions known as *grandes écoles*: it had to be opened up to individuals coming from the private sector and the NGOs. Was this the response the French people expected? Would protesters motivated by the decline in forces of production, cuts in the number of well-paid jobs, and fscal concerns be placated by what may have sounded like another step towards the privatization of the public sector? Why did one of the oldest democracies in the world choose this path to face the highly emotional political fatigue of its citizens? What does this tell us about the French concept of bureaucracy and its relationship to both state and citizenry?

This chapter will illustrate that in order to be considered functional, this relationship required specifc emotional performances. It was the French Revolution that paved the way for such an understanding of public engagement by civil servants. Building on the sense of community and participation inherent in the concept of nation, revolutionary institutions laid claim to the hearts of their employees.4 Whereas *Ancien Régime* monarchies demanded superfcial obedience from courtiers and the personnel of an administrative bureau, according to the revolutionary élites of 1789, the 'regeneration' of the political system started in the offices of the public sector.5 This is how bureaucracy became one of the main agencies regulating the relationship between individual and the state.

Such a political undertaking did fnd its critics, though, both during and after the Revolution. The attention given to the role of public

<sup>2</sup>Macron, 'Conférence de presse'.

<sup>3</sup>Tabard, 'ENA'.

<sup>4</sup>On the model of militancy, see Buscemi, 'Importance of Being Revolutionary'.

<sup>5</sup>Ozouf, *Homme régénéré*.

administration over the course of the nineteenth century attests to the existence in modern France of two colliding conceptions of the relationship between political power and bureaucracy, embodied in the notion of the civil servant. On the one hand, there is the traditional understanding of civil servant as a real *servant*, subject to the chain of command and loyal only to direct superiors; on the other, there is the notion of the civil servant as *fonctionnaire*, a citizen who embodies the values of the Republic and whose work is offered up to the altar of public good. The French Revolution tried to impose the latter model on all citizens in state employ. This included even the king, who was seen merely as the frst public servant (*premier fonctionnaire public*). As this chapter will show, the contention over the core principles that were to found the *res publica* was also defned by the various emotions that civil servants have been expected to feel over the course of French modern history.

Were feelings the key to acquiring the status of civil servant?6 Which feelings in particular? What practices embodied the emotions employees had to feel in order to declare themselves good servants of the state? How were they trained to feel as they were supposed to feel? Is what French people call 'sense of the state' (*sens de l'Ètat*) an emotional state? In tackling these questions, three historical moments have been chosen for closer examination: frst, the politicization of the apparatus of the state during the years 1789–1799; second, the failed attempt to re-orientate this system after the revolution of 1848; and third, the foundation of the ENA in 1945 and its pursuit of balancing managerial effciency with emotional templating for the civil servant. In each of these moments, the regime in question faced several obstacles in engineering the emotions of their bureaucrats. In all cases, civil servants had to negotiate a balance between their emotional templating, their own needs, and the historical context.

#### Bureaucratizing Militancy: The French Revolutionary Nation and the Oaths of the *Fonctionnaires Civiques* (1789–1799)

How could a system based on fattery work for the public good? It was through attributing an excess of dissimulation to the *Ancien Régime* that the French revolutionaries in 1789 built a model of loyalty for civil

<sup>6</sup>For similar perspectives being opened in the larger feld of administrative history, see the articles in Collin, Garot, and de Groot 'Bureaucracy and Emotions'.

servants based on transparency. The emotions of the *fonctionnaires* did not need to be hidden. On the contrary, they were supposed to be the motor driving their actions, the very reason they held such a position in the frst place.

This new model of 'serving' the country owed a lot to late eighteenthcentury sentimentalism. A certain understanding of natural sincerity as 'emotional excess' was nurtured in the socially prescribed roles men and women were expected to thrust themselves into.7 The oaths that all citizens holding a public offce or receiving a salary from the state had to take responded to the same logic. Even before the Revolution, public offcers had to swear their loyalty, yet the way their oaths were formulated was entirely different. In most cases, people were only asked to assure that they would obey laws and respect regulations, passively. Swearing loyalty simply meant to formally declare allegiance to the crown. Actual feelings were not at stake. In the rare cases where a check on morality was deemed necessary, the candidate for a certain position could ask his parish priest for a letter testifying 'his Catholicity, his probity, his good life and his mores'.8

That would not be enough for the French revolutionaries. Their plan to regenerate the state by mobilizing the nation entailed an emotional connection between democratic institutions and the sovereign people. Making all civil servants swear a specifcally formulated oath was one of the ways to build that bond. When taking an oath, people frst give a defnition of themselves: they declare that they are the people described in the formula. This section will show how the practice of oath-taking emotionally templated the ethos of the ideal servant of the public as the French revolutionaries saw it.

Oath-taking enabled the standardization of a new ethos for civil servants. The more radical the revolutionaries became, the more frequent the decrees extending oath-taking were. By the end of Autumn 1790 all sectors of the administration were to swear to 'maintain the Constitution with all their power, to be faithful (*fdèles*) to the nation, to the law and to

7On the 'escalation of emotional expression' in those years, see Reddy, 'Sentimentalism'. The 'regeneration' of the administration is one episode in which the French state's obsession with transparency and self-defnition is more obvious. It is also one in which Reddy's model reveals more ripples: can the standard wording used in political oaths be considered an 'emotive'? For a general review of some approaches to the history of emotions in the feld of the French Revolution, see Rosenfeld, 'Thinking about Feeling'.

<sup>8</sup> 'Arrêt de réglement du parlement', 167.

the king, and to perform the duties of their job well'.9 The promise to maintain the constitution went beyond obedience and respect. It meant readiness to fght to keep it. The demand for active engagement departed from the tradition of passive obedience. The constitutional act of September 1791 offcially and defnitively established the role of the civic oath in the institutions of the kingdom: it framed the body of public administration, binding all employees of every order and rank to the same political faith (§ II, sec. IV, art. 3).

Its organization was not, however, peaceful: on several occasions, the Assembly and the government had to ask the local administrations for evidence of the oath's correct performance by the kingdom's civil servants—particularly in times of high political tension.10 The effect of these ministerial initiatives was twofold: to force thousands of citizens in the provinces to take a stand towards the revolution and to bureaucratize the revolutionary militancy by encouraging all citizens to give material proof of their political commitment. Reports from local governments began to arrive at the ministry of the interior in Paris, one of the main bodies the national authorities had for assessing the public mood (*esprit public*) in the provinces.11 Using these reports, it is possible to trace the practical ways in which employees took the oath in this context: a superior would solemnly read the wording of the oath and each prospective employee would then answer 'I swear it'. Sometimes, it seems, they were asked to affrm the oath with their signature. This left an even more physical trace of their emotional commitment and thus increased the individual's sense of public responsibility, which was the main objective of the civic oath (Fig. 2.1).

It is not only bundle of oath reports that fll these fles of the National Archives. To attest to a citizen's political credentials, various agencies also issued certifcates of good civic-mindedness (*civisme*). These documents could be mass-produced by the sections, the subdivisions of revolutionary Paris, and then flled in by adding the personal information of the individual concerned. This was another way the required political ethos in the regenerated state was bureaucratized. The one issued by the Luxembourg

<sup>9</sup> 'Suite des articles fur les Municipalités', 177; 'Teneur du Décret portant confitution des Municipalitès', 205.

<sup>10</sup> 'Décret relative aux circonscriptions de paroisses'.

<sup>11</sup> 'Ministère de l'Intérieur, Esprit public, Prestation de serments', F/1CIII/Seine/22, Archives Nationales de France (hereafter AN).

**Fig. 2.1** Example of *strings* of written oaths sent to the Central Administration, Paris, Archives Nationales, F/1CIII/Seine/22. (Photo by Amanda Maffei, courtesy of Archives Nationales)

Section, dated 31 March 1792, and sent in by an employee was particularly sophisticated (Fig. 2.2).

Its iconographic paratext referred to the symbolism of the revolutionary oath. On the right side, a uniformed fgure performs the ritual pose of the oath, his arm outstretched towards the symbols of the nation at the centre of the document. Below this fgure is the text of oath taken on the day of the Federation (14 July 1790). On the left side, a representation of the altar of the Fatherland built for that occasion bears a motto synthesizing the dedication expected from a member of the National Guard: 'Only the Fatherland or the Law / can arm us; / Let us die to defend it, / and live to love it'. Being a citizen also meant bearing arms, as stipulated in the legal defnition of 'active citizens'. The common reference to the militancy of civil servants was not just a metaphor. The fact that an employee felt the need to justify his political credentials by sending proof of his affliation to the National Guard is signifcant. Sometimes the certifcate was presented to prove that the same oath had been taken before or as an assurance of

**Fig. 2.2** Certifcate of affliation to the National Guard, Départment de Paris, arrondissement 'des Carmes', 31 March 1792, Paris, Archives Nationales, F/1CIII/Seine/22. (Photo by Amanda Maffei, courtesy of Archives Nationales)

one's 'political conduct'. For these *fonctionnaires*, their militancy as armed citizens and their commitment as civil servants had to be represented as inextricable.12

On 10 August 1792, the night the monarchy fell, the Assembly agreed upon new wording for the civic oath. All employees in the state administration were asked to take the oath again as a demonstration of their commitment to the new situation: 'I swear to be faithful to the Nation, to maintain with all my power Liberty and Equality or to die defending them.' This oath marked the foundation of the Republic. The central government had to make sure all the public employees in the provinces were following the revolutionary elites in Paris in this direction. Templating the

<sup>12</sup> *Ibid*.

emotions of the civil servants became a way for the central authorities to overcome the anxiety of those hectic days. The collection of minutes recording oaths taken and certifcates of citizenship became systematic.

To fght for Liberty and Equality or to die defending them: we should not dismiss this oath as a grandiloquent formula that made sense only inside the hall of the Legislative Assembly. The words really mattered, at least to some of the people who took that oath. Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire, who was in charge of the defence of Verdun against the forces of the First Coalition, the military alliance set against revolutionary France, took them quite literally. Instead of surrendering to the enemy, as he was asked to do by large parts of the population and the local town *fonctionnaires*, he committed suicide on the night of 2 September 1792. The Legislative Assembly in Paris tried very quickly to make an example of him, in order to shame civil servants who were not quite ready to face the extreme consequences of their commitment to the cause of the Revolution. As the text below this popular print reported, Beaurepaire 'gave his life at Verdun in the presence of public servants, cowards, and perjurers, who wanted to abandon to the enemy the post entrusted to their courage'. The horror in their faces was meant to convey their distance from the model of civic virtue represented by Beaurepaire (Fig. 2.3).

Even after Thermidor, the end of the Terror in 1794, the oath marked the encounter between the institutional life of the French administration and symbolic representations of the political order. Oath-taking ceremonies, where employees gathered to collectively swear their faith to the nation, offered an occasion for particularly emphatic speeches that helped give meaning to the experience and popularize the rhetoric of devotion to the homeland. By swearing the newly formulated oath, or by attending the oath-taking ceremonies of local offcials, people in the provinces learnt about the new ideology of the Republic in a way that was more direct than the grandiose declarations of public edicts.

According to the law decreed by the Directory on 12 January 1796—22 *Nivôse*, year IV in the Republican calendar—all municipalities, all land and sea armies, and all local administrations, judges, and notaries would have ideally gathered at noon nine days later to swear the same oath that was being simultaneously sworn in Paris by members of the two legislative councils and the representatives of the executive power. Oath-takers were required to declare hatred for the monarchy and love for the Republic and the Constitution.13 The date for the ceremony had not been randomly

<sup>13</sup> 'Séance du 16 nivôse an IV', in *Réimpression de l'ancien Moniteur*, 184.

**Fig. 2.3** Detail of *Trait sublime de courage et de dévouëment*, etching by Villeneuve, Paris, 1792. (Courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ cb402538196)

chosen: 21 January was the anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI. This visual display of faithfulness by employees of the administration and national representatives was designed to test their loyalty to the new regime. A state apparatus threatened by subversion, monarchist plots, and disruptive convulsions on the radical left needed to appear stable: 'everything must present the image of concord and the reunion of all minds.'14

The minutes of the oath-taking ceremonies were detailed. Besides the names of oath-takers, they recorded whether the formula was recited individually by each employee or the assembly responded in unison with 'I swear it', whether the wording was altered in any way, whether music was

<sup>14</sup> *Ibid*., 226.

performed during or after the ceremony, and whether the oath was taken in front of the main church, as it was usually done. Most importantly, those who were in charge of writing the report knew the authorities in Paris expected to read about the emotions of the newly sworn civil servants.15

The fact that the authorities insisted on such precise information about the ceremonies illustrates how important it was that the ideology of the state be imparted in the presence of its citizenry. Even those who for whatever reason could not be present on 21 January 1796 had to take their oaths in public on some other date, for as one offcial stated, 'it is only right not to deprive any of them the opportunity to show on this great occasion the feelings that must animate them.'16 There was an ambivalence here: eliciting allegiance to the citizenry paved the way for possible conficts with the state, if civil servants were committed to always act in the best interests of their peers. The sentimental language of the French Revolution made it possible for many bureaucrats to go against the institutions they worked within, if by doing so they felt more loyal to the political emotions they had sworn for.

These militant feelings were embedded in the ceremonies of 21 January. The citizens of Charenton-le-Pont who went to see their local *fonctionnaires* take the oath, for instance, listened to several speeches 'whose goal was to inspire in all listeners love for the Fatherland, respect for its laws and hatred for the tyrants, and above all to electrify the souls of all the spectators'.17 Those taking the oath were the main characters in these patriotic shows, but it was the presence of the wider citizenry that made their oath meaningful. It extended the individual commitment of civil servants to a public one, something they could be confronted with in the future by their fellow citizens. And they were: every person who took the oath during the revolutionary years was ultimately forced to reckon with it.18

Those who refused to take the oath were acutely aware of that risk. The trails they left in the archival records suggest that oath-taking was not merely an empty ritual to soothe the paranoia of the revolutionary elites.

<sup>15</sup> fasc. 1, BB1 14, AN.

<sup>16</sup> 'Ministère de l'Intérieur, Esprit public, Prestation de serments', F1C III 23, AN.

<sup>17</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>18</sup>On the history of the accusation of being a *girouette*—one who betrayed promises or quickly changed allegiances—see Serna, *République des girouettes*.

In the Section *de l'Ouest*, for example, the report recorded the opinion of the citizen Derey, who 'declared that he would always be attached to the Republic, and that he did not know hatred and did not want to know it'. In the canton of Nanterre someone 'refused to take his oath, declaring that he could not vow hatred to anyone'.19 By refusing to take the oath with the standard formula, these civil servants were negotiating their emotional self with the authorities: they were ready to declare themselves good citizens, but did not consider hatred a legitimate emotion.20 Others tried to adapt the wording of the oath to their own position, such as citizen Richard, a teacher, who clarifed that 'with his oath he promises and commits himself in full submission to the law and constituted authorities, to maintain the constitution' for his whole life and to inspire the same feeling (*sentiment*) in the pupils entrusted to him.21 Despite the use of the expression 'submission to the law' (*soumission aux lois*), which was usually considered insuffcient, the authorities seemed to accept his formulation, probably thanks to his reference to the sentimental nature of his commitment.22 The institutional templating of civil servants' emotions, in the case of Richard, could be tailored to his own emotional and ideological needs.

Many historians have depicted the politicization of state bureaucracy during the French Revolution through the lens of coercion. After all, weren't all these oaths only taken under the threat of losing one's job in a time of political and social mayhem?23 To be sure, revolutionary elites sought to use these practices to control and police civil servants. At the same time, we should take these symbols seriously and try to grasp their effects among the citizenry. We should make the effort to imagine the impressive displays of national unity these ceremonies provided: dignitaries giving speeches, patriotic songs and music, fags, 'liberty trees', uniforms, cockades, and the newly minted civil servants promising to serve

<sup>19</sup> 'Ministère de l'Intérieur, Esprit public, Prestation de serments', F1C III 23, AN.

20Many pamphlets debated the legitimacy of 'hatred' as a political feeling in order to respond to such resistance. See *Éclaircissemens*.

22Other employees and public offcials were not so lucky and were told that their oath 'does not conform to the wording required by the Executive Board Order'.

23After March 1796, losing one's job was not the only punishment. Those who refused to take the oath were deported. See 'Archives des Assemblées', C 485, AN; 'Séance du 18 ventôse', in *Réimpression de l'ancien Moniteur*, 655.

<sup>21</sup> fasc. 3, BB1 14, AN.

their community in front of their families, friends, and acquaintances.24 It was the image of a nation building a connection between its institutions and citizens with emotions as the connective element. Whether or not these public employees were actually in love with the cause of the Revolution, they certainly needed to appear so.

#### Unsettling the Feeling Rules of Bureaucracy: Carnot's *École d'Administration* and the Unionism of Civil Servants (1848)

What happened to men enrolled in the civil service after the French Revolution? In the Napoleonic years, the more complex the organization of government became, the more bloated the administration. Sudden regime changes and a general feeling of precarity did make it more diffcult for institutions to keep these public workers politically mobilized. A minister could fre employees at his sole discretion. Still, after the Restoration, many conservatives considered them a potential threat to the stability of the state: some of the civil servants might have developed an awareness that they belonged to a group imbued with values that went beyond the framework of professional ethics and entered the more intimate sphere of human experience, that of citizens' individual affections. This was another feld in which revolutionaries democratized the link between honour and merit, although most of the high-ranking positions remained venal, if not hereditary.25

How could a new regime make sure that the emotional allegiance of the *fonctionnaires* was directed towards the state, rather than the citizens that they were expected to represent according to democratic ideology? Such fears had been a problem for the restored Bourbon monarchy. When discussing the budget act for 1817, several members of the Chamber of Deputies confronted the massive bureaucratic apparatus inherited by the Revolution. As the Viscount of Castelbajac put it, the restored monarchy

<sup>24</sup> Such a display of national unity was not exceptional. It had become more and more ritualized after the Federation festivals of 1790. For some insights on the local reception of these rituals, see Bell, *Cult of the Nation*, 169–71.

25On the democratization of honour, see Reddy, *Invisible Code*, 10; on the gendered nature of honour in France, see also Nye, *Masculinity*. On the venal nature of public offce in the early nineteenth century, see Charle, *Hauts fonctionnaires*; Reddy, 'Mériter votre bienveillance'.

needed to 'destroy this bureaucracy, the beloved child (*enfant chéri*) of the Revolution devouring the substance of the State; similar to those poisonous plants that dry out the tree to which they are attached'.26 The liberal regime after the revolution of 1830 did not have a better relationship with its bureaucracy. The crisis of the July Monarchy ran parallel to the crisis of its administration. Several voices intervened from different sides of the political spectrum, from Adolphe Thiers and Honoré de Balzac to Alexis de Tocqueville and Alexandre-François Vivien.27 More than its ineffciency, the main problem of the administration derived from its shaky political foundations. Many legitimists felt ill at ease with a government built on militant bureaucracy, not simply because they feared that civil servants' ties with the previous regimes were too strong. At stake was the ideological construction of the state. Balzac, a legitimist who was quite nostalgic of the societal order of the Bourbon Restoration, did not see any beneft in a system that conceived its power as a bureaucratic force. The status and pride of civil servants holding public positions undermined the principle of authority that he understood to be the essence of politics: 'to serve the State no longer means to serve the prince, who knew how to punish and how to reward! Today, the State is everybody …. To serve everybody means to serve nobody.'28

By dismantling the moral principles of bureaucracy, Balzac was attacking the entire political system. With his humorous and merciless descriptions of the world of the *fonctionnaires*, he held up for ridicule the assumptions about civil service that governed society after the French Revolution and the July Revolution of 1830. At the same time, while legitimists rejected the militant model of 1789, liberal thinkers and left activists attempted to re-orientate the template towards their distinct political goals. All groups seemed to be aware of the necessity to offer an alternative vision for the civil service, in order to conquer political hegemony. The so-called administrative illness (*malaise administrative*) was a mixture of lack of purpose and institutional corruption. Among the social

<sup>26</sup> 'Chambre des députés, 4 February 1817', in *Archives Parlementaires*, 543.

<sup>27</sup>The *Revue des deux mondes* published a series of articles by Vivien, a future conservative minister close to Thiers and usually considered one of the fathers of French administrative science. A re-elaboration of those articles was published as *Études administratives* (Paris: Guillaumin, 1845).

<sup>28</sup>Balzac, *Physiologie de l'employé*, 30.

tensions that triggered the revolution of 1848 was a sense that the system prevented new men from being hired or making a career in the administration.29

The very short space of freedom opened up by the revolution in 1848 saw a confrontation between two different groups of bureaucrats, or aspiring ones, with two different conceptions of civil service. The frst group was composed of the public employees of France, especially those belonging to the lowest sectors of the administration. For these people, working for the state was a personal question. It represented their aspiration to acquire a dignifed status in society and gain the most important capital in the world they lived in: honour.30 They were keen to emphasize the political stakes of their work and use their position within the administration to push the socialist agenda of the revolution. Most of these bureaucrats did not repudiate the intense politicization in the years following 1789. Despite Balzac's mocking tones, there were civil servants who did more than just get by. Considering that 5.1 per cent of the insurgents in the Revolution of July 1830 were clerks, and 7.23 per cent in the February Revolution of 1848, one cannot easily dismiss the workers of the public sector as salary grabbers lacking any morality.31 During the revolution of 1848, they would also evoke their political engagement to push the agenda of their union associations, their journals, and magazines.32

On the other side of the political spectrum were the liberal elites. When Hippolyte Carnot was made Minister of Public Instruction in the provisional government following the revolution of 1848, they seized an opportunity. He followed the wave of debates on the reform of the administration in the 1830s and 1840s, when politicians, intellectuals, and highranking *fonctionnaires* had asked to open a competition for the hiring of new civil servants on the basis of talent, not their political associations. These interventions were a direct attack on the corruption of the July

#### <sup>29</sup> See Charle, *Histoire sociale*.

30Reddy, *Invisible Code*, 117. See the example of Eudier, who was an assistant in a pharmacy when he met his future wife, a seamstress. After becoming a ministry employee as a copyist (*expéditionnaire*), however, 'his pride made him blush' at his wedding. Since honour was a key driving force for men and women in the nineteenth century, we can see how high the emotional stakes were around getting a public position, even such a humble one as that taken by Eudier.

31Pinkney, 'Crowd'; Traugott, 'Crowd', 650.

<sup>32</sup> Such as *Le Moniteur des Postes*, *La Tribune des Employés*, *La Réforme Administrative*, *L'Éco des Employés*. See Thuillier, 'Aux origines'.

Monarchy bureaucracy, and those supporting the cause of reform were now in power. On 8 March 1848, the provisional government decreed the establishment of a School of Administration (*École d'Administration*). Carnot imagined it as a 'special incubator' of educated men: 'Popular political education is the natural foundation of republican institutions.'33 This boys' club—women in the civil service were only confned to a few teaching positions in elementary schools—would be shaped by meritocracy.

The subjects the students had to study were mostly related to law and economy, but history, philosophy, literature, and hard sciences were also included in the curriculum. In the wording of those in charge of the project, these subjects were all necessary to deliver a 'political education'.34 This education had to be more than technical and refect the new constitutional order: 'From the moment that the nation regains possession of itself in order to conduct itself by its own sovereignty, it is of the utmost necessity that the study of the high sciences of government be instituted in its bosom in the widest and most effcient manner.'35 The emotions of students and their human formation were never mentioned.

When the school fnally opened its doors to the frst cohort of students in July 1848, its organization was strictly regulated.36 Lessons ran from 8 a.m. until 9.30 p.m., with a break between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Students ate in the courtyard and were not allowed for any reason to have a meal outside school premises, located within the Collège de France. Every written note could be scrutinized by their professors. During breaks, they were not to make too much noise and should avoid smoking, even in the courtyard; in the eyes of the school board, it was 'a habit that is rather inappropriate for the functions they might one day have'. More generally, the regulations emphasized that the board would 'attach the greatest

35Carnot, 'Rapport du ministre', 8.

36The school only operated from 8 July 1848 to 19 October 1848 and from 19 May 1849 to 9 August 1849, due to lack of support by the new government. The regulations of the school can be found in 'Extrait des règlements généraux de l'Ecole d'Administration', C 921, AN, available in the appendix of Thuillier, *E.N.A.*, 268–73.

<sup>33</sup>Carnot, 'Mémorial de 1848', 243 (note written in April).

<sup>34</sup> See the report written by Reynaud and presented to the provisional government by Carnot on 7 April 1848: Carnot, 'Rapport du ministre', 8. In another report of the commission, comparative 'Republican Law' was added to the curriculum.

importance to qualities it regards as an indispensable complement to the capacity for the exercise of public functions'.37

At frst glance, the only concern of the school's management seems to have been the decorum of prospective civil servants. One might be tempted to say that the school was thereby repressing individual character in its pupils. If we consider the role of 'active silence' in nineteenth-century pedagogy, however, we should instead allow for the possibility that such rules were meant to instil a certain capacity for emotional, as well as vocal and mental/moral, control.38 Being able to regulate one's own bodily performances was a sign of strength and focus, similar to what occurred in theatres after the foundation of modern spectatorship. This possible value of active silence seems even more plausible if we look at the self-regulations the students gave themselves, which followed the same disciplinary framework. All the students seemed to care about was a model of behaviour that protected the 'dignity of the School'. The offcial regulations on 'Discipline outside the School' are revealing:

Art. 8—Whenever students leave the School, they should avoid, within a suffcient radius around the School, any group, lively discussion or improper action that could be attributed to the School as a whole.

Art. 9—All students in uniform shall behave in accordance with the idea that the public will judge the whole School by their conduct and deeds. …

Art. 12—It is forbidden for any pupil to disclose to the public, without the permission of the School, anything relating to internal decisions or facts, unless it is a personal matter.

Art. 13—In the meeting place designated by the School, students will be required in the public rooms to maintain by their conduct the dignity of the School.39

#### 37Thuillier, *E.N.A.*, 271.

<sup>38</sup> See Hoegarts, 'Silence', 519. Among other things, Hoegarts documents the frequency of such practices and the popularity of these views even at the Collège de France, where the lessons of the *École d'Administration* took place. Albert Lemoine has described this silence as more than the 'absence' of cries: 'the active suppression of sound, "imposing" silence, underscores the active nature of this silence, and hints at its entanglement with identities defned by age and gender as well …. This silence is ultimately a political one—one that articulates power in different social settings' (Hoegarts, 'Silence', 519)

<sup>39</sup> 'Projet de règlement discuté et adopté dans le conseil des délégués', 8 August 1848, quoted after Thuillier, *E.N.A.*, 279–83. This was a document negotiated by the students in different assemblies.

By all appearances, these regulations were meant to impress upon the students the importance of having a sense of decorum and pride—a *sens de l'État*, a feeling for the state, a concept diffcult to translate into many modern languages. The obsession with the inner lives of civil servants during the French Revolution was one source for this tendency towards selfaffrmation, characteristic of a century often described as having rewarded individual initiative over communality.40 In the culture of the Restoration, the process of self-affrmation came with an awareness of its dangers: weren't the political passions of 1789 driven by individualistic ambitions? What was being hidden behind an oath if not the attempt to put the self in the foreground of politics? If being a militant civil servant began with the utterance of a sentence in the frst person, 'I swear', the post-1848 state now needed methods to contain individualities. These men seemed to belong to those who in the nineteenth century did not allow themselves to gush with political enthusiasm.41 What seemed legitimate during the revolution of 1789, in the age of sentimentalism, could now be deemed inappropriate—at least for these liberals who were about to dedicate their lives to public affairs. Wrestling at the same time with their ambition and the fear of being considered too prone to their own proclivities, these men knew they had to self-efface themselves in order to shine. A modest demeanour was the new standard for the civil servant.42 How much this depended on the bourgeois origin of the students and how much on their training as *fonctionnaires* is hard to say. What is certain is that these students were already trying to don the clothes of what they considered the ideal, respectable, civil servant.

With Louis-Napoléon becoming president of the Republic, the school was doomed. The new Minister of Public Instruction, Alfred de Falloux, was a royalist with clear ideas about the role of political institutions in templating the characters of the people. He had an ambition to end the education system created after the Revolution and Napoleonic years, which was centred on the state initiative. Judging that state-trained subjects had more opportunities to develop republican and subversive ideas, the new minister let the Catholic Church take a leading role. It is no surprise that Falloux opposed Carnot's project from the beginning. One of his frst acts as minister in January 1849 was to dismiss all the professors

<sup>40</sup>Goldstein, *Post-Revolutionary Self*; Gay, *Naked Heart*.

<sup>41</sup>Legoy, 'Enthousiasme de l'adhésion'.

<sup>42</sup>Gerson, 'Modest Men', 189.

appointed to teach the aspiring civil servants. The students tried to put pressure on several members of parliament and for several months they animated the public debate with their interventions. The victory in the spring of the right-wing coalition calling itself the 'Party of Order' led to the dismantling of every radical initiative taken during the frst months of the Revolution, including the foundation of the school. In August 1849 the school was offcially closed.43

The conservative government was not the only enemy of the *École d'Administration*, however. Even the existing class of *fonctionnaires* was hostile to the project. Their newspapers ran articles criticizing what they considered an attack on their professional entitlements.44 Civil servants' unions were afraid this new generation of bureaucrats would form an administrative aristocracy: graduates of the School of Administration would acquire the status of *fonctionnaires* immediately, bypassing all the traditional career hurdles, without having to work their way up from the lowly position of 'copyist' (*expéditionnaire*).

It was not only the defence of privileges or career perspectives that motivated these bureaucrats. Their interventions revealed a sense of entitlement based on their constitutional value. They advocated for union rights, but they also claimed that civil servants acted as intermediaries between citizens and governments. This was the main political argument of the emerging associations of bureaucrats, such as the *Association fraternelle des bureaucrates*, founded in March 1848. The newspaper *La Tribune des Employés* campaigned for its subscribers to be accepted into the National Guard for precisely this reason and in the name of equality. This demand evoked the revolutionary militancy of 1789–1799:

Up to now the class of employees could have been compared to a machine that operates regularly from such and such an hour to such and such a time, to an automaton, to a body acting without movement being communicated to it by the soul. It is time for it to claim its rightful place in the social order and prove that it is the indispensable resource between the legislative and executive powers.45

The letters sent to the newspaper echoed this sense of revolutionary hope and the expectation for a political showdown with the elites of the French

43Wright, 'Ecole nationale d'administration'.

<sup>45</sup> *Ibid*., 17–18.

<sup>44</sup>*Tribune des employés*, no. 3 (17 April 1848), 19.

bureaucracy.46 The class struggle took often an emotional twist in the rhetoric of *La Tribune*. Writing against high-ranking *fonctionnaires* accumulating multiple roles while 'administrative workers' (*ouvriers*)47 earned too little, its editors described civil service as a social duty to which men are called to devote themselves for their entire life. How could anyone dedicate their existence to more than one job?48 Letters from employees to this and other union newspapers expressed the hope that the 'administrative regeneration' ignited by the February Revolution would solve these inequities once and for all, or would at least hasten the removal of civil servants who were not suffciently republican.49 These men did not see their social redemption. The conservative turn of the Revolution saw their newspapers closed down and constraints on the political freedom they advocated until May 1848.50

In the following decades the situation seemed to improve for their liberal opponents. Organized under the umbrella of their Alumni Association, they met every year with Carnot and other politicians and lobbied for their own rights.51 These people mobilized their cultural and social capital towards a model of civil service that had much more to do with class pride than political militancy. Their emotional labour was focused on acquiring the appropriate decorum, an embedded *sens de l'État*. The civil servant's uniform they aspired to don was more like a suit of armour: it made them shine and they could feel proud because of it, but it also concealed their most intimate feelings. As Vivien, one of the ideologists of administrative reform, put it:

The civil servant cannot engage in hostility against the political regime consecrated by the constitution; he would be violating his most sacred commitments. … However, this doctrine can only be applied in the case of external manifestations. To seek out the feelings (*sentiments*) that the public servant holds in his heart would be an odious inquisition, and to use them as a

<sup>46</sup> See *Tribune des employés*, no. 5 (8 May 1848), 40.

<sup>47</sup>*Réforme administrative*, no. 2 (18 May 1848), 2.

<sup>48</sup> 'Du cumul', *Tribune des employés*, no. 4 (24 April 1848), 30.

<sup>49</sup> See the letters in *Réforme administrative*, no. 3 (25 May 1848), 4; no. 5 (8 June 1848), 3.

<sup>50</sup> 'An employee who is too loyal to contain the expression of his feelings is regarded as a *brouillon* by his bosses'; 'Indépendance politique des employés', *Tribune des employés*, no. 5 (8 May 1848), 33.

51Machin and Wright, 'Élèves'. In one speech in 1858, Carnot said that the School was founded in order to respond to 'democratic feelings'.

weapon against him would be a measure of tyranny. While passionate governments (*gouvernements passionés*) have sometimes dared to do so, the conscience of honest people has protested against such violence.52

Which one of these possible futures for the French bureaucracy would win the battle over the emotional template of civil service?

### The Institutionalization of the *Sens de l'État*: The Birth of the ENA (1945)

In 1870 the abolition of the political oath (*serment politique*) that had been required of all civil servants since the French Revolution could have potentially led to the depoliticization of the state administration, a goal of many conservatives during the nineteenth century. Only Vichy dared to reintroduce an oath for *fonctionnaires*, judges, and all the members of the bureaucracy.53 Does this mean that being a civil servant has been just an ordinary job since the Third Republic? Not necessarily, if one considers the purges in the public sector after the victory of the republican left in 1879.54

Nonetheless, the foundation of the ENA certainly constituted an important step towards the professionalization of civil service. The new *École Nationale d'Administration* itself owed a lot to the consolidation of 'administrative science' as a discipline in the frst half of the twentieth century. It was due to the strong support for these ventures by Charles de Gaulle that the ENA took a central role in post-war France. De Gaulle entrusted the task of administrative reform to Michel Debré, who singlehandedly drafted the ENA project.55 Although the school celebrated its centenary in 1948, thereby claiming an ideological and emotional connection to the *École d'Administration* founded 100 years earlier by Carnot, Debré had something quite different in mind.56 The result was a compromise between the revolutionary approach to the formation of bureaucracy and the more scholarly focus of the 1848 school modelled on the *grandes* 

52Vivien, *Études administratives*, 250–51.

55Debré, one of the fathers of the constitution of the Fifth Republic, would also become prime minister with de Gaulle's return to power in 1958.

<sup>56</sup> 'Vie de l'école: Centenaire de l'école, 1848–1948: Documentation', 19790447/120, Archives ENA, AN.

<sup>53</sup> Sansico, *Justice déshonorée*, 221–22.

<sup>54</sup>Wright, 'Épuration du Conseil d'État'; Gerbod et al., *Épurations administratives*.

*écoles* (*École Polytechnique* and the *École Normale*). From the latter tradition, the ENA adopted selection by exam and awarding graduates with the status of *fonctionnaires*. Yet its strong connection with the political establishment and a certain attention to the morality and personality of students was a legacy of the revolutionary approach. The School was attached directly to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. It was also the frst *grande école* to admit women, which occurred in the same year they were given the vote, although female students remained a minority until recent years. Debré wanted candidates to be certain of their vocation as civil servants and to have already developed an independent personality. That meant students at the very beginning of their higher education were not admitted to the entrance exam, as was the case with the *École Normale* and the *École Polytechnique*. In his report of 1946, Debré was quite explicit that:

The training—one need not hide it—also has a moral objective. It is not a mission of the School to play politics or impose a particular doctrine. But the School must also teach its future civil servants a feeling for the state (*sens de l'État*), it must make them understand the responsibilities of the Administration, make them taste the grandeur and accept the servitudes of the profession (*metier*).57

This was to be achieved through 'a constant effort on the part of its best teachers':

by evoking the great men of history, it [the School] must give its pupils a taste of some of its most important qualities: the sense of humanity which infuses life into all work, the sense of decisiveness which, after weighing up the risks, allows pupils to act, the sense of imagination which fears no boldness, no greatness.58

The mission of the ENA was above all else a moral mission. How could the school nurture the morality of students? Imitation seems to have been the path chosen: imitation of the past, in line with the cult of great men that had nourished French nation-building since the eighteenth century, and imitation of those already working as civil servants.59

<sup>57</sup>Debré, *Réforme*, 14. Cf. Suleiman, *Elites*, 41.

<sup>58</sup>Debré, *Réforme*, 25.

<sup>59</sup>On the cult of great men, see Bonnet, *Naissance du Panthéon*.

References to great men of the past were everywhere in the ENA. On 23 October 1947, the School's Director sent a letter to every ministry and to the deputy general secretary of the General Federation of Civil Servants (*Fédération Générale des Fonctionnaires*). The students of the ENA had asked that every room of the institution be named after a civil servant who fought and fell in the Resistance or in the Liberation Army: 'the dream would be to have at least one fallen *fonctionnaire* to represent every career path the School prepares its students for.'60 Students needed to see and be guided by these examples every day, the Director stressed in his letter. On a similar note, every year the committee overseeing the fame of remembrance at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe (*Comité de la Flamme*), which represented several veterans' associations, asked that a delegation of ENA students take charge of the ritual ceremony to rekindle the fame.61

These symbolic elements in the life of the ENA did not have a topdown dynamic. The individual personalities of students mattered in their selection, but they were also required to think of themselves as part of a generation, to feel that they were torchbearers within a community. Each annual cohort was encouraged to fnd a group name in assemblies. The *Archives Nationales* has kept the reports of their deliberations submitted to the Director of the School, including the various proposals and how many votes they received in each ballot. Some of the names included France Combattante (1946–1947), the frst cohort, composed of veterans of the Resistance and the Liberation Army; Union Française (1946–1948), named after the association of French former colonies; Croix de Lorraine (1947–1948), one of the symbols of the 'Free France' government in exile under Charles de Gaulle, and later on of Gaullism more generally; as well as Nations Unies (1947–1949) and Jean Moulin (1948–1949), after the most popular hero of the French Resistance during the war (himself a civil servant). The political and emotional imagery of the students shone through in these group names.

What was in a name? 'By giving it [the cohort] a name, we gave it life', answered one alumnus, writing in 1949 about the decision of his cohort 'Europe' (1949–1951):

<sup>60</sup> 19790447/119, Archives ENA, AN.

<sup>61</sup> *Ibid*.

The year of our competition was the year of Europe …. Our debate led to an early agreement on the ideas of reconciliation, reconstruction, and peace and freedom, which were to be the hope for the years to come and of which Europe would be the symbol. So the name was quickly chosen, but was it necessary to add an adjective? A 'political' discussion arose, in the best sense of the word: a liberated Europe? Free Europe? Western Europe? Agreement was only reached by renouncing the adjective: this seemed to me the best solution, the one that gave Europe the most meaning, the most strength, and was largely open to the future.62

By building an emotional connection between their training as civil servants and the political events of 1948—the birth of Benelux and the Hague Congress where Winston Churchill, Paul-Henri Spaak, Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, and Robert Schuman laid the foundations of the Council of Europe—these students were playing their part in fostering feelings of hope for the future.

This act of collective self-denomination could in fact acquire different meanings. On the one hand, it was the part of the emotional template that ENA students gave themselves; the group name evoked an ideal they endeavoured to follow while pursuing their future goals, since it would be associated with each of them for the rest of their careers. On the other hand, their choice of name was an intervention into society, a public act they offered to all citizenry to represent their time and one of the few opportunities they had to make their voice heard as a group by all of France. ENA cohort names were and are still today discussed in newspapers, presented with short statements by the school offering a clear interpretation of the message they represented. If the names of early cohorts refected calls for national unity in the patriotic momentum of the postwar years, other generations did not shy away from bolder political statements. Right in the middle of the Algerian War, the 1955–1957 cohort named itself France-Afrique. One year before the return to power of Charles de Gaulle in 1958, the 1956–1958 cohort decided for the evocative denomination of Dix-huit Juin, the date his appeal was broadcast to France from London on 18 June 1940, a founding moment for the French Resistance and the General's fame. In the 1960s students leaning more to the political left managed to revive the symbols of socialist imagery. The cohorts named after Saint-Just (1961–1963), Jean Jaurès (1967–1969),

62Long, *Mes regards*, 14.

Robespierre (1968–1970), and Thomas More (1969–1971), taken as a martyr of censorship, represented a generation of '68ers' who did not hesitate to bring the agenda of the youth movement into the ENA. More recently, a cohort with a record number of women (45 per cent) had Olympe de Gouges and Rosa Parks as shortlisted options, even though they ultimately settled on Winston Churchill (2014–2015), while another cohort, in response to the 2015 terror attack against the magazine *Charlie Hebdo*, chose George Orwell as a banner for freedom of expression. For these future civil servants, templating their own feelings demanded the skilful operation of the tools of emotional marketing.

It was not only to the past that ENA students turned in order to learn how to embody the emotions required for their vocation. Debré did not envision a curriculum consisting only of lectures on the basics of administrative law. He wanted students to experience the life of the administration. Traineeships and placements in various offces of the state apparatus therefore constituted the core of instruction, and it was here that a great deal of effort by School management was concentrated. As Pierre Racine, cofounder of the ENA and director of internships from 1945 to 1956, put it, practical training within state administration was designed to 'instil a feeling for the state'.63 Motivational speeches and written information provided to the students about the internships insisted on discipline, respect for their new colleagues, and a general sense of decorum, but also encouraged audacity: students should feel free to take the initiative and ask for more responsibilities. They should endeavour to be likeable among their colleagues to overcome any resistance, but also discreet and loyal.

The destinations for internships were individually tailored: a conversation with Racine would reveal what was required to mould the personality of each student appropriately. For instance, in 2008 Marceau Long recalled how the director had initially inquired about whether he felt 'repugnance' for Africa, but ultimately decided to send him to Pas-de-Calais expecting that to be even more disorienting for a Provençal than Africa.64 Traineeships were opportunities for ENA students to show 'character and judgment', where they could acquire 'those essential qualities without which there is no real administrator: common sense, moral independence, a sense of

<sup>63</sup> 'Communication sur les stages, par M. Pierre Racine, Maître des Requêtes au Conseil d'État, Directeur des Stages, le 3 janvier 1949, lors de la réception de la nouvelle promotion [Promotion Europe]', 19790447/119, Archives ENA, AN.

<sup>64</sup>Long, *Mes regards*, 16.

action and responsibility, a taste for initiative and risk', as the Director wrote in 1948.65 By nurturing these virtues, while also feeling disorientation (*dépaysement*) engendered by the challenges of their new roles within the state, students would fnally embody the emotional template that would shape their lives and careers in the future: the *sens de l'État*.

Speaking at the School in November 1959, now as President of the Republic with Debré as his prime minister, de Gaulle galvanized the students by drawing a parallel between the men they were and the civil servants he had worked with in his political career:

You are astonishingly similar to those who have come before you, in the sense that you are, like them, men called by your vocation and your ability to exercise the most important and noble function in the temporal order, that is, the service of the State. … First of all, those in the front ranks who had to serve the State had to be an elite, an elite in every respect, an intellectual elite, a moral elite.66

This sense of pride and devotion to the state by the civil servants marked most of de Gaulle's years as political leader of France. This feeling for the state, the *sens de l'État*, enabled French elites to control the institutions and to shape them according to their political goals. According to one anecdote, de Gaulle gave the following advice to a newly named Minister for Agriculture, Edgard Pisani: 'Don't forget, sir, that you are Minister of French Agriculture, not the minister of the farmers.' This sense of responsibility for the state, beyond political will of citizens and stakeholders in particular matters, is indeed what many French bureaucrats interpreted as *sens de l'État*. The ENA was founded to train the civil servants 'responsible for implementing public policies according to the requirements of the general interest—requirements that are often diffcult to assert in the face of the multitude of particular interests', as proudly proclaimed by its alumni association.67 The special relationship between the state and the bureaucrats that was shaped by the ENA's emotional templates was built on the assumption that they were not merely another political player, but were above politics altogether. This attitude did not help the popularity of ENA alumni (*enarques*), who by defnition were bred to be an elite among

<sup>65</sup>Bourdeau de Fontenay, 'Formation des fonctionnaires', 10.

<sup>66</sup> 'Allocution du Général de Gaulle, Dossier "Visite du Général De Gaulle", 17 novembre 1959', 19790447/119, Archives ENA, AN.

<sup>67</sup>Association des Anciens Élèves de l'École Nationale d'Administration, 'Notre Identité'.

the elite of *Grandes Écoles* alumni in the French education system, with the various *École Normales Supérieures*, the *École Polytechnique*, and the *École Nationale de la Magistrature* among the most important.68

As de Gaulle's chief of staff Étienne Burin des Roziers wrote in 1994, in an article published in the *Revue des deux Mondes*, the *sens de l'État* was not only a system of ethics for civil servants. It was the 'feeling of responsibility *vis-à-vis* the country' that those who hold the power in civil society were required to have.69 As he put it: 'Was the feeling for the state limited to the professional conscience of the public servant? Did not the expression refer, more generally, to the intimate feeling obtained through the demanding duties conferred by belonging to a national elite, regardless of one's career?'70

It is likely that the decline of this model in modern societies led to the crisis of emotional stakes in the French administration that Macron sought to tackle in 2019. The bureaucratic apparatus of one institution, in particular, the European Union, was largely inspired by the French model.71 Often criticized for being politically cumbersome or too remote from the emotional lives of European citizens, EU personnel represents the embodiment of the 'technocratic slant' that lies at the centre of the European integration process.72 Whether political institutions continue to rely on citizens' trust in their civil servants will only be revealed in the years to come.

#### Conclusion

From 1789 onwards, new rules and regulations were designed to instil a sense of commitment in citizen-bureaucrats. Some of these organizational reforms survived even the fall of Napoleon.73 Others became topic of contention in political debates or needed to be renegotiated with every change of regime. Focusing on the instability of the emotional templates given to civil servants enabled the continuity of centralization strategies by the French state to be challenged. The traditional representation of modern France as moving coherently and steadily towards centralization revealed

<sup>68</sup>Bourdieu and Passeron, *Héritiers*.

<sup>69</sup>Burin de Roziers, 'Sens de l'État', 60.

<sup>70</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>71</sup>Mangenot, 'Revendication d'une paternité'.

<sup>72</sup>Patel, *Project Europe*, 130.

<sup>73</sup>Kingston, *Bureaucrats*.

cracks, contradictions, and failures when emotions are brought into the picture.

The various regimes of the French national state have often employed similar symbolic practices to engage their civil servants at the level of emotion. Oaths, ceremonies for inauguration into offce, and rituals in remembrance of martyrs worked both as aids in fostering belief and commitment and as a means of building an ideological and emotional homogeneity among the *fonctionnaires*. Yet, some of these symbolic practices (the oath, for instance) lost prestige, compromised as they were with the turmoil of numerous revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. More importantly, similar solutions were often directed towards very different goals. Analysing the politicization of oath-taking or the contrasting styles adopted by the two *École Nationale d'Administration* (one founded after the 1848 Revolution and the other after the Second World War), this chapter has tried to grasp how particular emotional templates have shaped French bureaucracy over time. A constant tension is revealed in the construction, reception, and re-orientation of institutional frameworks designed to elicit the emotions of bureaucrats under each regime: depending on the historical circumstances, civil servants had to learn how to navigate their feelings between national or partisan militancy and pragmatic indifference to party politics, in favour of a superior sense of belonging to the state. At least once in their lives, French bureaucrats had to face the choice between being loyal to their fellow citizens or to the institution whose torch they bore.

When Macron put public administration reform at the centre of his strategic response to the concerns of the *gilets jaunes*, he seemed to acknowledge the fact that most of his compatriots no longer took the personal struggles of professional civil servants seriously. A bureaucratic system built on elitism was a perfect symbol for a state now accused of having abandoned its most fragile constituents. At the beginning of 2021, after promising to dissolve the ENA in 2019, debating of several plans, and dealing with the heavy toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government announced a new goal: to diversify recruitment and make state administration more refective of French society. A programme to promote 'equal opportunities' was launched to open the higher ranks of the state bureaucracy to young people from the working classes, a programme whereby ENA alumni would mentor students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Only a few months after the launch of this initiative, in April 2021, Macron concluded that this was not enough to rejuvenate one of the core elements of French democracy—the bond of trust between citizens and civil servants. He decided instead to abolish the ENA. This decision infamed the political debate, and Marine Le Pen attacking Macron for undermining the authority of the state: 'As an elected representative of the nation', she wrote in a letter to the prefects, 'I share the concern, often silent, but still painful, of all those who feel the sens de l'État and who witness the collapse of the resources, the reputation and, as a consequence, the authority of the State.'74 One year before a presidential election that promises to be quite challenging for democracy, the endless emotional labour needed to work for the French state is undergoing another intense period of politicization.

#### Bibliography


<sup>74</sup>Floch, 'Marine Le Pen'.


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# Feeling Political in Parliament: Rules, Regulations, and the Rostrum, Germany 1849–1951

#### *Philipp Nielsen*

Berlin, 18 November 2020: right-wing activists, cameras in hand, accosted German parliamentarians in the hallways of the Reichstag. They had entered the building as guests of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD faction, the largest opposition party in parliament). The activists' behaviour fts into the AfD's strategy of calculated provocation. In an interview following the incident, Britta Haßelmann, chief whip of the Green Party, described how 'hate and abrasiveness' had increased ever since the AfD had entered parliament in 2017. She expressed her unwillingness to accept the 'hate and defamation' and the 'laughter from the rows of the [AfD's] delegates, when women get up to the rostrum'.1 Haßelmann spoke not only as a representative of the Green Party, but also as a member of the Council of Elders and the Committee for the Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity, and the Rules of Procedure. These two longstanding institutions of German parliamentary self-governance are explicitly designed to deal with infractions of parliamentary protocol. Within this remit, the Council of Elders launched an investigation into the incident on 18 November.2

1Pfeifer, 'AfD im Bundestag'. <sup>2</sup> *Ibid*.; Thurau, 'Wie sicher'.

© The Author(s) 2022 59 U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_3

Several aspects of this incident are noteworthy and instructive. First, the German parliament, like other parliaments, has its own institutions to regulate the behaviour of its members. Second, this behaviour includes appropriate emotional displays, which have to follow an established and accepted template. According to Haßelmann, this template in 2020 entailed neither 'hate and abrasiveness' nor misogynist 'laughter'—the qualifer misogynist is important here, as laughter itself has a long history in parliamentary politics.3 Third, breaking with the template can be a calculated political strategy. Fourth and last, this strategy can be directed not only towards fellow members of parliament but also to an external audience. Parliamentarians rarely address only their colleagues. Their speeches and behaviour are infuenced, and regulated, with an eye to the wider public: the electorate.

This chapter focuses on four moments in German parliamentary history in which parliamentarians debated the regulation of speech and behaviour and established an emotional template for it: the frst German national parliament, the National Assembly of 1848, the founding of the North German parliament in 1867, the reformulation of procedural rules at the beginning of the Weimar Republic in 1921–1922, and their further revision upon the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany between 1949 and 1951. The overall parameters proved surprisingly enduring. The opening example refers to delimitations of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour that were discussed in these moments of emergence. They speak to the inherent logic of the institution of parliament: enabling the 'orderly conduct' of politics and guaranteeing the 'dignity' of the chamber, yet allowing, and channelling, spontaneous expression of emotions such as (specifc kinds of) laughter, cheering, angry interjections, and the noise produced by, and used for, objections and ultimately unrest. That these were spontaneous rather than strategic expressions frequently delineated the acceptable from the unacceptable. Though much like in the larger debate on the authenticity of emotions, into which category these expressions fell often, remained elusive. Emotional expressions could be directed at the speaker or at the public in or beyond the room. Depending on the situation, this conduct was met with various sanctions, as it challenged the order or the dignity of parliament in different ways. The template navigated between emotions and rules, negotiated their tensions, and made them, and thus parliament, work together.

The example above not only demonstrates the staying power of the template but also the ferocity of attacks on it. Haßelmann's own party, the

<sup>3</sup>Olschewski, 'Verschriftung', 348; Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 306; for a non-German context see, for example, Meisel, 'Humour and Insult'.

Greens, had themselves been viewed as a threat to the existing emotional regime upon their entry into the Bundestag in 1983. Yet as opposed to the AfD thirty-four years later, the Greens' symbolic acts, which sometimes involved and sometimes provoked emotions—knitting in parliament, casual dress, bringing in objects such as a dead laurel wreath to make a point, unfurling banners in the plenary chamber—while intentional, did not have as their the goal the delegitimization of parliament, but its reformation.4 The Greens' actions were not limited to the symbolic level, but were combined with considerable legislative activity and ample use of the interpellation rights given to opposition parties and of the 'question hour', imbuing it again with some of the spontaneity of debate that its drafters had hoped for.5 The AfD instead has mostly restricted its parliamentary activities to causing disruption and has demonstrated little investment in parliamentary work. In German parliamentary history, the Greens represent a reformist strand of procedural challengers, who have generally accepted the emotional template of the parliament, despite some reservations (together with the Social Democrats, SPD, and the Post-Socialists/ Left, PDS/Linke). The AfD, in contrast, is part of an obstructionist lineage (together with the German Communist Party, KPD). The chapter will attempt to explain the reasons for each strategy and their success and thus the relative strength of the emotional template of parliament over the course of German parliamentary history.

The chapter concentrates on those parliaments in which debate infuenced legislative outcomes. For that reason, the People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic, even if it did develop its own emotional template, is not included in the discussion because its deliberations had little bearing on the policy making of the East German state. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the rules established for the German National Assembly of 1848/1849. It then delves into the rules of the parliament of the North German Confederation of 1867. These remained in force and mostly unchanged for the German Empire of 1871. A moment of confict over emotional comportment and disciplinary measures in 1895 tells us much about their strength and evolution. The Weimar Republic established in the wake of the First World War had to adapt these rules to the changed circumstances of a fully democratic regime, while operating amid an atmosphere of defeat and revolution. Here the debates

<sup>4</sup>Frankland, 'Role of the Greens', 109.

<sup>5</sup> *Ibid*., 111–12.

of 1921 and 1922 about the limits of legitimate expression and their challenges are particularly insightful. Lastly, the debates between 1949 and 1951 describe the reestablishment of an emotional template for parliament following twelve years of dictatorial rule and a purely acclamatory Reichstag.

The evolution of German parliamentary history did not occur in isolation but was and is bound up with the wider history of participatory politics. From the very beginning, parliamentarians and observers alike compared the comportment in parliament to other countries. In his 1848 'sketches' from Frankfurt's National Assembly, Friedrich Hart, who attended the sessions as a visitor, registered his outrage over the chamber's president, Heinrich von Gagern, by comparing his behaviour with what was considered permissible in other countries. According to Hart, Gagern had lost his temper and abused his offce for an unjustifed call to order. 'Never did such a case occur in the English parliament, in the Congress of the United States.'6 Moreover, Gagern had violated both the emotional template of his offce as president and the emotional template of bourgeois virtue: his calm had been artifcial—beneath it, a volcano was ready to erupt.7

Germany appears to be a particularly promising test case for an inquiry into the evolution of parliamentary procedures and their emotional templates over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.8 The country's constitutions, parliamentary regulations, and parliamentary locations changed multiple times, but not necessarily all at once. This makes it possible to compare the connection between regulations, spaces, and emotions without, at least too easily, mistaking correlation for causation.

#### A United Germany: Setting <sup>a</sup> Template

In 1848, the frst democratically elected German parliament convened in Frankfurt amid the revolutionary wave rolling through Europe at the time.9 The freshly minted parliamentarians immediately had to realize that in addition to the lofty ideals of free parliamentary debate, such debate in

<sup>6</sup>Hart, *Tag in der Paulskirche*, 14; unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. <sup>7</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>8</sup>On the importance of procedures for parliamentary politics, see also Manow, *Nebensächlichkeiten*, 217.

<sup>9</sup> See also Chap. 2 by Francesco Buscemi and Chap. 12 by Ute Frevert in this volume.

fact needed rules. The very discussion of provisional procedural rules for the National Assembly had caused veritable turmoil.10 A brief excerpt from that debate will suffce to demonstrate how the regulation of speech and emotions was intertwined with the working of parliament:

Wesendonck of Düsseldorf: Gentlemen! I am the mover of this motion and thus entitled to formulate my motion. I am thus submitting the motion that we provisionally use the regulations for the procedures of our assembly that have been shared with you in printing until our commission has drafted a new one. Multiple voices: Yes! others No!

Arndt: One moment, gentlemen! (Call to vote!) Just one word! (Repeated calls to vote and racket!) The president is vehemently sounding the bell.

Dietsch: Gentlemen! I demand that we keep the order!

(Multiple agitated voices; the ruckus grows ever stronger.) […]

Schaffrath (from the rostrum in loud noise): About the motion … (Noise and shouts: Vote!) About the motion! The president gave me the word … (continued noise and the call: Leave [the rostrum]!) About the motion the word has to be given to me … (The racket and shouting are increasing ever more.) This is a demonstration of power, but never justice! (multiple voices: Stay on the rostrum! Other voices: Vote! General disorder and confusion.)

One voice: One cannot further speak about this.

Another voice: I ask you, to let the gentleman leave the rostrum. (Continued great noise!)

Chairman by seniority [*Alterspräsiden*t] Lang (after he had sounded the bell to signal quiet for several minutes without avail): We have the motion of the Baron von Reden, with the aim … (The tumult starts again, interrupting the president).

Wigard: Respect for the voice of the president. Where is this going to go if you do not want to listen to the president anymore!

Multiple voices: Respect for the president! (The tumult continues.)

Wigard: This is a scandal, this is terrorism! Respect for the president! (The storm gradually abates).11

That a set of procedures was ultimately accepted, though not without further interruptions, is of course relevant to the chapter's narrative, but right now the scene is important for other reasons: frst, because the emotional quality of debate is apparent. Making noise and shouting were signs,

<sup>10</sup>Burkhardt, *Parlament*, 24.

<sup>11</sup> 'Erste vorberathende Versammlung', 7–8.

real or interpreted, of disrespect, frustration, and anger. The terrorism invoked by the head of the stenographic service of the assembly was the terror of the French Revolution and conjured a spectre not only of disorder but also of emotions gone wild.12

Second, the stenographic report deemed not only the content but also the atmosphere important for the parliamentary record. Franz Wigard here lets us get closer to his and his fellow parliamentarians' emotions than later stenographic reports would. The terms to denotate non-verbal expression had not yet become standardized: 'ruckus', 'racket', 'noise', 'tumult' would soon be reduced to 'unrest' and 'noise' and qualifed by a list of adjectives. This points to the way that emotional expressions became codifed when they were translated into words for the purposes of the protocol. Journalists reported from parliament with greater literary fourish and variety in their description of parliamentarians' feelings.13 In turn, parliamentarians deliberately used newspapers to connect with the wider public.14 These 'speeches out the window', rather than to their colleagues, increasingly became a point of contention.15 Newspaper reports from parliament thus might be richer in their, sometimes partial, description of feelings.16 Yet the offcial protocols can be better used for tracking how emotions were regulated through procedures such as rights to speak, the use of the bell, or expulsions.17

Third, the example demonstrates the extent to which noise, and with it acoustics, shaped parliamentary debates. Neither the authority of the voice of the National Assembly's president by seniority, Friedrich Lang—even if Lang somewhat petulantly declared that 'there must be some acoustic problem, which limits the understanding; I speak very loudly and assure you, gentlemen, that my speech has been understood by thousands'18 nor that of his offce's bell had been established yet.19 In order to regulate

12Burkhardt, *Parlament*, 25n16.

13Biefang, *Andere Seite*, 78–79, 86–87.

<sup>14</sup> *Ibid*., 85.

15The accusation of speaking 'out the window' to attract voters became frequent from 1883 onward. But already in 1870, the Socialist Wilhelm Liebknecht had declared that the Reichstag should merely be used as a stage to address the people; Biefang, *Andere Seite*, 215.

<sup>16</sup> *Ibid*., 86.

17On the history of parliamentary stenography in Europe, see Manow, *King's Shadow*, 59; Olschewski, 'Verschriftung', 336–53.

<sup>18</sup> 'Erste vorberathende Versammlung', 8.

<sup>19</sup> See also Zähle, 'Klingel oder Gong?', esp. 873.

who could be noisy when, regulations of speech, from the seat or the rostrum, and of architecture became important features of parliament. The ability to speak from one's seat might inspire spontaneity and free discussion. It also provided the opportunity for angry interruptions, heckling, or 'unregulated' emotions. If one frst had to walk to the rostrum, the time it took to actually get there might allow heads to cool and result in a more deliberate mode of speaking. In addition, the spatial arrangement and the position of the speaker vis-à-vis members of parliament and government mattered for constitutional arrangements and the emotional community of which the speaker was part. Was he, and later she, addressing colleagues or the government from within the ranks of parliament, or facing the parliamentarians?

The experience of 1848, and from regional and state parliaments, created widespread agreement among the newly elected members of the North German parliament in 1867 that rules of procedure to regulate speech would be necessary.20 The preponderance of members of the Prussian House of Representatives among the members of the North German Reichstag meant that the Prussian rules would form the basis for a provisional order.21 The parliamentarians decided that, in the interest of swiftness, the rules should be adopted en bloc. One paragraph sparked a lengthy discussion, however. Paragraph 41 of the Prussian House of Representatives' rules of procedures specifed how and, importantly, from where representatives were allowed to speak. In its original formulation, the paragraph stated that members of parliament could address the house both from their seats and from the rostrum. The Prussian Chamber of Lords in Berlin, where the North German Confederation convened, did not have a rostrum. Since the rules of procedure were only meant to be provisional, debating the issue seemed perfunctory. The National Liberal deputy Graf von Schwerin-Putzar, whose motion for adopting the provisional rules formed the basis for the discussion, had proposed to eliminate the reference to the (absent) rostrum altogether.22

The responses of other parliamentarians, however, demonstrated that they hardly considered the issue irrelevant. Speaking, after all, constituted the core of the chamber's activities and established the parliamentarians' identity. It touched on their and the Reichstag's self-understanding.

<sup>20</sup>Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 157.

<sup>21</sup> *StNB 1867/70.1* (25 February 1867), 4.

<sup>22</sup> *Ibid*., 2.

Decency and decorum demanded that a speaker address the president. In the absence of a rostrum this meant speaking with the back to the chamber. As Georg von Vincke pointed out—to the applause of his fellow representatives—this would result in the majority of them being unable to follow the debate.23 One wonders how the Prussian Chamber of Lords, which at 230 delegates had roughly the same number of members as the parliament of the North German Confederation, dealt with this issue or if the different nature of the chamber's proceedings rendered the question of debate and thus, acoustics, less relevant. If that was the case, it would provide an additional indicator of the specifc importance of debate for an elected institution such as the Reichstag.

Von Vincke's intervention was greeted with immediate applause and support from the benches behind him. The next two speakers confrmed that they had not been able to understand anything of the previous speech. If the issue had been solely about acoustics, the fact that the majority was literally behind von Vincke's plea to permit speaking from the rostrum should have quickly ended the debate. But even von Vincke himself admitted that there was more to the matter. Under different circumstances, he conceded, speaking from the seat was actually preferable as it would 'facilitate and shorten' the debate.24 And on this principled point, Ludwig Windthorst, later head of the Catholic Centre Party's faction in the Reichstag, opposed the erection of a rostrum as 'it would provide the debates of our house with an entirely different character'.25 Windthorst did not elaborate on that different character and failed to win over the majority with his principled stance. Two days later, on 27 February 1867, the chamber had gained a rostrum.26

The question of seat versus rostrum clearly animated the delegates. Interestingly, and as opposed to 1848, the new members of the North German parliament were less concerned about dealing with those among them who overstepped the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Except for two brief moments of 'unrest' that the stenographic protocols reported, the opening sessions of the Reichstag did not feature any of the turmoil seen in Frankfurt. As a result, the disciplinary rules of the Prussian

<sup>23</sup> *Ibid*., 4.

<sup>24</sup> *Ibid*., 4.

<sup>25</sup> *Ibid*., 9.

<sup>26</sup> See president calling the speaker to the rostrum, *StNB 1867/70.1* (27 February 1867), 22.

chamber were adopted unchanged and without discussion. The president of the parliament had the right to call to order a member who disrupted the order. The rules did not include the right to expel a member from the chamber. If a speaker had to be called to order three times, the assembly could deny him the right to speak. And if the unrest in general became excessive, the president could interrupt the proceedings for an hour. If the president failed to make himself heard in such cases, he would cover his head to indicate the interruption.27

These relatively weak disciplinary measures demonstrated a general agreement about acceptable behaviour, and the extent to which departures from 'rational debate' through expressions of individual or collective emotions were permissible. This agreement may have been helped by the relative sociodemographic homogeneity of the Reichstag's members over the frst two decades of its existence. While roughly refecting the religious make-up of the North German Confederation, and from 1870 the Empire, as well as representing national minorities like Poles and Danes, the professional and educational background of parliamentarians was quite uniform: the vast majority shared an academic background (80 per cent in the frst decade of its existence) and over half were lawyers.28 Some informal measures that might not be considered appropriate decorum for a parliament were sanctioned in practice however. In fact, members of parliament heckled speakers or created unrest in order to provoke a desired behaviour in them. Those, for example, who continued to speak from their seat even after the construction of a rostrum were continuously heckled by their colleagues with calls of 'on to the rostrum' and 'louder'.29 Throughout the frst session of the Reichstag in the spring of 1867, complaints about the inability to hear the speaker were among the most frequent reasons for 'unrest' in the plenum. The 'unrest' only compounded the challenging acoustics of the chamber. The acoustics of the space then also undermined principled opposition, such as that of Windthorst, who opined on the detrimental effect of not speaking from one's seat surrounded by fellow delegates rather than removed from them on the rostrum. With better acoustics the latter practice may have created a stronger challenge to the

<sup>27</sup> See 'Provisorische Geschäfts-Ordnung für das Deutsche Zollparlament', §§ 41, 59, 60. The same rules remained in the procedural orders the German Reichstag adopted in 1871; see 'Geschäftsordnung für den Reichstag des Deutschen Reiches', §§ 43, 57, 58.

<sup>28</sup>Biefang, *Andere Seite*, 164–65.

<sup>29</sup> *StNB 1867/70.1* (11 March 1867), 128.

idea of the rostrum as the site of legitimate intervention in parliamentary proceedings.

This practice of speaking from the rostrum created a different spatial experience and, together with the rules of non-interruption, infuenced the emotional template that emerged regarding the relationship between the speaker and the audience. He, and later she, had to face fellow representatives. Any verbal interruption was not be sanctioned by the procedural rules. Depending on aptitude and rhetorical prowess, speakers would more or less eloquently respond to such interruptions and did not leave it to the president of the chamber to sanction bad behaviour. When speech, either from the rostrum or directed towards it, did cross the boundaries of acceptability—often delineated by the dignity of the house or the dignity of its members—a call to order could be deployed by the Reichstag's president.30 These boundaries were mostly tested, or perceived to be tested, by members belonging to the minority, either in terms of political ideology or nationality: by Socialists or Polish nationalists. Their challenges were, at least in part, tactical in nature, as parliamentarians from these groups were otherwise not included in, and had no infuence over, legislative debates.31 The perception of their behaviour as out of bounds was in turn particularly guided by the deep animosity felt by the non-Socialist parties towards the Socialists.32

The frst retroactive threat of call to order occurred on 16 April 1867 in the thirty-fourth session. The Polish-Prussian delegate Kasimir Kantak had spoken against the 'act of violence' that the incorporation of the Polish-Prussian provinces into the North German Confederation represented. Amid '[g]eneral great unrest. Lively opposition' Kantak announced that he would resign from his mandate. In response, Eduard von Simson, the National Liberal president of the Reichstag who had held the same offce in the parliament of 1848, declared that with this announcement Kantak had pre-empted his call to order, which 'without fail would have hit [Kantak] for his act of branding a decision of this High House as an "act of violence"'. Simson's indignant response was met with 'lively approval all around'.33 Questioning the virtue and honour of the Reichstag

<sup>30</sup> 'Geschäfts-Ordnung für den Reichstag des Norddeutschen Bundes', 5 (§§ 58–59). On the notion of dignity in a non-German context, see Meisel, 'Humour and Insult', 231.

<sup>31</sup> See Biefang, *Andere Seite*, 215, 221.

<sup>32</sup> *Ibid*., 221.

<sup>33</sup> *StNB 1867/70.1* (16 April 1867), 730.

or its members aroused the indignation of the majority in this instance and at other moments; such comments were perceived as an attack on the dignity of the house. Another example occurred in May 1870 during the discussion of a new criminal code, when the Socialist leader Wilhelm Liebknecht declared that 'the Reichstag admittedly does not have much respect to lose anymore in the eyes of the nation'.34 In response, and amid great noise, Simson called Liebknecht to order for questioning the honour, and thus running afoul of the order, of the parliament.35 In November 1871, the Socialist August Bebel even lost his right to speak for calling the constitution only 'seemingly so' and thus again questioning the integrity of the house in the eyes of the majority.36 However, this would be the only time the measure was used in the Imperial Reichstag.

In contrast to real or alleged verbal slander, laughter emerged as an acceptable form of support or dissent. Building on established distinctions between different kinds of laughter, parliament developed an emotional template for expressing non-verbal sympathy and dislike.37 The stenographic protocols recorded '*Heiterkeit*' or merriment as 'laughing with' and '*Lachen*' or laughter as 'laughing at'.38 Whether the laughter actually differed is hard to say, but the stenographic reports suggest that each of these expressions had a distinct emotional valence: merriment created emotional bonds spanning the entire chamber, while laughter united political factions in their opposition to the speaker. Skilled speakers could use humour to deliver insults in ways parliamentary decorum would otherwise prohibit.39 In addition to templating the behaviour of parliamentarians, humour also templated the conduct of the chamber's president. Its effective use to diffuse strife became a recognized hallmark of authority.40

Stenographers had to interpret representatives' expressed emotions based on context. Considering the practice of parliamentarians checking the protocol before its release, the coding of their expressions in print gave representatives the opportunity to see if their intentions had been

37Cheauré and Nohejl, introduction, 9; see also Lessing, *Hamburgische Dramaturgie*, 217–32 (essay 28 and 29), frst published 1767.

38Olschewski, 'Verschriftung', 348; Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 306.

39Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 308–9; see also Meisel, 'Humour and Insult', 229.

40Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 172.

<sup>34</sup> *StNB 1867/70.11* (21 May 1870), 1095: 'Der Reichstag hat freilich in der Achtung der Nation nicht viel zu verlieren'.

<sup>35</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>36</sup>Biefang, *Andere Seite,* 221.

adequately communicated: ideally they had expressed their laughter in such a way that it followed the emotional template understood by the stenographers too, and had accordingly been transcribed as 'laughter' or 'merriment'.

The tenth session of the North German Reichstag was the frst that recorded laughter and merriment, and the frst that seemed to move towards the templating of these emotional expressions by the stenographers. The frst speech of that session, by the Conservative parliamentarian Hans Köster in favour of the draft of the federation's constitution, elicited 'scattered laughter on the left' with its references to piety as a precondition for good statesmen.41 Note here the spatial allocation of the laughter on the left of the chamber, where the left-leaning politicians sat. In the response by Left-Liberal representative Alfred Groote against the proposed prerogatives of the government and thus Bismarck, his more nimble rhetoric and use of emotions in contrast resulted in a record by the stenographers that noted merriment without a specifc spatial allocation, but also—and occasionally at the same time—unrest:

Groote: 'Of other members of Nationalverein I have always heard the claim that, despite their serious and heavy efforts, they did not succeed in eliciting in the south of Germany the nicest sympathies for the creation of German unity, and precisely for this creation under Prussian leadership. But why their efforts failed then was the fault of the Prussian government that did not assist them. And indeed, gentlemen, that was the case. If this daring statesman, who has just taken his seat there

(seeing now the president of the federation's commissaries, Count Bismarck)

Or to my great delight is still sitting there (considerable and continued merriment)

If this daring statesman, I say, had been better at winning the sympathies of the south of the German people for himself, and if he then would have revealed the daring plan that he revealed only before the Austrian war—I am convinced he would have succeeded, without this war against our fraternal tribes, to win over all of Germany and render the Austrian government powerless.'42

Dripping with irony, Groote's speech managed nonetheless to unite the entire house with its humour. When, however, he unironically criticized Bismarck, the noise directed at him was suffcient to interrupt his speech.

<sup>41</sup> *StNB 1867/70.1* (11 March 1867), 124.

<sup>42</sup> *Ibid*., 132.

In response, Groote declared either he would have the quiet attention of his fellow parliamentarians or he would stop speaking, though he required the authority of the president to back him up. Soon after, a 'great unrest' erupted again, requiring once more the president's bell to re-establish order.43 Once Groote began speaking more humorously about Bismarck's yet-to-be-written biography, his fellow parliamentarians responded with such merriment that some asked Groote to speak louder and the president had to ask for quiet.44 Throughout Grote's speech, the reports noted unrest and merriment simultaneously, causing the president to intervene on multiple occasions and fnally to admonish the members of parliament after a verbal interjection from the benches that 'no one has the right to contradict [the speaker] except from the rostrum'45—a reminder to the delegates of another regulation regarding the expression of parliamentary emotions.

If laughing and merriment had been novel protocollary remarks, by the twentieth session laughing had become fully established as one way to show disagreement without running afoul of the procedural rules of debate. Protocol conventions were aligned with the perceptions of the speaker when the Progressive Liberal Benedikt Waldeck responded to 'laughter, on the right' with 'Gentlemen, you can laugh about this! I will, if you want, explain this to you further'.46

The above example of Kasimir Kantak, however, demonstrates the limits of the emotional template in parliament: ultimately it could only structure the behaviour of those willing to be included (and in turn deemed acceptable by the majority). In the Empire, Polish and Socialist members of parliament to varying degrees opposed the constitutional order. They were more frequently the recipients of calls to order. Yet over time, the Social Democrats in particular adopted the patterns of expected behaviour. Growing success at the ballot box, as well as the apparent durability of the constitutional order, convinced the Social Democrats that their chances of gaining power were greater if they used its levers rather than obstructed them.47 The non-Socialist parties did not always respond in kind to these more programmatic advances and in turn disrupted the

<sup>43</sup> *StNB 1867/70.1* (11 March 1867), 133.

<sup>44</sup> *Ibid*., 134.

<sup>45</sup> *Ibid*., 135.

<sup>46</sup> *StNB 1867/70.1* (27 March 1867), 389.

<sup>47</sup>Biefang, *Andere Seite*, 218.

Social Democrats' speeches by making noise or laughing.48 The one notable and consistent failure to conform to parliament's emotional template on the part of the Social Democrats involved their refusal to stand during the semi-annual Hail to the Emperor. Yet even here, rather than openly showing defance in the chamber, Social Democratic representatives increasingly left the chamber in advance of the rite.

The place of Social Democrats within the body politic animated the discussion of procedural order on two more occasions during the Empire. In the aftermath of an assassination attempt on the German Emperor Wilhelm I in May 1878, and in the context of the so-called Socialist laws, the Reichstag once more debated the limits of acceptable behaviour and emotions within its chambers following the Socialist Wilhelm Liebknecht's refusal to stand for the Emperor. On the heels of the anti-Socialist laws, the German government introduced legislation to sharpen the disciplinary powers over the members of parliament in the spring of 1879, including the right to expel parliamentarians from the chamber. In his support for the legislation, the conservative delegate Hans Hugo von Kleist-Retzow accused the leader of the Socialists in parliament in general and Liebknecht in particular of having undermined the Reichstag's 'productive and peaceful development of […] debates'.49

While the Reichstag's majority rejected the law, this should not be seen as an expression of support for the content or even the emotions expressed by Liebknecht and the Social Democrats. The majority defended the autonomy of the parliament and its right to free speech from interference by the imperial government and judiciary, but immediately instructed the chamber's president to revise the procedural laws to enable the expulsion of a member of parliament for disrespectful behaviour.50 The way the Reichstag president, National Liberal Max von Forckenbeck, handled Liebknecht's attempt to defend his actions in a subsequent session ten days later further demonstrated the majority's opposition to the behaviour of the Social Democrats because it did not ft the desired template. Liebknecht explained that his refusal to stand had not been a personal attack on the Emperor but merely an expression of the party's general policy. During his explanation, Forckenbeck issued two calls to order against Liebknecht and eventually instructed him to leave the rostrum,

<sup>48</sup> *Ibid*., 222.

<sup>49</sup>Cited in Fischer, 'Majestätsbeleidigung', 577.

<sup>50</sup> *StBR 1879.2* (7 March 1879), 310, 326.

though not before stating that 'staying seated during the hail, which was extended here to our revered emperor, indeed hurts the monarchical feelings of the Reichstag, of the entire people, in such a severe fashion that cannot be imagined in any more severe way'.51 The statement garnered 'lively shouts of bravo'. Once more, the feelings—and with them, the dignity—of the parliamentarians were confated with those of the nation. Despite the insistence on the procedural autonomy of the Reichstag from the Imperial government, the majority in this instance saw no distinction between the dignity of the two bodies.

The debate repeated itself following the opening of the Reichstag's new building in 1894, when the Emperor was present and the chamber rose to hail him. The Social Democrats remained seated and an emotional outcry ensued, with shouts of 'Shame on you' from the right as well as from Social Democrats. And once more, the president of the chamber, by then the Conservative Albert von Levetzow, accused the Social Democrats of 'insulting the feelings of the members of the Reichstag' and expressed regret that he did not have the power to prohibit and punish such behaviour.52 In 1879, the parliament had not passed a proposal to strengthen the disciplinary powers of the president after all. Yet by the 1890s, the political climate had shifted: once the anti-Socialist laws had lapsed in 1888, over the two subsequent Reichstag elections the Social Democrats had emerged as the largest party by votes, if not by seats. As a result, the conservative majority in the Reichstag grew more concerned about the Socialists' infuence in parliament and proved more willing than in 1879 to support a government initiative to sanction their behaviour.

First, in December 1894, the Reichstag debated Liebknecht's conduct and a request by the German government to lift his immunity in order to prosecute him for lèse-majesté. All factions but the Social Democrats agreed that feelings were at stake. What should follow from this was less clear, however. The delegate of the Catholic Centre Party, Hermann Roeren, rejected any measure of force: hailing the Emperor was an act of loyalty and thus had to be an expression of 'voluntary, of monarchical feeling' and not a forced act.53 Nonetheless, Roeren co-sponsored a motion to allow the president of the Reichstag to expel a member from the chamber, since further measures to maintain the order of the house needed to

<sup>51</sup> See for context and quote Fischer, 'Majestätsbeleidugung', 578.

<sup>52</sup> *Ibid*., 579.

<sup>53</sup> *Ibid*., 581–82.

be taken.54 August Bebel for the Social Democrats condemned the entire debate. The conduct of the Social Democrats had not changed. For years members had remained seated or left the chambers during the hail to the Emperor and no one had considered this an attack on the dignity of the house. That the majority were now attacking a representative who had only followed his own inner convictions, '*whose honest expression can be expected as natural for every honest man*', with shouts of 'pfui' and 'out' constituted the real damage to the dignity of the house.55 Bebel's defence netted him his own call to order for 'insulting the nation'.56

The Reichstag declined to strip Liebknecht of his immunity and thus rejected the government's interference in its own affairs. But it took up the stricter disciplinary rules once more in February the following year.57 Here too, Bebel spoke last and disputed the necessity of the change, since the strongest mechanism of the procedural order—to stop someone from speaking—had only been used once, incidentally against himself, almost twenty-fve years prior. Moreover, contrary to the assertions of those in favour of the motion, the level of debate and decorum in the Reichstag had not deteriorated over time. Citing the protocol of a debate in the Prussian parliament of 1866, Bebel sought to demonstrate that the rhetoric and attacks against the government back then had been much harsher. Offering additional examples of insults hurled in the Belgian chamber, Bebel proclaimed that 'in no parliament of the world the discussions on average are conducted so calmly and rationally—and that also means: respectably—as in this house'. According to him, this partly resulted from the fact that freedom of speech in the Reichstag was already constrained more than in any other parliament.58 Even though the historical quotes Bebel cited elicited the considerable amusement of his colleagues, a majority of them voted in favour of allowing the expulsion of a member in cases of 'willful disruption of order', against the objection of the Social Democrats, the Polish parties, some members of the Centre Party, and the two left-liberal parties.59

Bebel had been correct in questioning the necessity of these expanded powers. Neither the behaviour of parliamentarians nor the sanctioning of

<sup>58</sup> *StBR 1894/95.2* (16 February 1895), 943–44.

<sup>54</sup> *Ibid*., 582, 585.

<sup>55</sup> *StBR 1894/95.1* (15 December 1894), 164, emphasis in original.

<sup>56</sup> *Ibid*., 167.

<sup>57</sup> See Fischer, 'Majestätsbeleidigung', 586–87.

<sup>59</sup> See Fischer, 'Majestätsbeleidigung', 586–87.

it changed signifcantly thereafter. The Social Democrats continued to sit or be absent during the hail to the Emperor without further sanction.60 The debates over the 'hail' demonstrate the limits of, and tensions between, procedural rules and emotional templates. At times of political re-orientation, such as the turmoil in the aftermath of the assassination attempt of 1878, or the shift to the right in the wake of Wilhelm II's greater infuence in governmental affairs,61 emotions from without parliament could also infuence and challenge the established procedural norms and emotional templates within. During the Empire these external challenges were ultimately not strong enough to change norms and procedures in the Reichstag, however. The extent to which they had become established across party lines would be demonstrated by the fact that they remained a reference point in the Weimar Republic.

#### Weimar: Templating Democracy

Following the revolution of 1918, the old procedural orders for the Reichstag remained in place for the constitutional assembly. But its members agreed that a democratic parliament to which the government was now responsible needed new procedural rules. On 21 January 1921, the Reichstag asked a commission to go about drafting them.62 Political and economic turmoil, including the assassination of several republican politicians, disrupted the drafters' progress. As a result, the revised regulations were not presented to the house until November 1922. There, the three articles that received the most attention related to the regulation of the conduct of members of parliament: the duration of their speeches, the ability of members of the opposition to question the government, and the sanctioning of unruly behaviour. 'Speaking out the window' and to the nation rather than to fellow delegates re-emerged as a concern and led to a debate about limiting the maximum time allotted to a speaker. While the Communist parliamentarians, who used the rostrum precisely for such purposes, objected, the more intensive debate arose over the disciplinary powers of the Reichstag president.63 The issue had become a focus of the

<sup>63</sup> *StB 1920/24.14* (14 November 1922), 8969–70; on limiting the duration of parliamentary speeches, see also Manow, *Nebensächlichkeiten*, 39–41.

<sup>60</sup>Pollmann, 'Parlamentarische Kultur', 109.

<sup>61</sup> See Fischer, 'Majestätsbeleidigung', 588.

<sup>62</sup> *StB 1920/24.3* (21 January 1921), 1968.

commission and parliamentarians following an incident in the chamber in June 1921. A heated debate led to fsticuffs on the foor of the Reichstag between the Independent Socialists and right-wing Liberals and Nationalists.64 This event convinced the members of the commission drafting the new procedural rules to sanction more harshly behaviour that threatened the dignity of the parliament, such as physical violence or questioning the honourable motives of parliamentarians. Some of the language of 1895 returned, though at this point the Social Democrats were on the side of those defending the chamber's dignity against the perceived attacks of the representatives to their left.65 Over time, the Socialists had been habituated into the parliament's emotional template. The Social Democrat Paul Löbe, who had become the Reichstag's president in 1920 (since the offce was awarded to the largest political faction), emerged as one of its most outspoken defenders.66

When the commission overseeing the revision of the procedural rules reported back to the Reichstag, the Communists alluded to the Social Democrats' own parliamentary history in their attack on the proposed disciplinary powers.67 In November 1922, the Communist Emil Eichhorn, himself a former Social Democratic member of the Imperial Reichstag, explicitly pointed to the debate of February 1895 surrounding the Social Democrats' refusal to stand for the hail to the Emperor. Like the SPD then, he argued, the KPD now was being attacked by those in power who did not want real democracy to prevail. According to Eichhorn, it was not he and his fellow comrades who threatened the dignity of parliament, but the parliamentary majority willing to introduce such strict measures to regulate acceptable behaviour.68 By questioning the very legitimacy of the 'bourgeois parliament', Eichhorn repeated the Social Democrat rhetoric of 1871, not 1895. Though crucially, he went a step further by announcing in the Reichstag itself that a revolutionary spirit would soon obliterate the existing order and create a true democracy.69 In response, the other speakers in the debate, from the Social Democrats on the left to the German Nationalists on the right, agreed on the need to regulate speech

<sup>64</sup> *StB 1920/24.7* (17 June 1921), 3950.

<sup>65</sup> See Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 158–59, though I disagree with his assessment of the 'dignity discourse' as a novelty.

<sup>66</sup> *Ibid*., 161.

<sup>67</sup> *StB 1920/24.14* (14 November 1922), 8978.

<sup>68</sup> *Ibid*., 8981–82.

<sup>69</sup> *Ibid*., 8982.

more strictly. To them, Eichhorn and the Communists threatened the functioning of parliament and, moreover, its dignity, with their conduct.70 Effective parliamentary work—together with the appropriate emotional expression—would maintain or restore, depending on the perspective, the dignity of the parliament. The parties to the right of the KPD agreed on this template of 'orderly politics'. To them, the KPD's approach of 'disruption' was a sign of the Communists 'uncontrolled passions'.71

Even the new, stricter procedural rules could not alone preserve the desired 'orderly politics'. In order to function, they required an emotional template that negotiated between emotions and regulations, permitting certain kinds of emotional expressions, such as the right type of humour and even the appropriate form of disruption, while excluding others that were meant to undermine the edifce of rules altogether, such as the interjection of the Communist Emil Höllein during Eichhorn's speech. Höllein declared that the 'bourgeois parties' should not think that they would be able to eject him or his comrades from the chambers under the new rules. If they tried, he warned, they 'would be in for a surprise'.72 This statement demonstrated the difference between Höllein and Bebel, who had acknowledged the overall template of the Reichstag and indeed appealed to the rationality of his colleagues. Höllein, in contrast, was objecting not only to the very idea that this Reichstag could set rules, but also declaring his intention to disrupt the emotional template and escalate the passions of the chamber.

The acceptable emotional ebb and fow within these templates could be seen in an exchange between German Nationalists and Social Democrats during the same debate. It started with the German Nationalist delegate Walther Graef calling for stricter sanction mechanisms than the ones proposed in the draft rules. His pun about the diets of parliamentarians was answered with '*Heiterkeit*' and a jocular interjection by the Social Democrats. Graef responded to this with a slightly less humorous and somewhat acerbic comment, departing from the more inclusive spirit of his earlier remark. The Social Democrats in turn reacted with a pun referencing Graef's desire to establish a parliamentary guard modelled on the Belgian, French, and American parliaments, still balancing on the edge of laughter and merriment. But when Graef took up this interjection to

<sup>70</sup> *Ibid*., 8971, 8973, 8976, 8982.

<sup>71</sup> See for the conceptualization of these terms Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 163.

<sup>72</sup> *StB 1920/24.7* (14 November 1922), 8980.

confrm his commitment to such an idea, the Social Democratic side of the chamber erupted in unrest and noise, as the stenographic report notes. Graef continued to argue for his party's proposal as a way to defend the true dignity of the parliament against unruly delegates. With two sides committed to the Reichstag's emotional template, the debate did not spiral out of control. Instead, following another jocular interjection by a Social Democrat about the uniforms such guards might wear, Graef reacted with good humour, and the banter and '*Heiterkeit*' of the debate resumed, even though the difference in point of view remained.73

The new parliamentary procedures that parliament approved in December 1922 did not include a guard. And even the stricter measures did not need to be used frequently at frst. With only sixteen members in the 459-seat Reichstag, the Communists lacked the power to make good on their threat. Calls to order were no more frequent than they had been in the last Imperial Reichstag elected in 1912.74 Instead, the general agreement on 'orderly politics' and the emotional template necessary for their preservation from the Social Democrats on the left to the German Nationalist People's Party on the right held up—at least inside the Reichstag, though not necessarily outside of it. These orderly politics necessitated a general comportment and emotional display that supported debate even across ideological lines. The Communist delegates in this frst legislative period might have challenged the template but they were not strong enough to fundamentally disrupt it. Considering the tumultuous early years of the Weimar Republic, which included two coup attempts, the assassination of leading republican politicians, and hyperinfation, this relative order in parliament is all the more remarkable and speaks to the scaffolding power of the institution and its emotional template. The institutional rather than personal infuence is highlighted by the fact that a minority of representatives had experienced the pre-revolutionary Reichstag and only a few had any parliamentary experience at all.75 Among the parliamentarians who had served in the Imperial Reichstag, Eichhorn's case of revolutionary fervour overruling established behaviour seems to have been the exception.

The desire to present the parliament as a functioning constitutional organ and thus maintain or gain the respect of the German people,

<sup>73</sup> *Ibid*., 8972–73.

<sup>74</sup>Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 167.

<sup>75</sup> *Ibid*., 98–99.

together with the material legacy of the procedural norms, led to the reproduction of a template for the acceptable behaviour of parliamentarians similar to that of the Imperial Reichstag. That template in 1867 had, after all, been created by parliamentarians invested in the success of the parliament. Neither the novel presence of women in parliament nor the markedly different social composition of the Weimar Reichstag as a result of revolution and new electoral laws—with fewer university graduates, more workers, and among the workers especially, a greater number of party functionaries—initially seemed to have much effect.76

The elections of 1924, however, saw a strengthening of the radical parties on both the left and the right and especially of the Communists. With the increased presence of a party opposed to the Reichstag as an institution, the consensus came under stress. The Communists' behaviour also differed from that of the Social Democrats during the Empire, who also only obtained suffcient parliamentary might more than two decades into the Reichstag's existence. Compare the conduct and argumentative strategy of Liebknecht and Bebel in 1895 to the dispute between Communist and National Socialist delegates in a session in June 1924.77 Rather than over a current parliamentary topic, the confrontation erupted over the murder of Eugene Leviné, the leader of the Munich Council Republic, fve years earlier. Communist delegates threw paper balls and newspapers at the National Socialist speaker Christian Roth. In return, ten minutes into the session's interlude and after the Communists had left the chambers in protest, the Volkish delegates interrupted the Social Democratic delegate Kurt Rosenfeld with shouts that 'Jews had no place in the German Reichstag'.78 The response of the Reichstag's vice president to the unrest further infamed the proceedings. Right-Liberal Jakob Riesser failed to censure the Volkish delegates. Instead he turned to Anna Reitler, a female Communist delegate. In a demonstration of gendered ideas about emotional behaviour at the time, Riesser expressed his disappointment with Reitler for not living up to his ideal of feminine conduct. According to the stenographer's report, she had shouted continuously in an excited fashion. Shaming her for her comportment, Riesser reminded Reitler that women were supposed to improve conduct in parliament, presumably by being calmer and more demure than their

<sup>76</sup> *Ibid*., 100–3. <sup>77</sup> *Ibid*., 169. <sup>78</sup> *Ibid*.

male colleagues.79 The general perception of women, who made up between 4 and 8 per cent of parliamentarians during the Weimar Republic, however, was that of the stenographer. Because of their often higherpitched voices, and drawing on older stereotypes of women as hysteric, female parliamentarians were described by their colleagues and in the press as 'screaming' in a sign of their 'womanly emotional uninhibitedness'.80

The fairly minor presence of women in the Reichstag was admittedly not the main cause of the shifting emotional template. Nor was the ineffectual handling of debates by Riesser or by the German National president of the Reichstag at the time, Max Wallraf, primarily to blame for the shift.81 Even when Paul Löbe returned to wield the speaker's gavel following the second elections of 1924 (not relinquishing it until 1932), his superior skills could not counter the lack of interest in orderly parliamentary procedure by the Communists and, from 1930, the growing number of National Socialists. Their disruptions were strategic rather than spontaneous and, as a result, were immune to Löbe's humour, or any habituating effect the emotional template might have had. While the calls to order per parliamentary session from 1924 to 1928 decreased compared to the tumultuous period under Wallraf, they did not fall back to pre-1924 levels. When the Communists and National Socialists together held almost a third of the seats after 1930, calls to order increased more than threefold, to more than six per session on average. Through their behaviour, Communist and National Socialist parliamentarians established a new emotional template that was neither aligned with nor interested in procedural rules or the functioning of the institution. Following the July 1932 elections, theirs became the emotional template of the majority of German parliamentarians, presided over by a National Socialist Reichstag president.

#### Bonn: A Post-totalitarian Template

In June 1951, Paul Löbe gave a speech to the West German Parliamentary Society (*Parlamentarische Gesellschaft*), a club for the informal gathering of parliamentarians across party aisles that had been founded just a few months prior. Löbe, who had become the West German parliament's president by seniority (*Alterspräsident*) upon the state's founding in 1949,

<sup>81</sup> *Ibid*., 170.

<sup>79</sup> *StB* 1924.1 (24 June 1924), 248.

<sup>80</sup> See Mergel, *Parlamentarische Kultur*, 105–6.

refected on the lessons the Bundestag could learn from the experience of the Reichstag. The discussions about procedural rules for the Bundestag formed the backdrop of this speech. While the Federal Republic did not inherit a building and had to think about the spatial arrangements of parliament anew, like the Weimar Republic it could provisionally rely on established procedural rules for running a parliament. As opposed to the former president of the Reichstag, few of the new delegates had served in the Weimar parliament, though a majority had held elected offce in the occupied zones between 1945 and 1949.82 Löbe described the Weimar procedures in positive terms, yet agreed that they nonetheless needed revision in light of the altered constitutional arrangements. In his wideranging comments, Löbe touched on the presence of parliamentarians in plenary debates, his experience with the challenges to order and tolerance by radical parties, and the use of humour rather than sanctions to deal with these challenges, the nature of free versus scripted speech in parliament, as well as the spatial arrangements of the Bundeshaus, the new seat of the West German parliament in Bonn, and its infuence on democratic conduct.83

In contrast to the more philosophical nature of Löbe's remarks, or perhaps in recognition of his assessment of the 1922 procedural rules, the changes proposed by the relevant committee and ultimately accepted by parliament in 1951 remained mostly technical in nature. They primarily refected the strengthened position of the chancellor and the introduction of the so-called constructive vote of non-confdence. Regarding conduct during debates, the rights of small parties were reformulated, and fnally a 'question hour' was introduced, inspired by the British model. This new provision was supposed to achieve the same goal as the maximum length of a speech introduced in 1922: sparking real debate and limiting 'speeches out the window'.84 The debate about the disciplinary powers of the president of the chamber remained confned to the Social Democrats' unsuccessful demand to include the Council of Elders in the deliberation about the number of days a member of parliament could be barred from the

<sup>82</sup>Recker, *Parlamentarismus*, 170.

<sup>83</sup>Feldkamp, 'Reichstag und Bundestag'.

<sup>84</sup> Sieberer, 'Lehren aus Weimar?', 13–14.

chamber following his expulsion from a single session. The power to determine the punishment remained with the president alone.85

Just as during the Weimar Republic and previously in the Empire, so too in the Federal Republic did the importance of the parliament's president in enforcing the emotional template through the skilful deployment of the offce's authority become apparent. The Bundestag's frst president, the Christian Democratic Erich Köhler, failed at this task. Well intentioned, and with an impeccable democratic and anti-National Socialist record, he proved nonetheless unable to adequately control the parliamentarians' emotions. Even his own party increasingly criticized him.86 The recent German past and the present state of political affairs created frequent moments of friction that needed to be contained. Kurt Schumacher's attack on Konrad Adenauer in November 1949 provides an infamous example. In a debate about the dismantling of German industry by the British, Adenauer accused the Social Democrats of letting the British continue with their plans unabated rather than negotiating their scope. In the unrest that followed, this debate ensued:

(Delegate Dr. Schumacher: That is not true!—Hear! Hear! and countercalls from the parties of government.—Additional excited calls from the SPD and KPD.—Bell of the President.—Delegate Renner [KPD]: Where is this written?—Calls left: Are you still a German?—Are you speaking as German chancellor?—Delegate Dr. Schumacher: The Chancellor of the Allies!)

President Dr. Köhler: Delegate Schumacher,—(Tumultuous protest in the center and on the right. Loud noise and rattling with the desks' covers.—Delegates of the CDU/CSU stand up and are leading heated debates.—Continuous sounding of the bell by the president.—Persistent noise.)

Delegate Dr. Schumacher,—

(Ongoing noise.—Continuous sounding of the bell.—Persistent noise.)

Delegate Dr. Schumacher! For the characterization of the chancellor as 'chancellor of the Allies' I am calling you to order!

(Continued unrest.)

Mr. Chancellor, please proceed!

(Persistent noise.—Delegate Ollenhauer: Mr. Adenauer has provoked him and no one else!—More excited calls and personal disputes.—Bell of the presi-

<sup>85</sup>*PlenP 01/179*, (6 December 1951), 7427; 'Geschäftsordnung des Deutschen Bundestages', §42.

86Recker, *Parlamentarismus*, 189–91; Feldkamp, 'Erich Köhler', 9.

dent.—Ongoing noise.—Bell of the president.—Delegate Dr. Oellers: I am calling for the Council of Elders to be convened!—Persistent unrest and calls.) I have called the delegate Dr. Schumacher to order!

(Call from the center: That is not enough!—Delegate Dr. Oellers: Mr. President I request the immediate convening of the Council of Elders and ask for a vote! Chancellor leaves the rostrum.—Continued great unrest.—Bell of the President.)

Ladies and Gentlemen,—

(Ongoing noise.—Delegate Strauss: You have to apologize, otherwise we leave the parliament!—Continuous ringing of the president's bell.)

Ladies and Gentleman, I ask you for a moment of quiet so that we can settle this issue! I have the request to interrupt this session and immediately call on the Council of Elders to convene in light of the severity of the description that delegate Dr. Schumacher has used.

(Lively agreement by the parties of government, objection on the left.— Renewed noise.)

I note that the majority is in favour of this interruption. I immediately interrupt the session and convene the Council of Elders.

(Lively shouts of bravo and clapping of hands from the government parties.— Continued unrest on the left.)

Following the interruption, the Social Democratic delegates did not reenter the chamber, and only the Communists continued their objections to the procedure within. Köhler demanded that Schumacher apologize to Adenauer, and when he refused, Schumacher was excluded from parliamentary sessions for twenty days.87 Even on an occasion in which Köhler acted decisively against the Right, he ultimately came into confict with the Social Democrats. His actions did not produce a calmer atmosphere here either. When he ejected the former National Socialist Wolfgang Hedler from the chamber but not from the parliament building, an altercation resulted between Hedler and two Social Democratic parliamentarians who were in turn suspended.88 These early debates exhibited little of the 'power of the better argument' and the praised 'rational debate' that is hailed as a hallmark of Bonn's political culture.89 Köhler failed to limit

<sup>87</sup>*PlenP 01/18* (24–25 November 1949), 525–26.

<sup>88</sup>*PlenP 01/46* (10 March 1950), 1560–61; Recker, *Parlamentarismus*, 189.

<sup>89</sup> See Verheyen, *Diskussionslust*; Conway and Depkat, 'Discourse of Democracy', 140–43; Biess, 'Chance', 232.

the passions in parliament to the emotional expressions sanctioned by the template and thus failed to prevent feelings from disrupting proceedings.

In July 1950, Köhler suffered a nervous breakdown in parliament. When the Bundestag reconvened in October 1950, he was replaced by the Christian Democrat Hermann Ehlers. Ehlers, by all accounts, was more skilled in reacting to dissent in parliament, without reinforcing emotions intended to disrupt parliamentary sessions.90 Like Löbe, he occasionally used humour to defuse tension. While this may have been enough to ease the clashes between the three main parties of the government and opposition (the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, and the Social Democrats), as in Weimar the Communists continued to operate outside the emotional template of parliamentary procedure, their position now even more acute due to the Cold War and the division of Germany. The Communist delegates Heinz Renner and Walter Fisch in particular followed the party's Weimar tradition of obstruction and had their limited constructive engagement in parliament accordingly obstructed or ignored by the other parties.91 In July 1950, in a session run by the parliament's vice president, the Liberal Hermann Schäfer, Fisch accused delegates of having conducted a 'dishonest investigation' with foreign spy services against the interests of German workers. Even though Fisch had started with an accusation against the Social Democrats, conservative delegates such as Franz Josef Strauß soon joined the fray as well. After a follow-up question, Fisch then widened his accusation to indict the entire house. By accusing members of the house of dishonest behaviour, he assailed the dignity of the parliament—the conception of this offence had not changed.92 In response, Schäfer moved to exclude him from this session. Yet because Fisch refused to leave, Schäfer increased the censure to the maximum thirty-day ban from parliamentary proceedings. To applause from all parties, the entire Communist delegation then left the chamber.93

The cross-party agreement against the Communists left the Communist delegates little choice but to agitate, however. Their parliamentary weakness became even more pronounced when the Bundestag increased the

<sup>90</sup>Recker, *Parlamentarismus*, 192–93.

<sup>91</sup> See also Major, *Death of the KPD*, 106, 110–11.

<sup>92</sup> See also Renner, *Drucksache Nr. 1840*.

<sup>93</sup>*PlenP 01/80* (27 July 1950), 3004–5; on the different uses of applause, see Manow, *Nebensächlichkeiten*, 11–19.

minimum number of representatives one party needed to form a faction from ten to ffteen in January 1952. Quite deliberately this deprived the Communists of this status and thus of the right to propose legislation or direct questions to the government. The Communists' disruptive stance of the 156 calls to order during the Bundestag's frst legislative session, 107 were directed against one of the Communists—was thus partly of their own choosing and partly imposed by procedural rules.94 In contrast to the Weimar Republic, in Bonn the KPD found no success at the polls. In the 1953 elections, its share of the vote dropped from 5.6 per cent to 2.2 per cent and thus below the newly introduced 5 per cent threshold for parliamentary representation. The 1956 ban on the party only cemented its outcast status. The party landscape of the Federal Republic consolidated further, so that by 1957 only fve and after 1961 only three parties, the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, and the Liberals, were left. Successors to various Weimar parties, and after the founding of the West German state, the ones interested in the success of its parliamentary system—these three parties followed the emotional template of 'orderly politics' established in the early years of the Weimar Republic, a template that in many ways harked back, just like the procedural rules, to the German Empire.

#### Conclusion

From the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848 onwards, each German parliament realized that it needed to regulate the interactions of its members both in order to be successful and to maintain the respect of 'the people' for the institution of parliament—the concern for the dignity of the house emerged not least from the latter desire. While procedural rules for speaking and sanctioning set the rough framework for conduct, the success of these rules hinged on the acceptance of an emotional template, a pattern of behaviour that respected the dignity of the house. The emotional template negotiated between emotions and procedures and assumed the legitimacy of opposition as part of parliamentary debate. For the public, it was supposed to create and maintain an image of representatives as constructive legislators. Thus excluded were expressions of hate, denigration, and doubts about the honesty of other parliamentarians. The

<sup>94</sup>Major, *Death of the KPD*, 110, 114.

template also determined how much and what kind of non-verbal dissent, such as noise or unrest, was acceptable before it became disruptive to the business of parliament. Laughter in particular emerged as a legitimate form of dissent, even if the line between laughter and mockery was sometimes fne. Laughter also served as a sign of unity among political factions and in the form of merriment as reassurance of the shared identity of the entire house. Emanating from the fgure of the chamber's president, humour moreover served to soften the edges of authority and secure the functioning of parliament without disruptions caused by excessive emotions or harsh sanctions.

This template proves to be remarkably consistent in the history of German parliaments and their procedures. Yet this history also demonstrates the fragility of the template and its reliance on both skilful enforcers on the inside (parliamentary presidents versed in moderating the parliamentarians' emotions) and on the exclusion of those opposed to the governing template from the chambers. Challenges to the rules could not only arise from within, however, but also from without, be it on the streets or through the intervention of non-parliamentary governments. Ultimately then the durability of the emotional template resided in its appeal to a majority, either through the assimilation or ejection of dissenters. The debates surrounding parliamentary procedures and their emotions document the ebb and fow of these two approaches.

#### Bibliography


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# Feeling Political Through Law: The Emergence of an International Criminal Jurisdiction, 1899–2019

### *Agnes Arndt*

New York, 23 April 2019: Amal Clooney made an urgent appeal to the United Nations Security Council, emphasizing 'our responsibility'—a diplomatic, political, legal, but above all global and humanitarian responsibility—to the victims of sexual violence in war and civil confict.

In preparing to deliver these remarks alongside Nadia Murad … I thought back to a conversation we had when we frst met. Nadia told me of her suffering at the hands of twelve different ISIS men who enslaved and brutalized her. She recounted the murder of her mother and brothers. She showed me threatening messages that she had received from ISIS on her phone. And as she did this, it occurred to me that she never expressed fear for life, for her safety. Instead, that day, and ever since, she has spoken of only one fear: that when all this is over, the ISIS men just shave off their beards and go back to their normal lives. That there will be no justice.1

'This is your Nuremberg moment', the human rights lawyer for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad and other Yezidi women and girls who had been abducted, tortured, and raped by ISIS entreated the Security

<sup>1</sup> 'Amal Clooney (Barrister) on Sexual Violence in Confict'.

Council. She urged its member states to seize the opportunity to 'stand on the right side of history'.2

Clooney, an expert in defending individuals against states, has worked at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, in the offce of the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and as an adviser on the Syrian confict to the late Kof Annan, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. Her speech, delivered at the invitation of the German Presidency of the United Nations Security Council as part of its initiative for the adoption of a resolution against sexual violence,3 is one of a number of political initiatives that has invoked the motif of the 'Nuremberg Moment'.4 Precisely because of its procedural issues—the challenge of dealing with the principle of *nulla poena sine lege*, or the prohibition of retroactivity in criminal law5—Nuremberg is still regarded today as a paradigm shift in international criminal jurisdiction and a prime example of how crimes of such a shocking magnitude that they threaten humanity as a whole can be sanctioned.6 'Nuremberg' was a milestone in the development of international criminal law into an institution—in both the legal and material sense—which, in accordance with the Kantian tenet that the 'violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere',7 understands, treats, and punishes certain criminal offences not only as 'crimes' or war crimes, but as 'crimes against humanity'.

How does an infringement committed in one part of the world turn into a criminal case that affects the international community—and humanity—as a whole? This chapter argues, frst, that feelings motivated, authorized, and legitimized legal and political action which, over time, developed into a participatory politics in the feld of law and contributed to the emergence of an international criminal jurisdiction. Feelings helped to reconcile diverse ideas about what precisely constitutes law and justice within international jurisprudence and facilitated appeals to an international

<sup>2</sup> 'This Is Your Nuremberg Moment'.

3United Nations Security Council, 'Resolution 2467 (2019)'.

4Mouralis**,** *Moment Nuremberg.* A number of recent studies analyse the specifc French, British, American, and Soviet infuence on the International Military Tribunal with a view to their individual and diverging, legal, political, and cultural traditions. See Gemählich, *Frankreich*; Tisseron, *France*; Bloxham, *Genocide on Trial*; Hirsch, *Soviet Judgment*; Crowe, *Stalin's Soviet Justice*; Schulmeister-André, *Internationale Strafgerichtsbarkeit*.

5Douglas, 'Was damals'.

6Priemel and Stiller, *Reassessing*; Heller, *Nuremberg Military Tribunals*.

7Kant, *Political Writings*, 107–8.

community of responsibility. Second, feelings shaped the formulation of criminal charges, guided the questioning of witnesses, and structured the conduct of trials and presentation of evidence. By analysing these dynamics in cases of genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity, it is possible to understand the emergence of international criminal jurisdiction as a political institution that has developed specifc—and competing—templates for expressing and appropriating emotions. Lastly, the international criminal justice system was not simply forced to respond to the emotions it was confronted with. It also benefted from them by integrating emotions into a societal narrative about the future world and legal order, thus making them politically effective.

'Feeling political through law'—this is the main argument of the chapter—meant promoting a form of participatory politics that not only expanded the circle of those pushing for the development of international law, but also produced institutional effects which ultimately led to the establishment of an international criminal jurisdiction and institutions like the International Criminal Court. The political, legal, and institutional enforcement of international criminal law as an instrument implemented by its own (primarily state) subjects, characterized by reciprocal patterns of action, a particular closeness to reality, and the infuence of numerous non-legal factors, is unthinkable without feelings.8 This chapter uses a history of emotion perspective to examine what was perceived to be a neutral, apolitical, and unfeeling international criminal justice system. Tracing the development of 'crimes against humanity' from the end of the nineteenth to the early twenty-frst century, the chapter illuminates how the law, politics, emotions, and institutions globally intertwined.9

The methodological and theoretical approach of the study, which begins with an analysis of the so-called Einsatzgruppen Trial, focuses on emotional templates that communicate between the institution and individuals by providing them with a rough emotional framework, which is organized into a series of signs that arise when an institution works with or on emotions. These emotional templates are understood as key sites of historical change that both cause transformations and also presuppose them.10 Their importance for the emergence of international criminal justice is twofold: emotional templates introduced emotions to the law, and

<sup>8</sup>Vitzthum and Proelß, *Völkerrecht*, 18–20.

<sup>9</sup>On law and emotions in general, see Frevert, 'Gefühle der Staaten'; Schnädelbach, *Entscheidende Gefühle*; Shaw, *Law*; Nussbaum, *Political Emotions*; Nussbaum, *Hiding*.

<sup>10</sup> See the introduction by Ute Frevert and Kerstin Maria Pahl in this volume.

they transformed these emotions with the help of the law and thus contributed to the institutionalization of a global justice system.

The empirical basis of this chapter is a recently edited collection of hitherto unknown sources from the estate of one of the chief prosecutors of the Nuremberg Military Trials, Benjamin Berell Ferencz.11 The material, consisting of letters, interviews, flms, diary excerpts, blog entries, and press reports—used here in conjunction with other, primarily legal, sources—uniquely documents the emotional patterns and templates that shaped the network of jurists who pushed for the establishment of politically and legally effective institutions of international criminal justice over decades. The emotion work of specialists in this feld is showcased by Ferencz, who was not only a role model for lawyers working on international criminal justice but also one of the most important advocates for the establishment of an institution without precursors: the International Criminal Court. Ferencz's feelings and his way of doing politics with feelings—this is the second argument—formed a particular emotional template which successfully combined rational behaviour with passionate engagement for the cause, and addressed both politics and the public.

#### 'A Plea of Humanity to Law': The Emergence of an International Criminal Jurisdiction

'It must have been the spring of 1947', recalled Benjamin Berell Ferencz,12

when one of our many diligent researchers, Fred Burin, burst excitedly into my offce. He had come upon some German fles while searching through a Foreign Ministry annex located near the Tempelhof airport. He had found a nearly complete set of secret reports that had been sent by the Gestapo offce in Berlin to perhaps a hundred top offcials of the Nazi regime. Many Generals were on the distribution list, along with high-ranking leaders of the Third Reich. The recipients were among those very many Germans who always denied any knowledge of Nazi criminality. The reports described the daily activities of special SS units … [and documented] in meticulous detail how many innocent civilians they had deliberately killed as part of Hitler's 'total war'. All Jews and Gypsies were marked for extermination, together

<sup>11</sup>Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*.

<sup>12</sup>Gut, *Jahrhundertzeuge*; Hofmann, *Benjamin Ferencz*; Earl, 'Beweise'; Bush, 'New Dealer'; Ferencz, 'Einsatzgruppen Trial'.

with others who might be perceived as enemies or potential enemies of the Reich.13

Ferencz, a Harvard Law School graduate who as a soldier was commissioned to establish a 'War Crimes Branch' for the 'Judge Advocate Section' of the US Army, was immediately aware that he had stumbled onto a gold mine: 'They were reports from special units, disguised by a meaningless name: Task Forces: … I could see immediately that this … was a case.'14

On a little adding machine, I added up the numbers murdered. When I passed the fgure of one million, I stopped adding. That was quite enough for me. I grabbed the next plane down to Nuremberg to report the fndings to General Telford Taylor. Taylor, as Chief of Counsel, recognized the importance of the evidence, but he faced an administrative problem. The program for a limited number of prosecutions had been fxed and approved by the Pentagon. Public support for German war crimes trials was on the wane. The prospect of getting additional appropriations for more lawyers or trials was bleak. I countered that we had in our hands clear cut evidence of genocide on a massive scale and a trial of the leading criminals could be completed quickly. It would be unforgivable if we allowed the perpetrators to escape justice. In desperation, I suggested that if no one else was available, I could do the job myself. He asked if I could handle it in addition to my other responsibilities. I assured him that I could. 'OK', he said. 'You've got it.' And so, I became the chief prosecutor in what was certain to be the biggest murder trial in human history.15

Ferencz was twenty-seven years old when he became the chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Trial.16 'I had no experience at all', he said, 'I had never been in a courtroom before.'17 Nevertheless, within a few weeks he had succeeded in bringing twenty-four former commanders of the SS and SD death squads to trial. The aim of the trial, which ran from 15 September 1947 to 10 April 1948 in courtroom number 600 at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, under the offcial name 'The United States of America against Otto Ohlendorf et al.', was to clarify the crimes committed by the

<sup>17</sup> 'Der Ankläger: Benjamin Ferencz im Gespräch mit Daniel Cil Brecher', unless otherwise noted, all translations by Kate Davison and Daniela Petrosino.

<sup>13</sup>Ferencz, 'Making of a Prosecutor'.

<sup>14</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 09:22–11:09; 14:44, 18:15, 25:10.

<sup>15</sup>Ferencz, 'Making of a Prosecutor'.

<sup>16</sup>Earl, *SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial*; Ogorreck and Rieß, 'Fall 9'.

*Einsatzgruppen* in the occupied Soviet Union, including the murder of approximately one million people of Jewish faith between June 1941 and 1943.

Ferencz selected his accused according to 'rank and educational qualifcations'. 'There were 6 … generals in the dock, and most of them had a doctorate', he explained. 'Perhaps it came out of my own experience as a recruit: they always had to take the rap, while those in the higher ranks got away. Not here!' said Ferencz. 'Here we started from the top.'18 Other restrictions arose, however:

The total number of mass killers to be tried depended upon fnances and furniture. No Nuremberg tribunal could try more than 24 defendants in the same trial. The reason was that there were only 24 seats in the dock. Historians may not believe it, but it's true. It really wouldn't look nice to have to jam killers together or to have some of them sitting around on the foor during the trial. It was unfortunately inevitable that some fsh, including big ones, might escape the net completely. Justice is always imperfect.19

The indictment listed three offences: crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in criminal organizations. Ferencz opened the prosecution's case with a 'plea of humanity to law':

It is with sorrow and with hope that we here disclose the deliberate slaughter of more than a million innocent and defenceless men, women, and children. This was the tragic fulflment of a program of intolerance and arrogance. Vengeance is not our goal, nor do we seek merely a just retribution. We ask this Court to affrm by international penal action man's right to live in peace and dignity regardless of his race or creed. The case we present is a plea of humanity to law.20

'None of us ever raised our voices', he remembered. 'To bang on the table—that was more like the Hollywood version. There was none of that. We didn't exaggerate. These are the facts, these are the crimes, these are the victims—what do you have to say to that?'21 Nevertheless, the emotional experience, the horror of the crimes against the Jewish population,

<sup>18</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 08:33, 35:03.

<sup>19</sup>Ferencz, 'Preparing for Trial'.

<sup>20</sup>*Trials of War Criminals*, vol. 4, 30.

<sup>21</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 12:06, 12:47.

made its way into the legal documents and oral proceedings. Drawing on the efforts of another Eastern European jurist, the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who for years had been tirelessly campaigning for 'genocide' to be a recognizable crime,22 Ferencz stated at the trial that 'the killing of defenceless civilians during war may be a war crime. But these killings are part of another crime, a more serious crime: genocide, or a crime against humanity.'23

Ferencz's wording was adopted by presiding judge Michael Angelo Musmanno in his sentencing, when he stated that 'crimes against humanity' were not a new moral concept but 'an innovation in the empire of the law'. Indeed, there was no precedent in case law, nor any similar procedures,

[b]ut now it has been seen that humanity need not supplicate for a tribunal in which to proclaim its rights. Humanity need not plead for justice with sobs, tears, and piteous weeping. It has been demonstrated here that the inalienable and fundamental rights of common man need not lack for a court to proclaim them and for a marshal to execute the court's judgments. Humanity can assert itself by law. It has taken on the robe of authority.24

Despite the emotional weight of his words, they did not appeal to a timeless notion of empathy but to the role and authority of the law to defend humanity—both in the sense of individual humans and the qualities that made them human. Both judge and chief prosecutor thus pursued a strategy that was emotionally infected but above all able to be implemented in law. The 'plea of humanity to law' was more than just an expression of horror or regret. It was a rhetorical device that transformed emotional consternation over one of the greatest crimes in human history into a legal discourse.

However, this transformation presupposed a critical examination of the emotions that immediately arose in response to the severity of the crimes. First of all, feelings of sorrow, hope, peace, and dignity could only emerge if the temptation for vengeance was overcome. Second, the rhetoric of sorrow, sobs, and tears might have been emotionally stirring, but it was not legally binding and therefore had to be semantically transferred into a discourse on dignity and humanity. This was the only possible way to make

<sup>24</sup>*Trials of War Criminals*, vol. 4, 497–98.

<sup>22</sup>Lemkin, *Axis Rule*; Lemkin, *Genocide*; Irvin-Erickson, *Raphaël Lemkin*; Cooper, *Raphael Lemkin*; Schaller and Zimmerer, *Origins of Genocide*.

<sup>23</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 13:04.

clear that the case was not a question of vengeance or retribution, but of criminal sanctions legitimized by international law:

The essential and inalienable rights of man cannot vary in time and space. They cannot be interpreted and limited by the social conscience of a people or a particular epoch for they are essentially immutable and eternal. Any injury … done with the intention of extermination, mutilation, or enslavement, against the life, freedom of opinion … the moral or physical integrity of the family … or the dignity of the human being, by reason of his opinion, his race, caste, family or profession, is a crime against humanity.25

Ever since the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, when the laws of humanity were frst considered from a 'positivist' rather than a moral perspective, it was no longer simply the case that states could voluntarily conduct themselves in a morally suitable way, but that they were legally obliged to do so—for the reason that customary international law required it of them. A global community based on the rule of law was thus established, as well as a specifc crime that affected this community as a whole. The scale of the crimes being reckoned with exceeded anything previously experienced. Therefore, prosecutors and judges alike emphasized that there was more at stake than mere feelings of grief on the part of the victims or the hatred of the perpetrators: 'Although the principal accusation is murder and, unhappily, man has been killing man ever since the days of Cain', explained Telford Taylor in his closing remarks,

the charge of purposeful homicide in this case reaches such fantastic proportions and surpasses such credible limits that believability must be bolstered with assurance a hundred times repeated. The books have shown through the ages why man has slaughtered his brother. He has always had an excuse, criminal and ungodly though it may have been. He has … slain out of jealousy, revenge, passion, lust, and cannibalism. … But it was left to the twentieth century to produce so extraordinary a killing that even a new word had to be created to defne it.26

Furthermore, it was impossible to empathize with the suffering experienced by the relatives of the victims, because no human being could conceivably grasp the extent of such crimes. In this respect, the recourse to

<sup>25</sup> *Ibid*., 497. <sup>26</sup> *Ibid*., 411–12. emotions served more than only one purpose—the political recognition of the magnitude of the crimes alongside the juridical defnition of the criminal offence and justifcation of the sentence:

The loss of any one person can only begin to be measured in the realization of his survivors that he is gone forever. The extermination, therefore, of two million human beings cannot be felt. Two million is but a fgure. … It is only when this grotesque total is broken down into units capable of mental assimilation that one can understand the monstrousness of the things we are in this trial contemplating. One must visualize not one million people but only ten persons—men, women, and children, perhaps all of one family falling before the executioner's guns. If one million is divided by ten, this scene must happen one hundred thousand times, and as one visualizes the repetitious horror, one begins to understand the meaning of the prosecution's words: 'It is with sorrow and with hope that we here disclose the deliberate slaughter of more than a million innocent and defenceless men, women, and children.'27

The trial ended with fourteen death sentences, two life sentences, and fve prison terms ranging from ten to twenty years. One after another, the defendants came forward and were sentenced with the same words: 'On the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted the Tribunal sentences you', but with varying punishments, from 'death by hanging' to 'imprisonment for life' or 'years' imprisonment'.28

It was, according to Ferencz, 'very dramatic, very quiet. No crying, no sounds, no applause, no comment. The whole scene was macabre.' At 'no time' did he himself 'have the feeling: yes, I got them! Nothing like that. It was a very grim affair.' He was 'as though numb' and had 'a very bad headache': 'It was customary for the prosecutor to have a party at his home after the trial', he explained, 'no matter how it turned out. I had prepared the party and should have gone home after the trial—but I was really ill. My head was throbbing, and I couldn't go to my own party. I went home and went to bed.'29

<sup>27</sup> *Ibid*., 412–13.

<sup>28</sup> *Ibid*., 411, 587–89; Schwartz, 'Begnadigung'.

<sup>29</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 1:08:19, 1:09:10.

### 'Where Law Exists a Court Will Rise': The Legal Evolution of an International Criminal Jurisdiction

Lawyers, whether representing the prosecution or the defence, can act as 'political lawyers', that is,

within the framework of a legal procedure, they can make statements about the past or present political order … which no longer only concern the contextualisation of the accused's concrete actions or a concrete legal position, but [provide] a contribution to the 'struggle for a just legal order'.30

Chief prosecutor Ferencz had established an emotional framing during the trial that addressed 'crimes against humanity and civilisation' and was therefore directed to 'humanity itself'. Instead of invoking feelings of grief, rage, and anger, he summoned hope based on the possibility of handling these crimes through legal means. However, the template that evolved to deal with these emotions was an ambivalent one. Emotions were repeatedly rhetorically invoked, but simultaneously legally recanted.

This was accompanied by the fact that Ferencz, who was of Jewish descent, delivered the plea for the prosecution but otherwise restrained himself, both from questioning the accused and from calling victims to the witness stand. The feelings of the victims were not to be harmed further during cross-examination from the defence, while the feelings of the accused towards a supposedly 'Jewish' prosecution process were not entertained. The impression that this was a political and emotional trial had to be avoided at all costs. And yet this was about more than jurisprudence, something which the dedication of the network around Ferencz in the following decades demonstrates. It was in the realm of participatory politics—shaped by emotion and calculation—that an innovative, albeit not uncontroversial, international criminal law system was championed.

At the centre of this system was the idea of establishing law as a facet of international relations. Cooperation as well as confict—not only among states, but also between states and individuals—had to be subject to the rule of law. These rules would thus be legally enforceable beyond the borders of the respective states and, if necessary, punishable as well. A central element of this international juridifcation was the defnition of criminal offences and the establishment of courts of law with the aim of punishing

<sup>30</sup> Seliger, *Politische Anwälte?*, 26.

the most serious crimes affecting the international community as a whole.31 Besides genocide, aggression, and war crimes, these included 'crimes against humanity', or acts committed in the context of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.32

The concept of 'crimes against humanity' referred to the 'laws of humanity' inspired by the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and in particular by the Martens Clause, named after the jurist and diplomat Fyodor Fyodorovich Martens.33 'Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued' the inhabitants, as well as belligerents, remained 'under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result[ed] from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience'.34 This wording adhered to the tenet of international law that the general principles of customary law should apply even in situations which were not legally regulated. Furthermore, it became clear that international law was informed not only by customary process, but also by other norm-creating processes, for example—as the jurist Giuseppe Sperduti called it—the 'legal recognition of public conscience'.35 As the humanitarian law expert Antonio Cassese pointed out, the US Military Tribunal also referred to this clause by stating throughout the Krupp case that it was

a general clause, making the usages established among civilized nations, the laws of humanity and the dictates of the public conscience into the legal yardstick to be applied if and when the specifc provisions of the [Hague] Convention and the Regulations annexed to it do not cover specifc cases occurring in warfare, or concomitant to warfare.36

The term 'crimes against humanity and civilisation' was frst used in the context of the First World War to describe the systematic mass murder of the Armenian population in Turkey, as well as the martial strategy used by the German Empire. Regarding Armenia, the term appeared in a joint

31Lingen, *Humanity*; Payk, *Frieden*; Lewis, *Birth*.

<sup>35</sup> Sperduti, *Lezioni*, 68–74, my translation.

<sup>32</sup>Gellately and Kiernan, *Genocide*; Zimmermann and Freiburg-Braun, *Aggression*; Segesser, *Recht statt Rache*; Byron, *War Crimes*.

<sup>33</sup>Mero, 'Martens Clause'.

<sup>34</sup> 'Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land', 509.

<sup>36</sup>*Trials of War Criminals*, vol. 9, 1341; Cassese, 'Martens Clause', 191.

declaration by the governments of France, Russia, and the UK on 24 May 1915 to describe that 'Kurd and Turkish populations of Armenia has been massacring Armenians with the connivance and often assistance of Ottoman authorities'.37 In a report on German and Allied belligerence written by the so-called Commission of the Fifteen, established at the provisional peace conference in Paris on 25 January 1919, the catalogue of 'violations of the laws and customs of war' was supplemented for the frst time by a chapter on 'violations of the laws of humanity'. An innovative approach to this principle was the Commission's view that criminal offences, even when committed by heads of state, mandated individual criminal liability. No precise defnition of the concept was given, but it overlapped with acts generally referred to as 'war crimes'.38

Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles thus enabled Kaiser Wilhelm II to be tried by an international court only 'for serious violation of international morals', while Article 230 of the non-ratifed Treaty of Sèvres with Turkey of 10 August 1920 aimed to sanction those responsible for war crimes against the Armenian population.39 However, it was only in the wake of the Second World War with the Nuremberg Trials and later, the Tokyo Trial against the Japanese political and military leadership, that litigation on the grounds of 'crimes against humanity' frst took place.40 On 13 January 1942, representatives of nine occupied European countries called for those guilty of war crimes to be punished in an inter-allied declaration signed at St James's Palace, London. This was one of their main aims. They demanded the inclusion for the frst time of acts that were neither covered by the concept of 'war crimes' or political crimes nor directly related to acts of war. Derived from the territoriality principle, those responsible were to be taken to the countries where they had committed the acts and punished according to the respective national law. Major war criminals were excluded from this principle.

The London Agreement of 8 August 1945 and its annexed Statute for the International Military Tribunal defned '[c]rimes against humanity' as

murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or

<sup>37</sup> 'France, Great Britain and Russia Joint Declaration'.

<sup>38</sup>Carnegie Endowment, *Violation*, 16, 73.

<sup>39</sup>Manske, *Verbrechen*, 37, 40–42, 46–47; Segesser, 'Dissolve or Punish?'.

<sup>40</sup>Osten, *Tokioter Kriegsverbrecherprozeß*.

persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.41

The separation of the term from the requirement of an active state of war was formalized in Act No. 10 of the Allied Control Council, which was passed on 20 December 1945 as the basis for the criminal prosecution of acts in occupation zones in accordance with the London Statute:

Those who are indicted under this provision, however, are not responding alone to the nations which have approved the principles expressed in the London and Moscow Agreements, they are answering to humanity itself, humanity which has no political boundaries and no geographical limitations. Humanity is man itself. Humanity is the race which will go on in spite of all the fuehrers and dictators that little brains and smaller souls can elevate to platforms of tinsel poised on bastions of straw.42

This additional development allowed a practice that, in the German postwar context, specifcally would previously have been impossible (due to the country's unclear position under international law), on the grounds that interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state must be prohibited.43 Nuremberg had shown that '[w]here law exists a court will rise'.44

Building on the groundwork laid by the governments in exile in London and by the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), founded in October 1943, the concept of 'crimes against humanity' was successfully implemented for the frst time in the 1940s. Though it would be another half-century before the permanent International Criminal Court was established, the question of whether and how states could be held accountable for crimes against foreign and domestic civilian populations had been answered both legally and politically—using arguments that both appealed to the emotions of those involved in the criminal proceedings and instituted formative emotional templates for future efforts in the struggle for durable international criminal law. The feelings of the victims, the witnesses, and the survivors, but also the judges and prosecutors, had been adapted to a legal tradition that valued a certain emotional style in

<sup>41</sup>United Nations, 'Charter of the International Military Tribunal'.

<sup>42</sup>*Trials of War Criminals*, vol. 4, 498.

<sup>43</sup>Manske, *Verbrechen*, 46, 59, 69, 81, 86, 107–8, 149–53, 172–74; Lingen, *Humanity*, 193.

<sup>44</sup>*Trials of War Criminals*, vol. 4, 499.

the courtroom: rational, sober, but nevertheless rousing. This template proved to be highly effective, because those practising it—above all Ferencz—had very strong feelings about the court cases they brought forward, yet they aligned their emotional style with the ascribed emotional temperature of the law and included both politics and the public in their address.

In this respect, the emotional history of international criminal law contradicts conventional readings of human rights history, at least if it is understood—as Samuel Moyn, for example, understands it—as a 'utopian programme' that only achieved a breakthrough in the 1970s due to the fading appeal of other utopian ideals such as socialism and anticolonialism.45 The dedication of the network around Ferencz shows that long before the founding of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, the criminal sanction of human rights crimes was at the centre of legal disputes and political activities. Nevertheless, enforcement of these sanctions was not a foregone conclusion. The repeated demand for 'human standards' and 'human behaviour' in canonical legal texts and during the Nuremberg trials thus contradicts Lynn Hunt's teleological view that an 'order of feeling' based on 'imagined empathy' had already existed since the eighteenth century, according to which 'you know the meaning of human rights because you feel distressed when they are violated'.46

Incidentally, the centrepiece of this argument—the question of whether 'crimes against humanity' were offences against 'humanity per se' or rather contraventions of a minimum standard of what it meant to be 'human'—is still highly controversial. At the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in the ruling against Dusan Tadić, the view was expressed that 'the proper meaning of a crime against humanity is not that it is a crime against the whole of humanity, but rather that it is a crime which offends humaneness, i.e. a certain quality of behaviour'.47 This is exactly what Hannah Arendt had disputed a few decades earlier when she highlighted the shift in meaning that accompanied the imprecise translation of the English term 'crimes against humanity' into the German *Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit*—instead of *Menschheit*, the German

<sup>45</sup>Moyn, *Last Utopia*.

<sup>46</sup>Hunt, *Inventing*, 214.

<sup>47</sup> International Tribunal, *Prosecutor v. Du[ko Tadi]*, 4. See also Manske, *Verbrechen*, 3.

term for the human race—'as though the Nazis had simply been lacking in human kindness, certainly the understatement of the century'.48

#### 'To Supplement Symbolism with Substance': The Political Development of an International Criminal Jurisdiction

Hannah Arendt's famous objection aligned with the journalistic and political commitment of numerous lawyers to further develop international criminal law in the twentieth century. Benjamin Berell Ferencz (born 1920 in Nagysomkút) contributed signifcantly to this development, alongside René Cassin (born 1887 in Bayonne), Jacob Robinson (born 1889 in Seirijai), Hersch Lauterpacht (born 1897 in Ż ółkiew), Bohuslav Ecer (born 1893 in Hranice), Raphael Lemkin (born 1900 in Bezwodne), ̌ and M. Cherif Bassiouni (born 1937 in Cairo). More recently, younger, female experts in the feld of international criminal law have taken their place, including Amal Ramzi Alamuddin Clooney (born in Beirut, 1978), Fatou Bom Bensouda (born in Bathurst, 1961), and Carla Del Ponte (born in Bignasco, 1947). This global and intergenerational network of lawyers, prosecutors, university lecturers, activists, and lobbyists have shaped the development of the law and its institutions, but they have also infuenced which emotions can be expressed and negotiated in this context. In a deliberate departure from other political felds, such as diplomacy, for example, this network has had a distinctly emotional and emotionalizing effect on the supposedly neutral and 'unemotional' arena of international criminal law. This is particularly apparent in the example of Ferencz and his legal lobbying. 'It was clear to me', he said,

that we need an international court to punish international crimes. I thought I would draw on the Nuremberg model and see where it took me. I was admitted to various NGOs, which gave me access to the United Nations. I sat in all meetings—nobody was serious. They kept telling me: Ben, stop it! There will never be an international court. The major powers will never accept that. To which my answer was: but I will try!49

<sup>48</sup>Arendt, *Eichmann in Jerusalem*, 275.

<sup>49</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 1:14:33.

Ferencz and other advocates of so-called liberal legalism used every available opportunity to stress the necessity of consolidating a strong international criminal justice system.50 The opportunities were plentiful, even though in the ongoing East-West confict it was no longer Germany but the Soviet Union that had been declared the enemy, and the foreign policy momentum established during the Nuremberg trials was initially diminished. However, domestic political disputes took Nuremberg's place, triggered among other things by internal debates in the US over the Vietnam War.51 The creation of new organizations such as the 'Foundation for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court', the 'Committee for an International Criminal Court of the World Association of Lawyers' (chaired by Ferencz himself), the 'World Peace Through Law Center', and the 'United States Institute of Peace' became milestones in the development of international criminal law, supplementing older organizations such as the 'Association Internationale de Droit Pénal', whose president M. Cherif Bassiouni would later to play a decisive role in the establishment of an 'International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia'.52

Following the motto of 'Law, not War', Ferencz founded a 'one-man lobby',53 participated as an accredited non-governmental observer in the meetings of the UN 'Special Committee to Defne Aggression' in New York and Geneva and created his—notoriously underfunded and therefore somewhat unsuccessful—'Pace Peace Center' in 1987. He wrote several books on the defnition and criminalization of wars of aggression, on the establishment of an International Criminal Court, and on the enforcement of international law.54 He wrote to professors, senators, and US presidents.55 He gave interviews and lectures. He made critiques and

50Goschler, 'Einleitung', 52.

51Taylor, *Nuremberg*; Ferencz, 'War Crimes Law'.

52Goschler, 'Einleitung', 70–71, referring to document 168. See also documents 173, 179–80, 186–87, 190, 223 in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 576–78, 586–89, 597–600, 603–5, 659–63.

<sup>53</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 1:15:38.

54Ferencz, *Defning International Aggression*; Ferencz, *International Criminal Court*; Ferencz, *Enforcing International Law*; Ferencz, *World Security*; Ferencz, *Global Survival*.

55Benjamin B. Ferencz to M. Cherif Bassiouni, 12 September 1978 (document 178); Benjamin B. Ferencz to Gerhardt Grebing, 9 October 1979 (document 181); Benjamin B. Ferencz to Hans-Heinrich Jescheck, 29 May 1978 (document 176); Benjamin B. Ferencz to Edward M. Kennedy, 1 May 1972 (document 170); Benjamin B. Ferencz to Bill Clinton, 21 January 1993 (document 230), all in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 584–86, 589–90, 681–82, 573–74, 674–75.

appeals. Most of all, he managed to transform his experience as chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Trial into a kind of symbolic and emotional capital.56

When *The New York Times* published parts of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, thereby making public that the government of the US had deceived the American people about the reasons for the Vietnam War, Ferencz reacted with a letter to the editor signed 'Benjamin B. Ferencz, Former Executive Counsel, Nuremberg War Crimes Trials'. He wrote:

The Pentagon Study of the Vietnam War (June 13) is a disclosure of Machiavellian duplicity. We have sent our young people to die in battle, we have devastated vast areas and we have slaughtered countless civilians on the pretense that we were defending allies from aggression. The record now seems clear that we betrayed our ideals as we arrogantly applied our power to further our political goals.57

This narrative was as disruptive as it was appealing: the US, once the pioneer of a just and possibly also judgemental world order, would not only have to sustain the 'Nuremberg legacy' but also apply it to its own policies. Ferencz's approach was one of the well-controlled provocations. He called for a 'more rational world order' with a view to 'replac[ing] the prevailing international anarchy with international law and order and the rational management of this little planet'.58 In response to the Pentagon Papers, Ferencz went even further, suggesting that William Laws Calley Jr, the US Army offcer responsible for the massacre in My Lai, be prosecuted under civil law.59 'You will recall', he wrote to colleagues and friends,

that at our luncheon meeting on June 14th, we considered the possibility of bringing a civil suit against Lieut. Calley and all of his superiors for

56Benjamin B. Ferencz to The Foundation for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, 18 June 1970 (document 163); Benjamin B. Ferencz to Harold E. Hughes, 5 April 1971 (document 165), both in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 561, 564–65. See also Goschler, 'Einleitung', 16–17, 52.

57Benjamin B. Ferencz to The New York Times, 'Comment on Pentagon Study', 18 June 1971 (document 166), in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 566.

58Benjamin B. Ferencz to Robert Pickus, 22 June 1988, (document 211); Benjamin B. Ferencz to Samuel W. Lewis, 23 June 1988 (document 212), both in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 638, 640.

59On 16 March 1968, American soldiers killed over 500 civilians in My Lai. See Greiner, *Krieg ohne Fronten*; Jones, *My Lai*.

compensation to the My Lai victims. … This would also be in line with the latest direction indicated by the Chairman of the ASIL Panel on the Human Rights Implementation that we try to concentrate on test cases as a specifc technique for emphasizing various human rights points.60

Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1971, in 1974 Calley was pardoned by President Nixon, who had also immediately commuted his sentence to house arrest.

Elsewhere, however, Ferencz's aggressive strategy could be used in exactly the opposite manner, although the goal—to remind both the US public and its administrative elites of their traditional role in peacekeeping and upholding the rule of law—always remained the same. 'Dear Mr. [John] McCloy', Ferencz wrote to the former US High Commissioner in occupied Germany, hoping to promote his cause,

I am writing on a matter that I know is of deep concern to you—that of world peace. … I would like to carry forward the great tradition of such outstanding Americans as Elihu Root and John McCloy …. If you are so inclined and can have a word with someone at the White House, or elsewhere, it would be much appreciated.61

Alternating between provocation and adoration, Ferencz's appeal to the feelings of his interlocutor was unpredictable and changeable in style and tone. The only thing that remained a constant was his lack of articulation of personal concern. The motto, 'humanity need not plead for justice with sobs, tears, and piteous weeping', formulated during the Einsatzgruppen Trial, characterized the journalistic and political work of the people around Ferencz, even when they were dealing with experiences of violence in the twentieth century which they themselves had witnessed or had lost loved ones to.62 'Should anyone want a troublemaker and iconoclast to foment a riot, I am available—in a nonforceful way', wrote Ferencz self-mockingly.63

63Benjamin B. Ferencz to Ved P. Nanda, 16 December 1982 (document 189), in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 603.

<sup>60</sup>Benjamin B. Ferencz to Andrew F. Loomis, Bruce Rabb, Don Harkleroad, and Hope Eastman, 11 August 1971 (document 167), in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 568.

<sup>61</sup>Benjamin B. Ferencz to John J. McCloy, 1 March 1985 (document 193), in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 609–10.

<sup>62</sup>*Trials of War Criminals*, vol. 4, 497–98.

It is also striking that within the available source material Ferencz neither mentioned nor refected on his Jewish ancestry. Overall, the question must be asked whether the Jewishness of the 'exile lawyers' who contributed signifcantly to the development of international law in the twentieth century played any role at all, either conceptually or emotionally. Ferencz, for his part, decided to use other strategies for personal survival and political infuence.64 In addition to his other pursuits, he found kinship in a discourse in the 1980s that focused on the well-being of humanity from a (leftist) alternative perspective, linking individual self-realization to a collective responsibility for the environment and the economy, and thus also to questions of global humanity and solidarity.

His resulting collaboration with the New Age author Ken Keyes was by Ferencz's own admission more effective and useful than his specialist publications.65 After publishing a 129-page plea in 1985 for a rational world order and the peaceful regulation of conficts, he and Keyes devised a utopian blueprint for a democratic world republic with a constitution and a court of justice.66 Ferencz's envisaged a civil society alternative to the UN Security Council—a Permanent Council of Peace composed of 'renowned thinkers, spiritual, community and business leaders'. Such an institution would ideally be able to transcend all ideological conficts by being guided by 'common sense', an explicit reference to Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet of the same name and thus to the founding history of the US.67

As Constantin Goschler has pointed out, Ferencz's initiatives, for all their pretension to global values, read like an attempt to 'extend the constitutional model of the United States to the whole world', presuming as he did that the rest of the world would be willing to adopt this model.68 With a print run of around one million copies, Ferencz and Keyes' book reached a wide audience, especially in the growing peace movement. It was, as Ferencz wrote, 'a simple "outreach book". It did more to educate the general public than all of my heavy tomes.'69

<sup>64</sup>A similar phenomenon can be observed for intellectuals of Jewish descent in East-Central Europe; see Arndt, *Rote Bürger*, 60.

<sup>65</sup>Ferencz, 'Reaching Out'.

<sup>66</sup>Ferencz, *Common Sense Guide*; Ferencz and Keyes, *PlanetHood*.

<sup>67</sup>Goschler, 'Einleitung', 41–42.

<sup>68</sup> *Ibid*., 42–43.

<sup>69</sup>Ferencz, 'Reaching Out'.

The turning point for an international criminal jurisdiction fnally came with the rape of 10,000 women in the former Yugoslavia. 'American women … were outraged. … It was essentially a women's movement that put enough pressure on Washington and the politicians to do something.'70 This was followed by the genocide in Rwanda: 'In the 1990s, we had made a promise that this would never happen again. And it did happen again, in front of our very eyes.'71 'The time has come to supplement symbolism with substance', wrote Ferencz in *The New York Times*:

Shocked by the disclosures at the Nuremberg trials, the frst assembly of the United Nations declared genocide to be a crime under international law. A convention was drafted in 1947 requiring punishment of guilty individuals, regardless of rank. Recognizing that genocide usually involves connivance by state, the draft provided that if a national tribunal was not prepared to try the offense, the accused was to be handed over to an International Criminal Court. When the convention was adopted by the U.N., that enforcement provision was removed. There exists no international criminal court to try those guilty of genocide, terrorism, drug-traffcking, apartheid or other crimes against humanity. Little wonder that such crimes have continued unabated. The United States must stand for more than symbolism if it is to remain the leader of the free world.72

Ferencz became the voice of a worldwide movement calling for the establishment of an International Criminal Court, a movement in which representatives of various governments and non-government organizations alike had taken part since the end of the Cold War. Following the establishment by the United Nations Security Council of an ad hoc Criminal Court for Yugoslavia in 1993 and for Rwanda in 1994, negotiations on a statute for an International Criminal Court fnally took place in 1998 at a diplomatic conference in Rome.73 Ferencz was invited to speak at the event:

I have come to Rome to encourage your noble efforts. A great deal more needs to be done before the causes of international crimes are removed. But

72Benjamin B. Ferencz to The New York Times, 18 October 1988 (document 213), in Goschler, Böick, and Reus, *Kriegsverbrechen*, 641–42.

73United Nations Security Council, 'Resolution 827 (1993)'; United Nations Security Council, 'Resolution 955 (1994)'; United Nations, *Rome Statute of the International Court*.

<sup>70</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 1:16:18.

<sup>71</sup> *Ibid*., 1:16:52.

one thing is sure—without clear international laws, courts and effective enforcement there can be no deterrence, no justice and no world peace. Justice, reconciliation and rehabilitation are needed to bind up the wounds of humankind. Hope is the engine that drives human endeavor. It generates the energy needed to achieve the diffcult goals that lie ahead. Never lose faith that the dreams of today for a more lawful world can become the reality of tomorrow. Never stop trying to make this a more humane universe. If we care enough and dare enough, an international criminal court—the missing link in the world legal order—is within our grasp. The place to act is here and the time to act is now!74

Once again, Ferencz succeeded in establishing an emotional template which—besides all of the cruelty and horror which the new court would have to deal with in the future—put hope and faith centre stage. However, his appreciation for the noble efforts of the international community to create a more lawful world did not prevent him from observing subsequent developments with scepticism. In 2003, when Ferencz was again asked to deliver a speech, this time to mark the ceremonial opening of the International Criminal Court, he was far more critical. Referring to his time in Nuremberg, he attacked his own government head-on for its opposition to international criminal jurisdiction and indirectly for the war against Iraq, which the US initiated in 2003 together with its ally Britain. 'Let me close', he concluded,

by citing only two very distinguished Americans. On May 15, 1958, my Supreme Commander in war, General Dwight Eisenhower, after he became President of the United States warned: 'If civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law.' Another distinguished Republican President said: 'We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations, a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations.' These words came in the Address to the Nation on Jan. 16, 1991 by US President George Bush. I think the current President would do well to listen to his papa.75

<sup>74</sup>Ferencz, 'Ferencz Addresses Rome Conference'.

<sup>75</sup>Ferencz, 'Remarks Made at the Opening of the ICC'.

#### Conclusion

As stated in the preamble to the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court addresses the violation of the values and rights held by the international community as a whole, '[m]indful that during this [twentieth] century millions of children, women and men have been victims of unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity'.76 Its chief prosecutor since 2012, Fatou Bom Bensouda, has described just how challenging this work is in political, legal, and emotional terms: 'Nothing prepares you for the brutality of the crimes we face at international level. It is as if it sucks you in. It stays with you. You carry it inside you every day.' Nevertheless, she believes that the most important thing is to 'listen [to the victims of the crimes], formulate solid evidence from their stories and present it to the judges. So that they can act'.77

Bensouda and Ferencz represent not only 'the tension between individual and international law', but also 'the liberal antithesis to the concept of the sovereign state taken to extremes by the German constitutionalist Carl Schmitt in the 1930s'.78 While Ferencz as chief prosecutor always remained factual and sober, as a former chief prosecutor he exhibited very different behaviour. Emotionalize, escalate, excite—he tried everything, precisely because he was no longer performing a legal duty but 'felt political' as part of a larger participatory politics which promoted international law. Because the courtroom called for a different template than the public sphere, he changed the register and the template too. This changed template was just as successful as the one he had practised in Nuremberg in the 1940s.

In the development of international criminal jurisdiction, emotions have been and continue to be both a motive and a driving force. They have enabled laws to become legally enforceable, and they have been used to push for the establishment of institutions and instruments whose task is to uphold fundamental human rights in times of peace and war. As the authors of bills of indictment, lawyers such as Ferencz, Clooney, or Bensouda were and are entrusted with investigating the crimes prior to the trial and with representing the prosecution during the trials. It was and

<sup>76</sup> 'Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court'.

<sup>77</sup>*Man Can Make a Difference*, 1:20:50.

<sup>78</sup>Goschler, 'Einleitung', 16.

still is the task of chief prosecutors to identify and collect the statements of witnesses and victims, to prove perpetrators' guilt, to transform this guilt into statements of claim, and in doing so, adequately address the mental and physical state of the parties involved, as well as to adhere to international law and agreements. Chief prosecutors thus have unique access to the emotional expressions of all parties involved, but at the same time they themselves are confronted with the task of constantly refecting on and regulating their own feelings in the face of the most serious crimes.

In this multi-layered situation, advocates of international criminal jurisdiction developed a very specifc emotional template, which shaped their attitudes and actions both in the courtroom and outside of it, and in this way has had an impact on international criminal law. While the ICC may have been new, the court as an institution was not, which meant that the emotional template could, on the one hand, adopt the legal tradition of rational habitus in the courtroom and, on the other, make strong political appeals to a wider international public. This became even more effective as the enormous crimes which had to be sectionized could not be captured by emotions. Just as feelings of vengeance should not be in the foreground, feelings like sadness and despair could scarcely be put into words and only with diffculty translated into law. Thus the emotional template resulted from a paradoxical situation: the allegedly unfeeling court needed compassion to come into being and to do its work, but simultaneously it had to strictly avoid any hint of emotional interference.

Feelings played a role in this context in that they have typically been understood as something both universal and individual, something that is distinctive to all people and yet can express itself in very different ways. Because of this, it was possible to place violations of the dignity of humanity itself, rather than of individuals, at the centre of the international criminal law debate. Just as Benjamin Berell Ferencz largely refrained from questioning witnesses in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, fearing that they would not survive the trial emotionally, when speaking to the Security Council Amal Clooney did not mention the fear and horror that Nadia Murad must have felt in the face of the suffering inficted on her, but the fear 'that when all this is over, the ISIS men just shave off their beards and go back to their normal lives'. In terms of emotional history, this shift—away from the affected individual and their feelings of rage, anger, desperation, and grief, and towards collective responsibility, care, and hope—was a lynchpin in the development of international jurisdiction and its institutions.

International criminal jurisdiction was thus informed and institutionalized by emotions, while emotions themselves were given legitimacy and material weight. Horror, disgust, indignation, hatred, anger, revenge, remorse, and retribution were not acted out, however, and often were not even openly articulated, but were politically and legally transformed—into an international legal framework that addressed the community of nationstates as a whole, enabling them collectively to constitute a subject within international law. This community of states is tasked with protecting those rights in which humanity has a general interest and punishing serious violations against the peaceful coexistence of states and peoples, as well as ensuring elementary standards of humane treatment. Law, and international law in particular, is and remains political.79

> Agnes Arndt (arndt@mpib-berlin.mpg.de)

#### Bibliography


<sup>79</sup> Schabas, *Frieden*.


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### Feeling Political Through Pictures: Portrayals of US Presidents, 1796–2020

*Kerstin Maria Pahl*

Anywhere in the world with a mobile data connection, from 20 January 2017: if one had a smartphone, one could hear George Washington admonish Donald Trump. If one scanned Washington's portrait on the one-dollar bill with the augmented reality app #GeorgeTalks, the picture delivered a one-minute speech, allegedly based on original quotations (Fig. 5.1). 'My dear Americans, dear World', it spoke, 'politics as I knew it has changed. Subjective perspectives outweigh pure reason. Eloquence is limited to 140 characters.' Equipped with a calm, deep voice and serene facial features, the portrait elaborated: 'I'm truly worried about the state of our democracy. … In last year's campaign, I witnessed the agitation of the community with ill-founded jealousy and false alarm—or should I say, fake news?'1

One of many jocular Trump-related apps to food the digital market after the election, #GeorgeTalks emphasized the difference between the emotional styles of Washington and the incumbent. Trump's exuberant, often erratic, public performance and his impulsive reactions to political concerns formed the starkest contrast to the image of Washington passed down through visual and verbal sources as a disinterested leader with a disciplined personality.

1Avantgarde Gesellschaft für Kommunikation mbH, 'George Washington'.

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2022 121

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_5

**Fig. 5.1** App #GeorgeTalks. Still from Avantgarde Gesellschaft für Kommunikation mbH, 'George Washington Admonishes Donald Trump (Augmented Reality iPhone App) #GeorgeTalks', 19 January 2017, YouTube video, 0:22

Yet, the Washington of #GeorgeTalks also exemplifes a generic image of leadership and its emotional display that has been crafted over centuries. The formula for portraits of modern rulers, sovereigns, and politicians can be traced back to antique sculptures and busts of emperors, senators, and orators, which also informed depictions of military leaders, absolutist monarchs, and, with the emergence of republican and democratic systems, of statesmen more generally. Great commanders tended to be steady and composed, their collected manner and calm facial features refecting a reasoned state of mind and an impartial approach to matters of importance. Trump, as media coverage of his tenure was quick to emphasize, seemed to be none of these things. 'Will you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential', Joe Biden snapped during the frst 2020 presidential debate when Trump continuously interrupted him.2

What does 'presidential' mean, other than that which is related to the president? Do rules exist? And if so, who set them up and how are they enforced? Notwithstanding the fact that 'shut up' might itself be considered not quite appropriate in public political discourse, Biden's interjection referenced long-held (and gendered) ideas about what it means

<sup>2</sup>Martin and Burns, 'Cross Talk'. See also Leith, 'Trump's Rhetoric'.

to be 'statesman-like': how do you behave when you are the president and how does this infuence your relationship with the wider public, including not only US citizens but also non-citizens and the international community?

This style (related to—but not to be confused with—leadership styles3) is not formally standardized, but subject to a variety of implicit norms for displaying and addressing emotions. Images are crucial in providing the emotional templates for it.4 They link particular emotional expressions to leadership qualities and make presidents both relatable and admirable in the eyes of the populace as the frst among equals. Whether offcial or unoffcial, in paintings or on the internet, the iconographic display of emotions via facial expressions or gestures in presidential portrayals furnishes leaders with formulas for how to present themselves and gives the public an idea of what to expect from them.

However, portrayals not only depict emotions; they also direct them. As devices of political communication, they appeal to the emotions of potential voters and, after elections, the population more generally, ideally becoming catalysts for public support. The statement by John Quincy Adams that 'Democracy … is swallowed up in the present …. [I]t bears the head of no man upon a coin; its very essence is iconoclastic' is famous, but its core assumption has proven to be unworkable.5 Democracies—and this is true not only for modern 'media-democracies'—rely heavily on the visualization of power.6 Incidentally, Quincy, in offce between 1825 and 1829, was the frst US president of whom a photograph exists.

Portraits of US presidents, or any modern ruler for that matter, no longer act as real, present, or even legally accountable substitutes the way busts of Roman emperors or medieval effgies did, but they entertain a metonymic relation to their sitter that is close enough that viewers can respond to portraits with the original in mind. The recent Black Lives Matter protests, which included the toppling of statues of colonialization's profteers, indicate that even today the representative function of portraits can go beyond reference and may verge on substitution. But while it seems intuitively right to assume that visual imagery has an impact on the emotions of individual citizens, it is challenging to delineate this infuence.7

<sup>3</sup>Dobbins et al., 'Presidential Style'; Greenstein, *Presidential Difference*.

<sup>4</sup>On ruler portraits, see Jeandrée, 'Perfect Model'.

<sup>5</sup>Quincy Adams, *Memoirs*, 433.

<sup>6</sup>Alemann and Marschall, *Mediendemokratie*; Erben and Tauber, *Politikstile*; Münkler, 'Visibilität der Macht'; Münkler and Hacke, *Strategien der Visualisierung*.

<sup>7</sup>Boehm, 'Haushalt der Gefühle', 63.

Political science research on voter decision-making indicates that there is a correlation between 'person perception', leadership traits, and political choice. Voters affectively respond to candidates and their display of competence ('managerial, technical skills' and 'heroic, mythic leadership'), integrity (moral standards), behavioural stability (prudent vs reckless), and empathy (being 'compassionate and understanding' or 'out of touch and unfair').8 Even in contemporary democracies, 'person perception', in which emotional style plays a major role, is largely negotiated through images. Portrayals in all media communicate in two directions: they devise emotional templates for leaders to model their behaviour on, and through this style they address the population. This communication is not unidirectional because the response to a particular template infuences the confguration of the emotional style. Through responses, emotional and otherwise, portrayals become arbiters of political participation: they forge emotional connections not only to presidents, but to the state or nation as a whole.

Although portraits, especially election campaign pictures, are instrumental in that they aim at winning over voters, they are also symbolic of, for instance, state power, group membership, or the public's belief in the legitimacy of a particular political model.9 It is this symbolic aspect of pictures that is of interest to historians. Portrayals of US presidents project notions of belonging, while also reinforcing the difference that is required from a head of state. Portraiture, understood to comprise any depiction of a historic human fgure in any media, contributes to group formation and codifes conduct and morals, reconciling individual likeness with recognizable social types.10 A portrait is a 'tool that makes possible the registering of an identity in relation to the social'.11 Political portraiture can overlap with electoral portraits, propaganda, and socially engaged art or literature,

8Kinder, *Presidential Traits*, 6. See also the special section on 'Personality, Party Leaders, and Election Campaigns' in *Electoral Studies* 54 (2018), esp. Bittner and Peterson, 'Introduction'; Aaldering, 'Mediated Leader Effects'; Banducci et al., 'Intermedia Agenda Setting'; Ditonto, 'Face'.

9Edelman, *Symbolic Uses*, 2: 'Political forms thus come to symbolize what large masses of men need to believe about the state to reassure themselves.' See 3 on election campaigns as 'a ritual act' rather than 'participation in policy formation': 'elections draw attention to common social ties and to the importance and apparent reasonableness of accepting the public policies that are adopted.' Cf. Cohen, *Symbolic Construction*.

<sup>10</sup> See Pointon, *Hanging*; West, *Portraiture*, 21–41.

11Pointon, *Search for Identity*, 11.

but it always has the individual at its centre and as its purpose. 'Image' needs to be understood in its double meaning as both a picture and the reputation of an individual, both of which can make them (in)adequate candidates for offce.

In presidential portraiture, the intersection between institutions as offcial infrastructures and informal systems of norms becomes particularly potent. As representations of a political representative, portraits visually equate the politician's body with the body politic.12 While displayed by an individual, the political emotions at play are supra-individual: they are institutionally formed and transmit an institution's purpose.

Recent scholarship has seen a prolifc interdisciplinary engagement with the force that images can muster in the political realm, ranging from visual history to political iconography to the agentic 'image act'.13 According to some art historians, pictures should be understood as visual repositories and catalysts of emotions, while studies in experimental and empirical aesthetics enquire into the relationship between the formal properties of art (e.g. colour, lines, and composition) and emotions.14 Straddling the line between studies in visual culture and art on the one hand and history on the other, this chapter draws mostly on political iconography and the social function of art and visual culture to explore how pictures employ the iconography of emotions to emotionally connect with the population. It thus investigates the mediality of emotions, which includes both the presentation within the pictures and the use of portrayals. George Washington's offcial portrait epitomized the new ideal of civil leadership, but without its widespread dissemination through innumerable copies, ranging from print to teapots, it may have remained a decorous elite project.15 With the rise of cheap printing, photography, and television in the centuries to come, other forms of portrayal were added to the mix. The circulation of informal pictures and snapshots enabled top-down

12Cf. Kantorowicz, *King's Two Bodies*, 7–23; Rogin, 'King's Two Bodies'; Stein, 'President's Two Bodies', 34.

13For visual history, see Haskell, *History*; Burke, *Eyewitnessing*; Paul, *Visual History*. For political iconography, see Diers, *Schlagbilder*; Fleckner, Warnke, and Ziegler, *Handbuch*; Krass, 'Politische Ikonographie'; Ginzburg, *Fear*; see also Freedberg, *Power of Images*. For agentic 'image act', see Bredekamp, *Bildakt*, 56–64.

14Pawlak, Zieke, and Augart, 'Vorwort', 8–10; Franke, 'Spielarten', 172–75; Werner, 'Visualität', 152–53; Winner, *How Art Works*, 29–100.

15On 'trivial ruler portraits', see Warnke, 'Triviale Herrscherbildnisse'.

communication to be broadened to include the electorate, who could now communicate with each other and with the administration.

History has the beneft of hindsight: the three portrayals of presidents that will be discussed in depth—Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Barack Obama—have proven very successful as tools of emotional communication. Moreover, they allow historians to integrate emotion history with media analysis, as each exemplifes how a particular medium—painting and other pictorial depictions, photography, the internet—shapes the way images are framed. Each of the presidents was also a 'frst': the frst president, the frst visibly disabled president, the frst black president. Investigating these instances of emerging types will demonstrate that emotional templates become successful when adapted to ft the individual.

#### Portraying Composure: George Washington

While George Washington was portrayed multiple times throughout his life, his image as president was shaped by three portraits in particular, all painted by Gilbert Stuart: the *Athenaeum* and the *Vaughan Portraits* of 1795, an unfnished half-length, depicting Washington's head in front of a brown background, and a bust respectively, and the *Lansdowne Portrait* of 1796 (Fig. 5.2).16 The latter, which employs the same formula for the head as the *Athenaeum Portrait*, is the frst American presidential portrait and has become iconic, endlessly copied and engraved and an integral part of the White House decor. Both the president's body and the picture's composition communicate ideas about the emotional styles of the ideal leader, which were to shape pictorial traditions of presidential demeanour throughout to the present.

The *Lansdowne Portrait* shows Washington wearing a black suit, black stockings, black shoes, and a grey powdered wig and standing amid symbols of American republicanism. His determined expression and outstretched hand imply that he is about to give a speech, which echoes the interpretation that the picture depicts the address Washington gave to the Fourth Congress (March 1795–March 1797) in the Congress Hall in Philadelphia in 1795. This speech defended the US' neutrality during the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, which had led to the (still in force)

<sup>16</sup>On the portrait, see Evans, *Genius*, 67–71; Barratt and Miles, *Gilbert Stuart*, 166–75; Howard and Hoffman, 'Thousand Words'; Wick, *George Washington*, 34–73; Depkat, 'Erfndung'.

**Fig. 5.2** Gilbert Stuart, *George Washington* (*The Lansdowne Portrait*), 1796, oil on canvas, 247.6 × 158.7 cm. (© National Portrait Gallery, Washington, Smithsonian Institution; acquired as a gift to the nation through the generosity of the Donal W. Reynolds Foundation)

Neutrality Act of 1794 and the 'Jay Treaty' of 1795 (Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America), which facilitated trade with Great Britain. At the time, Washington and his allies were eager to present their choice to remain neutral as a disinterested decision that was best for the country. Meanwhile, his political enemies agreed that he was in fact not disinterested but uninterested: he did not care about the suffering of the French or about the general threat that monarchy posed to a republic.

The *Lansdowne Portrait* epitomizes this struggle between political factions during the early American Republic and equates political disinterestedness with emotional tranquillity.17 The picture subscribes to a long tradition, dating back to Roman Antiquity, of displaying leaders of state as determined but tranquil and emotionally moderate, a sign of both their capability to lead and to remain cool-headed in the face of danger.

<sup>17</sup>Pahl, 'Proclamations of Neutrality'.

Washington's portrayal as a calm leader has mostly to do with his face— 'the best likeness of the Chief in his latter days'—and posture, although the body was modelled on someone else's.18 With the clenched mouth (a nod to his false teeth, but also a device to connote determination), the face is based on the *Athenaeum Portrait*, which in turn took inspiration from early modern physiognomic patterns such as Charles Le Brun's *L'expression des passions* of 1667, a typology of emotional expressions.19 Washington's face is a code for 'boldness', a face often used for soldiers and statesmen (Fig. 5.3).20 His oratorial posture with the outstretched hand, sword at his side, feet frmly placed on the ground, embodies his commitment to the offce.

Referencing ancient virtues, the various attributes depicted in the portrait are conducive to a narrative of American republicanism. The columns signal constancy, the legs of the table and chair display the fasces, symbols of Roman leadership. The American fag on the back of the chair and the rainbow, a symbol of peace, indicate that the president has a tranquil American state behind him.21 The most important symbol, the fag, is also the smallest, rejecting too much overt symbolism and subscribing instead to sober signifcation. The books on the table are the *Journal of Congress* the minutes of Congress, begun in 1789—and the *Federalist Papers*, a collection of essays promoting the ratifcation of the Constitution of the US written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison between 1787 and 1788. The paper awaiting signature may be the Jay Treaty. It was ratifed on 24 June 1795, and on 8 December of the same year, Washington addressed the Fourth Congress. This speech, arguing that 'our favored country … has enjoyed tranquility'22 while the Europeans were involved in bloody wars, arguably inspired the painting. If the Jay

18George Washington Parke Custis to Thomas Carberry, Esq., 7 April 1839, in Lamb, *Magazine*, 583–84, here 583. Cf. Barratt and Miles, *Gilbert Stuart*, 168.

19On Le Brun, see Kirchner, *Expression*; Montagu, *Expression*; Schmidt, 'Showing Emotions'.

21On the symbolism, see *ibid*., 738–39.

<sup>20</sup> See Depkat, 'Erfndung', 738–39.

<sup>22</sup> *Journal of the House of Representatives*, 367. According to a newspaper article of May 1797, 'the fgure is standing and addressing the Hall of Assembly. The point of time is that when he recommended inviolable union between America and Great Britain'; quoted in Barratt and Miles, *Gilbert Stuart*, 170–71.

**Fig. 5.3** Charles Le Brun, *Boldness (la hardiesse)*, 1660s, ink on paper, 19.6 × 25.4 cm. (© bpk/Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN—Grand Palais)

Treaty is indeed shown in the portrait, then its inclusion visually reinforces the outcome of the politics of neutrality and, by extension, tranquillity.23

The Proclamation of Neutrality, issued on 22 April 1793, divided the government: Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, the former opposing, the second embracing neutrality, were particularly hostile towards one another, and in 1793, Jefferson resigned. He came out of retirement to fght the Jay Treaty, and he predicted—quite correctly—that there would be an outpouring of emotion over this issue. The Jay Treaty was indeed so unpopular that effgies of John Jay were burnt in several cities, apparently at the instigation of the Jeffersonians.24 While Washington and his allies urged restraint, his

<sup>23</sup>Barratt and Miles, *Gilbert Stuart*, 172, describe it as 'an example of the use of portraits to celebrate political alliances'.

<sup>24</sup>Estes, 'Shaping', esp. 399–401.

enemies organized protests and wrote furious letters to local councils. The political fronts were divided along emotional lines, the calm defence tactics of the government colliding with the passionate outcry of the opposition—which would, eventually, result in the formation of the frst political parties in the US: the Republicans and the Federalists. The *Lansdowne Portrait*, whose production coincided with the formation of these parties, catalysed sentiments of group identity.

Portraits are major tools of social formation because they make recognition supra-individual. Viewers should not only recognize the sitter, but also recognize (or not) themselves in them.25 The portrait addressed proponents of Washington's contemporary politics, but its formative power transcends this particular moment. While it was in no way the only depiction of Washington, the portrait was the frst to show him in civilian clothes rather than in his military uniform, indicating a shift in his affliation. Washington had become famous as a general, but through his more neutral attire, Stuart transformed what was known as the formula for the European royal portrait into a Republican ruler portrait or 'the state portrait'.26 This was a president of the people but also not quite of the people: the sword, a sign of aristocracy and the military, was no longer in use; in his civilian frock, Washington became relatable to his electorate. But from Washington's face to his clothes, from the attributes to the format, Stuart's portrait also epitomized rulership and the composed, yet resolute style of the statesman.

Copied several times by Stuart and other artists, the *Lansdowne Portrait* and countless other portraits of Washington, often based on Stuart's iconography but also those showing him in military uniform, were widely disseminated. Engraved or printed, as pictures proper or on paraphernalia, the portraits became tools of early participation by fostering a feeling for the political realm people were inhabiting. Washington himself had miniatures painted and given to friends and allies. After his death in 1799, mourning rings with his portrait—originally a European monarchic tradition, meant to forge an emotional bond between autocratic heads of states and their subjects—were all the fashion, indicating the wearer's loyalty to the Republic (Fig. 5.4).27 The portraits potentially reached and addressed all citizens, but through their subject and iconography, they nonetheless

<sup>25</sup> See Pointon, *Hanging*, esp. 53–78, 159–75.

<sup>26</sup>DeLorme, 'Gilbert Stuart', 353.

<sup>27</sup>Ruby, 'Love Affairs'.

**Fig. 5.4** Mourning ring for George Washington, ca. 1800. (Courtesy of Bridgeman Art Library)

aligned the emotional framework with a particular group in society: wealthy white men of a certain age.

In the early years of the Republic, the electorate was nominally rather diverse. Since the constitution only specifed who was eligible for public offce, voting rights were accorded on the state level and were thus nonuniform. Most states had in fact allowed Catholics and Jews to vote since the Revolution. In some places, property-owning women, free black males, adult male payers of the poll tax, and white adult males who had served in the militia had suffrage.28 But with a multitude of restrictions in place to prevent unwanted groups from casting their ballot, participating in an election was easiest for those who most closely resembled Washington.29 His individual likeness was extrapolated to encompass collective likeness and depicted the gendered and racialized model for the Constitution's originally gender- and race-less 'the people'.

Since 1797, a copy of the *Lansdowne Portrait*, alongside a portrait of Washington's wife Martha, has been displayed in the White House's East Room, its public chamber. As the portrait has been included in each

<sup>28</sup>Kousser, 'Voting Rights', 195–98.

<sup>29</sup>Free, *Suffrage Reconstructed*, 11–17.

redecoration, it gestures at the tradition of both the White House's history and of the appropriate attitude towards the offce. But while its offcial use shapes offcial styles, it was through its derivatives that it became a tool of early political participation. Disseminated all across the States, Washington's picture served as the standard model of an American citizen: white, male, civil, bold, and determined. When the *Athenaeum Portrait* of 1796 was chosen to grace the one-dollar bill in 1876, the portrait literally became a valuable device of economic participation and exchange. Its use as a model for Mount Rushmore's Washington in 1941 saw a particular type of president set in stone. The three others, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, sport equivalent facial expressions. Different periods, but one towering head. Yet this monument, 'an accomplishment born, planned, and created in the minds and by the hands of Americans for Americans', overrode the claims of a particular group.30 Before its ownership was vested to the government after the discovery of gold in 1877, the site belonged to the Lakota people, a Sioux tribe, who have, as of now, not relinquished their claim to the land. A 2012 report, undertaken at the instigation of the Obama administration, suggested returning the land because '[t]oday, the Black Hills are national forest and park lands, although they still hold a central place in the history, culture, and worldviews of surrounding tribes and at the same time serve as a constant visible reminder of their loss'.31 Without the indigenous people who 'gave up' their land, the report emphasized, there would be no US.32 And yet, it is highly questionable whether the monument connects with them or represents an American identity to which they wish to belong.

#### Portraying Perseverance: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mount Rushmore was completed during the presidency of another man who would become iconic, 'the force of nature known as Franklin Delano Roosevelt' as one twenty-frst-century author put it.33 The admiration for FDR, while strong among parts of the population during his lifetime, has steadily grown since his death into hero worship. Authors have called this 'FDR's shadow' or 'Roosevelt's high bar'.34 Roosevelt's presidency was, in

<sup>30</sup>Gutzon Borglum quoted after Boime, 'Patriarchy', 142.

<sup>31</sup>Anaya, 'Report', 11.

<sup>32</sup> *Ibid*., 6.

<sup>33</sup>Greenstein, *Presidential Difference*, 12.

<sup>34</sup>Miller, *Greatness*, 105.

any case, a watershed, although during his time, some felt that he was dividing the nation. On the eve of his re-election in 1936, he gave a speech in Madison Square Garden, challenging 'the old enemies of peace—business and fnancial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profteering. … They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.'35

Roosevelt's campaign image had always relied on casting him as a fgure undaunted in the face of adversary. This image was bolstered by his handling of his (suspected) polio infection, which had left him paraplegic in 1921. It was supported by an acquiescent media that had fallen in love with the elegant and eloquent FDR. 'Day after day', a 1936 article on 'The Roosevelt Myth' recounted, 'we informed the gullible public that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was by far the smartest politician who had ever occupied the White House'. An overwhelming victory, swift execution of policies, command of Congress, and his incredible popularity swayed the correspondents in Washington. Roosevelt, the author wistfully remembered, appeared as the epitome of leadership, sagacious, diplomatic, wary, judicious, and visionary: 'here was a politician to make Machiavelli, Mark Hanna, Talleyrand, and Boies Penrose hang their heads in utter shame.'36

In his second term in offce, journalists saw the 'myth' come tumbling down. FDR proved to be impolitic, unreliable, disingenuous, and equipped with neither a clear plan nor vision. A press conference on 31 May 1935, in which Roosevelt discussed the Supreme Court's decision to declare the National Recovery Administration (NRA), an essential part of the New Deal, unconstitutional, observers thought especially disillusioning: 'he exhibited anger, disappointment, and chagrin in a petulant tirade against the Supreme Court lasting one hour and twenty minutes by the clock. … No President has ever made so intemperate an utterance at a press conference.' FDR and his administration, the author fumed, had been taken by surprise that a major instrument of the New Deal was outlawed: 'Neither the *Führer* nor his Brain Trust had prepared a plan of retreat.' Within four years, the article asserted, Roosevelt had gone from being a calm, patient, clear-sighted head of state to an unreckonable, thin-skinned, ill-prepared showman.37

<sup>35</sup>Roosevelt, 'Address at Madison Square Garden'.

<sup>36</sup>Brown, 'Roosevelt Myth', 390.

<sup>37</sup> *Ibid*., 391.

Roosevelt's relationship with the media is almost as legendary as his presidency.38 FDR was a mass-media president, appearing in newspapers, on the radio, and in newsreels. A member of the upper class, Roosevelt had had his portrait painted several times since childhood, but although some portrait paintings and drawings were used for the campaign and appeared in newspapers, the primary media for addressing American citizens in the 1920s and 1930s were photography and flm.39 FDR's image was shaped by his intricate relationship with the press, described by a contemporary in 1937 as an 'emotional allegiance'.40 Playing on the heartstrings of the news corps was paramount for Roosevelt's public appeal. It was through the media that emotions were fltered and evoked and that people participated in his politics, from the New Deal to the Second World War.

Presidents need to exhibit their personalized version of disinterested discipline, peppered with passion to avoid appearing indifferent. When Roosevelt decided to run for president in 1931, he projected an image expected of leaders of state via a shrewd image campaign. Framing his disability as an enemy he fought and eventually kept in check, he appealed to potential voters' admiration for his tenaciousness and turned the implicit requirement for leaders to be able-bodied on its head. While popular and academic scholarship has long reiterated the belief that there existed a gentleman's agreement between the media and Roosevelt to not thematize his illness in exchange for political insights, it is now established that the paralysis of his legs was not only widely known, but 'a central component of his persona'.41

After his condition improved, Roosevelt's illness did not prevent him from being politically active. He was governor of New York before winning the Democratic nomination for the presidential race. Roosevelt did not want to be photographed in a wheelchair, but he was depicted leaning on his cane and being supported by others or with his braces on, without which he was unable to stand or walk. Once sitting at his desk, he joked, he was forced to work because he could not get up on his own. While they had originally reported on the pitilessness of making a 'crippled' man run

<sup>38</sup> Steele, *Propaganda*; Winfeld, *FDR*; Keller, 'Roosevelts Bildpropaganda'; Culbert, 'Franklin D. Roosevelt'. Cf. Casey, *Cautious Crusade*.

39Meschutt, 'Portraits', 9, 6.

40Rosten, 'Washington Correspondents', 42.

41Pressman, 'Ambivalent Accomplices', 327–28. See 350–52 for instances where enemies used Roosevelt's disability disparagingly and it backfred.

for offce, newspapers took their cue from FDR who worked tirelessly to present himself as a recovering man.42 They capitalized on the stoic endurance FDR displayed although 'this handsome six-foot man's fne body was twisted with infantile paralysis from the waist down'. Nevertheless, as a 1931 article explained, FDR was not going to be subdued: 'Never once did he relinquish his hold on the future. Not once … did he falter in his fght to beat the blow from the dark.'43 In another article, engineered by the Roosevelts together with the author (a Republican family friend), the magazine *Liberty* proclaimed in July 1931: 'It is an amazing possibility that the next President of the United States may be a cripple.' A picture showing the presidential hopeful sitting at his desk, his braces in full view, accompanied the text (Fig. 5.5).44 In 1932, with the Great Depression in full swing and the election around the corner, *Time* magazine stated admiringly: 'Never have his crippled legs deterred him from going where he would.'45

Sally Stein has argued that the pictorial strategies of images of Roosevelt were pivotal to his success. Roosevelt headed the country in times of deep crisis. But while it might have been expected that the public would prefer an able-bodied leader who exemplifed the vigour the country embodied and needed, Roosevelt fared well precisely because the public latched onto the disabled president as an emblem of perseverance in a 'collaborative process of dealing with the president's lack of conventional signs of mastery'.46 Roosevelt's famous inaugural speech of 1933 subtly but unmistakably entwined his individual body with the body politic, the politician with the country:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. … [L]et me assert my frm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustifed terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.47

42For this shift, see *ibid*., 329–30.

44Looker, 'Physically Fit', 6. On the machinations leading to the article, see Kiewe, 'Body as Proof', 92–94; Pressman, 'Ambivalent Accomplices', 333.

<sup>43</sup> 'Life Story'.

<sup>45</sup> 'Campaign', 13.

<sup>46</sup> Stein, 'President's Two Bodies', 34.

<sup>47</sup>Roosevelt, 'Inaugural Address', 1. See Stein, 'President's Two Bodies', 37.

**Fig. 5.5** Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1930. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum)

Franklin Roosevelt thus established as his enemy not a political opponent but paralysis and fear. In contrast stood his confdence and strength, manifest both in his words and in the calm, solemn voice he used to speak. Roosevelt transformed the template for presidential style by incorporating both his unique situation and the general expectations levied on a president, bolstering his leadership qualities by forging a connection to the public that was pre-eminently emotional. 'If I read the temper of our people correctly,' he said, 'we now realize … that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army … I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people.'48

All in power and all who were part of the elite, Roosevelt claimed, gained, and lost their legitimacy with the emotional support of the people. Wall Street bankers, responsible for the crash of 1929, 'stand indicted in

<sup>48</sup>Roosevelt, 'Inaugural Address', 6–7.

the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men'.49 With his speech, the press asserted, FDR managed to win the people over. After 'the strong, knotty hand of the man drops affectionately from the … aged Dutch Bible', he addressed a crowd looking on in awed silence. Then, they wrote: 'The tensions breaks … Stirred and swayed by the magic of that powerful voice, the crowds burst into ringing cheers, echoing to the ends of the earth.'50 Strong hands compensated for legs that could not walk. The newspaper weaved together a story whose narrative features refected this breathtaking moment.

While mobilizing the emotional potential of his disability proved to be very successful, the nature of the images changed once FDR was in offce. He refrained from being shown with braces. The Secret Service saw to it that photographers, under the threat of losing their equipment or access to the White House, did not take photos disadvantageous to the president.51 He was shown seated behind his desk, writing or speaking into microphones, or in his car. With his illness almost disappearing from media coverage, pictures of FDR approached established forms of leadership portraits. Offcially, this had to do with the fact that the disability was no longer news, but Stein has argued that this shift also refected the willingness of the American public to believe in a miracle cure. If Roosevelt could get up and walk again, then the country, shaken by poverty, hunger, and crime, could do the same.52 Indeed, the parallel was noted at the time. Roosevelt, the author of a 1941 *LIFE* article wrote, 'never recovered his former agility, but he did throw off the infection'. Likewise, the New Deal was meant 'to check the social infection that raged in the body politic. … It may not be all that is desirable, but at least the country walks again.'53

When standing, Roosevelt, his stance wide, followed the pattern set by Washington, embodying the bold, calm, and determined ruler archetype favoured by Republican governments (Fig. 5.6). When sitting at his desk (Fig. 5.7), he subscribed to a formula of leadership that had emerged in the nineteenth century. Jacques-Louis David's famous 1812 hand-inwaistcoat portrait of Napoleon (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) shows the emperor rise from his desk at four o'clock in the

<sup>49</sup> *Ibid*., 2.

<sup>50</sup>Lowitz and Lowitz, 'Biggest Job', 2.

<sup>51</sup>Pressman, 'Ambivalent Accomplices', 337–39.

<sup>52</sup> Stein, 'President's Two Bodies', 36. Cf. Pressman, 'Ambivalent Accomplices', 328.

<sup>53</sup> Johnson, 'Devil or Demigod?', 78.

**Fig. 5.6** Franklin D. Roosevelt and Captain John McCrea, August 1942. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum)

morning. Modern leadership meant tireless dedication, punishing working hours, and doing paperwork at desks rather than commanding armies in felds. Borrowed from portraits of scholars, the sitting-at-desk formula, employed by leaders of all state forms, ranging from Otto von Bismarck to Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, indicated that the requirements for leadership had changed.54 It had become an intellectual, rather than a physical,

<sup>54</sup>On the 'desk portrait' of the sovereign, see Schoch, *Herrscherbild*, 107–10.

**Fig. 5.7** President Roosevelt working with his stamp collection in the White House, 5 May 1936. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum)

job: 'a sitting job' as Roosevelt himself said.55 Echoing Washington's exchange of his military uniform for a civilian attire, it shows that government had become what it is still called: an administration.

The portrait formulas employed unanimously by both authoritarian and democratic heads of state indicate little distinction between leader and *Führer.* The 'Roosevelt Myth' text denigrated the president as authoritarian to underscore the short-temperedness not only of his character but also of his politics, occasionally seen to be 'as contemptuous of Constitutional barriers as Abraham Lincoln' as *LIFE* put it in 1941.56 The author of the feature had just published *Roosevelt: Dictator or Democrat?* and the 'essential conclusions of his book', published in the magazine,

<sup>55</sup> 'Life Story', 10.

<sup>56</sup> Johnson, 'Devil or Demigod?', 76.

were captioned 'Devil or Demigod?'.57 The article described how this dichotomy was actually the result of several exaggerated 'build-up' and 'smear' campaigns in the media. It was accompanied by images ostentatiously illustrating this antagonism (Fig. 5.8). The picture on the left shows Roosevelt from below, sporting an arrogant expression, the corners of his mouth drawn down, nose tip drawn up. His eyes, which are just slits, look into the distance. On the right, he is shown frontally, a benign smile playing around his half-open mouth and eyes. His shoulders seem slightly slouched, lending him the approachable appearance for which he was known: 'the Roosevelt smile', a disarming mixture of humour and optimism, was proverbial in the 1930s already.58 Scholars have argued that it was with FDR that the now indispensable professional smile, communicating unfagging optimism, entered political campaigning.59

The *LIFE* article was full of comparisons. Roosevelt was set against his predecessors Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Woodrow Wilson. The caption accompanying two photos, one of his cousin and former president Theodore Roosevelt and one of FDR, leaning on his crutches, read that just as TR overcame asthma, FDR 'triumphed over paralysis'. Placing Roosevelt in a long tradition of ambivalent but ultimately successful fgures was not incidental. The article expressed faith in Roosevelt's ability to meet the challenges of contemporary leadership:

In Adolf Hitler we are facing a popular leader of astounding capacity. … To cope with such a man we need a leader capable of inspiring the masses of our own people with a faith comparable to the faith of the masses of the Germans in their man; but God forbid that we should produce one who leads in the same direction!60

Hitler's 'antithesis' had to be a champion of freedom. And, as the pictures preceding the article made clear, he also had to be a smiling, informal, affable president, not a tense and standoffsh one if he wanted to convince Americans to make the ultimate sacrifce for freedom: going to war.

Until today, Roosevelt remains the only visibly disabled American president in US history. Yet, it was his disability that was used to project an image very much in line with the Washingtonian stylistic tradition of

<sup>57</sup> *Ibid*., 75; Johnson, *Roosevelt*.

<sup>58</sup>Rosten, 'Washington Correspondents', 38.

<sup>59</sup>Keller, 'Roosevelts Bildpropaganda', 148.

<sup>60</sup> Johnson, 'Devil or Demigod?', 78.

**Fig. 5.8** First page of Gerald W. Johnson, '"Devil or Demigod?": In a Great Crisis a Great Liberal Has Not Yet Unifed the Republic', *Life*, 24 November 1941, 75–82

statespersons: undaunted, decisive, resolute. This was the template he capitalized on and the one that proved the most enduring. Later presidents, especially the chronically ill John F. Kennedy, did not act on the notion that less-than-perfect bodies could help craft an appealing public image, indicating that templates have a long-lasting infuence and are variable, infuenced—but not wholly determined—by the trends of the time. At the same time, however, Roosevelt's colloquial manner, so different from his punctilious and unappealing predecessor Herbert Hoover, made him a favourite with journalists, something that was (and remains) a precondition for becoming a favourite with the public in the frst place: 'The reportorial affection and admiration for the president is unprecedented', a contemporary analysis noted. Even 'callous', 'hard-boiled', 'disillusioned' newsmen enthused about this likeable fellow whose cigarette holder hung 'at a jaunty angle'.61 But after two years, the author Leo Rosten stated, the press' 'emotional allegiance' had turned into 'critical sentiment'. The 'debonair poise' and the 'unfagging optimism' had soured, the smile had become a grimace, 'turned on and off with calculated purpose'.62 This, however, Rosten wrote lucidly, had less to do with Roosevelt himself faltering, but because reporters, who liked to think themselves cynical, resented that they had been charmed into shedding their journalistic objectivity.63

A visually omnipresent president, Roosevelt died of an aneurysm on 12 April 1945 at his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, during a portrait session. FDR's portrait was left unfnished, documenting the foreverinterrupted painting process and, intriguingly, paralleling Washington's famously unfnished *Athenaeum Portrait*. News of FDR's death, although unsurprising to his employees, his party, and journalists, 'spread like wildfre'. People around the retreat cried, quivered, choked.64 Ohio's *Logan Daily News* printed 'The Last Photo of Franklin Delano Roosevelt' on its front page, alongside a fervent plea for unity: 'The nation must rally from the shock. … The people of the United States must now—if ever—BE united.'65 The quote is paradigmatic: Roosevelt's emotional appeal to the electorate cannot be divested from his emotional mobilization of the press.

<sup>61</sup>Rosten, 'Washington Correspondents', 39, 38. The cigarette holder was fondly remembered by former Washington journalist Daniel Schorr in 1997. See Clausen, 'President', 24.

<sup>62</sup>Rosten, 'Washington Correspondents', 42, 45.

<sup>63</sup> *Ibid*., 50.

<sup>64</sup> 'President Roosevelt Dies'.

<sup>65</sup> 'Nation Mourns'.

#### Portraying Hope: Barack Obama

After the November 2008 presidential election, *Time* showed the president-elect Barack Obama on its cover, sporting the familiar look of far-sighted determination. A week later, on 24 November 2008, the front page depicted an image of him photoshopped into a famous picture of Franklin D. Roosevelt sitting in a car. Comparisons between presidents had, for better and worse, become a tradition of their own. The media later denounced the popular Obama-FDR analogy as a fallacy, but the picture shows how easy it was to insert Obama into the presidential tradition.66 Circumstances such as the fnancial crisis seemed similar, and so did his style. Tall, slender, eloquent, and fashing a winning smile, Obama appeared to be presidential demeanour incarnate: smart, capable, composed, yet approachable. But the pictures also implied that, like every president before him, Obama had to reconcile the tension between continuity and change, the double-edged sword of both political culture and portraiture: what makes one different from all the others, yet somehow similar to them?

Obama's presidency was ushered in by a now-iconic stencilled poster portrait with the tagline 'HOPE'. It was created independently by street artist Shepard Fairey, but approved by the 2008 presidential campaign (Fig. 5.9).67 Referencing the portrait of John F. Kennedy—a sick president who pretended to be abundantly healthy—and the head of Abraham Lincoln, the *Hope* poster showed a determined leader looking off-canvas into a brighter future.68 Considered a game-changer in the history of politically engaged art, the poster was credited with unprecedented mobilizing power, although or maybe because it presents its groundbreaking subject using very conventional means. Reminiscent of Soviet agitprop art, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg's pop appropriation art, and American patriotic images, its 'look of the hand silkscreen print in an era that is dominated by digital reproduction' had a nostalgic feel to it.69 A method of everyday printing, popularized by Warhol as a way to call attention to the commodifcation of images, the silkscreen, together with the John F. Kennedy allusion, harkened back to the aesthetics of the 1960s, a time that has become associated with economic prosperity and the civil

<sup>66</sup>Miller, 'Obama and FDR'.

<sup>67</sup>Fairey and Gross, *Art for Obama*.

<sup>68</sup> See Fisher et al., 'Hope Poster Case', 270.

<sup>69</sup>Cartwright and Mandiberg, 'Obama and Shepard Fairey', 173.

**Fig. 5.9** Shepard Fairey, *Obama Hope*, colour screen print poster, 2008. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Chisholm Larsson Gallery, New York City. Illustration courtesy of Shepard Fairey/Obeygiant.com)

rights movement. These retro-aesthetics refected Obama's straddling of the line between the novelty of being the frst non-white presidential candidate and the sense of tradition and convention. It also reconciled individuality, of person and picture, with the internet's visual culture and its potentially endless reproduction of images. According to Fairey, this oscillation was deliberate. He aimed to 'portray Obama as both an exciting progressive and a mainstream patriot with a vision. … I hoped such an image would make him feel immediately established, familiar, American, and presidential.'70 The vague notion of 'presidential' seemed to imply that certain qualities can make someone particularly ft for offce—physically, mentally, behaviourally—yet they must still essentially be like everyone else.

Fitting Fairey's declared aim to create a visual endorsement for Obama, the *Hope* poster's alleged role in mobilizing emotional support became the subject of a major copyright dispute in 2012.71 Fairey was sued for using an Associated Press photo for the poster without requesting permission, but art historian Marita Sturken, appointed as expert by the defence team, posited that the photo had become a work of art through its borrowing and remixing of other visual traditions: in brief, through the postmodern habit of 'always pointing to previous styles of imaging'.72 Quoting Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites' assessment that iconic images 'activate strong emotional identifcation or response', Sturken argued that the newness of the poster—not the original picture—derived from its emotional potency: 'it has been transformative of American political culture. … [Its] infuence is the most profound argument that can be made for the poster's distinction from the original photograph. … The poster did create hope.'73

This claim has been echoed by political analysts pointing to the 'Obama effect', which included the unprecedented mobilization of black voters in both 2008 and 2012, whose turnout was 60.8 per cent and 62 per cent compared to 59.6 per cent and 57.6 per cent, respectively, among white voters.74 It is, however, diffcult to measure the impact of pictures, even iconic ones, and to identify the motivational force of an image: did the poster create hope?

What can be said, though statements about collective mentality and emotional responses are diffcult to make, is that the poster broached the issue of feelings. Obama personifying the 'anticipatory emotion' of hope was a strategy intended to address the variegated emotionality of a diversifed electorate, persuading them to come together behind a singular fgure and a singular feeling.75 At the same time, the poster and the Obama

<sup>70</sup>Fisher et al., 'Hope Poster Case', 269.

<sup>71</sup> *Ibid*., 271.

<sup>72</sup> *Ibid*., 280; see also 277–87, esp. 284.

<sup>73</sup>Hariman and Lucaites, *No Caption Needed*, 17; Fisher et al., 'Hope Poster Case', 286–87; see also 277–87, esp. 284.

<sup>74</sup>Kinder and Chudy, 'After Obama', 9–10. See Goldman and Mutz, *Obama Effect*.

<sup>75</sup>Miceli and Castelfranchi, *Expectancy*, 159–70.

campaign more broadly allowed people to 'participate on one's own terms' in politics.76 The poster was downloadable for free on Fairey's homepage and could be disseminated and used as desired. In the digital world, the sharing of images and the sharing of feelings are mutually operative, the image both warranting and inducing emotions that then resonate with recipients. The 'like' button is illustrative of emotion codifed, as are memes: derivative units of visual information that epitomize a brief message.77 Memes supportive of Obama cast him as smart and likeable yet playful, and framed interactions with his vice-president Joe Biden as an affectionate relationship (Fig. 5.10).78 Affrmation became couched in romantic tropes, bolstering the notion that his presidency fostered fellow feeling. 'This gives the internet one last chance to talk about our bromance', Obama joked when awarding the Medal of Freedom to a deeply moved Biden in January 2017, inviting a large community to partake in their dual relationship.79

Pictures need not be processed in detail to create a 'feel' for a period or a person. By producing a reference-laden work, Fairey tapped into the large store of the US cultural imagination, conjuring up a wide, if vague, network of visual cues into which Obama ftted neatly. The 'rhetoric of "bipartisanship"', it has been argued, 'is central to his image'.80 This ambition to address all groups regardless of political leanings, race, religion, class, or gender is refected in the *Hope* poster's amalgamation of easily recognizable, but relatively uncontroversial aesthetic traditions. In fact, the aesthetics were specifcally harmless and integrative precisely because it was feared that the candidate was not.

Since the twentieth century, the make-up of the electorate has fundamentally changed. In 2008, 24 per cent were non-whites, a fgure that increased to 27 per cent in 2012.81 The poster addressed this, as well as the fact that this candidate was different from his forerunners, by blatantly not discussing it. Fairey thought it 'a good strategy to de-racialize the image by using red, white, and blue', a shift in the colour-coding pattern that swapped race for all-encompassing all-American citizenship.82 Pictures of

<sup>76</sup>Cheney and Olsen, 'Media Politics', 51.

<sup>77</sup> Shifman, *Memes*, 19.

<sup>78</sup>Fieldstadt, 'Hilarious Obama Memes'.

<sup>79</sup>BBC News, 'Bromance', 0:07–0:13.

<sup>80</sup>Rowe, 'Visualizing', 208.

<sup>81</sup>Krogstad, '2016 Electorate'.

<sup>82</sup>Fisher et al., 'Hope Poster Case', 269.

**Fig. 5.10** Elisha Fieldstadt, 'Hilarious Obama Memes', *CBS News*, 21 December 2016

presidents, it has been shown, generate a feeling of belonging when citizens, or at least the desired portion of them, are able to recognize themselves in their leader. In the case of a black presidential hopeful, the fact that blackness (unlike whiteness) is not connoted 'as a human norm' needed navigating.83 While 'de-racialization' appears indeed to impact the success of politicians, Fairey's aim did not translate into public response, despite the temporary claim (and hope) that America had become postracial in the twenty-frst century.84 Ranging from individual to coordinated attacks, such as the 'birther movement' (prominently fronted by Trump), which asserted that Obama was not born on US soil and was thus ineligible to run for president, Obama faced continuous racist aggressions.

<sup>83</sup>Dyer, *White*, 1.

<sup>84</sup>Andersen and Junn, 'Deracializing Obama'; Tesler and Sears, *Obama's Race*.

From his candidacy to the end of his tenure, his race—alternately classifed as black, biracial, or mixed race—was the overarching concern of the media, the public, and, very quickly, of scholarship.85

Unlike with his predecessors, Obama's emotional style was not only meant to prove that he was presidential material; in addition, social and media discourse made the campaign to be about a repudiation of the emotional stereotypes about black men, ranging from simple-minded irresponsibility to brutish anger. Scholars investigating the 'Obama effect' have therefore hypothesized that 'the power of the incredible number of images of Obama and his family that frmly refuted stereotypes associating blacks with violence, crime, laziness, and fatherless families' was highly conducive to a 'positive shift in racial attitudes'. Exposure to mass-media coverage substituted for '*face-to-face* intergroup contact', known to reduce prejudice.86 In Obama's case, symbolic politics could not be thought as separate from the phenomenon that individuals from marginalized groups are likely to be seen as generally representative of the group as a whole. Obama's campaign needed to, paradoxically, make him somewhat atypical of a stereotype group while also defecting the notion that he was representing a racial group in particular to invite voters to consider him a suitable representative of the country, and thus all races, per se.87

The fusing of heritage with habitus points to the underlying implications of the template incepted by Washington: while its fexibility makes it an adaptable enough scaffold for virtually every person, its historical moment of origin engendered expectations that have become built-in. Whiteness is one of them, being of Christian faith is another. Roosevelt shrewdly angled the template to his purpose, proving its point by presenting himself as striving against particularly adverse conditions and then implying victory by changing how he was visually represented. Obama, in contrast, was perceived as incorporating difference: his race was no 'adversary', but suffciently distinguished him from the standard statespersonlike style to require attenuating so that he could click with a diverse population.

<sup>85</sup>Literature on this topic include: King, *Obama and Race*; Kinder and Dale-Riddle, *End of Race*; Gillespie, *Race*.

<sup>86</sup>Goldman and Mutz, *Obama Effect*, 61–62. See 'President Barack Obama Visual Iconography of Obama', which is part of the Cornell Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

<sup>87</sup> I am grateful to Stephanie Lämmert for her helpful comments on this aspect.

Fairey's insistence on making Obama seem mainstream indicates how images of Obama epitomize the ferce contest between tradition and innovation entwined with his presidency. The newness of the frst black president was interwoven with new media, where, through the personalized use of the pictures by the population, a feeling of community was not only evoked, but able to materialize.

#### Conclusion

In May 2020, it transpired that President Trump would not unveil the offcial portrait of Obama that had been painted for the White House, breaking with a custom in place since Jimmy Carter. A photo of the Bushs presenting the Clintons with their portraits (Fig. 5.11) captured how much these portraits resemble the demeanour and emotional display of the political elite. Bill Clinton opted for the same tie as the one he wears in his portrait. Hillary Clinton's smile is duplicated. George W. Bush imitates Washington's pose. The artistic regime of portraits evidently not only portrays but also trains, forcefully projecting ideas of how a president should behave—which is, apparently, so appealing that media coverage jumps on such occasions where the templating becomes visible.

The templates put forward by media portrayals, both pre- and postelection, associate presidential behaviour with emotional discipline, a view that has been challenged by the election of Trump. While it could be assumed that different kinds of rulers have different emotional confgurations, the comparison of Roosevelt to Hitler, still sometimes considered valid, suggests that the boundaries between democratic and nondemocratic iconographies are not as clear as one might wish.88 Democracies, like all state forms, must fnd a way to communicate with the many and their emotions, but unlike most other state forms, they must communicate with a particular view to participation. 'A government', Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his *Democracy in America* of 1835, 'retains its sway over a great number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational consent of the multitude, than by that instinctive, and to a certain extent involuntary agreement, which results from similarity of feelings and resemblances of opinion.'89

<sup>88</sup>Loiperdinger, *Führerbilder*. See Jacobs, 'Gibt es'.

<sup>89</sup>Tocqueville, *Democracy in America*, 382. See also Burstein, *Sentimental Democracy*, 4–21; Knott*, Sensibility*, 1–22.

**Fig. 5.11** Former US President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton stand by their offcial White House portraits during the unveiling event hosted by President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, 14 June 2004. (Photo by Tim Sloan/AFP via Getty Images)

Media portrayals are particularly effective when they create a feel of electoral togetherness. The 'effgy of a candidate', Roland Barthes wrote, 'establishes a personal link between him and voters'. The candidate not only offers an electoral programme for voters to judge, but 'a physical climate, a set of daily choices, expressed in a morphology, a way of dressing, a posture'. Politics thereby becomes '"a manner of being", a socialmoral status'. Electoral photographs offer 'to the voter his own likeness, but clarifed, exalted, superbly elevated into a type'. 90 Presidential portrayals, whether offcial ones or their derivatives, partake in the political discourse by intertwining artistic templates with character templates and communicating the institution of the presidency to the populace. The personal likeness turns, as Barthes indicates, into a supra-individual likeness, the term's stem, 'to like', indicating that recognition oscillates between identifcation and appreciation. 'Americans', a study put it in 1983, 'vote

<sup>90</sup>Barthes, 'Photography', 91.

in overwhelming number for the presidential candidate they like most'.91 The twenty-frst-century expression of this can be seen in the various ways of 'liking' posts on the internet.

While it is impossible to defne to which extent portraits, by both crystallizing and catalysing emotions, make meaningful interventions in what this book deems the democratic political sphere (i.e. an ongoing and open discussion about how people want to live together), the visual can be a means of balancing the requirements of vastly different groups. The emotional registers of politics are conveyed through visual imagery, which in turn emotionally resonate with people.

Unveiling ceremonies for presidential portraits are, according to the organizing institution, The White House Historical Association, 'often bi-partisan events with warm greetings and collegial speeches exchanged by the president and their predecessor'.92 They are meant to symbolize that despite political differences, there is a general agreement across party lines on the legitimacy of democratic institutions themselves. While Donald Trump's decision not to attend the unveiling was just one of many instances in which he deliberately violated established, if unwritten, rules of behaviour, it must be noted that this equally successful way of connecting emotionally with parts of the population only works because there is a standard to diverge from in the frst place.

George Washington's portraits set the tone for a visual genealogy of presidential depictions. US presidents still begin their tenure by choosing a portrait of their preferred predecessor to adorn the Oval Offce to visually stress that they are about to take their place among a long line of predecessors. The tension between the supra-individual formations of emotions and their individualized adaption, inherent to institutional templating, relates to the essence of portraiture. Portraits must negotiate between what makes the sitter resemble other people and what makes them stand out. They invoke emotional repertoires to appeal to the electorate's emotions and express the likeness between the president and the people but also the exceptionality of the former. Be it Washington donning civilian clothing, Roosevelt bouncing back from hardship, or Obama becoming de-racialized through American colours—presidents need to evoke a united public sentiment by connecting emotionally with those they govern.

> Kerstin Maria Pahl (pahl@mpib-berlin.mpg.de)

91Kinder, *Presidential Traits*, 2.

92White House Historical Association, 'Offcial White House Portraits'.

#### Bibliography


donald-trumps-rhetoric-how-being-inarticulate-is-seen-as-authentic. Accessed 15 July 2021.


Pointon, Marcia. *Portrayal and the Search for Identity*. London: Reaktion, 2013.


**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# Feeling Political Through the Radio: President Roosevelt's Fireside Chats, 1933–1944

#### *Michael Amico*

Cincinnati, Cambridge, Dubuque, Minneapolis, Chicago … 12 March 1933: 'My friends, …' It was the voice of Franklin D. Roosevelt, inaugurated only eight days before as President of the US. James Green in Cincinnati was sitting in his easy chair in the library and it seemed that Roosevelt was across the room from him. A group of college students stood and sat on the foor and couch of minister Newton Fetter's home in Cambridge. F. B. Graham and his wife, a modest middle-class couple who had lost what little they had in the Depression, listened together from Dubuque, Iowa. Bertha Lindquist and her husband in Minneapolis were entertaining his parents, of foreign descent and of little education. All of these people heard the same voice at the same time explain why the country's banks could not at the moment provide all the people's money back. Then the voice explained how it would happen that with everyone's cooperation the money would return and the banks and country would grow stronger.

Josie D'Natale from Chicago started to cry. She had been out of work for three years and lived with her four children in very bad conditions. While hearing Roosevelt's voice, her 'heart felt good'. When the voice died away, the Grahams realized their 'friend' had gone home again but left them 'his courage, his faith, and absolute confdence'. At that moment, Bertha Lindquist's mother-in-law, seventy years old and a 'staunch, hard

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2022 159

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_6

shelled Republican' (Roosevelt was a Democrat), jumped from her chair and said, 'Isn't he a fne man.' Her husband had tears in his eyes and said, 'I feel 100% better already.' Newton Fetter, with his young friends in Cambridge, was impressed and mystifed. Washington, D.C., the seat of the federal government, had seemed a long way off to him before, but somehow they were 'made to feel that we are a part of the government and that we have some responsibility'. The Grahams, feeling for everyone, were sure that Roosevelt sensed 'the great hope and reliance' of all his people.1

Scholars have described the particular emotional climate of 1930s America as a fundamental factor in binding people together, especially in the comradeship of political organizations and social movements.2 The emotional qualities associated with Roosevelt himself and his image in newspapers and magazines, such as his empathy and charisma, have also been highlighted as crucial to the effect he had on people.3 Nonetheless, Americans had felt emotional in response to presidents before, even over the solicitude and care that preceding, largely unpopular President Herbert Hoover espoused in his radio addresses.4 What was different here, on 12 March 1933—and what would continue to distinguish Roosevelt's series of thirty radio addresses known as the Fireside Chats from other leaders' and politicians' addresses—was exactly how he templated his own and his listeners' emotions.5

<sup>1</sup> James A. Green to Roosevelt, 15 March 1933; Newton C. Fetter to Roosevelt, 15 March 1933; F. B. Graham and Mrs F. B. Graham to Roosevelt, 13 March 1933; Bertha M. Lindquist to Roosevelt, 12 March 1933; Josie D'Natale to Roosevelt, 13 March 1933, all in Levine and Levine, *People*, 38, 43–44, 36, 41–42, 56–57.

2On the climate at large, see Hofstadter, *Age of Reform*; Schlesinger, *Age of Roosevelt*; Cowie, *Great Exception*; on the labour movement, see Cohen, *New Deal*, who particularly identifes its 'culture of unity' and its belief in a 'moral capitalism'.

3On Roosevelt, see Ward, *First Class Temperament*; Alter, *Defning Moment*; Goodwin, *Leadership*.

4Hayes, 'Did Herbert Hoover', 82.

<sup>5</sup> In a succinct summary of current scholarly consensus around the pivotal role of emotion in the New Deal and Roosevelt's embodiment of it, Lizabeth Cohen wrote in *The Atlantic* on 17 May 2020 ('The Lessons of the Great Depression'): '[T]he success of the New Deal was built on more than all the agencies it spawned, or the specifc programs it established—it rested on the spirit of those who brought it into being. The New Dealers learned to embrace experimentation, accepting failures along the path to success. They turned aside the ferocious opposition their bold proposals provoked. … And, perhaps above all, they pushed for unity and cultivated empathy. … This last point is perhaps the most important, and it may be the most diffcult.' While Cohen's scholarship on the New Deal details many signs of this spirit, the concept of emotional templating offers a way of understanding how the spirit arose

The Fireside Chats were heard by a signifcant majority of Americans.6 Roosevelt delivered them at about 10 p.m. on the east coast on Sundays or early in the week, and they were carried by all major radio stations. He spoke for around thirty minutes on average, but sometimes as short as ffteen or as long as forty. Considered as a whole, the chats can be clumped into three phases. The frst is the mid-Depression era (1933–1935, with seven total chats, including four in 1934 before tapering off in the following two years). Then he delivered no chat for over a year and a half. As the Supreme Court increasingly declared key New Deal legislation unconstitutional, he recommenced his chats in 1936. In the second phase (1936–1938, with six chats total, although the last two of these were also responding to a renewed Depression), Roosevelt faced the most signifcant challenge to his emotional work and the support of his actions. He then delivered no chat for more than a year before again recommencing them in 1939 to prepare the country for the possibility, and then reality, of war. The chats in the third phase numbered one, two, three, and four per year through 1944 as Roosevelt's style become more strident. The question of friend and enemy had grown starker and more steadfast, and the emotional templating did not succeed for everyone.

The Fireside Chats and many of Roosevelt's other addresses have been widely studied as exemplary models of political rhetoric and persuasion.7 How Roosevelt specifcally used emotion has not been a focus of these

from these signs and connects together the processes she lists. Looking at how Roosevelt fuelled emotional templates through his Fireside Chats also helps explain how workers came to expect a capitalist system to help provide for them (what Cohen terms 'moral capitalism') and even warm up to the idea that it could, in cooperation with government, improve life for everyone (see Cohen, *New Deal*).

<sup>6</sup> Sixty per cent of households had a radio in 1933 and 90 per cent did by the early 1940s. While the number of people listening to each chat varied, as many as 83 per cent of those who owned a radio heard at least two chats. In terms of individual chats, 79 per cent of all Americans heard his chat of 9 December 1941 and 80 per cent heard his chat of 23 February 1942 (Levine and Levine, preface, xi; Levine and Levine, introduction, 17).

<sup>7</sup> In *FDR's First Fireside Chat*, Amos Kiewe privileges Roosevelt's apparent simplicity and clarity of statement as the central means by which he instilled confdence in the banking system. While Roosevelt's word choice and conversational tone are often cited as selfexplanatory, and central to the chats' success, Elvin T. Lim challenges and complicates these assumptions in his article 'The Lion and the Lamb'. David Michael Ryfe ('Media Public') argues that the chats created a rhetorical public space in which listeners refected on their individual relation to the social whole, and consequently perceived Roosevelt to be friendly and relatable. Scholars have also highlighted Roosevelt's use of medical metaphors, such as fear as a disease and Roosevelt as a doctor curing the body politic; see Daughton, 'FDR as studies.8 The two main emotions that characterized Roosevelt's message throughout his chats were confdence and hope. Each emotion held a different position in the experience of his suite of New Deal legislation and organizational changes. 'Confdence and courage [his near-cognate of confdence throughout the chats] are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan', he said at the close of his frst chat on 12 March 1933.9 Hope, on the other hand, was the overall attitude people had about the plan that fed back into its confdent enactment. The attitude of hope was also signalled with additional words such as faith and trust.

We can fnd expressions of confdence and hope in the culture at large, following previous investigations of the chats that rely on their context to explain their structure and reception.10 However, in order to better understand the precise ways emotional templates work to motivate people and bind them together, we will instead perform a close reading of their formation and expression in the chats and responses to them. This method reveals how the logic of emotion, developed in intimate dialogue between Roosevelt and the people, was crucial to how the chats were heard and affected listeners.

Listeners described Roosevelt's tone as 'sincere', 'earnest', 'honest', and 'frank'.11 We consider tone to combine three elements: the aural qualities of his voice (described by listeners as 'distinct', 'clear as a Bell', and 'radiat[ing] so much human sympathy and tenderness'); the tempo at

Family Doctor'. Mary E. Stuckey argues in *The Good Neighbor* that Roosevelt's entire rhetorical corpus is defned by the metaphor of the 'good neighbor'.

8While Ryfe ('Media Public') says that listeners experienced their public positionality as a feeling, that feeling is, for him, an ephemeral result of the rhetorical process rather than a productive mechanism of it. All the studies in note 7 turn to rhetoric and theories of the public sphere to explain how emotions, important though they are, are epiphenomena of other categories and processes.

9Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 1'.

10The frst book-length examination of the chats, Buhite and Levy, *FDR's Fireside Chats*, offers a general political and social context for understanding them. In *Freedom from Fear*, David M. Kennedy treats them as integral to furthering Roosevelt's actual New Deal legislation. Christopher Thomas Brockman offers the most sophisticated analysis of the integration of the chats with their context in his thesis 'Scaffolding the New Deal: Exploring the Legislative Roots of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Fireside Chats'. Brockman plots the unfolding explanation of the legislation as an educational process increasing American's involvement in the New Deal and imparting social ideals.

11These words appear throughout letters to Roosevelt about his chats, as published in Levine and Levine, *People*. Sincere (and its forms) appears most frequently, followed by honest, earnest, and frank.

which he spoke and its disciplined pacing (it was 30 per cent fewer words per minute than was common for radio delivery at the time, and described by a listener 'as steady as a rock'); and the focus of his thought (described by listeners as 'simple language', or just 'good plain talk' that was 'clear, forcible and direct', 'concise', and 'straightforward').12 Roosevelt and his listeners were speaking and hearing in tone together. Not only could they understand what he was saying, they wrote, but they also felt understood by him (an overwhelming theme in their letters to him and, in their estimation, a frst from a President). This dynamic process created the template for confdence. As Roosevelt brought listeners *into* his confdence (where the truth about the state of pricing, wages, labour, and production was told plainly and simply), they came out *with* confdence—in government but also, self-refectively, in themselves.

Then the hope began. As the chats continued to offer explanations for the necessary redirections and reorganizations of government, the people were increasingly enlisted as the arms and legs of the state. Through their actions, not least as participants in New Deal programmes, the institutions of democracy grew and moved in new ways. This required coordination, which brought cooperation (a word used heavily in the chats) and lent a sense of unity and awareness of the larger economic and institutional structures they were building together. Hope was, most succinctly, the feeling of being able to survey the entire scene from atop the beams of the growing structure.

While the templates for confdence and hope developed over a number of chats, the emotions could at any time snap into place for an individual. This is evident in the responses listeners wrote to Roosevelt after hearing the chats. Americans were used to sitting down to listen to the radio and writing into radio stations expressing their opinions about what they heard.13 Mary Woodruff of Glenolden, Pennsylvania, writing the day after Roosevelt's frst chat, evidenced the work of the templates in nascent

12For the descriptions of voice, see Green to Roosevelt, 15 March 1933; Anna Koulevard to Roosevelt, 8 May 1933; Virginia Miller to Roosevelt, 13 March 1933, all in Levine and Levine, *People*, 38, 70, 46; the tempo rates and description, see Levine and Levine, introduction, 16; Koulevard to Roosevelt, 8 May 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 70; and the descriptions of focused thought, see Lindquist to Roosevelt, 12 March 1933; Chester E. Bruns to Roosevelt, 13 March 1933; Green to Roosevelt, 15 March 1933; Mabel L. Morrissey to Roosevelt, 20 March 1933; Frances I. Hundley to Roosevelt, 21 March 1933, all in Levine and Levine, *People*, 41, 42, 38, 43, 58.

13Levine and Levine, introduction, 4.

form. She began by stating, '[i]n all fairness', that she was 'politically … on the opposite side of the fence … in [a] rock-ribbed Republican community'. This declaration set off more sharply the particularly hopeful and chipper tone of her response. '[Y]ou have wrought miracles this week', she stated simply. This was nothing in terms of the New Deal legislation yet to be introduced, but rather how 'you put some backbone in the people'. Images related to the backbone and spine, including standing tall and standing up to others, especially Big Business, would become a marker in the chats and responses to them of acting with confdence alongside the government. 'Won't you please keep on talking to us in one-syllable words, and take us into your confdence?' she asked. She had already 'written to our Senator Reed, and told him how we feel, and asked him to please stand by you'. They were standing together with their President. 'Aren't you proud of your friends? (I love that "My friends—" it warms my heart.)'14 The understanding between them echoed in playful reciprocity.

Roosevelt invited his listeners to send him their opinions and integrated those into his chats. Examining the texts and delivery of the chats (most of them were recorded and all were transcribed) alongside a selection of listeners' responses to them demonstrates how the templates for confdence and hope were formed in dialogue with his listeners.15 Their individual expression and circumstantial adaptation of these emotions

14Mary L. Woodruff to Roosevelt, 13 March 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 48–49.

15All of the letters and telegrams referred to in this chapter are excerpted from Levine and Levine, *People*, the only published collection of listener responses to the chats. Each response was written within two weeks of the air date of a chat. Their quotations here retain all original spelling, grammar, and punctuation. All identifying information about the writers comes from the responses themselves. The Levines write: 'Although an indeterminate number of [the letters written to the President, which total somewhere between ffteen and thirty million,] have been lost or destroyed, the bulk remain and constitute our only direct, unmediated contemporary record of the consciousness of substantial numbers of people who lived through the crises of depression and war' (Levine and Levine, preface, xi). The Levines claim that the letter writers spanned every class and political party. They also cite studies showing that lower-income groups listened to the radio more frequently and wrote more letters to radio stations. In a study of the letters Roosevelt received in a fve-day period in March 1934, almost half were from labourers, followed by 17 per cent from businessmen, 15 per cent from farmers, and 14 per cent from clerical workers (Levine and Levine, introduction, 3). The Levines selected the letters in their collection as representative of American attitudes at the time of the chat. All of the letters are located in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, President's Personal File 200 (PPF 200), Public Response (Levine and Levine, preface, xi, xii).

strengthened the templating process. All of their responses were read by at least one of Roosevelt's staff, and he read some of them himself.16 'I am more closely in touch with public opinion in the United States than any individual in this room', he told the media.17 Tailoring radio programming in dialogue with the concerns of a community was crucial to the creation of solidarity among the working class in the 1920s and 1930s.18 But Roosevelt, as opposed to a labour organizer, was negotiating the thoughts and feelings of the entire populace while working with lawmakers and business people on a vast number of projects. Only when he thought that confdence was caving in and hope was collapsing did he take to the radio.

#### Rising Out of Depression

While all types of Americans tuned in to Roosevelt, and he would offer many reasons and incentives for sectors such as industry, farming, transportation, banking, and labour to collaborate, his primary audience for all of his chats was the everyday American, in some particular guise. In his frst chat of 12 March 1933, that guise was 'the overwhelming majority who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks'.19 During the preceding week, Roosevelt had declared a 'bank holiday', during which the country's banks were closed by mandate because they could not handle the cash withdrawal requests of their customers. Frank Cregg from Syracuse, and a New York State Supreme Court Justice, wrote Roosevelt that 'some [of his neighbours, Republican and Democrat] were frantic and expressed the hope that your message would be such as to allow them to withdraw their life savings from some other local banks'.20 The banking legislation Roosevelt described in his chat would, the President said, make 'it possible for banks more readily to convert their assets into cash than was the case before'. Yet he knew that he was going to need something more from the people themselves. His goal for the chat was to change their emotions. 'After all', he concluded, 'there is an element

<sup>16</sup>Levine and Levine, introduction, 7–8.

<sup>17</sup>Roosevelt quoted in Levine and Levine, introduction, 10.

<sup>18</sup>Cohen, *New Deal*, 325. For more on radio culture and its collective experience, see Craig, *Fireside Politics*. For a focus on how radio created an engaged citizenry and promoted tolerance, see Goodman, *Radio's Civic Ambition*.

<sup>19</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 1'.

<sup>20</sup>Frank J. Cregg to Roosevelt, 14 March 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 37.

in the readjustment of our fnancial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confdence of the people.'21

Roosevelt used the bank holiday as a rhetorical frame in which the action of his explanation unfolded. He opened with a short lesson on how, normally, when money is deposited in a bank only a small amount of it remains as cash and the rest is invested by the bank. With much of that investment now gone, he stated that 'new currency is being sent out by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in large volume to every part of the country'.22 This embodied, scenic dimension and imagistic explanation would become a running templating device that made the current situation and its understanding newly palpable.23 '[E]veryone seemed to become hypnotized', Frank Cregg reported. '[T]here wasn't a word spoken by anyone until you had fnished.'24 As listeners followed his explanation of offcials holding the money in their hands and unloading it in a bank vault, they were also brought into the picture, in confdence, as observers. They could then believe the money would be there. '[Y]ou must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses', Roosevelt added as he calmed the frantic movement of thought and unsubstantiated information.25 The accruing stability of money and understanding became the ground of confdence. The added sense of control and calm brought a feeling of contentment as well.

The feeling of confdence involved a simultaneous move away from the emotions of anxiety and fear.26 Roosevelt facilitated that move frst by gently acknowledging them. He picked up his explanation of what normally happens to bank deposits by explaining that '[s]ome of our bankers had

21Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 1'.

22Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 1'.

23While David Ryfe, in his article 'Franklin Roosevelt and the Fireside Chats', 85, draws attention to the chats' dramatic construction of scenes and their appeal to 'basic emotions', he does not tie this effect specifcally to the embodied qualities of emotion. For an overview of emotions as historically situated embodied practices, see Monique Scheer, 'Are Emotions'. Ryfe does, however, point out that advertising strategies of the time used friendly sounding celebrity voices to create the feeling of being in intimate, embodied proximity to a company spokesperson, thereby mitigating suspicion of their being a snake-oil salesperson (Ryfe, 'Fireside Chats', 85–86).

24Frank J. Cregg to Roosevelt, 14 March 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 37.

25Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 1'.

26Roosevelt most famously began to demobilize 'fear' when he said in his frst inaugural address that 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself' (Roosevelt, 'First Inaugural Address').

shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people's funds'. This happened over a long period. 'I can assure you', he half kidded, 'that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress.'27 The latter was a template for fear, anxiety, and compounding paranoia. Roosevelt shuttled between the loose terrain of the negative emotions and the frmer, safe ground of confdence (and control, calm, and contentment) through the rhetorical parallelism of bed and bank. At least, as Frank Cregg shared, 'The frantic individuals of a few moments before declared that they would leave their money in the banks and that they were not afraid of the future. This little episode convinces me more than ever that you have the confdence of the people.'28

We can observe how in the same moments, but in another place, Roosevelt's tone and content pulled people with a different work profle into his confdence. Fred Mohrbacher wrote from New Brighton, Pennsylvania, on the night he and his family heard Roosevelt deliver this chat. He thanked Roosevelt for his understanding that 'sure put the hearts back in the farmers around here': '[W]e are putting the old Grays in the plows in the morning and turn over the sod of prosperity again and feel like working.'29 The farmers' newfound emotions of confdence and hope facilitated and gave value to their actual work, and the action of that work was itself a feeling of uplift. In the template for confdence that Roosevelt was developing, not only did Mohrbacher not hide from the hard realities of his situation but his emotions gained their power in the earnest reworking of exactly that which had lost value for him before (through the fall of farm prices). Roosevelt's direct reengagement with the reality his listeners faced turned their feeling understood into their acting confdently.

Roosevelt's New Deal legislation would also answer directly to people's contingencies and needs. The creation of new jobs to work on national infrastructure (through the Civilian Conservation Corps) and the relief of home debt (part of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation) would provide 'that sense of [material] security for the present and the future so necessary to the peace and contentment of the individual and of his family', Roosevelt said in his second chat in May 1933. His reasoning was that '[w]hen you destroy these things [of material security] you will fnd it

<sup>27</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 1'.

<sup>28</sup>Frank J. Cregg to Roosevelt, 14 March 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 37.

<sup>29</sup>Fred J. Mohrbacher to Roosevelt, 12 March 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 57.

diffcult to establish confdence of any sort in the future'.30 Thus the emotional logic of confdence that he deployed on multiple levels (as in the stabilizing of money and understanding in his frst chat) was also a logic of policy and management. Roosevelt stated this in his chat of April 1935 two years later. He planned to get rid of holding companies and put more actual people in management roles to be in closer contact with the consumer. He meant to convince business owners as well. By instilling confdence in working people, he was demonstrating to bankers and business people what he would also say in September 1934, 'that without changes in the policies and methods of investment there could be no recovery of public confdence in the security of savings'.31

Confdence and hope were felt and expressed in related, though distinct, ways in the lived experience of individuals, particularly after '[w]e have passed through more than a year of education', said Roosevelt on 30 September 1934.32 C. H. Van Scoy from Seattle listened to his chat then with 'a friend in the country, a man who runs a small chicken ranch'. He wrote Roosevelt a few days later to say that 'the ordinary people with whom I came in contact showed new faith and courage after listening to your words. To them, your talk promised one thing, you would not turn back, and they were satisfed with that.'33 No single community would experience the direct effect of all the programmes of the New Deal. Yet it was the knowing of Roosevelt's proceeding without let or hindrance with all of them, paired with his ongoing systematic bird's eye reviews, that appeared for these ordinary people as their hopeful attitude.

George Ball, a labourer for a Federal Emergency Relief Administration project in San Diego, provided Roosevelt with a more detailed expression of these emotions that also evinced an understanding of Roosevelt's overall trajectory. 'Picture me with a pick and a shovel, right out on the end of Point Loma near the old Spanish light house, helping make things ready for a little park', he wrote, in evidence of his being seen by Roosevelt. '[A]lthough I am 54 years of age, these few days, mark the greatest days of my life', he stated. His emotions related to the provision of his new job but more broadly to how 'the dreams we dispared of in our life, surely are

<sup>30</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 2'.

<sup>31</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 6'.

<sup>32</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 6'.

<sup>33</sup>C. H. Van Scoy to Roosevelt, 2 October 1934, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 126.

closing in on us, through the timely efforts of a Great President and his able assistants'.34

Roosevelt, too, had his own history with confdence and hope. His suffering from polio, with which he was diagnosed in 1921, at thirty-nine years old, was central to his understanding of absolute physical devastation. In response to his condition, Roosevelt invented or designed many contraptions to help him rebuild his mobility, such as a wheelchair without arms to exercise his quadriceps and pincers with a stick to reach books.35 These were part of his own regaining of confdence and hope to re-enter political life and public service after most people thought he would never walk again.36 It was this body that then became the country's surrogate.37 The emotional work of his body politic registers in the chats as well, such as when, in September 1936, Roosevelt stated his goal for people as 'the ability to buy the goods they manufacture and the crops they produce. Thus city wages and farm buying power are the two strong legs that carry the nation forward.'38

While the metaphor of the body politic lurked in the emotional logic of confdence and hope, these emotions and their impact were not reducible to it. The metaphor was rather one part of the encompassing emotional process of giving 'one of many thousands of citizens who have carried a burden that has been at the breaking point for some time' a place in the President's thoughts and plan. That one of many thousands was here Frances Hundley in Brooklyn, writing nine days after Roosevelt's frst chat. With the people's suddenly newfound confdence through hearing that chat, 'our heads are up again, and our backs will stiffen, too, because you have given us a new hope—the hope that we can once again fnd ourselves'.39

Roosevelt's listeners' sense of self grew in awareness of Roosevelt's institutional work. At the close of his fourth chat in October 1933, Frank Padden telegraphed Roosevelt from Chicago with a poem that took the form of a new democratic man constellated across the night sky:

<sup>34</sup>George W. Ball to Roosevelt, 2 October 1934, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 115.

<sup>35</sup>Goodwin, *Leadership*, 164.

<sup>36</sup>Tobin, *Man He Became*.

<sup>37</sup> See ch. 5 by Kerstin Maria Pahl in this volume.

<sup>38</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 8'.

<sup>39</sup>Frances I. Hundley to Roosevelt, 21 March 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 57–58.

FROM EVERY PORTION OF THIS LAND DELIGHTED PEOPLE GRASP YOUR HAND RIGHT WELL WE KNOW YOU STILL COMMAND NEW COURAGE GRIPS OUR HEARTS TONIGHT RESPONSIVE TO YOUR SPEECH FORTHRIGHT AND GIVES US STRENGTH TO PRESS THE FIGHT40

Roosevelt's listeners continued to individually detail that feeling in their letters to him. The high value he placed in the thoughts of ordinary Americans was inseparable from his feeling, in April 1935, 'so unmistakably the atmosphere of recovery. But it is more than the recovery of the material basis of our individual lives. It is the recovery of confdence in our democratic processes and institutions.'41

### The Constitutional Revolution of 1937

Not everyone felt that way. In decisions handed down from mid-1935 and throughout 1936, the US Supreme Court declared a sizable amount of New Deal legislation unconstitutional—including the National Recovery Act (to establish fair wages and prices), the Agricultural Adjustment Act (to reduce surplus and maintain prices), and the Municipal Bankruptcy Act (to help towns and cities negotiate their fnancial distress)—and popped the bubble of confdence and hope for what was to come. The Court had decided that the Executive Branch of government had overstepped its boundaries by interfering in commerce confned to individual states. Roosevelt thought the opposite and centred the action within government itself. In his chat of March 1937, he announced that 'the balance of power between the three great branches of the Federal Government has been tipped out of balance by the Courts in direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constitution'.42 The Court's decisions had in fact increasingly sided with business owners and against organized labour, that is, the people whom Roosevelt saw the Constitution as designed to defend. He had taken to the air specifcally to explain and defend another New Deal piece of legislation, the Judicial Procedures

<sup>40</sup>Frank M. Padden to Roosevelt, 22 October 1933, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 92.

<sup>41</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 7'.

<sup>42</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 9'.

Reform Bill, that would allow the President to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice for every current judge over the age of seventy who chose not to retire. Six of the current nine men who served as Justices on the Court were then over the line, comprising the most elderly court in US history.

Manuel Mendes, a railroad worker from New York who worked seventy hours a week, wrote to Roosevelt that '[w]herever a group of citizens is found, no other topic interests them so much as this, and the disappointment would be great should you fail your great endeavor to protect the American people'.43 Working-class people had for a long time organized for judicial reform. In 1935, an article in *The Hosiery Worker* asked Roosevelt to 'unpack' the Court of recalcitrant men and thoughts.44 In 1936, *The Nine Old Men*, a book-length polemic arguing that the Justices were too old for the work required of them, became a bestseller and was serialized in newspapers.45 Roosevelt incorporated these arguments and ideas into his actions and explanations with the Judicial Reform Bill. Workers' confdence and hope was now stronger than ever that the Court would fnally change and stop deciding for Big Business.

Nonetheless, the Judicial Reform Bill became the most divisive issue of his presidency.46 A highly bankrolled opposition of business people and lawyers, spearheaded by the National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government, incited hate and fear over the Reform Bill and directly challenged the confdence and hope Roosevelt had built up. The Committee's strategies for instilling emotion were very different from Roosevelt's. They focused less on explanation, spoke from a more abstract position to a less individualized sense of the people, asserted their main ideas with pounding repetition, and were always on the attack.47 As Anne Campbell Powers from Sudbury, Massachusetts, reported to Roosevelt, '[t]he newspapers are full of bitterness and criticism. The columnists scream with hate.' Her husband, she pointed out, worked on foreign affairs for a newspaper and

43Manuel Mendes to Roosevelt, 26 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 179.

47For more on the use of these strategies in political campaigns, their development in newspaper culture, and their connections with the new science of polling used to show waning support for Roosevelt here, see Lepore 'Constitution of the Air'.

<sup>44</sup>Parry-Giles and Hasian, 'Nine Old Men', 256.

<sup>45</sup>Parry-Giles and Hasian, 'Nine Old Men', 249.

<sup>46</sup>Levine and Levine, 'Packing', 166–67.

he now saw the world as 'a quaking bog of deceit and hate and lost illusions'.48

The Committee devised the powerful and still prominent image of 'court-packing', the reverse of what *The Hosiery Worker* suggested Roosevelt do. The term's origins are in British law, where the monarch has the power to literally pack the House of Lords with new appointees with the direct intention of getting a law to pass. The phrase aimed to conjure the work of a cheat or a dictator.49 The Committee pushed the image in speeches on the radio, editorials in newspapers, and in their pioneering use of speeches and pull quotes in targeted, highly packaged mailings to groups of lawmakers, lawyers, and business leaders.50

It was their tone that, in addition to the Court's decisions, impelled Roosevelt to deliver his chat of March 1937. He spoke for ten minutes longer than any of his previous chats and his focus was more on a particular body, the Supreme Court and their supporters, than any time before. He claimed that Americans were now frmly in 'a world in which democracy is under attack'. In his template for confdence, he offered his reasons for the Judicial Reform Bill. The addition of new justices and the incentive for the older ones to leave were intended to speed up the judicial process and make it less costly, reasons he believed spoke to the desire of Americans for quicker and more effcient need-based action. Relatedly, he returned to his image of hands-on labour, this time locating 'the American form of Government' directly in agriculture, 'as a three horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people so that their feld might be plowed'. He clarifed that the Court was only one of the horses. His aim was to put the people more squarely in 'the driver's seat' of governmental action so that they found the confdence to come to their own conclusions about its proper conduct. He even said that he would appoint people to the Court who saw things from their perspective: 'Justices worthy to sit beside present members of the Court who understand … modern conditions … [I]f the appointment of such Justices can be called "packing the

48Anne Campbell Powers to Roosevelt, Good Friday [15 April] 1938, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 246.

49For more on these rhetorical connotations and their contemporaneous reference points, see Parry-Giles and Hasian, 'Nine Old Men', 254.

50For a detailed study of the formation and work of this committee, see Polenberg, 'National Committee'.

Courts"', he rebutted, 'then I say that I and with me the vast majority of the American people favor doing just that thing now.'51

Some of his listeners heard his tone go from confdent to cocky. To them, the power that Roosevelt claimed the Court had tipped off balance was Roosevelt himself. He was not living up to the emotional templates he had built up for the country. The new democratic man Roosevelt represented, "Franklinstein" (as Erwin Garrett from Philadelphia titled the poem he sent), was now working to, as Mrs N. E. Richardson from Delta, Iowa, heard him, 'bend and shape the Supreme Court to your liking'.52 Her criticism of Roosevelt was working in a self-correcting way within his own emotional templates. Lewis Berghoff from Chicago wrote on 10 March to advise Roosevelt that '[i]n our zeal to accomplish what we may consider advantageous or important now we should not scuttle the American system'.53 Roosevelt no doubt showed confdence and hope in his redesign of the judicial system. What was different now was that unlike in other of Roosevelt's legislative fxes, the system needing redesign here was most basically the Justices themselves (they were the entire third branch of government). To correct the system one had to get rid of those people, which made it feel to his listeners that Roosevelt was reacting to a personal problem he had with the Justices rather than a systemic problem. Indeed, in a line that cannot help get snagged within its own emotional template for confdence, Roosevelt claimed in his chat that his legislative 'plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries'.54 Lewis Berghoff's hope defated as he saw '[t]he spectacle of the Nine Silent Men, striped of the traditional reverence with which we have been accustomed to regard our highest tribunal, and held up to public disesteem'. It was to him 'a sorry sight'.55

Roosevelt's perceived personalization of the affair was an effect of his own attempt to combat the most organized oppositional public messaging campaign against him that he had yet faced. Listeners' responses to his emotional display took the tone Roosevelt had taken before but failed to employ now. Berghoff told him that if 'the umpires have given you some unfavorable decisions, … don't throw down your bat and demand the

<sup>51</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 9'.

<sup>52</sup>Erwin Clarkson Garrett to Roosevelt, undated; N. E. Richardson to Roosevelt, 13 March 1937, both in Levine and Levine, *People*, 184, 171.

<sup>53</sup>Lewis W. Berghoff to Roosevelt, 10 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 173.

<sup>54</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 9'.

<sup>55</sup>Lewis W. Berghoff to Roosevelt, 10 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 174.

privilege of appointing your own umpires'.56 D. E. Wilson from Chatsworth Park, California, 'a man of about [the President's] age raised on a corn farm in Nebraska and now farming in California', even wrote to gently yet sternly correct Roosevelt's use of the 'three horse team': 'The Supreme Court as I see it corresponds to the horse in the furrow or the horse in the middle which keeps the other two bronchos going straight and also keeps the two mavericks from running away with the plow and breaking things up.' Roosevelt had used an imprecise metaphor in trying to create a more identifable expression of emotion. 'Please look into the working of a three horse team before you make another talk', Wilson continued, 'because any real farmer knows that your example of a three horse team really proves that the Supreme Court the odd horse or the horse in the furrow is the most important animal in the team. Please get right on this …. You are more often right than wrong.'57 Roosevelt's emotional templates were directing his listeners to re-template his own failed expression of the emotions.

The problem of the court controversy, with its complex questions of priority, power, and privilege, was a measure of how the emotional templates scaled down into people's individual lives and back up to the institutional level. It is no surprise that they worked to create a swelling frenzy of confdence among people who wanted to better the work and wage protections that the Court declared unconstitutional. On 10 March, M. A. Cypher from Butler, Pennsylvania, wrote Roosevelt to say, 'I would put this Nation under martial law and remove all those old fossils from the bench the Country over, and with them gather in all the International Bankers, and big industrialists and if need be stand them up against the wall and shoot them.'58 What he felt Roosevelt intended with his Judicial Reform Bill was amplifed through the specifc circumstances he faced at work and by a long history of struggle for workers' rights. Eugene Simmons wrote from Atchison, Kansas, on 17 March, 'if you are a DICTATOR then power to you.'59 Roosevelt's offer in his chat of a 'steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood … who have had personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work' infused new blood into the

<sup>56</sup>Lewis W. Berghoff to Roosevelt, 10 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 173.

<sup>57</sup>D. E. Wilson to Roosevelt, undated, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 182.

<sup>58</sup>M. A. Cypher to Roosevelt, 10 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 187.

<sup>59</sup>Eugene S. Simmons to Roosevelt, 17 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 177.

template for confdence and hope, and so into the workers as well.60 'Keep right on giving 'em hell', wrote W. W. Boals from Pavonia, Ohio, who fred a boiler for a gas company for a living. 'The great majority are with you in your attempt to put some much needed new blood in the Supreme Court.'61

Roosevelt's most hateful and angry opposition to the Reform Bill reemerges not on the far side of his support but in ambivalent relation to the same emotional templates. Edith Frank from Chicago had lost her father when she was four years old and her mother when she was eleven. She worked throughout her childhood caring for babies and running errands. When she turned thirteen, she worked vacations in a shoe factory. She eventually worked herself up to become 'a reporter for some of the largest newspapers in New Jersey'. Whatever confdence she had mustered, she felt, could not have come from anything Roosevelt would have done. 'Had you been president at the time of mother's death we would probably have been placed in an institution and to-day I would probably be on your relief rolls.' She would have had no hope for achieving what she did. Since the emotional templates had arrived too late for her to have felt confdence and hope with her president, she was now made 'tired' by Roosevelt's 'talk of child labor'.62 Her opposition to New Deal programmes only increased. Mable Young King from Berkeley was equally incensed. She believed that the lower classes 'are even getting so they won't work otherwise knowing they can get government jobs from the Alphabet Soup and not have to hurt themselves working for it'. Her inversion of one core element of Roosevelt's layered templating of confdence and hope, willingness to work, was followed by another, the backbone. 'We are getting to be a nation of spineless saps', she concluded.63 Her resentment was turning the signs of confdence and hope inside out.

Sometime in the preceding months and years, as the emotional templates were stretched and pulled, fipped and inverted, and all while Roosevelt continued to push for new labour laws and workers' rights and explain himself over the radio, Justice Owen Roberts, whose one vote would change the direction of the Supreme Court, had a change of heart. It was over a guaranteed minimum wage that just months before he had,

<sup>60</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 9'.

<sup>61</sup>W. W. Boals to Roosevelt, 11 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 186.

<sup>62</sup>Edith H. Frank to Roosevelt, 10 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 190–91.

<sup>63</sup>Mable Young King to Roosevelt, 12/13 March 1937, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 189.

in a similar case, deemed unconstitutional. The Court ordered the payment of back wages to the plaintiff, Elsie Parrish, a chambermaid at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee, Washington. As 1937 progressed, the Court began declaring constitutional what they had said was unconstitutional, giving national and state government more power than ever before in what has come to be known as the constitutional revolution of 1937.64 Roosevelt would put it more mildly in June 1938: '[The Court's] recent decisions are eloquent testimony of a willingness to collaborate with the two other branches of Government to make democracy work.' During that same time, and '[n]ever in our lifetime', he added, 'has such a concerted campaign of defeatism been thrown at the heads of the President and the Senators and Congressmen'.65 He was referring to the public messaging campaign of hate and fear around 'court-packing' that made it easy for people to lose confdence and hope in him and the country.

The previous October, in the chat after the one about the Judicial Reform Bill, Roosevelt had changed his cocky tone. He referenced the 'frst-hand knowledge of the nation as a whole' that he gained on his trips around the country—a way to 'look beyond the average of the prosperity and well-being of the country because averages easily cover up danger spots of poverty and instability'. He believed the 'average citizen' understood his need to see things more individually. 'Five years of ferce discussion and debate—fve years of information through the radio and the moving picture—have taken the whole nation to school in the nation's business', he said. 'Out of that process, we have learned to think as a nation. And out of that process we have learned to feel ourselves a nation. As never before in our history, each section of America says to every other section, "Thy people shall be my people"'.66 The process continued on its course of self-improvement through the renewed Depression of 1937–1938 until he could claim in June 1938 that 'the American people do have confdence in themselves—have confdence in their ability, with the aid of Government, to solve their own problems'.67

<sup>64</sup>Leuchtenberg, 'When Franklin Roosevelt Clashed'. For an extensive study of this revolution, the intricacies of the changing jurisprudence, and the larger effects on the balance of governmental power, see Leuchtenberg's book *The Supreme Court Reborn*.

<sup>65</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 13'.

<sup>66</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 10'.

<sup>67</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 13'.

#### The Second World War

On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the American people erupted in a scramble. 'The news … brought shock, then anger, and then slowly a despondent feeling which intermingled with confusion, bewilderment, and fear …. These were the emotions with which we sat down last night to listen to your Fireside Chat', wrote Mamie O. Tew, wife, mother, and secretary from Gainesville, Florida.68 That chat, two days after the attack, clocked in as Roosevelt's slowest. He spoke at a tempo of thirty words fewer per minute than his average.69 His tone was similar to how he frst sounded about the Depression. First, admission of reality: 'It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans.' Second, organization of action around the specifc skills and capacities of the people: 'the industrialist or the wage earner, the farmer or the shopkeeper, the trainmen or the doctor, to pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forego extra profts, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best ftted'. Third, encouragement of critique from the people: 'If you feel that your Government is not disclosing enough of the truth, you have every right to say so.' While this series of statements helped re-instil confdence, hope would become harder to maintain. It rang somewhere deep in his statement, 'We Americans are not destroyers—we are builders', of peace, but also of the edifce of hope that he had been laying down for the last year and a half in the previous four chats. It was made of 'our American assembly lines of production'.70 As opposed to the Depression, people would now be better prepared for what might come. After listening, Mamie Tew told Roosevelt, 'Because of your talk last night I feel better equipped mentally and spiritually to do my part in this war. … We have full confdence in you'. 'An inner-peace, a calmer spirit' came over her.71

In his following chat, in February 1942, Roosevelt asked all Americans to have a world map in front of them. Newspapers published full-page world maps in their daily editions.72 He was going to employ a mode of active listening that only a speech over the radio would permit. As he talked, he plotted on the map the deployments of American troops and

<sup>68</sup>Mamie O. Tew to Roosevelt, 10 December 1941, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 403.

<sup>69</sup>Levine and Levine, introduction, 16.

<sup>70</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 19'.

<sup>71</sup>Mamie O. Tew to Roosevelt, 10 December 1941, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 404.

<sup>72</sup>Levine and Levine, 'Battle Ground', 415.

some of their campaigns against the enemy forces. His audience could become more aware of the bigger picture and develop a sense of control over their knowledge. 'The Japanese do not know just how many planes they destroyed that day', he said as he summarized one of the offensives, 'and I am not going to tell them'.73 Every American citizen was made to feel in the know, every American, in their different job, taken into his confdence and given a seat at the same table where he consulted with his cabinet on war strategy. He would continue to re-create this effect throughout his wartime chats as he gave updates on campaigns around the world and referred to his listeners' world map. From when he frst asked for Americans' feedback and critique in his frst phase of chats, confdence and hope continued to fow top down and bottom up. Roosevelt trusted the people. His tone was still earnest, even frm, but it was also inviting to those in the know. In July 1943, he added, 'if the Japanese are basing their future plans for the Pacifc on a long period in which they will be permitted to consolidate and exploit their conquered resources, they had better start revising their plans now. I give that to them merely as a helpful suggestion'.74 The world was playing a big board game on the maps Americans consulted. They could see their country's hand, and the hope it brought.

The body politic returned in his idea of 'one front', which he introduced in April 1942. 'That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, in our daily tasks', and all of America was in control of it. But, at home, the harsh contingencies of war were not as uniformly felt as such contingencies were during the Depression. In his chat of April 1942, Roosevelt included three stories of soldiers at war, including a play by play of fghter planes swooping through the sky with shot engines, shattered windows, lost limbs, down men, and planes sputtering their last fumes before crash landing. He offered the men of these stories, all viscerally portrayed in flmic sequences, as a way for his audience to feel the need of their own work at home. The 'soldiers and sailors are members of well disciplined units. But they are still and forever individuals—free individuals', Roosevelt maintained, stressing their individuality in a way that downplayed listeners' thoughts of overly regimented bodies, as in the Fascist armies, and highlighted the proud diversity of their own individually driven work at home. This balance of institutional control and individuality was crucial to

<sup>73</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 20'.

<sup>74</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 25'.

the inclusive, inviting egalitarianism of feeling confdent, and the pivot to feeling hopeful. For really, the soldiers and sailors 'are farmers, and workers, businessmen, professional men, artists, clerks'. Taken together, 'They are the United States of America.'75 As the national anthem played at the end of the chat, everyone in a packed Chicago restaurant rose, 'including one crippled gentleman who found the strength for it', Henri Charpentier, a server there, described.76

Roosevelt's use of standard war rhetoric and expressions of patriotism proved to be more impactful through emotional templating. Their emotional foundations were in the 'ordinary, average American family … trying ever so hard to do our bit', as Bernadine Arledge reported from New Orleans after hearing this chat. Her husband was not a fghter pilot but an Air Raid Warden and also 'employed in the offce of a steamship company … doing his bit to speed an urgently needed ship on its way to some far distant land'. Bernadine herself was 'completing a Red Cross course in Home Nursing [and] attending a Nutrition class, after which it is my intention to take First Aid'. Their thirteen-year-old daughter was 'busy knitting soldier sweaters'. They were confdent that every bit of their action mattered for 'VICTORY', right down to foregoing an extra spoon of sugar in their morning coffee. At the moment of forbearance, as if Roosevelt's voice had stayed her hand, she thought of 'the heroic men of the Phillipines [the setting of Roosevelt's tale of fghter planes]; the extra sugar we might have used today may have gone into the making of a shell which might mean the difference between life and death to an American boy in some far corner of the world'.77 Her hope proliferated in every way she parsed it. In the thought of her hand turning away from the sugar was the confdence that she was making a difference. She believed she was sharing resources with friends and neighbours half a world away.

These emotions pointed towards a promising future at home which appeared in Roosevelt's introduction of a new planned piece of legislation for the reintegration of veterans after the war. The 'gallant men and women in the armed services … must not be demobilized into an environment of infation and unemployment, to a place on a bread line, or on a corner selling apples', Roosevelt asserted in July 1943.78 His G.I. Bill of

<sup>75</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 21'.

<sup>76</sup>Henri Charpentier to Roosevelt, 3 May 1942, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 438.

<sup>77</sup>Bernardine Arledge to Roosevelt, 29 April 1942, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 439.

<sup>78</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 25'.

Rights, which included help to fnd a job, an offer of education, and an extension of credit, would become a central institutional locus of confdence and hope after the war.79 But as he said how '[w]e must, this time, have plans ready', his tone reverberated with the history of the Depression and also, for past veteran J. Frank Traynor of Rochester, New York, of the First World War.80 Traynor remembered 'very clearly all the talk that went on about what they proposed to do for the boys when they came back' after the previous war, 'and then I remember what actually did happen'. But hearing Roosevelt's renewed response, he was hopeful. '[F]rom the way you talked last night', he said, 'I know you will do your part to see that the honorably discharged members of the Military get a better break than they did the last time'.81

In his wartime chats, Roosevelt was increasingly trying to hold together the past, present, and future, as well as the entire expanse of the globe, promising even 'to restore [all] conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings', as he said in July 1943.82 Long-time proponents of deregulation and free enterprise, as they called it, such as Floyd Deacon from Grapevine, Texas, heard only 'promises of a false security'.83 To William Buescher in Cleveland, the veterans plan was a rhetorical distraction from the present and a 'campaign speech' for the future. The continuing image of one front was to him 'childish crack', an attempt to paper over how 'you and your executive branch have [the homefront] in one grand mess'.84 While Frank Lyons of Cleveland 'enjoyed' this last chat and noted the 'ring of sincerity' in Roosevelt's voice, 'especially when you spoke of the four freedoms', he questioned their substance. How, he asked, would they apply to what was happening 'within our borders': 'mob violence, racial and religious intolerance, lynching, racial discrimination in the Armed Forces, poll tax; evacuation of American citizens from the Pacifc coast, the Oriental Exclusion Act and the skyrocketing of food prices within our boarders'?85 Roosevelt's attempt to keep everyone focused on the war effort, necessary though it was, flled in his emotional templates with more patriotic content. This was heard as early as February 1942 by John Hart, from Roanoke, Virginia,

79Mettler, *Soldiers to Citizens*.

84Wm. Buescher to Roosevelt, 31 July 1943, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 507.

<sup>80</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 25'.

<sup>81</sup> J. Frank Traynor to Roosevelt, 29 July 1943, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 503.

<sup>82</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 25'.

<sup>83</sup>W. Floyd Deacon to Roosevelt, 31 July 1943, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 506.

<sup>85</sup>Frank C. Lyons to Roosevelt, 30 July 1943, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 509.

as 'complacency' around the domestic issues with which people were more familiar and that they continued to face. Ignoring these issues, not least the 'muddle', the 'real mad house' in Washington, D.C., was, to Hart, what made Roosevelt use that 'same voice which has for so long lulled the nation into a sense of security, the same old Braggadocia which has characterized all of your fre side talks'.86 Bringing all Americans into the same emotional world was not easy. Growing tired himself, Roosevelt told Americans in July 1943 to adopt his more strident tone and ask any person whose focus was not on directly helping the war effort: '"Are you working full time on your job?" "Are you growing all the food you can?" "Are you buying your limit of war bonds?" "Are you loyally and cheerfully cooperating with your Government …?"'87

Earlier in the war, Roosevelt shared with his listeners how he renewed his confdence and hope on his travels around the country, seeing communities working together on many tasks, including harvesting felds and picking fruit. In September 1943, he opened his chat with the story of a food that happened a few years back in a city in the Midwest. Every man, woman, and child was needed to fll sand bags to defend their homes. '[T]he waters have not yet receded enough for us to relax our sweating work with the sand bags', Roosevelt declared, as in his listeners' minds he replaced the sand bag with the war bond. He affrmed that in the purchase of a war bond 'we are flling bags and placing them against the food bags which are essential if we are to stand off the ugly torrent which is trying to sweep us all away'.88 Anyone who questioned the continued need for war or suggested he focus on domestic issues as well could not share in this confdence. As he kept up his encouragement of the war bond campaigns over succeeding chats—they ultimately funded a sixth of the war89—hope re-emerged in the feeling of 'one line of unity that', he reminded his listeners in January 1944, 'extends from the hearts of people at home to the men of our attacking forces in our farthest outposts'.90 Americans were comforted by the fact that they were doing something. They were proud of their effect. Confdence and hope had become so tightly bound that '[t]here is a direct connection between the bonds you

<sup>86</sup> John M. Hart to Roosevelt, 30 February 1942, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 422–23.

<sup>87</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 25'.

<sup>88</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 26'.

<sup>89</sup>Levine and Levine, 'GI Bill', 490.

<sup>90</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 28'.

have bought and the stream of men and equipment now rushing over the English Channel for the liberation of Europe', he maintained in his tired tone.91 It was June 1944, and it was his last Fireside Chat.

#### Conclusion

Americans look back to Roosevelt as a 'template for crisis leadership in the media age', wrote Jonathan Alter.92 Looking to Roosevelt as himself the template suggests the importance of his own emotional temperament, negotiating skills, and legislative accomplishments. However, Roosevelt's effect in times of crisis was more broadly the result of the templating of confdence and hope in the dynamic relationship between the people and the president through the Fireside Chats. While emotional templates generally allow for a degree of individual adaptation and expression that serve to continue the institutional programme and reinforce its organizing emotions, individuation was, until the war's later stages, one of the most distinguishing features of the confdence and hope developing through Roosevelt's chats. Other defning features of this confdence and hope such as a visible and fuctuating revaluation of work and skillsets, admission of risk and unknown ends, and maintenance of a space for differing opinions and backgrounds—all imply a world outside the self. While the space for difference and opposition was not always perfectly maintained, such as during the constitutional revolution of 1937 and the Second World War, all of these features distinguish the confdence and hope here from that in more authoritarian regimes.

Close reading historical sources demonstrates exactly how emotional templating mediates between economic, political, and personal factors to create social cohesion no matter the circumstances. John Meeks, an auto mechanic from Wadesboro, North Carolina, caring for a family of eight, wrote Roosevelt in June 1934, in the middle of the New Deal recovery, to say that he was actually not better off than a year before because he did not have steady work. Nonetheless,

[a]nother one of your questions [in your chat] was, Is your faith in your own individual future more frmly grounded? To that I am glad to say It most

<sup>91</sup>Roosevelt, 'Fireside Chat 30'.

<sup>92</sup>Alter, *Defning Moment*, 337.

certainly is. If I did not have more faith in the future than I have had in the past three years I don't know what in the world I would do.93

Job numbers, cash infux, and other standard measures of economic wellbeing would not have captured his assessment or validated his experience. These types of measures continue to miss emotion as a fundamental dimension of well-being that affects how people act. For, in fact, one of the things John Meeks did do was talk to the National Recovery Administration about his company overworking their employees for sixty to seventy hours a week. The company fred him. And that was the frst job he had in over a year. He hoped to be of continued 'service to my country'.94

#### Bibliography


<sup>93</sup> John W. Meeks to Roosevelt, 29 June 1934, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 100.

<sup>94</sup> John W. Meeks to Roosevelt, 29 June 1934, in Levine and Levine, *People*, 100.


Flash audio. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/ october-12-1937-freside-chat-10-new-legislation. Accessed 15 July 2021.


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### Feeling Political on Armistice Day: Institutional Struggles in Interwar France

#### *Karsten Lichau*

Paris, 11 November 2011: just months before the end of his term, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a new law proposing to turn Armistice Day, the *Jour de l'Armistice*, into a day of remembrance for all French soldiers who had died in service.1 Traditionally devoted to the commemoration of the First World War and its soldier victims, the annual event on 11 November would now include those of the Second World War, the Algerian War, and more recent conficts in Afghanistan, Cote d'Ivoire, and Mali. In an ensuing controversy, French historians, veterans' associations, and local politicians spoke against lumping all wars together, asserting the importance of not forgetting the specifc history of the First World War. The historian Nicolas Offenstadt, a prominent voice in the debates, warned that the threat of oblivion loomed large. Not only was the 'singularity of the confict at risk of being dissolved', but there was also a risk of erasing the cultural achievement of the veterans after a 'ferce struggle' in 1922 for 11 November 'to be made a national holiday honouring their fallen comrades'.2 Offenstadt's complaint that the new 2011 commemoration was not 'a moment favouring acknowledgement and refection, but the exaltation of emotional sentiments only', however, was

<sup>1</sup>Throughout this chapter, the French term *Jour de l'Armistice* is used in order to distinguish it from the British Armistice Day tradition, which differed in substantial ways.

<sup>2</sup>Offenstadt, 'Singularité', unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_7

likewise at risk of downplaying the central role emotions had played in that 'ferce struggle'.3 As this chapter will show, that struggle was fought with emotions, but was also a struggle over emotions.

In France, it was some years after the end of the First World War before a public commemoration ceremony found its way into national memory culture. In the disputes over the most appropriate way of commemorating this war and its soldier victims, emotions were both a driving force and were themselves at stake. Agreement on the overall design of such a ceremony, including the date on which it should be held and the emotional templating it should adopt, was not reached until 1922, and it was not until 1928 that the model was generally accepted by all major institutions involved in memory politics. In Britain, by contrast, the model for a commemoration ceremony on Armistice Day was introduced in 1919 and by 1920 had become frmly established. Its key elements—the observance of two minutes' silence, the cenotaph, and the cult of the unknown soldier immediately resonated with the population.

French memory politics in the interwar period have been routinely characterized as embracing what Antoine Prost has famously called a 'patriotic pacifsm', that is, a widely shared, though not unanimously accepted mingling of anti-militarism, internationalism, humanitarianism, and a belief in the universal dimension of French republican values.4 His emphasis on the allegedly apolitical character of 'patriotic pacifsm' has recently been challenged, especially its association with 'civic action' values, which purportedly represent a historic 'French allergy to fascism' that served as a kind of 'immunity' among veterans.5 Nevertheless, his groundbreaking and detailed studies of French veterans' associations and their memory culture have deeply infuenced research on 'Great War' remembrance in France and beyond.6

3Chaverou, '11 novembre'.

4Cf. Prost, *Mentalités*, 77–119.

5Dobry, 'Thèse immunitaire'. For a summary of the critical discussion, see Millington, *Victory*, 9–12. Critics rightly point to the collapsing of members and leaders of veterans' associations and their distinct political positions into a single, unifed veterans' identity, and the alleged lack of seriousness of their political demands. These were not as naive as Prost and others have repeatedly claimed. On the contrary, '[i]n casting doubt on the capability of republican institutions and parliamentarians to represent the national interest and in posing themselves as the true representatives of these, the veterans undermined the perceived legitimacy of the regime' (Millington, *Victory*, 18).

6Cf. Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, *14–18*; Dalisson, *11 novembre*; Julien, *Paris*; Eichenberg, *Kämpfen*.

Prost has explicitly pointed to patriotic pacifsm being frst and foremost a 'powerful feeling'.7 Yet this emotional dimension originates not only, as Prost has claimed, in war experience itself or in the nineteenthcentury cultural traditions that shaped it.8 Rather, the feelings feeding into 'patriotic pacifsm' also owe their existence to a process that took place in the early interwar years and was driven by a rivalry between three powerful institutions: the state, the veterans' organizations, and the church.9 If emotions were drivers of this confictual process, they were fuelled by the competition or confrontation between the previously mentioned institutions traditionally engaged in war remembrance. This chapter will therefore show that the attitude of 'patriotic pacifsm' and its emotional style were anything but obvious from the beginning. The emergence of this style spanned several years and can only be understood if the historical dynamics of the confict between these institutions and their divergent, sometimes irreconcilable ambitions are given due attention.10 Their views diverged widely, not only on what date would be most appropriate, but also which emotions. The quarrel was spurred by the fact that all three institutions found themselves confronted in the interwar years by problems either pre-dating or brought about by the war. As a consequence, they each underwent a process of transformation or crisis, which impacted both their infuence in memory politics and their societal role more broadly.

7Prost emphasizes that 'more than an opinion or an ideology, it's a powerful feeling. Though it doesn't lack rational justifcations, its force comes from somewhere else. … If we want to understand it, we must therefore not only analyse it as a theory; prior to this, we must fnd its traces in the affectivity of the *anciens combattants*' (Prost, *Mentalités*, 78).

8For the frst, cf. Prost, *Mentalités*, 78–85. Prost revised his earlier position when arguing against Mosse in 'The Impact of War on French and German Political Cultures'.

<sup>9</sup> Julien (*Paris*, 12) also conceives of collective memory as 'an interaction between lived or transmitted experience, and institutional elaborations …; it remains susceptible to permanent evolution. [It is] an effect of the past, and at the same time a reconstruction commanded by the imperatives of the presence, and a result of negotiations between different actors.' Cf. also Delporte et al., *Guerre*.

10The term 'emotional style … stresses the synchronic interactions between "dominant and subordinate" emotional styles', which 'encompass … the experience, fostering, and display of emotions, and oscillate between discursive patterns and embodied practices as well as between common scripts and specifc appropriations. … This is essential for focusing on coexisting modes of thinking about, handling, generating and showing emotions' (Gammerl, 'Emotional Styles', 162–63).

While illustrating the crucial role of institutions for understanding the emergence of political feelings, this chapter also demonstrates how, conversely, emotions can be key to understanding the historical emergence, evolution, and transformation of institutions. By showing that the institutional history of the French veterans' movement followed not only legal and ideological, but also emotional dynamics, we can account for the historical and political power of emotions and their potential to template institutions.

In Prost's view, the veterans' movement was characterized mainly by political tensions and institutional divisions that were not bridged until 1927. It was not until ideological and legal structures had become unifed that one could observe the 'emergence of a *movement combattant*' that was more than a simple reaction to problems, but a coherent, institutionalized 'project' constituting an active movement in its own right.11 If emotions are taken into account, however, the origins of that political unifcation and institutionalization can be traced back to a much earlier date: the 1922 commemoration of the day of armistice, which in subsequent years would become an emotional template for remembrance that was fervently demanded by a majority of the veterans' associations.

Recalling the aspect of motion inherent to emotions (the term being derived from the French *émouvoir* and the Latin *emovere*, both referring to movement), emotions turn out to be a driving force in building a coherent movement and establishing it as an institution. The (re)negotiation of emotion was central both to the veterans' movement and to the emergence and (re)affrmation of *Jour de l'Armistice* as an annually staged event. As a means of internal communication, such emotional (re)negotiations gave the institution its coherence; as a means of external communication, they were crucial in the pursuit of the institution's political goals and interests. Accordingly, the institutional templating of emotions and the emotional templating of institutions interacted. Such reciprocal templating contains both a synchronic and a diachronic dimension. It works through numerous 'emotional practices' that go beyond mere expressions of feeling, commonly known as emotions.12 By means of a complex dispositive of sounds, pictures, places, textual, or oral discourses and their distribution via media, a whole range of sensory, kinaesthetic, rational, or

<sup>11</sup>Prost, *Histoire*, 111.

<sup>12</sup>Cf. Scheer, 'Are Emotions', 209.

physiological practices is set in motion.13 In the context of *Jour de l'Armistice*, feelings of grief, joy, honour, or reverence were produced by huge public gatherings of veterans or civilians, the decoration of streets and monuments with fowers or fags, the erection of temporal or permanent architectural structures, and visual or acoustic practices like illuminations, instrumental or vocal music, minutes of silence, and newspaper articles commenting on them. These and other practices combined to form the templating process, in that they conveyed specifc interpretive meanings and demanded a 'requisite bodily disposition' from participants.14 Importantly, it must be noted that the participants could adhere to these demands, but could also contravene or subvert them.

#### 'Larger than the Colosseum': The State's Desire for Triumphant Glorification

Between 1919 and 1922, a succession of different models were put forward for 'celebrating' the war and the armistice that had ended it. Each of the institutions sought to establish a commemoration ceremony that would convey the feelings they deemed adequate. Explicitly or implicitly foregrounding emotions that did not ft neatly together such as joy and grief, or triumphant pride and humble devotion, the proposed models were aimed at staging incongruous political narratives around what the war was about and how it should be remembered, demanding the performance of sometimes irreconcilable feelings. These emotions were not simply there, as an immutable (inner) source for outer expression, but emerged and evolved out of a whole complex of practices that became institutionalized over the years.

State institutions were the frst to wield their power over memory politics. As early as November 1918, within weeks of the armistice declaration, members of the lower chamber of the French parliament (*chambre des députés*) launched several propositions to commemorate the war and its end and to celebrate the return of the victorious troops. Some called for 11 November—the date of the armistice—to be made a national holiday.15

<sup>13</sup>On spatial aspects, see Gammerl, 'Emotional Styles', 163–66; on the media dimension, see Pernau, 'Feeling Communities', esp. 13–17.

<sup>14</sup> Scheer, 'Are Emotions', 216.

<sup>15</sup> See discussion of legislative proposal no. 5201 and resolution proposal no. 5203 in 'Séance du mercredi 13 Novembre', 3029–30.

Others put forward the idea of a joint ceremony between the Allies 'in order to glorify the victorious outcome of the war and commemorate the peoples' liberation'.16 Most of the proponents were centrist or left-wing politicians, all of them veterans, and a terminology of 'glorifcation' and 'triumph' prevailed.

Under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts (*Ministère de l'Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts*), a Commission for the Artistic Design of the Victory Celebration (*Commission de la Décoration artistique des Fêtes de la Victoire*) was established to draw up plans for an offcial ceremony. After several months of deliberation, however, it was not 11 November that was chosen for the event, but 14 July, as the government had proposed to the chamber of deputies on 27 June.17 The July date linked the armistice commemoration to a longstanding tradition of glorifying the French Revolution and the Republic it had produced—a tradition laden with feelings of joy, pride, and national enthusiasm. Timed to honour the legendary *Fête de la Federation* of 1790, this traditional date had been celebrated throughout the nineteenth century. In 1880, it was declared a national holiday and subsequently turned into 'a new form of national-military representation'.18 Military parades took centre stage in the public ceremony, augmented by an entertainment programme that included processions, theatre performances, dancing, and freworks. This attitude of joyous and proud glorifcation of the French nation, of its republican values and armed forces, was what the government in 1919 desired to convey through its proposed war commemoration ceremony, too, in the hope that memory politics would counterbalance emerging crises in numerous other political felds.

As with many European countries, both victorious and defeated, the French state and its executive and legislative bodies were confronted with various challenges. The war had caused an economic and fnancial crisis, with a decline in agrarian and industrial productivity and a weak currency. In terms of foreign politics, the question of German reparation and quarrels with allied nations about the redemption of war credits received by France from the US weighed heavily on successive governments. The traditional political and cultural bifurcation into 'two' Frances (*les deux France*)—one of which was moderately leftist, secular, and

<sup>16</sup> 'Séance du mardi 19 Novembre', 3052.

<sup>17</sup> '2e séance du vendredi 27 Juin', 3044–49.

<sup>18</sup>Vogel, *Gleichschritt*, 39.

liberal-republican and the other conservative and Catholic—had been mitigated during wartime, when most political forces had joined the Sacred Union (*Union Sacrée*). This appeasement continued after the election victory in November 1919 of the *bloc national*, a term that referred both to the broad electoral alliance of conservative and centrist parties and to the even broader coalitions that took shape between 1919 and 1924. These coalitions claimed to be a continuation of the *Union Sacrée* and at times spanned a political spectrum that was so broad that it included farright royalists and Catholic conservatives as well as centrist and socialist radicals, excluding only the French section of the Workers' International (*Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière*) and the communist party. Earlier divisions and disputes over secularism and social and foreign politics, however, would soon re-emerge, resulting in the radicals leaving the coalition in 1923.

Given France's traditional preference for deliberative democracy in which politicians were only loosely bound to parties—a legacy of the nineteenth century—rapidly changing governments were a source of political instability. At that time, the government was still conceived of as a parliamentary government, encompassing both the executive and legislative organs.19 Yet political tensions between them had emerged in the later war years, when the government had acquired an unprecedented infuence it was loath to relinquish. After the war, efforts towards 'modernization' and a stronger executive reignited these tensions, and in terms of memory politics, political divergence between the executive and the parliament surfaced repeatedly.

Of particular relevance for memory politics were the hardships of both the war and the years immediately afterwards. The immense loss of lives during wartime and repeated mutinies of soldiers fed up with the mass killing (which for some in the French army ended in military trials and executions within the French army20) had called governmental war politics into question. There was also the diffcult task of re-integrating huge numbers of ex-soldiers into society, especially the rustic, simple infantrymen known as *poilus*, as well as a strengthening of radical left-wing movements who were increasingly engaged in violent confrontations with far-right political groups. In sum, though France had been among the

<sup>19</sup>Cf. Roussellier, 'Gouvernement', 253–54.

<sup>20</sup>Cf. Offenstadt, *Fusillés*.

nations who 'won' the war, the political, economic, and cultural situation did not feel like victory.

This is why the government, and in particular its executive branch, wanted the armistice celebrations to refasten the political bond that had been formed between the government, political parties, soldiers, and the population under the *Union Sacrée*. The 14 July ceremony was therefore to embrace an emotional attitude privileging joy, thankfulness, pride, and honour. As for the overall design of the event, several proposals were submitted to the Commission for the Artistic Design of the Victory Celebrations for examination. To the vexation of some of its members, however, its president, Jean d'Estournelles de Constant, declared in its frst session that he had decided to only present one of the proposals—the one favoured by the government. There followed a minor scandal, with a delegation led by Jules Simyan, a deputy member of the Commission, protesting against these proceedings.

One of the proposals not presented to the commission was from the reputed architect Alexandre Marcel, who had been responsible for the renovation of the Panthéon. His design was praised in a report by a subcommittee of the Commission, whose members were fnally permitted to see his and one other proposal. The report noted that 'his adornment of the Panthéon and of the Rue Souffot for a funeral ceremony is remarkable and merits special recommendation to the attention of the administration'. Marcel's ideas were nevertheless dismissed on the grounds that it was 'diffcult, due to their character and composition to amalgamate them with those of the offcial project, which is conceived according to an entirely different feeling'.21

Upon closer inspection of the government-preferred proposal that was ultimately selected by the Commission, this is hardly surprising. Authored by a group of architects and painters including Gustave Jaulmes, André Mare, and Louis Süe, it consisted of two parts that effectively separated the commemoration of the dead from the celebration of victory. Its plan was as follows: on the night of 13 July, a huge cenotaph bearing the illuminated inscription 'To those who died for the fatherland' was to be erected under the Arc de Triomphe and saluted by the veterans. The following day would be dedicated to the living, with a joyous celebration of the victory and a huge parade of troops along the central axis of Paris:

<sup>21</sup> 'Rapport de la 2e Sous-commission chargée de l'examen du Projet du Gouvernement', Archives de Paris, VK3.0200, 2.

'The Place [de l'Étoile] and the Arc de Triomphe constitute the main attraction of the overall composition. It will be the frst time victorious troops parade under the arches of this grandiose monument.'22 This was anything but original, a criticism that was raised during the parliamentary discussions of 27 June. As deputy Jean Bon put it, 'We are disappointed, and we are perhaps not the only ones. We hoped, and everyone with us, for something great and, above all, something new. To me, the programme offered to us seems a bit simple; it follows the beaten track in every way.'23

Indeed, the proposal was more or less a continuation of the traditional military parades of 14 July, only magnifed to gigantic proportions. An accompanying plan envisioned the construction of a 'vast amphitheatre, the volume of which will harmonize with that of the Arc de Triomphe and will provide an imposing frame for it'. This enormous edifce was to accommodate the crowds watching the parading troops, and some deputies even 'cherished the dream of a variant which covers the whole Place by an amphitheatre larger than the Colosseum'.24

Though this 'dream' would ultimately not come true, and though the amphitheatre had to be reduced in size due to practical constraints, the mass participation of the wider population represented a minor innovation compared to the military ceremonies established in the 1880s. Spectators had previously been limited to the local and the national 'elite committed to the state and the public sector, but whom the organizers considered the proper audience'.25 Undoubtedly, however, the emotional layout of the newly proposed event was in line with this tradition—and with the government's wish for the *Fête de la Victoire* to glorify the triumph of the French army. This expectation of a jubilant ceremony is refected in other sources, too. In a December 1918 proposal to the municipal council of Paris, M. F. d'Andigné requested that a preparatory commission be set up, confessing his concern about potentially frenzied crowds: 'I'm worried, not about the "actors" of the piece which will be performed before our enchanted eyes, but about the "spectators", both because of their number and because of the frenetic enthusiasm by which, for good reason, they will be overwhelmed.'26

<sup>23</sup> '2e séance du vendredi 27 Juin', 3045 (Jean Bon).

25Vogel, 'Militärfeiern', 206.

26M. F. d'Andigné, 'Proposition relative à la constitution d'une Commission chargée d'organiser les fêtes qui précéderont at accompagneront le retour à Paris des troupes victo-

<sup>22</sup> *Ibid*., 4.

<sup>24</sup> 'Rapport', 4.

Joy and enthusiasm not only prevailed in the anticipated visions of the event, but also in its retrospective depictions by the newspapers, which became conduits for the joyful and triumphant emotional attitude of the ceremony.27 The author of the conservative *Le Gaulois*, for example, embraced a hyperbolic tone typical of the period and genre:

I have lived through an epic hour. I won't try to describe it: words will betray my thoughts. Everything was so prodigious, so sublime, that human measure fell short of it. Joy, emotion, elation, frenzy, millions of beating hearts captured by the same frisson, millions of voices shouting out the same happiness and the same pride, seven kilometres of enthusiasm!28

Similar reports appeared in other newspapers.29 Remembrance of soldiers' death and suffering was not totally absent from the celebrations of July 1919, however. It was granted some importance, not only in the evening salute in front of the cenotaph, but also in the leading position taken by facially disfgured servicemen (*gueules cassées*) in the huge veterans' parade. Nevertheless, both the date and the overall atmosphere of the 14 July ceremonies prevented feelings of grief and mourning from gaining the upper hand. They were not absent, but subordinated to a primary emotional attitude of joy, pride, glorifcation, and honour. The humble reverence that would become characteristic of 'patriotic pacifsm' was still a long way off.

### 'Can There Be a Celebration for Men Whose Hearts Are Heavy with Grief?' The Veterans' Campaign for the *Jour de l'Armistice*

Placing the memory of the recent war in the tradition of joyous, celebratory parades for a 'nation in arms' was not what most veterans had in mind for a commemorative ceremony. They generally shared the desire for their victorious efforts and exploits to be publicly commended, but also wanted recognition for their suffering during the war and subsequent, continuing distress. Reducing commemoration to joy and pride in victory was neither

rieuses', Archives de Paris, VK3.0200, 2.

<sup>27</sup>Cf. Pernau, 'Feeling Communities', 13–17.

<sup>28</sup>Meyer, 'Une heurre'.

<sup>29</sup>Cf. Leygues, 'Fêtes de la victoire'; 'La Journée'; Feuquières, 'Apothéose'.

suffcient nor appropriate as it represented neither the traumatizing world of the war experience nor the world of social withdrawal inhabited by veterans in its aftermath. In an article published on 11 November 1922 in the conservative journal *L'Intransigeant* and reprinted the following week in *La France Mutilée*—the organ of France's largest veterans' association, the Federal Union of French Associations of the Wounded, Disabled, Reformed, Veterans of the Great War, Widows, Orphans, and Ancestors (*Union fédérale des associations françaises de blessés, mutilés, réformés, anciens combattants de la grande guerre, veuves, orphelins et ascendants*)— Jacques Péricard described this latter world as one characterized by feelings that were often silenced and suppressed in public, yet incredibly powerful:

The veterans one meets in the streets, cafés, salons, offces, are restrained. They must get on with their families, their relations, their friends, their interests as customers or sellers, employees or employers. They do not shy away from shaking hands with a quitter, with a war profteer. Once in the company of comrades, however, they become themselves again and reveal the essence of their nature.30

Péricard's article not only emphasized the emotional style that made up this 'nature', but insisted that it could only be understood through the institutional templating established by the veterans' organizations. These were comprised of certain bodily and media practices conveyed through distinctive language and carried out in particular locations, assemblies, and meetings:

One might presume to know the veterans' mental state simply by listening to the dozen *poilus* each of us has heard speak in his own milieu. Even more so, if one has himself been a soldier. One does not know them, however, if one is not familiar with the veterans' associations, if one does not follow their reunions, their meetings, their congresses, if one does not assiduously read their journals and newspapers. For the world of the *anciens combattants* is really a world of its own, with its own morality, language, press, passions, enthusiasms, and indignations; a world of some four million inhabitants.31

30Péricard, 'Combattants'.

<sup>31</sup> *Ibid*.

It is not by chance that the above-cited text was published on 11 November—the anniversary of the armistice. Cherished by the French veterans, this day was at the centre of their struggle for a commemoration worthy of their suffering. Yet it was not only the date that was important, but also the emotional attitude of the event, which, as Péricard emphasized, could hardly be joyful and gay. To properly articulate the emotional style of the *poilus*' world, the celebration would need to take on a more sober, subdued, and mournful tone:

The veterans' celebration? … Can there be a celebration for men whose hearts are heavy with grief for so many comrades fallen at their side, the grief of so many destroyed lives, the grief of so many shattered illusions? Look at them. See the gravity on the foreheads of even the youngest ones. See these bitter wrinkles at their mouths.32

The 'emotional physiognomy' described by Péricard, featuring grief, disillusionment, and withdrawal, but also characterized by lineaments of anger and rage, was anything but compatible with the one typically displayed on 14 July. If it was to become visible and be publicly acknowledged, commemorative events would have to break with the emotional attitude of the traditional state and military ceremony.

Such a break was in line with a general trend in public representations of the military and war, which had undergone a populist turn, or 'populist framing'.33 Whereas the deeds of the military elites—generals and highranked offcers—had hitherto prevailed in cultural memory, after 1918 the lowly soldiers who had fought in the trenches of the 'Great War' became key fgures as both the subjects and objects of war remembrance, even though they were no longer formally part of the military institution. In France, this was also mirrored by the numerical strength of the veterans' movement, with overall membership close to three million, representing more than 40 per cent of all ex-servicemen. Such a ratio was not reached in any other belligerent nation. In terms of memory politics, the French military establishment was divided into at least two factions. While the elite ranks mostly sided with the government's attempt at glorifcation, ordinary soldiers and veterans had something different in mind.

<sup>33</sup>Cf. Ziemann, *Commemorations*, 16–19.

Numerical and social strength notwithstanding, the French veterans' movement was also confronted with considerable internal divisions and tensions. For a variety of reasons, the veterans' associations were marked by plurality, fragmentation, and rivalry.34 Founded at different times (before, during, or after the war) and serving particular interests based on medical, military, or professional bonds, they lacked a coherent voice. The most important division was a political one between the two most infuential associations: the conservative National Union of Combatants (*Union nationale des combattants*, or UNC), founded on the very day of the armistice, and the Federal Union (*Union fédérale*, or UF), which was close to the centrist and left-wing parties. Both associations were open to all former soldiers (invalids and ex-servicemen), and both were politically aligned to several of the numerous smaller- and medium-sized associations such as the Republican Association of Veterans (*Association républicaine des anciens combattants*), the General Association of War Disabled (*Association générale des mutilés de guerre*), or the National Union of the Disabled and Recovered (*Union nationale des mutilés er réformés*). Even though nearly all veterans' associations claimed to be non-political, most of them were clearly located somewhere on the political spectrum.

Internecine political rivalries and historical and professional distinctions hindered veterans' organizations from having their voices heard in politics, even by a parliament that itself was composed up to 40 per cent by exservicemen and dubbed the 'blue horizon chamber' (*chambre bleu horizon*), after the light blue of the French uniforms. Prost describes the history of the French veterans during the 1920s as having been motivated by a 'march towards unifcation', emphasizing that theirs was not a search for a lost unity, but one that had never existed.35 According to Prost, this unity was not found until 1927, with the creation of the 'Estates-general of Wounded France' (*États généraux de la France meurtrie*) and subsequent establishment of a confederation by the same name, which was joined by most of the French veterans' organizations, including the UF and the UNC. Prost's periodization relies on two points: that the veterans' organizations diverged both politically and in terms of their legal, administrative structures.36 Yet if we go beyond this conventional perspective and acknowledge that institutions owe their existence not only to

34Cf. Prost, *Histoire*, 87–113.

35Prost, *Histoire*, 111.

36Cf. Prost, *Histoire*, 87–88.

mental convictions and formal, juridical acts of institutionalization, but to complex social processes and practices, especially those involving emotions—then veterans' unity can be detected at a much earlier point. The frst indications of unity can be traced back to the 'emotional physiognomy' of commemoration ceremonies and the institutional templating of the *Jour de l'Armistice* established between 1919 and 1922—that is to say, at a time when Prost considers the divisions to have been particularly strong.

This brings us back to the further development of French war commemoration. Veterans' reluctance towards a 'celebration', described in detail by Péricard in 1922, had in fact already been prevalent in 1919. The celebrations of 14 July that year, with their emphasis on the triumphant state and military victory, did not suit the veterans at all. As early as 13 July, the *Journal des Mutilés & Réformés*, their most important newspaper and the only one commercially available, had declared:

Militarism is war, and we are fed up with war. Let us therefore do away with everything that may stir up the militarism in our country. Military ceremonies are the handmaidens of militarism. Let us avoid them. No more bellicose ceremonies. … No more revues; they are useless spectacles designed to infame the masses. France needs to take a good hard look at itself.37

Instead, a large majority of the veterans' associations supported various requests by parliamentary deputies to have 11 November declared a national holiday and for a public ceremony to be held on this occasion. This alternative date—the anniversary of the armistice—was to become a counter-model, distanced in both symbolic and emotional terms from the festive, joyful, and glorifying tradition of 14 July.

In the beginning these initiatives did not enjoy much success. On 25 October 1919, long past July, a new law determined that the armistice would be commemorated with a ceremony devoted 'to the memory and the glorifcation of the heroes who died for France during the Great War'. Yet the proposed date for the ceremony was not the anniversary day of the armistice, but 1 and 2 November, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, respectively. The sober, pensive, and reverent atmosphere associated with these holy days on the Christian calendar provided a ready-made emotional template that matched the veterans' associations' desire for a more

<sup>37</sup>Linville, 'Entre nous'.

humble mood focused on grief, freed from triumphalist bluster. They were not appropriate, however, for meeting the demand for public recognition of suffering, since they located grief and mourning in the private context of the family (All Souls') and the Church (All Saints').38 Largescale, state-initiated ceremonies were for the most part absent on 11 November 2019. A minor ceremony was held at the *Dôme Les Invalides*—located in the middle of the large veteran hospital and retirement home complex—organized by the local city council of Paris, but it failed to reach a wider public audience or spark much media interest. In the following years, the veterans' associations engaged in a struggle to have 11 November, the day of the armistice, become the date on which the French nation mourned and remembered the dead—not only in private, but by public ceremonial.

Before further examining how the veterans transformed their aspirations into practice, it is now time to introduce the third institution involved in the commemoration process and the templating of its emotional physiognomy: the Catholic Church. Strictly speaking, the 1905 law on the separation of church and state ruled out formal Church participation in a public political ceremony. This law had concluded the secularization process that had run throughout the nineteenth century, which had seen a steady growth in French anticlericalism. With the creation of a 'militarynational public sphere' in the Third Republic, of which the July military parades introduced in 1880 were a clear manifestation, the military had 'assumed centre stage in the offcial national cult, a position the Catholic Church and its subsidiaries had occupied during the Second Empire'.39

In spite of the 1905 law, things had shifted signifcantly during wartime. A growing demand for mourning rituals and funeral practices enabled the Church to reconquer lost terrain in the area of public ceremonies.40 In the early years of hostilities, a rapidly increasing number of dead soldiers led to the spread of local and regional forms of commemorating the fallen. La Marne Day (*Journée de la Marne*), held in remembrance of the 1914 battles at the Marne river that had hindered the German army from conquering Paris, attracted much attention and was well-attended. On this and other remembrance days organized by local or regional

<sup>38</sup>On private mourning practices, with attention to France, cf. Damousi, 'Mourning Practices', 361–71.

<sup>39</sup>Vogel, *Gleichschritt*, 39.

<sup>40</sup>Cf. Becker, *Guerre et la foi*; Dalisson, *11 novembre*, 40–41.

administrations but national in character, the Catholic Church was quickly on hand to answer the need for cultural expertise in mourning and remembrance practices, a need that state institutions could not satisfy.41 Accordingly, commemorative events like La Marne Day often included a mass said by the local bishop. This was often followed by a pilgrimage-like procession led by clergymen in full vestments to former battle sites or nearby monuments, where they held sermons, said prayers, and sang Christian songs, alongside local, regional, or national representatives of the state. These events resonated strongly with the population and the press. By 1915, on a local and regional level at least, the Catholic Church was thus back on the scene in offcial public ceremonies, bringing with it a centuries-old heritage of commemoration practices laden with grief, humility, and reverence, and not inclined to enthusiastic outbursts of joy and cheerfulness. Unsurprisingly, the re-entry of the Church into public politics caused some unease with state representatives, who repeatedly protested against this violation of the laic principle. The prefect of the Seine-et-Marne region, for example, was puzzled by the 'importance accorded to the mass celebrated by the archbishop of Reims … on the occasion of a republican ceremony, and which is only a pretext'.42

Although many others had no problems accepting Church involvement, the emotional reaction and unease of those who protested speaks to the broader controversy sparked by the political renegotiation of the role of the Church. This process of renegotiation had gathered pace during the war years when the *Union Sacrée* broke with the ferce anti-Catholicism of previous decades. After the victory of the *bloc national* in the 1919 elections, a rapprochement between the government and the Catholic Church found support among conservative and Catholic-aligned circles within the bloc. Despite calls to deescalate internal confict around religious questions, they became a major problem within the *bloc national* and signifcantly contributed to the ever-deepening rifts between more right-wing conservatives (royalists or Catholics) and partisans of the secular republic (centrists, liberals, and socialist radicals), as well as to the bloc's ultimate disintegration in 1923.

<sup>41</sup>These 'days of war' (*Journées de Guerre*) encompassed a vast panoply of special themes and interests, including Poilus' Day, the Day of the 75-Cannon, French-Belgium Day, Liberated Regions Day, Army Orphanage Day, and Devastated Regions Day. Cf. Dalisson, *11 novembre*, 32–36.

<sup>42</sup>Cf. Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne, M 8198, passim.

Catholic milieus did not distance themselves from the national enthusiasm around the 14 July celebrations in 1919, yet they did not forget to mention what was missing either: 'From the offcial decorations, from the solemn program, God was absent.'43 Luckily, there was a perfect opportunity to make up for this lack: the offcial opening ceremony of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica in October 1919. This became an occasion to hold a Day of Remembrance and Prayer for the War Dead (*Journée des souvenirs des morts de la guerre et de la prière pour eux*), barely two weeks before the remembrance ceremonies due to take place on 1 November. The Catholic Church was not at all opposed to the juxtaposition since it effectively placed the commemoration under its auspices. It is therefore hardly astonishing that Christian religious practices would also, in more subtle ways, seep into the 11 November ceremonies in subsequent years.

#### From Neglect to Apotheosis: Institutionalizing the *Jour de l'Armistice*

The French model of war commemoration that took shape in the years between 1919 and 1922 grew out of the confrontation between a state that was reluctant to place mourning at the centre of commemorative events, and a veterans' movement determined to see such events held on a suitable date and with an appropriate emotional attitude. The Catholic Church sided with the latter. This was a strategic coalition against all odds, for the large majority of veterans' organizations clung to a secularist position. Nevertheless, in their desire for a humble form of remembrance in which grief and mourning took centre stage, the veterans were able to capitalize on the Church's expertise, while the latter sought to reconquer lost terrain in public political ceremonial.

In 1920 the government made plans for a huge public ceremony to be held on 11 November, fnally giving in to the veterans' demand for an offcial commemoration of the armistice. A key challenge was negotiating the incorporation of diametrically opposed moods: solemn, humble mourning and the glorifcation of victory. Taking advantage of a coincidence, the fftieth anniversary of the Third Republic was to be celebrated alongside the second anniversary of the armistice. This would enable engagement with a heroic past and the celebration of Republican values, while also attending to the commemoration of the recent war. In order to

43Franc, 'Jour de gloire'.

reconcile divergent ambitions with regard to memory politics and their emotional staging, the ceremony would combine two parts: elaborate plans were drawn up to have the heart of Leon Gambetta, a recognized military hero and 'father' of the Third Republic, transferred to the Panthéon, and the body of a fallen soldier, to be chosen by a former comrade, disinterred and reburied anonymously at the Arc de Triomphe.

The parliamentary debate held to determine an appropriate resting place for the unknown soldier turned into a ferce struggle. The socialists—and some veterans—rejected the Arc de Triomphe, proposed by the Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, fearing that it would frame the ceremony with an atmosphere of national glorifcation and military triumph, endowing it 'solely with the character of a military celebration'.44 Meanwhile, their demand for the soldier to be laid to rest in the Panthéon side by side with Gambetta's heart—was heavily attacked by the conservatives: in their eyes, the Panthéon was a republican national temple that was not only unpopular with the people, but 'besmirched by Zola'.45 At the end of a marathon session, which the president of the chamber had to suspend following an incident of verbal slander, the chamber fnally agreed on the Arc de Triomphe. This effectively split the ceremony into a dual event, echoing the separation in 1919 across two symbolically and emotionally distinct dates in July and November. The split was further underlined by the distinct vocabulary used in offcial communications about the event. Whereas state rhetoric referred to the 'fftieth anniversary of the Republic', local administrations mostly described the events as marking the 'anniversary of armistice'. Despite all attempts at reconciliation, the struggle for the emotional templating of commemoration thus persisted. The Catholic Church, for its part, encouraged services to be held on 11 November, even though it had not been invited to join the offcial programme. Obviously, this show of benevolence by the Church had less to do with the ceremony itself than with the political situation: the reestablishment of offcial diplomatic relations with the Vatican was under discussion and was ultimately ratifed by the French parliament on 30 November 1920.

<sup>44</sup> 'Séance du lundi 8 Novembre 1920', 3179 (Alexandre Bracke).

<sup>45</sup> *Ibid*., 3180 (Léon Daudet). By accusing the militarist, nationalist, and clerical conservative elites for the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, Zola became a hero of secular liberalism and a leading fgure in what became known as the Dreyfus affair. In 1908, his remains were transferred from the Montmartre cemetery to the Panthéon.

If the veterans' patriotic pacifsm can be described as a 'powerful feeling', this was true in two ways. At stake was not only the emotional templating of public commemoration ceremonies. Feelings of discontent, or even anger, that reigned among the *anciens combattants* were themselves a historical force fuelling their political initiatives and were decisive in their determination to make the commemoration a more solemn, mournful event and for this mood to be publicly visible. Veterans' vexation with the dominant memory politics of the state reached a point of climax the following year, when the chamber of deputies introduced a new law on 9 November 1921 declaring the establishment of an annual Celebration of Victory and Freedom (*Fête de la Victoire et de la Paix*), but without making it a public holiday. The justifcation was that the number of public holidays needed to be kept to a minimum in light of the diffculties facing the French economy. Accordingly, the ceremony would default each year to the nearest Sunday. A proposal to allow the 1921 ceremony, by way of exception, to take place on the actual day of 11 November was rejected at the last minute by the senate on 8 November. The chamber of deputies was thus placed under pressure to rapidly vote in the new law, with immediate effect, and a Sunday celebration was set in stone. Learning about this at very short notice, veterans' organizations of all ideological stripes felt rebuffed and expressed their frustration and anger in numerous letters to national and local political representatives. The Association of Blessed Veterans of the Canton de Salon, for example, sent a telegram on 10 November to 'energetically protest against [the] postponement [of the] Armistice'.46

Not to be deterred, from 1921 onwards, veterans reclaimed 11 November all the more resolutely to be 'their day'. The anger they felt about it not being properly acknowledged only strengthened their determination:

Our day, that of the Armistice, is 11 November! Our dignity makes it our duty to commemorate our dearly departed on the anniversary of the day when the infamous slaughter came to an end. On Friday 11 November 1921, we will assemble at 11 o'clock in front of the Monument aux Morts, at the Place de Verdun.47

<sup>46</sup>Archives nationales de France, CC//14631, passim.

<sup>47</sup> 'Aux combattants!', quoted after Prost, *Mentalités*, 65.

This declaration, published at Tarbes in the veterans' journal *Le Combattant*, further announced that 'on Sunday 13 November, the *Fédération des Anciens Combattants* will refrain from participating in any celebration', leaving little doubt that 11 November was the only acceptable date for any proper commemoration.48

All this was to result in a decisive fnal turn in 1922, which saw the emergence of the model that future celebrations of the armistice commemoration would follow; 11 November was fnally declared a public holiday and the programme of what was to become a paradigmatic event embraced an emotional script largely in line with the veterans' aspirations. Veterans would gather and march together to a regional or local monument or cemetery (or, in Paris, to the Arc de Triomphe), fowers would be laid, and the names of the fallen read aloud, and all of this would culminate in one emotional climax point: the observance of France's frst ever minute of silence. Many newspaper articles and commentaries, as well as numerous personal accounts in letters and diary entries, referred to this 'minute of contemplation' (minute de recueillement), as it was often called as the most important and emotionally arresting part of the day: 'It was the minute that touched me most, reaching down to the depths of my being … that great, sublime, transcendent minute of silence and contemplation.'49

The overall *Jour de l'Armistice* programme of 11 November 1922 and the minute's silence in particular are evidence of the veterans' ultimate success in turning the commemoration of the First World War into a public performance of grief and reverence towards the dead. This was a result of their own grassroots attempts at institutionalizing both *Jour de l'Armistice* as a national ceremony, and themselves as a political movement. The credit for the introduction of this emotional template is not theirs alone, however; it owed much to the strategic, inter-institutional alliance between the veterans' associations and the Catholic Church. It was not just the presence of clergymen and the visibility of religious symbols that gave the event a general Christian imprint.50 The minute's silence,

50Dalisson is mistaken when he argued that this was explicitly allowed by the *loi du 24 octobre 1922* itself, which stated that 'the law from 13 July 1905 concerning legal holidays is not applied to the celebration of 11 November' (*11 Novembre*, 51); the 13 July 1905 law was not the 1905 law that established the separation of state and church, but another law concerning the conditions for fnancial transactions on the day before and after a legal holiday.

<sup>48</sup> 'Aux combattants!'

<sup>49</sup>Pagès, 'Anniversaire'.

which tapped into the centuries-old Christian tradition of silent, solemn gestures, and the ringing of Church bells immediately thereafter afforded a religious atmosphere to the overall dramaturgy.51 This was refected in numerous personal accounts through metaphors or depictions that were reminiscent of Christian culture and art:

At 11 o'clock—the moment when, four years ago, the cannons suddenly fell mute all the way along the frontline—a short clarion sound calls for silence, hats are removed, the fags lowered …. A minute passes in that great reverent silence. Then the assembled crowd slowly diverges, and suddenly, the clouded sky clears, and a ray of sunlight makes the tops of the standards shine with light, like an apotheosis.52

As already mentioned, *Jour de l'Armistice* did not become as popular or as widely observed in France as it did in Britain. Nevertheless, it did become established as the central ceremony of French war commemoration until 2011. One of the most striking testimonies of the veterans' success, both in asserting their preferred emotional style for the commemoration and in breaking with the glorifying attitude of the 14 July tradition, came from a voice clearly in favour of the latter. In an article published in *Le Petit Journal* in 1922, political dissent comingled with emotional dissent when author André Billy described his disappointment with the ceremony:

I would also like to repeat what I already said about this celebration of 11 November: it was much too sad, and by far too lacklustre. … There was no joy in the faces. All the passers-by seemed defated, having lost the illusions they had had in 1918. The city of Paris bore a funereal physiognomy, as though 11 November was instead the anniversary of Wilhelm II triumphantly leading his troops into the French capital.53

Such refections left no doubt that the emotional style of the war commemoration ceremony had ultimately been transformed, adopting the style embraced by the veterans' associations.

<sup>51</sup> 'The foreheads are raised, life resumes, all is fnished …. And all the church bells start ringing' (J. L., 'À l'Arc de Triomphe').

<sup>52</sup>Rigaud, 'Anniversaire de l'Armistice'.

<sup>53</sup>Billy, 'Paris'.

The veterans' success notwithstanding, there were also some faws in the execution of the ceremonies, most of which resulted from poor logistics. At the central ceremony in Paris, held at the Arc de Triomphe, an awkward repetition of the minute's silence was criticized in several newspaper reports. Some blamed high-ranking state representatives for this failure to unify the nation in synchronized silence:

[President] Millerand, accompanied by Monsieur Maginot and Monsieur Raiberti, Ministers of War and of the Marines, inspected the troops, and then went to salute the glorious blessed fags. [The] inspection took a bit longer than was planned, for the cannons' thunder had already sounded and commands for commencement had been given, but the President was still far from the tomb of the unknown soldier. While the enormous crowd, following the command, stood still in the most stirring silence, there was a moment of hesitation among the offcial representatives. Then the second cannon was sounded, and the fnal command once again made the air vibrate, without the most honorary representatives having paid their respects to the dead of the Great War, as had been planned. On [Prime and Foreign Minister] Poincaré's intervention, some short commands were given. The bugles were blown once again, and for a minute, the president, ministers, generals, and legates stood still, while the troops presented their arms. And despite this misunderstanding, it was very moving. The whole thing was over by 11:05.54

In addition to this gaffe at the central ceremony, other problems with synchronizing participants occurred in some quarters of the capital Paris: the artillery gunfre signalling the beginning of the minute's silence could not be heard in many neighbourhoods. As one observer described, 'The pneumatic clocks show 11 o'clock. All ears are listening, cannon fre is supposed to sound … But the noise of busses and taxis flls the town … The clock hands move forward. Waiting, one minute, two minutes … Nothing.'55 Beyond Paris, in many smaller cities, and even more so in rural areas, information about the upcoming ceremonies and the national minute's silence had not arrived in time, which seriously hindered the achievement of solemn, unifed contemplation.

<sup>54</sup> 'L'Anniversaire de l'armistice', 2.

<sup>55</sup> 'L'Anniversaire: La minute de silence'. For a more detailed discussion of the problems with acoustic synchronization of the minute's silence, see Lichau, 'Soundproof'.

All of these problems can be explained to a large degree by the lack of support from a state administration reluctant to fully mobilize public information networks and logistical infrastructure. An article published in *L'Intransigeant* on 13 November 1922 complained that 'the idea of a minute's silence, for example, which was very noble and beautiful, was very poorly executed'. Referring to the logistical failures at both the central ceremony and in the more distant neighbourhoods of Paris, the author explicitly blamed these gaffes on the lack of emotional engagement with the armistice commemoration by state authorities: 'We must say that this celebration of the armistice was tedious. Why? Because no effort was made to stimulate collective feelings, and the public authorities were unable to organize the day in a way that would have been desirable.'56

As a consequence, the veterans had to rely on their own logistical capacities and information networks. These were considerable, but not suffcient to establish perfect synchronization. Still, an 'imperfect' commemoration was better than none at all. In an article published in *La France Mutilée* on 19 November 1922, the president of the UF, René Cassin, interpreted the overall mediocrity of the various ceremonies as proof of the veterans' tenacity, dignity, and honour in their arduous struggle for a decent commemoration, which, as he alluded to, echoed their military commitment in 1918: 'On 11 November, we were victorious. Not celebrating this day, even imperfectly, would have meant denying our victory, denying our dead, denying our ideals of law and justice.'57

Cassin's critique provides strong evidence of the impact of institutional confict on French memory politics in the early interwar period and illustrates how, even by 1922, this confict between veterans and the state was anything but resolved. It was not until 1928, on the tenth anniversary of the armistice, that a resolution was ultimately reached. In that year, the state fnally threw itself energetically into *Jour de l'Armistice*, informing local and regional administrations that 'this year, the government has decided to put extra effort into celebrating the national ceremony of 11 November'. At last, the state endorsed the emotional attitude of grief and mourning: 'In every municipality, a minute's silence will be observed, marked by a ceasing of traffc.'58

58Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne, M4163. While hardly any documents relating to a *Jour de l'Armistice* can be found in national, regional, and local French archives

<sup>56</sup>Wattman, 'Nos échos'.

<sup>57</sup>Cassin, 'Journée Nationale', 1.

#### Conclusion

By taking an institutional perspective on the emotions involved in the establishment of a public war commemoration ceremony in interwar France, this chapter has shown the close interlinkage between institutional dynamics and the history of emotions. Serving as a model for such an approach, it has also demonstrated how accounting for the interweaving of institutional and emotional histories allows us to challenge existing historical research—in this case, the history of French memory culture—on at least three points.

First, this chapter has illustrated how institutions and their political rivalries shaped the emergence of emotional templates. The politicalcultural process that unfolded between 1919 and 1922 and that resulted in the creation of a remembrance ceremony to commemorate the armistice—with a specifc emotional physiognomy of humble devotion, grief, and mourning for those who perished—greatly owed its dynamic to the confict between three powerful institutions: the state, the veterans' associations, and the Catholic Church. If the practices of emotional templating deployed by institutions in this struggle are given their due attention, the oft-cited and widespread notion of 'patriotic pacifsm' considered to be so characteristic of French memory politics needs to be revisited. This is because the 'powerful feelings' underpinning it were not only an outcome of direct war experience or pre-existing cultural traditions. They also sprang from the struggle between major societal institutions over what were deemed to be suitable emotions for public remembrance ceremonies. Emotions in memory politics cannot be directly deduced from past experiences, nor are they an unmediated reaction triggered by individual memory; rather, they grow out of long-term social processes in which both individual and social memory are shaped by institutional templating.59

Second, just as this analytical model of the institutional templating of emotions sheds new light on ex-servicemen's 'patriotic pacifsm', a reverse model—the emotional templating of institutions—allows for a different

for the period prior to 1928 (contrary to other national ceremonies), detailed schedules, maps, and other instructions exist for this and later years. Cf. Service historique de la Défense, 9 N 368; Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne, M4163, M5880.

59The importance for historians of emotions to break with linear conceptions of the emotion-trigger circuit and to conceive of emotional and other sensorial, rational, imaginative, and discursive practices as circular, reciprocal phenomena has also been highlighted in Pernau and Rajamani, 'Emotional Translations'.

periodization of the institutional history of the French veterans' movement. The institution of an 'active movement' of veterans did not need to wait for the legal enshrinement of the General Confederation of Wounded France (*Confédération générale de la France meurtrie*). Applying a history of emotions approach to the history of institutions reveals that the unifcation and institutionalization of the veterans' movement began much earlier than 1927 or 1928: with the introduction, in 1922, of emotional commemorative practices that would ultimately become the paradigmatic model for Armistice Day celebrations in France. It was in these early years that the political tensions between the centre-left and conservative wings of the veterans' associations were emotionally bridged for the frst time. The process through which they asserted their united vision for a humble attitude of reverent mourning, with a public acknowledgement of their suffering at a national level, can be thought of as an emotional templating of institutions. Contemporary characterizations of the veterans' bitterness, grief, and withdrawal as the 'essence of their nature', which they only ever revealed at 'their reunions, their meetings, their congresses', hint at such a templating process.60 This may inspire more work on how emotions are an integral, often neglected, part of the history of institutions.

Finally, this analysis of the manifold ceremonial practices that enabled the expression of emotions has highlighted the performative dimension in memory politics. This allows us to challenge yet another widespread assumption in the history of memory cultures after the First World War: the continuity thesis, put forward most famously by Jay Winter. According to his work on architectural, visual, and textual artefacts, war remembrance did not break with tradition and largely followed the pre-existing models.61 Yet recent studies have emphasized how memory cultures also heavily depend on performative elements and their non-material, temporary, and ephemeral qualities (an aspect foregrounded in later studies by Winter).62 The atmosphere of sober, solemn, and public mourning that

62A striking example of the reluctance to challenge the continuity thesis can be found in Hettling and Schölz, 'Bereavement', which affrms that '[t]he First World War … resulted in the propagation of existing forms on a massive scale, but did not generate new ones. In this respect, it marked the climax of the 19th century's civic-national commemoration of the fallen' (4). This claim is based on the alleged separation of the dead's private and political body and a second division between mourning and meaning-making. This ignores the selfcontradictory turn when later pointing to two crucial elements in the commemoration of the

<sup>60</sup>Péricard, 'Combattants', 1.

<sup>61</sup>Cf. Winter, *Sites of Memory*, 7–9.

veterans of the First World War successfully campaigned for in interwar France was markedly different from the tradition of triumphalist joy that had characterized the nineteenth-century military cult. Though this older emotional style still prevailed in the frst remembrance ceremony of 14 July 1919, it had little in common with the 'funereal physiognomy' of the *Jour de l'Armistice* that emerged in subsequent years, a shift that was both lamented and hailed by newspapers. The new commemorative tradition established in connection with the 11 November anniversary of armistice, with its emotional climax of the minute's silence, was a new form of emotional institution that would persist until 2011.

#### Bibliography


First World War—its 'emotionality' (7) and the new practice of the minute's silence—and rightly argues that these elements introduce a confation between the political and the private body, meaning-making and mourning: 'The private and political bodies of the fallen were reunited through emotional devotion. Thus, the minute of silence refected an increasing trend in the 20th century: private emotional states found their way into the public sphere and were articulated publicly' (11).


Wattman, Le. 'Nos échos: On dit que …'. *L'Intransigeant*, 13 November 1922, 2.


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### Feeling Political in Military Cemeteries: Commemoration Politics in Fascist Italy

#### *Hannah Malone*

Rome, 28 October 2020: Italian neo-fascist groups meet, as they have done on this date for the last four years, at a chapel built by Benito Mussolini within Rome's main cemetery in order to commemorate those who gave their lives for Fascism.1 Right arms outstretched, they march in procession and lay fowers in memory of the Fascist 'martyrs'. In Italy and beyond, today's far Right has inherited from interwar fascism a political strategy that uses the commemoration of the dead as a powerful source of emotions. Now, as in the early twentieth century, feelings elicited by death are seen to offer a direct route to political persuasion.

Likewise, in the 1930s, Mussolini's regime sought to utilize feelings of grief by taking control of the remembrance of fallen soldiers. In a population of roughly 35 million Italians, over half a million soldiers had died in the First World War—a signifcant human cost for a young and relatively unstable nation.2 As those deaths touched most Italian families, the urge to remember the fallen extended across all regions and social classes. Given the scale of the casualties, remembrance had an emotional resonance, which rendered it an ideal site for the exercise of power and the transmission of political intentions. Thus, after taking charge in 1922, Italy's Fascist leaders aimed to harness the commemoration of the fallen through a range of

1Gennaro, 'Roma'; Turco, 'Luigi Gaetti'.

<sup>2</sup> Scolè, 'War Losses'.

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2022 219 U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_8

ceremonies, memorials, and initiatives that became keystones of policy and propaganda. Notably, in 1927, Mussolini ordered that the remains of soldiers who had died fghting in the First World War should be exhumed and reburied in new ossuaries (bone depositories), which were to be built along the former frontlines in northern Italy (Fig. 8.1).

By removing hundreds of thousands of bodies to new locations, the regime aimed to manage and infuence emotions associated with the memory of the fallen. The ossuaries were among a range of instruments, which were meant to encourage attitudes towards the dead that were favourable to the dictatorship—attitudes that played a key role in the distribution of power between rival institutions within the Fascist state, and in relationships formed between individuals and that state.

Given the nature of the Fascist ossuaries, the purpose of this chapter is to expose evidence of the regime's efforts to template and use emotions to political ends. The objective is not to assess the effect that those efforts had on the emotions of Italians, due to the lack of available sources and the diversity of individual reactions. Rather, the context is the institution of Italian Fascism as embodied by the state, the Party, and related bodies.

**Fig. 8.1** The ossuary of Redipuglia, Italy, Giovanni Greppi and Giannino Castiglioni (1935–1938). (Photo by Hannah Malone, 2014)

In fact, as the regime sought to mobilize Italians by means of feelings of grief, those feelings were gradually consolidated through various policies and practices that were central to the institution of Fascism, and which came to defne it. Thus, the politicization of remembrance under Mussolini represents an ideal arena in which to analyse the interplay between politics and emotions in an institutional setting. To some extent, the emotions at work in interwar Italy were common to other countries involved in the First World War, although Mussolini's government sought a higher degree of state control over remembrance in comparison to interwar France and Britain.3 In fact, the Italian dictatorship devised commemorative strategies that bore an infuence in Hitler's Germany.4 Seen from an international perspective, the Fascist ossuaries were remarkable with regard to the political use of emotions and the mobilization of an overtly political agenda.

In that respect, this chapter outlines how the Fascist authorities sought to monopolize commemoration by moving the bodies of the fallen to newly created ossuaries. It then analyses those ossuaries in order to uncover the emotions that they were meant to foster, and the political goals that they were intended to serve. In looking at the architecture of the ossuaries as a means of communication, the chapter also examines how characteristics such as space and form carried signs that were meant to shape emotions for specifc political ends. With a view to understanding the ossuaries as carriers of emotional messages, the chapter explores the discourse and practices that surrounded their making and use. As such, it embodies three sources of empirical evidence: feldwork and photographic surveys of the ossuaries in their present form; propaganda material that is textual, visual, and aural in nature such as articles, guidebooks, booklets, postcards, videos, and speeches; and offcial documents stored in an archive held by Italy's Ministry of Defence (Onorcaduti)—which contains a wealth of sources that had hitherto not been seen by researchers. That archive includes a range of materials such as letters, memos, public statements, architectural briefs, fnancial reports, drawings, and photographs. Through this assortment of sources, it has been possible to explore the ossuaries as they were imagined, designed, and built and as they exist as heritage today. All of that evidence is examined using a methodology that combines elements of emotional, political, and architectural history, and in the light of theory that addresses politics and emotions within an institutional context.

<sup>3</sup>For comparisons with France, see Chap. 7 by Karsten Lichau.

<sup>4</sup> See, among others Mosse, *Fallen Soldiers*; Behrenbeck, *Kult*.

For many Italians, the First World War was a divisive and emotional experience.5 Few had wanted the war and most had opposed it. The war dead, on a scale unmatched in Italian history, unleased powerful reactions in the form, for example, of grief, sorrow, pride, anger, and resentment. After the war ended in 1918, civic initiatives created comparatively small monuments to the fallen in squares and streets across Italy in the manner of nineteenth-century commemorative traditions.6 Ranging between the poles of pacifsm and triumphalism, socialism and nationalism, these monuments emerged spontaneously from a widespread desire to give meaning to personal grief and the nation's losses. Whether viewed as a necessary sacrifce or as a warning against war, these early monuments expressed a diversity of views, a lack of agreement among Italians about how to remember the confict, and the infuence of different groups such as veterans, mourners, and politicians. From within that divided society, Fascism emerged in 1919 with the promise to unify the nation. Fascist squads destroyed or vandalized war monuments with a pacifst, socialist, or regretful character, and created new monuments imbued with nationalistic and victorious meanings. A disappointing peace treaty deepened divisions between those who remembered the war as a glorious triumph and others for whom the confict had been a pointless slaughter. Compounded by economic hardship, those tensions fuelled disorder and violence within Italy's fractured society and destabilized the liberaldemocratic system, helping to pave the way for the Fascist takeover.

On gaining power in 1922, the Fascist leaders imposed their own interpretation of the First World War as a national triumph and erased any surviving monuments that did not conform to a rhetoric based on victory and sacrifce. As the self-declared heirs of the Italian victory, they took charge of the commemoration of the fallen, and while claiming to protect the memory of the dead, they promoted a heroic image of war and prepared the population for future conficts.7 In the early years of Fascist rule, the authorities frst adopted forms of remembrance that had emerged spontaneously from civil society, but then gradually brought the memory of the fallen under tighter political control. Notably, Italy's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, erected within the Vittoriano monument in Rome under Mussolini's socialist predecessor in 1921, was adopted by the Duce

<sup>5</sup>Dogliani, 'Constructing', 12. More broadly, see also Frevert, 'Emotions in Times of War'.

<sup>6</sup>Canal, 'Retorica della morte'; Isnenghi, *Italia in piazza*, 251–58.

<sup>7</sup>Fogu, 'Fare la storia'.

as a backdrop for speeches delivered in his new role as the nation's leader.8 Although democratic, socialist, and veterans' groups had conceived of the Tomb as a shared symbol of loss that could bridge partisan divides, Fascism transformed a monument of sorrow into one of triumph and an instrument of reconciliation into a symbol of the victory of a single party. While recruiting the Unknown Soldier into Mussolini's audience, the regime converted the Tomb, which was meant as a stand-in for the bodies of the missing, into a sacred site in the 'liturgy' of Fascism, known as the 'Altar of the Fatherland'.9 In short, the democratized Unknown Soldier who had neither name nor status came instead to refect the Fascist subordination of the individual to the nation. Whereas previously, commemoration had been in the hands of veterans, mourners, civic committees, clergy, and local councils, from 1927 those groups were forbidden to erect new monuments or to arrange commemorative ceremonies without state approval. In monopolizing remembrance, the regime faced particular resistance from veterans' groups and the Church, as institutions that were gradually reduced to ancillary roles.

Italian soldiers who had died in battle were originally buried in small cemeteries or mass graves close to the battlefelds. However, by the late 1920s these modest burial places were judged to be insuffcient for the aims of Fascist propaganda. Hence, Mussolini had the remains of over 300,000 soldiers disinterred and reburied within thirty new ossuaries located close to former frontlines in north-eastern Italy and present-day Slovenia.10 While the larger of the ossuaries accommodated up to 100,000 bodies, they were sited in, or close to, territories that had formerly belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire: that is, in areas that Italy acquired as a victor in the First World War. As markers of newly won land, the ossuaries were akin to fortresses located at Italy's new borders, although their main purpose was 'to bear witness, across the centuries, to the heroic sacrifces of our marvellous soldiers' 'who died serenely … so Italy could be expanded'.11

<sup>8</sup>Gentile, *Culto*, 35–36; Brice, *Vittoriano*, 350–60.

<sup>9</sup>Wittman, *Tomb*.

<sup>10</sup>Fiore, 'Monumentalizzazione'; Bregantin, *Per non morire mai*.

<sup>11</sup>Felice Nori, progetto disegni, dettagli per la costruzione, Sezione Tecnica, Montello disegni, 18 July 1931, Archivio Commissariato delle Onoranze ai Caduti (AOCG); General Faracovi to the War Ministry, 'Richiesta approvazione del progetto', December 1930, Sezione Tecnica, Fagarè, b1, f5, AOCG. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

The campaign of reburial was run by a military commission established in 1919 to oversee funerary arrangements for Italy's fallen soldiers. Under Fascism, the Commission was headed by a succession of generals who enjoyed remarkable authority and, from 1935, responded directly to Mussolini. The centralization of power in the hands of the Commission and its close relationship to the dictator signal the extent to which its actions expressed a Fascist agenda, despite the relative degree of autonomy held by the military. The year 1935 marked a watershed in the history of the regime, the evolution of the ossuaries, Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, and a lurch towards totalitarianism. While hitherto the ossuaries had been designed by different architects and in various styles, from that year the Commission passed all projects to the architect Giovanni Greppi and the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni, who together developed an innovative format for the ossuaries that was designed to serve the communicative needs of the regime. Although the Fascist state could never achieve total control over the remembrance of the fallen, the ossuaries supported its aim to template emotional responses to the war losses.

#### Fascism and the Templating of Emotions

To a greater or lesser degree, all political powers depend for their stability on the establishment of an emotional 'template', that is, a network of emotions and of norms that shape and direct those emotions. Such emotional templates can help a government to promote desirable behaviour, direct the nature of social life, and unify people behind common goals. After gaining power through undemocratic means and within a divided nation, Mussolini had a particular need to establish an emotional template through strictly controlled norms and models.12 Fascism emerged as a revolutionary movement that was nominally opposed to all institutions, but which evolved into an institution focused on securing discipline and obedience. To do so, it appealed to emotions as a means of fusing the nation into a cohesive whole and binding citizens to the state. While affording legitimacy to the dictatorship, the Fascist emotional template was intended to renew the nation, its social order, and even humanity itself, essentially, by engendering a new Fascist man and woman motivated by 'positive' emotions, such as pride, discipline, and optimism. Thus, the

<sup>12</sup>Falasca-Zamponi, *Fascist Spectacle*, 6–11; Albanese, 'Coraggio'; Pes, 'Parola di Mussolini'; Gervasi, 'Anger as Misshapen Fear'.

ossuaries belonged to a variety of propaganda practices, including speeches, rallies, parades, exhibitions, radio broadcasts, and other media that used emotions as a source of identity and a means of national integration. Through such practices, the regime sought to foster specifc attitudes, while penalizing deviant reactions. Frequent references to emotions, especially tied to fear, shame, and bravery, illustrate their centrality to the construction of power.

As shown by its struggle against commemorative practices with a regretful or mournful character, the regime had diffculty maintaining control over emotions relating to the losses of the First World War, due to their intensity. Yet it was critical to manage those emotions, which might otherwise feed pacifst and anti-militarist tendencies that ran counter to Fascist ideology. At the same time, the strength of public feeling towards the war dead constituted a valuable resource for the dictatorship, an effective means of communication, and a source of concepts and images through which Fascism might be disseminated. In essence, the war losses presented a platform upon which the regime could construct emotions in order to valorize and empower its political intentions.

As an ideal site for the templating of emotions, the commemoration of the fallen as 'martyrs' for the fatherland became a lynchpin of Fascist propaganda.13 At the same time, the regime also celebrated as martyrs those who died in the nineteenth-century struggle for Italian independence, or the Risorgimento, in Italy's colonial wars, and in the initial Fascist struggle for power. By commemorating as heroes those who had fallen before Fascism, the regime laid claim to additional sacrifces and to whatever feelings of respect and pride might be harvested from history. In politicizing emotions through commemoration, Mussolini was building on a political strategy that had been central to the emergence of the Italian state in the 1800s.14 The remembrance of national heroes was used as a major tool of propaganda during the Risorgimento, and after Italy's unifcation in 1861 it served as the basis for the construction of a national identity. Over time, the commemoration of the fallen was passed down from Liberal to Fascist Italy as a bedrock of Italian nationhood and a means of building consensus.

Through the ossuaries, the Fascist authorities sought to template emotional responses, which meant encouraging certain emotions while prohibiting others. Specifcally, the ossuaries were intended to foster feelings

<sup>13</sup>Gentile, *Culto*, 32; Suzzi Valli, 'Culto'.

<sup>14</sup>Riall, 'Martyr Cults'; Malone, *Architecture*, 104–18.

of pride, triumph, heroism, self-sacrifce, and even joy and to restrict a sense of sadness, regret, or pointlessness. For the Commission responsible for the ossuaries, they were not monuments of death but of the resurrection of 'those fallen in the service of the nation [who] are immortal'—that is, they 'have not died, nor will they die'.15 In promoting immortality over death, the ossuaries effectively negated the possibility of mourning. Thus, the Commission was adamant that the ossuaries should not have a 'funerary character', as this might elicit unwarranted sadness: a condition associated with pacifsm and perceived to be potentially harmful or destabilizing.16 In that the ossuaries were to express 'piety, honour and national gratitude', the Commission envisaged a new type of memorial that was heroic, audacious, and freed from melancholy.17 Having condemned 'wining and pitiful' monuments, Mussolini praised the ossuary at Monte Grappa because 'there was nothing funerary about it, [rather] it looked like a fortress' (Fig. 8.2).18 In effect, as a symbol of vitality and optimism, Monte Grappa was seen to look towards the future rather than to the past.

Given that, since the First World War, there had been a boom in tourism to the former battlefelds and Italy's new territories, the regime built the ossuaries as destinations for family and group trips. A wealth of propaganda promoted the sites to an Italian and international public through various media, including videos, postcards, radio broadcasts, and publications. In particular, organizations associated with the regime issued travel journals and guidebooks, which encouraged visits to the ossuaries and prescribed behaviours that were to be observed. Such publications played a pivotal role in the templating of emotions.

For Fascists, death was a life-giving force worthy of celebration. Accordingly, in 1941, the author of a book on the ossuary of Redipuglia stated that 'one should not cry for those who died'. Nonetheless, the Fascist emotional order did not completely reject the notion of sorrow, although it demanded that grief be channelled into approved forms of expression. Writing in the midst of the Second World War, that same author exalted 'the unsmiling mother, with dry eyes, who is capable of saying to her son: "go, and accomplish your duty thoroughly [by dying at

<sup>15</sup>Wilcox, 'Public Ceremonies', 197.

<sup>16</sup>Fernando Bisaccianti, 'Relazione a corredo del progetto per l'ossario di guerra da erigersi in Casteldante di Rovereto', draft, before Oct. 1930, Sezione Tecnica, Casteldante Rovereto, AOCG.

<sup>17</sup> 'Adunanza della Sezione terza—30 giugno 1931', Doc. Consiglio di Stato, Asiago, b. 1, f. '1931–2', AOCG.

<sup>18</sup>Dato, *Redipuglia*, 38; Fiore, 'Monumentalizzazione'.

**Fig. 8.2** The ossuary of Monte Grappa, Italy, Giovanni Greppi and Giannino Castiglioni (1932–1935). (Photo by Hannah Malone, 2014)

war]" but in solitude she suffers and waits'.19 That shows how the pain of loss is allowed if it is conquered or interiorized. In addition, the expression of grief was deemed more acceptable in women than in men, as evidenced by the evocation of the 'Mother, who alone knows the pain of not having seen nor touched her Son for the last time'.20

The repression of what Fascists saw as negative emotions went hand in hand with the encouragement of positive alternatives—which involved the celebration of death and war as necessary to the welfare and grandeur of the nation. It was said that visitors to an ossuary would answer a call to arms 'because even if war is not desirable and everywhere it evokes: death, hatred, terror, destruction etc., nevertheless it [also] sounds like: love, altruism, generosity, sincerity, comradeship'.21 From this perspective, 'pain is necessary, death is necessary: they are the highest testimonies of faith'.22

<sup>19</sup>Fuiano, *Credo*, 196, 164.

<sup>20</sup>Gallimberti, 'Gli ossari di guerra'.

<sup>21</sup>Fuiano, *Credo*, 136.

<sup>22</sup>Dini, *Via crucis*, quoted in Dato, *Redipuglia*, 48.

Equally, a guidebook of 1940 described the transformation of sorrow into pride on the part of visitors to an ossuary: 'widows, mothers, [and] orphans' unfurrow their brow with 'conscious tranquilly', sadness leaves their eyes, which fash with pride for the sacrifcial 'offering' of the dead—'a painful offering, but equal to the grandeur of its cause'.23 Such standards of behaviour were intended to establish a society whose emotions adhered to templates, or approved modes of expression that might be worn as badges of honour. The suppression of sorrow applied to wars past and present, in that shortly after the opening of the ossuary at Monte Grappa in 1935, the press was forbidden from reporting on any 'sentimental or tearful' scenes caused by soldiers departing for Italy's war in Ethiopia.24

#### The Political Purposes of Emotional Templates

Above all, the ossuaries harnessed emotions with the aim to unite the nation behind Fascism. In that fallen soldiers were said to perform 'the sacred duty of keeping love of the Fatherland alive among Italians', remembrance was meant to create an 'emotional community' that was bound to the nation through memories loaded with emotions.25 In this sense, the ossuaries acted as crucibles where the nation might be fused through common feelings. By defning Fascist identity in terms of emotions, the state was also in a position to exclude those who departed from certain emotional templates, to distinguish between 'us' and 'them', and to reward obedience and punish dissent.

At the same time, the ossuaries helped to restore the honour and dignity of a nation that had been greatly shaken by the First World War. While the confict exposed Italy's military, diplomatic, and political weaknesses, an unsatisfactory peace treaty fuelled a sense of resentment and the feeling that Italy had not been properly rewarded for its sacrifces—a situation encapsulated in the nationalist slogan 'the mutilated victory' (*la vittoria mutilata*). Equally, given that for national communities 'shame can be a stronger bond than love', it was crucial for Fascism to turn that sense of

25Maurice Halbwachs was the frst to theorize the idea of *communautés affectives* (affective ties): *La mémoire collective*; see also Assmann, 'Memory', 114. For the evolution of the concept of emotional communities, see Rosenwein, 'Worrying'; for a critique, see Pernau, 'Feeling Communities'.

<sup>23</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia: Il monte Grappa*, 13.

<sup>24</sup>Ben-Ghiat, *Fascist Modernities*, 127.

humiliation into pride.26 Thus, the ossuaries were intended to suggest that the 'Fascist government … has been able to awaken in the soul of each Italian an awareness of their moral value and strength through a reevaluation of the victory'.27

The establishment of an emotional template through the ossuaries was also meant to mobilize Italians in support of future wars. Following Mussolini's dictum 'remember [the dead] and prepare [for war]' (*ricordare e prepararsi*), commemoration went hand in hand with militarism. Traditionally, the principle of military service held little sway in Italy because many felt greater allegiance to their family, community, or village than to the state. Hence, popularizing the idea of dying for the nation was important for the Fascist regime, as it had been for previous Italian governments. This bellicose rhetoric heightened in 1935–1939, that is, during the period of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, and the outbreak of the Second World War—a period which also coincided with the construction of most of the ossuaries. In 1938, the Chief of the Italian General Staff, Pietro Badoglio, stated at the inauguration of an ossuary that to be 'worthy' of the fallen, all Italians 'must be ready to follow their example' and die for Italy.28

In order to serve those three national goals—unity, honour, and war the ossuaries helped to place commemoration within a public and militarized sphere, which limited the span of permissible emotions.29 Given their distinctly militaristic character, they helped to stife private grief in favour of patriotism, devotion, and pride and left little room for discordant or private emotions. For the sociologist Mabel Berezin, the primary goal of Italian Fascism was to fuse individual feelings in order to form a nation driven by shared emotions.30 In a speech calling Italians to arms on the eve of the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, Mussolini imagined Italy as a community with 'a common heart, a common will, and a common decision [to go to war]'.31 However unrealistic, that image of cohesion was manifested in the ossuaries and especially in those designed after the Ethiopian

26Ginzburg, 'Shame', 35.

27Gino Peressutti, report of 23 November 1931, quoted in full in Fiore, 'Monumentalizzazione', 157.

<sup>28</sup> *Il Comune di Asiago*, 10.

29More widely, see Acton, *Grief in Wartime*.

30Berezin uses the expression 'community of feeling': *Making the Fascist Self*, 27–30. See also Falasca-Zamponi, *Fascist Spectacle*, 162–80.

31Mussolini, 'Discorso della mobilitazione', 158.

invasion. As such, they served to project the legitimacy and strength of the state, while also drawing on the individual's needs for meaning, order, and community.

Although propaganda claimed that the Fascist commemoration of the fallen could 'comfort and fortify' mourners, the question remains as to whether that commemoration constituted a welcome source of solace or a violation of private sorrow.32 It is true that, to a large extent, the Fascist regime harnessed and radicalized pre-existing expressions of grief. It also adopted nationalistic monuments that were created before it took power, and built on existing funerary traditions that were rooted in patriotism and Catholicism. In any case, individuals could have chosen to accept, reject, or negotiate the emotional templates that were imposed by the regime, or to seek a path between the expression of individual feelings and the emotional templates promoted by the state. There may also have been two-way processes of feedback and adjustment. However, due to the diffculties of accessing sources that express individual reactions, and the restrictions on freedom of expression due to censorship, our knowledge of personal feelings is limited to some specifc individuals. Conditions associated with Fascist repression also make it necessary to read between the lines. For instance, having won a prize to attend the inauguration of the ossuary of Pasubio in 1926, an Italian schoolgirl named Clelia Leogrande recorded the event in detail: the speeches, the mass, the choral singing, and the group photo with celebrities of the regime, including the widows of famous heroes of the First World War. Leogrande reported feeling a shared sense of pathos among the crowd.33 Still, as her report was destined for publication, it is hard to judge whether the expression of approved emotions was actually genuine. Given the limitations of such sources, there is the risk of reductive conclusions based on a few, perhaps idiosyncratic, responses. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the meanings attributed to the ossuaries by the regime, rather than on their reception by individuals.

33Leogrande, *Fiori e lacrime*, 7–8, quoted in Antonelli, *Cento anni*, 243. The ossuary at Pasubio was begun in 1920 before Mussolini's takeover and later co-opted by the regime.

<sup>32</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia del medio e basso Isonzo*, 54.

#### Means of Communicating Emotions

The Fascist emotional template was translated into concrete and recurring practices designed to promote certain emotions, and narratives favourable to the dictatorship: such as a positive view of the First World War, of Mussolini's rise to power, and of war as a noble sacrifce. In order to give meaning to the war losses in a manner that endorsed Fascist power, the ossuaries were designed as sites of communication that carried emotionladen narratives by means of their architecture, their uses, and related discourses. As Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi has shown, emotionally charged narratives and myths were central to Fascism and its new way of doing politics.34 While searching for effective modes of expression, Fascism looked to rituals and symbols developed by two institutions with a long history of emotional education: the military and the Catholic Church. Those institutions shared with Fascism a desire to attract consensus and new members, while managing the attitudes of their membership from above. Thus, in adapting established traditions to new ends, Fascism combined religious and military symbolism to imbue the ossuaries with emotional power.

Clearly, the ossuaries were as much a product of the state as of the military—as an institution with expertise in emotional management and the suppression of individualism in favour of self-sacrifce and dedication to a cause. That expertise served the main purpose of the ossuaries, which was to inculcate specifc emotional responses to war and to those who died as a result of war. As a 'total institution' bound by strict rules, the military was a model for Mussolini's ambitions to gain totalitarian control over all aspects of Italian life.35 As will be shown below with respect to Redipuglia, the military setting of the ossuaries left little room for personalized forms of bereavement, adjustments to the emotional template, or distinctions between the fallen.

As the Fascist authorities operated in a deeply Catholic culture, they also borrowed tools of persuasion from the Church. This was in line with a 'sacralization' of politics—a process whereby, with the decline of clerical power and the rise of nationalism from the late 1700s, politicians seconded ideological mechanisms from the clergy, and the sacred migrated from the

35Frevert, *Nation in Barracks*, 3. On Fascist totalitarianism, see Scuccimarra, 'Stato totalitario'.

<sup>34</sup>Falasca-Zamponi, *Fascist Spectacle*, 2–4.

religious to the political sphere. To some extent, Fascism was conceived as sacralized politics, or as a political religion whose liturgy centred on the sacredness of the dead.36 In that the fallen were described as martyrs, and their martyrdom as a sacrifce for the redemption of the fatherland, Fascism 'spoke' the language—including the emotional language—of Catholicism, which was familiar and accessible to the majority of the Italian population. Therefore, the ossuaries were designed to foster veneration for the fallen through imagery that was both political and religious. This duality was common to war cemeteries and memorials across modern Europe. However, the degree to which Fascism adopted religious symbolism was relatively specifc to its conceptualization as a political religion. That proximity to Catholicism also refected a 'marriage of convenience' between the Vatican and the dictatorship, which were offcially allied through the Lateran Pacts in 1929.37 As with Catholicism, Fascism demanded of Italians an 'act of faith' based on heartfelt belief, rather than reasoned logic.38 However, tensions emerged as Church and state competed for control over the emotional lives of Italians—tensions which erupted, for instance, around the role of the clergy in the creation of the ossuaries.

Architecturally, the ossuaries deployed form, space, aesthetics, light, and symbolism to stimulate emotional responses.39 For example, the hierarchical or axial nature of their planning served to elicit a sense of awe and respect towards the dead. Those responses could be enhanced through lighting or decoration; for instance, as an ossuary might be lit by torches to achieve 'a sense of profound emotion that would lead to contemplation [and] remind the living of the sacrifce of the dead'.40 In this sense, the ossuaries show how emotional templates are always spatially situated or expressed in space. Predominantly, they drew on ecclesiastical architecture for strategies that might induce states of devotion and faith. While the presence of chapels, altars, crucifxes, and Stations of the Cross made the

36Gentile, *Culto*, 9, 303–35. However, this concept had little bearing on the actual workings of the regime.

37Pollard, *Vatican*, 1–6.

<sup>38</sup> See Chap. 2 by Francesco Buscemi.

39On the relationship between architecture and emotions, see Großmann and Nielsen, introduction, 5–8.

40Fernando Bisaccianti, 'Relazione a corredo del progetto per l'ossario di guerra da erigersi in Casteldante di Rovereto', draft, before Oct. 1930, Sezione Tecnica, Casteldante Rovereto, AOCG.

ossuaries overtly Catholic, there was also a subtler sense of a transcendence through which Fascism drew power from religious ideology. For instance, the design of one ossuary was associated with ancient Rome and the greatness of the 'Latin race' and with the ability of monumental architecture to convey 'the impression of a very great ideal' that would 'conquer and overwhelm the spirit, even of non-believers'.41 Equally, scale was used to make visitors feel their 'smallness' in the face of the 'Infnity and Eternity' of the Fatherland.42 In many ways, churches offered an ideal model for the ossuaries, not only as places where power is asserted but also in their capacity to induce specifc emotional states associated with faith and religious zeal.43 In dividing between the holy and the profane, church architecture demarcates people united by common emotions, in the same way that the ossuaries sought to defne the boundaries of the nation through the celebration of its war dead.

While a fence or wall generally encloses the 'sacred' space of the ossuary, a monumental entrance or an avenue may regulate access to routes organized for rituals and ceremonies; for example, in the form of the exterior stepped pathways that ascend the terraces at the ossuary of Redipuglia. The fact that paths are long, wide, and steep indicates that ritual, rather than practicality, was the main concern. Ideally, paths rise upwards so as to evoke a sense of ascension. Demanding pathways require commitment of the visitor as a symbolic sacrifce to the dead, but also as a demonstration of the Fascist virtues of youth and athleticism. In some ossuaries, staircases create long taxing routes through which visitors were meant to express their faith in the nation for which lives had been lost. Landings and balconies provided spaces where visitors could pause to admire a view, as is the case at Oslavia, Rovereto, and Montello. At Pian di Salesei, the low-rise blocks of the ossuary are arranged to form a crossshaped plan in the forecourt of a pre-existing church. Similarly, the symbolism of the Passion pervades the ossuary at Caporetto, which is located on a hill around 400 metres above the town to which it is connected by a Sacred Route (*Via Sacra*). This route is fanked by the fourteen Stations of the Cross, each marked by a small piazza where visitors could stop and pray on their ascent to the ossuary, and from which they could

<sup>41</sup>Gino Peressutti, report of 23 November 1931, quoted in full in Fiore, 'Monumentalizzazione', 157.

<sup>42</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>43</sup>Kilde, *Sacred Power*, 3–11.

absorb a 'mystical atmosphere'.44 According to a guidebook of 1936, at the end of that route, and from the balcony above the ossuary, 'one experiences a vision of mystical solemnity'.45

Choreographed and ritualized patterns of use reinforced the meanings embedded in architecture as space and form. Specifcally, the ossuaries hosted rallies, funerals, ceremonies, and other 'mobilizing practices', which were intended to promote certain emotional states, while offsetting negative emotions of sorrow and loss.46 Propagandistic flms made to publicize these rituals generally show fags, marches, speeches, cheering crowds, a Catholic mass, and the presence of military, state, and clerical leaders.47 Such practices illustrate how emotions might be induced through repeated bodily actions such as marching and cheering or through the use of sound and music. While their strict and martial character helped to contain mourning within the confnes of Fascist ideology, their sacred symbolism recalled Christian funerary rites and a faith in resurrection that tempered sorrow and transformed mourning into an act of devotion. During a visit to Italy in 1928, an American academic observed:

It is not for nothing that Fascism is so ritualistic. The marches, salutes, yells, songs, uniforms, badges, and what not, are giving a new focus to the imagination of the Italian youth, are linking their social life to political organisations, and are flling their minds with political—I will not say ideas, but political—feelings.48

As a scholar of religion, this visitor recognized not only how emotions bound individuals to Fascist organizations, but also how the regime competed for emotional 'capital' with the Catholic Church: 'Good Italian youths still go to mass and participate in religious festivities, but their sentiments, their imaginations, their moral ideals are centered elsewhere.'49

<sup>44</sup> 'Capitolato ditta Vittorio Marchioro', 22 August 1936, Caporetto, Atti amministrativi 1935–1939, Sezione Tecnica, AOCG.

<sup>45</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia: Il Cadore*, 249, quoted in Wilcox, 'From Heroic Defeat', 56.

<sup>46</sup> Scheer, 'Are Emotions', 209–12. With respect to Fascist Italy, see also Falasca-Zamponi, *Fascist Spectacle*, 148–82.

47With respect to the ossuary of Monte Grappa, see Istituto Luce Cinecittà, 'La tumulazione'; Istituto Luce Cinecittà, 'Inaugurazione'.

<sup>48</sup> Schneider, *Making*, 222–23.

<sup>49</sup> *Ibid*., 223.

Drawing from Catholicism, the ossuaries were designed as sites of pilgrimage to which Italians would fock to pay homage to the dead. As destinations for organized tours modelled on Catholic pilgrimages, they were visited especially by schoolchildren, veterans, and Fascist leisure associations. For the head of the Commission, visitors must 'pay grateful homage to the memory of the Fallen' and 'take from their heroic sacrifce inspiration and encouragement to love the Fatherland even more'.50 Especially, adolescents were meant to travel to the sites to 'draw on the heroic virtues of the lineage'.51 Meanwhile, all tours to the former battlefelds were meant to be 'coordinated and disciplined' by the Pilgrimage Committee set up by the Fascist Party.52 The objective was for the battlegrounds to draw a large number of visitors while remaining sacred spaces that would be accessed with the 'reverence' due to an 'altar'.53 While at Redipuglia visitors climbed long staircases with religious veneration, they were meant to imagine that: 'on every step, with every known and unknown name, our sons will bend their head and their knees murmuring a wordless prayer' (Fig. 8.3).54 This combination of movement and feeling was aimed at eliciting reverence and hope as: 'Up this bronze staircase, built with the most beautiful sacrifce [of the dead], the living will ascend and realize that the Italian Soldier has no limits, because the fnal limit opens the door to the immeasurable glory of paradise.'55 As in sacred spaces, such bodily rituals were intended to foster approved emotions.

Travel literature described visits to the ossuaries as 'sad but, at the same time, a source of grateful reverence and just pride', and envisaged that 'all Italians would remember their heroic brothers … and pray for them with gratitude, love, and pride'.56 An early guidebook of 1929 advises visitors that if they should feel like weeping at the sight of so many tombs, they 'should not try to repress and hide their emotions for a misplaced fear of weakness' because their tears are a 'sign of a deep love of the fatherland'.57 Thus, although mourners might not be stopped from crying, their tears

<sup>50</sup> 'Memoria', 54.

53Zambon, 'Pasubio', 400.

<sup>51</sup>Fuiano, *Credo*, 137.

<sup>52</sup>Quote from the local Party secretary Francesco Caccese (1929), quoted in Fabi, *Redipuglia*, 15.

<sup>54</sup> *Sacrario di Redipuglia*, 3–5 in Dato, *Redipuglia*, 43.

<sup>55</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>56</sup>Michelesi, 'Dove riposano gli eroi', 1443.

<sup>57</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia del medio e basso Isonzo*, 47.

**Fig. 8.3** The ossuary of Redipuglia, Italy, Giovanni Greppi and Giannino Castiglioni (1935–1938). (Photo by Hannah Malone, 2014)

might be commandeered in the service of national patriotism. As attitudes to grief became more radical during the Second World War, a later guidebook (1940) states that visitors to the ossuaries should express 'not tears … but the pride of victory', given that 'the glorifcation of the fallen demands, not sterile regrets, but virile resolutions'. It also asserts that the peak of Monte Grappa, once a battleground and now the site of an ossuary, must be seen and loved as 'only like this, visitor, will you be worthy to enjoy the ineffable, masculine, and severe emotion of this visit' (Fig. 8.2).58 The description of emotions as 'virile' and 'masculine' points to the primacy of attitudes associated with manhood and to which women and children were also expected to aspire. That visitors were meant to leave the sites feeling 'better [and] full of healthy resolutions' highlights the Fascist aim to improve the 'health' of the national body by making Italians feel dynamic, proud, and determined.59 In effect, in subverting individual feelings of sorrow, the regime sought to promote normative responses

<sup>58</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia: Il monte Grappa*, 13.

<sup>59</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia del medio e basso Isonzo*, 54.

through emotionally charged forms of public remembrance. In this sense, the ossuaries functioned to teach Italians how to feel about death at war and, consequently, how to act in future wars.60

Generally, such propaganda was intended to discipline feelings in line with the value given to specifc emotions. For Mussolini, Fascism was a 'way of life' that was characterized by 'bravery', 'fearlessness, the passion for risk, [and] rejection of pacifsm'.61 The fallen soldier epitomized that way of life. By presenting the dead as emotional exemplars, or fgures to be admired, the ossuaries and allied narratives constituted an education of the emotions. At the ossuary of Montello, inscriptions marking the tombs of those awarded the Golden Medal for military merit describe the fallen as models of appropriate emotions, that is, as courageous, loyal, disciplined, perseverant, ruthless, and willing to sacrifce their lives. For instance, one of the dead is remembered as: 'Serene, calm, and smiling in the face of danger he was always in an exposed position among his men as a shining example of tenacity and valour.'62

Thus, in presenting the behaviour of soldiers as worthy of imitation, the ossuaries instructed the audience how to conform to specifc emotional templates. Primarily, the fallen were praised for a capacity to restrain their emotions in the service of common good. In general, the military must learn to conquer their feelings so that they may face death in battle and kill without hesitation or remorse. As exemplifed by the courageous soldier and stoic mother, Fascism prized emotional mastery as the ability to privilege collective needs over personal desires—a skill that was as important to Fascist collectivism as it was to military discipline. Before dying in the First World War, an Italian soldier wrote to his wife:

If I should die; I would not regret it, no! I wanted to be here [at war], if I were not here, I would come, to throw myself in the fght to give greater moral value to my life. But this does not diminish the feeling that if I were to leave you alone, my heart would be, at the last instant, full of sorrow.63

<sup>60</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia: Il monte Grappa*, 12.

<sup>61</sup>Mussolini, 'Intransigenza assoluta', 131.

<sup>62</sup> 'Iscrizioni lapidi', Doc. Ossario del Montello, Specchio riepilogante il numero delle lettere incise sulle lapidi dei caduti, 'Nominativi', 23 April 1935, Montello, b. 1, f. 2, Sezione Tecnica, ACOG.

<sup>63</sup>Benedetti, *Lettere*, quoted in Bregantin, 'Morte in guerra', 279.

This letter, which was written before Fascism, but was published as propaganda in 1926, demonstrates how Mussolini's regime built upon older ideals of patriotic sacrifce. It also expresses the tug between familial and national loyalties, or between public and private emotions—which the regime aimed to resolve in favour of the nation. To this end, Mussolini demanded of all Italians an attitude of 'discipline … devotion and honour'.64 Under Fascism, Italian men underwent a form of mental conditioning in attitudes appropriate to a warrior: frst at school, then in Fascist youth groups and leisure organizations. Similarly, the ossuaries were 'a place of education', where the dead taught the young 'how the Fatherland must be loved' and 'how to die with joy'.65 War was to be the practical test of this education. In fact, during the Ethiopian war, Giuseppe Bottai, one of the architects of Fascist education policy, declared that the new Italian 'no longer becomes a soldier … he is [by nature] a soldier'.66

The deployment of architecture, ritual, and discourse in the service of an emotional template is evidenced at Redipuglia. As the largest of the ossuaries, it accommodates the bodies of over 100,000 soldiers, of which about 60,000 were unidentifed (Fig. 8.1).67 While the remains of the unknown were amassed within crypts, identifed bodies were placed in small niches that were set within the giant staircase designed by Greppi and Castiglioni. On those niches the names of the dead were written in black on a dark background and are nearly invisible. This, together with the homogeneity of the overall structure, means that the identities of the fallen are largely erased. Immediately evident, however, is the word *presente*, which appears 880 times in raised lettering along the faces of the ascending steps (Fig. 8.3). The word refers to the Fascist ritual of the roll call whereby the living, on hearing the names of the dead, answer *presente*. 68 This practice suggests that the dead are forever present in the memory of the living and are always ready to serve the nation. In addition, six tombs stand apart: the largest, which is at the front, is that of the commander, the Duke of Aosta, a cousin of the King who would later become a fervent Fascist. Behind him are his fve generals. Behind them, the remains of

64Mussolini, 'Al popolo di Rimini', 74.

<sup>65</sup> *Sui campi di battaglia del medio e basso Isonzo*, 54; Zambon, 'Pasubio', 398. See also Ben-Ghiat, *Fascist Modernities*, 127; Koonz, *Nazi Conscience*, 221–22.

<sup>66</sup>Bottai, 'Soldato fascista', quoted in Ben-Ghiat, *Fascist Modernities*, 123.

<sup>67</sup>Dogliani, 'Redipuglia'; Fabi, *Redipuglia*; Malone, 'Redipuglia and the Dead'; Dato, *Redipuglia*.

<sup>68</sup> Suzzi Valli, 'Culto', 108; Gentile, *Culto*, 48.

ordinary soldiers are arranged in military formation, as in an army risen from the dead that is ready to march into battle under the leadership of its commanders. This image builds upon a centuries-long tradition of ghost tales in which the fallen rise from their graves, return to the battlefeld, and continue the fght.69 Conversely, the anti-Fascist writer Carlo Emilio Gadda noted that, after the roll call, 'the corpse remained alone in the ground to rot … The grim, vile echo of that "*presente*" had not yet faded, and already they [the Fascists] sat at the table, with their snouts in their maccheroni'.70

Despite the reiteration of *presente*, individual histories and memories are notably absent in the ossuary. The dead are remembered as soldiers, rather than as fathers, husbands, or sons. As a contemporary explained, the word *presente* indicates that the fallen did not 'demobilize' but remained in the service of the nation.71 Hence, their anonymity was compatible with the Fascists' aim to preserve a form of cultural mobilization in order to keep the nation in a state of permanent confict and to justify acts of violence against internal and external enemies. During the First World War, loyalty to the family conficted with that due to the army and state, and soldiers deserted to return home for the harvest or the funeral of a relative.72 In contrast, at Redipuglia discipline and cohesion were secured by severing the dead from their families and permanently transforming citizens into soldiers. By locating commemoration within the institutional boundaries of the military, the ossuary also drew on its gendered code of honour and chivalry.73 As such, Redipuglia was not so much a cemetery, but 'a rally of devout sons and warriors … of the Fatherland'.74

Italy was waging its war of conquest in Ethiopia when Redipuglia was initiated in 1935, and by the time of the ossuary's completion in 1938, the nation was stumbling towards another global confict. In fact, Mussolini stopped off to inaugurate Redipuglia on his way to sign the Munich agreement, which in appeasing Hitler delayed the beginning of the Second World War for nearly a year. During his visit to the region, the Duce announced the introduction of racial laws against Italian Jews, which

<sup>69</sup>Mosse, *Fallen Soldiers*, 78–79; Todero, *Metamorfosi della memoria*, 29, 43, 101.

<sup>70</sup>Gadda, *Eros e Priapo*, 193, quoted in Gervasi, 'Anger as Misshapen Fear', 336.

<sup>71</sup>Fuiano, *Credo*, 137. See also Millan, 'Veterans' Associations', 101.

<sup>72</sup>Wilcox, *Morale*, 121–23, 130–31; Wilcox, 'From Heroic Defeat', 11; Quattrocchi, 'Montagne sacre', 25.

<sup>73</sup>Frevert, 'Wartime Emotions'.

<sup>74</sup>Fuiano, *Credo*, 227.

partly refected Italy's tightening bond with Nazi Germany. The inauguration of Redipuglia was a masterclass in the use of emotions.75 There were no speeches at the event because 'memories, landscapes, and the air' were thought to be more affecting. Rather than words that might appeal to the mind, the ceremony used sound, smell, and sight as sensory pathways to feeling. As reported in the newspapers, the audience heard a 'pleasant murmur' from the choir, smelt the smoke from a salvo of guns, and watched the Duce ascend the vast staircase.76 One report described a hallucination whereby Mussolini appeared to grow larger as he moved away. Journalistic accounts emphasize the ease and speed with which Mussolini climbed the steep stairs, which were made for the ft and youthful bodies of the new Italians. In that this sensual and mystical experience was modelled on the Catholic mass, reports describe the ossuary as an altar, the smoking braziers as incense, and the bodies of the fallen as the Host, that is, the body of Christ, who akin to the fallen sacrifced himself for the greater good. As an Archbishop 'consecrated' the monument, his words created 'a mysterious eco between the bursts of machine guns and cannons, and the ringing of trumpets'.77 Within that scenario, Mussolini is described as a model of correct emotions: 'He suddenly became gentle and serious' in the presence of the dead and addressed them, saying: 'Soldiers, you fought … and in return, I gave you an Empire.' The dead were said to feel 'supreme happiness' as the Duce passed among them.78 Given the value attributed to emotional control, Mussolini's 'frowning face' is read as 'the signs of repressed emotion'. During the ceremony, members of the military shouted *presente*, meaning that they were 'ready to be sent anywhere at [the Duce's] orders'.79 Thus, as the living echoed the dead, the ossuary acted as a summons to defend Italy and expand beyond its borders.

At Redipuglia, the word *presente* ('I am here') can be thought of as an 'emotive', a term coined by William Reddy to denote a frst-person expression of emotion, as in 'I am angry'—and a mechanism that individuals use to explore and alter their emotions.80 In that sense, political

<sup>75</sup> 'Morti più vivi dei vivi', 1. See also Dogliani, 'Constructing', 15; Fabi, *Redipuglia*, 28–29; Dato, *Redipuglia*, 46.

<sup>76</sup>Tomaselli, 'Omaggio', 2.

<sup>77</sup> 'Morti più vivi dei vivi', 2.

<sup>78</sup>Quadrone, 'Redipuglia', 1.

<sup>79</sup>Tomaselli, 'Omaggio'.

<sup>80</sup>Reddy, *Navigation*, 125, 59.

regimes use 'emotives' within offcial ceremonies or approved art, with the aim to infuence and intensify emotions and to encourage individuals to bring their emotions in line with a norm. As tools of emotional management, such 'emotives' also direct communities towards common goals and, in the case of Redipuglia, towards the celebration of victory and the pursuit of future wars. In that emotives are instrumental, *presente* was intended to shape grief in accordance with a template that was centred on pious gratitude and heroic pride. Essentially, the term was a blueprint for the collective moulding of emotions. As the dead answered the roll call in unison, the ossuaries became part of Italy's 'battle cry'.81 That is not to suggest that the emotional template promoted by Fascism could achieve hegemony any more than the regime could gain complete control over the nation. In that various emotional communities survived within the Fascist state, the undifferentiated mass of the fallen symbolized a homogenous nation as a desired reality, or the unrealisable ideal of a unifed body politic.

With respect to the military cemeteries built by other nations that fought in the First World War, the Italian ossuaries share commonalities, such as the orderly arrangement of the dead in serried ranks. However, they also embody characteristics that were specifc to Italy and its status as a dictatorship. Whereas democratic countries such as Britain, France, and the US embraced the symbolism of the individual grave, Italy was distinctive in the preference shown for the monolithic and collective format of the ossuary.82 As an Italian tradition, the ossuary was ideally suited to express the Fascist ideal that subordinated the individual to the nation. By contrast, the cemeteries of democratic states were generally designed to accommodate not only feelings of national pride but also private grief. While it is common for military cemeteries to minimize differences between the fallen, within the Fascist ossuaries, that homogeneity was elitist rather than egalitarian, as evidenced at Redipuglia in the separation of the commanders from the lower ranks. Given the affnities between the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler, it is also signifcant that Germany adopted the Fascist ossuaries as a model for the *Totenburgen*, or 'fortresses of the dead', which were created from the early 1930s to accommodate German soldiers who fell in Central Europe and the Balkans.

In 1945, Fascism fell, but the ossuaries remained. Stripped of some, but by no means all, of their Fascist symbols, they began a new life as sites of

<sup>81</sup> *Il Comune di Asiago*, 10.

82Prost, 'Cimetières militaires'.

Republican Italy. As there was little appetite for grandiose or triumphal monuments, the dead of the Second World War were commemorated through smaller, varied, and civic initiatives that spoke of loss and which carried echoes of the period immediately after the First World War. Whereas the war dead continued to be seen as martyrs and exemplars, emphasis shifted after 1945 from feelings of pride and joy to expressions of sorrow and regret. In the absence of sources that might shed light on individual reactions, this shift suggests that Fascism was unable to bring a deep or lasting change to the way Italians felt about the war dead.

Although some of the ossuaries have been largely forgotten, others continue to accommodate state and military ceremonies. Having lost their original function as Fascist propaganda, they retain an emotional charge due to their associations with death, nationhood, and history, which make them a valuable political resource. Redipuglia was reinterpreted as a monument to peace and democracy, which demonstrates the fexibility of architecture as a receptacle for different feelings and associations. Still, in the midst of struggles to form a new government in April 2018, it was politically expedient for Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-Right party *La Lega* and soon to be Deputy Prime Minister, to visit Redipuglia with 'a prayer for the young men who fell … to defend the borders [of Italy] and the future of their children'.83 Thus, in today's Republic the ossuaries continue to be used politically for their capacity to elicit feelings of pride, respect, and belonging.

#### Conclusion

Under Fascism, the state sought to monopolize the commemoration of fallen soldiers in order to infuence how Italians felt about war, the nation, and its dead. Whereas, in the periods immediately before and after Fascism, the fallen were accommodated in small-scale and eclectic sites, Mussolini's regime constructed large and monumental ossuaries for the dead. Although the extent of government control was new, the means of that control were not, as evidenced by the fact that the new ossuaries deployed strategies of emotional templating that had long been used by the military and the Catholic Church. Those strategies supported the Fascist emotional template, which aimed to transform the national character through feelings of pride, belonging, bravery, and self-abnegation, while also hindering the

<sup>83</sup> Salvini, Facebook post.

expression of grief, shame, and regret. The adoption of older traditions helped the regime to template emotions, but it also undermined the extent to which Fascism was able to forge new emotional attitudes. As an experiment in the politicization of grief, the ossuaries drew on Italian traditions and developed in parallel with respect to the cemeteries of other nations, with the exception of Germany. The priority given to the emotional needs of the nation over those of the individual set the Italian ossuaries apart from the burial sites of democratic states.

Above all, the ossuaries show how the Fascist dictatorship aimed to shape the experience and expression of emotions to support political ends. This meant hampering specifc emotional responses while encouraging others. This process of emotional templating was intended to bind Italians to the state, prepare the population for war, and promote certain norms and behaviours. To this end, the ossuaries carried emotionally charged narratives through their architecture. They accommodated rituals and structured visits that were backed by the national distribution of visual, textual, and other media of propaganda. Through these various means of communication, the ossuaries were meant to make Italians feel themselves as Fascists and to forge a nation of disciplined soldiers and willing childbearers. That Italian neo-fascists continue to celebrate those who died in the name of Mussolini shows the enduring political power of emotions prompted by death.

#### Bibliography


Kramer, and Bill Nasson. Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 8 October 2014. https://doi.org/10.15463/ie1418.10409.

Frevert, Ute. 'Emotions in Times of War: Private and Public, Individual and Collective'. In *Total War: An Emotional History*, ed. Claire Langhamer, Lucy Noakes, and Claudia Siebrecht, 21–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Fuiano, Attilio. *Credo nella resurrezione degli eroi*. Milan: Corticelli, 1941.


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### Feeling Political Through a Football Club: FC Schalke 04, 1904–2020

#### *Julia Wambach*

Bottrop, 21 December 2018: the last coal mine in Germany, *Prosper Haniel*, in the heart of the Ruhr valley, closed, bringing 200 years of coalmining to an end.1 A number of public and private ceremonies farewelled the coal industry in Germany. The offcial ceremony saw the German president, the president of the European Commission, and the Federal Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia unite to witness the extraction of the last piece of coal at *Prosper Haniel*. 2 The night before, a mass held in Essen's cathedral brought Protestants and Catholics together to worship a statue of St Barbara, the saint of the miners, was brought from *Prosper Haniel*'s seventh seam to Essen for the occasion.3 In addition to these traditional institutions, the state and the church, a somewhat unexpected group took part in the commemorations: the local Bundesliga football club Schalke 04 from Gelsenkirchen. The club portrayed itself as an institution that gave the inhabitants of the region the chance to honour

1The article is based on Schalke 04's archives and uses as a source its membership magazine *Schalker Kreisel* from 1966 and parts of Schalke's newspaper article collection. I would like to thank Schalke archivist Dr Christine Walther for access to the archives. For the earlier history of the club, I primarily used Stefan Goch and Norbert Silberbach's study *Zwischen Blau und Weiß liegt Grau*. It is the frst and one of the few studies that exist on the involvement of German football teams with National Socialism.

<sup>2</sup> 'Das Ende des Steinkohlebergbaus'.

3Rünker, 'Bewegender Gottesdienst'.

© The Author(s) 2022 249

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_9

and mourn the end of coal mining. Two days before the last mine closed, FC Schalke 04 orchestrated a sophisticated show to send off the mining tradition that had left its mark on the region and the club. Before the match started, a miners' choir sang the *Steigerlied* (overman's song) in a stadium lit only by candles and freworks in shape of the miner's symbols hammer and pick; a banner spanning over half of a stand showed a miner with a lorry. Two thousand miners from *Prosper Haniel* attended the ceremony and the game that followed. During the match, Schalke's eleven players wore jerseys that bore the name of one of the closed neighbouring mines, including *Prosper Haniel*. The jerseys were later auctioned by the club for *Schalke Hilft* (Schalke Helps), a private foundation started in 2008 to help alleviate the social effects of deindustrialization in the region.4

This chapter demonstrates how Schalke became an institution that made the inhabitants of the Ruhr region (with a population of more than fve million, the biggest urban area in Germany) feel that they mattered, and that they had a role to play in the region's destiny, from the period of industrialization to the era of deindustrialization. Schalke enabled factory owners and proletarians, notable politicians and ultra-fans, high-paid football players, and unemployed miners to join forces for a common cause. This unity underpinned the emotional template the club provided to its players and spectators. It is hardly surprising that the mining tradition and nostalgia for it brought people together. The emotional farewell to the region's mining industry in 2018 appears to be part of a long tradition, one that was at the core of Schalke's identity for almost 120 years. However, this chapter argues that Schalke's marketing of collective and participatory emotions around the area's mining heritage happened both earlier and later than one might expect. The template emerged on a national level in the 1930s when the National Socialists incorporated and politicized the club in the Nazi *Volksgemeinschaft* (I). It lingered on in the post-war period because Social Democratic forces in Gelsenkirchen held on to the club as a means of uniting the city during early deindustrialization. The emotional template with the mining tradition at its centre then vanished in the 1970s when the club and the city unsuccessfully tried to position themselves as modern and future-oriented (II). This aspect of the template fnally re-emerged in the mid-1990s (III). At this point, the club assumed the role over the marketing of emotions and fell back on the templates of the 1930s—minus the latter's *völkisch* connotations—positioning

<sup>4</sup>For the mission statement, see FC Schalke 04, 'Mission'.

itself as the paternalistic institution of the Ruhr valley. In doing so, it aimed to provide an emotional home and a site for participation to the inhabitants of a fractured post-industrial society, through the communal celebration of the area's mining roots.

Schalke differs in many ways from other clubs, especially because it has until now maintained its participatory nature. Unlike other clubs, Germany's second biggest football club proudly insists on its status as a non-proft (*eingetragener Verein*) benefcial to society.5 That makes it a perfect vehicle for the formation of a participatory emotional community based on mining heritage, as the magazine *Der Spiegel* noted in 2004, on the occasion of Schalke's 100th anniversary:

The games of the team have been and still are a universal outlet for emotion, fear, and sorrow. Those who, in the past, worked in the mines screamed themselves hoarse during the games of the blue and whites. Today, many of the former miners are unemployed but the sense of community prevails. Schalke welds together.6

This chapter explores the origins of this historical narrative, an emotional template that served to hold together an imagined emotional community in times of crisis.7

#### The Emotional Templating of Schalke's *Volksgemeinschaft* during the Third Reich

Few people would have heard of Gelsenkirchen, a city with 260,000 inhabitants in Germany's former industrial heartland, the northern Ruhr valley, were it not for its football club. Named after one of the city's boroughs, Schalke 04 was founded as *Westfalia Schalke* in 1904 by a number of teens, some of whom were apprentices at the local mine *Consolidation*. The club can thus claim strong ties to the city's mining

<sup>5</sup> In Germany, many sports clubs have non-proft status, but in the Bundesliga's frst division, only Schalke 04, FSV Mainz 05, Union Berlin, and SC Freiburg's professional football teams have remained *eingetragener Verein* (e.V.). Other sports clubs, such as FC Bayern Munich, are e.V. as a whole but their professional football teams are classed as joint stock or limited companies.

<sup>6</sup> '100 Jahre Schalke 04'.

<sup>7</sup>For the concept, see Rosenwein, *Emotional Communities*.

activity dating back to its very beginning.8 Up to this day, its players are called *Knappen* (pitmen). In fact, football was a bourgeois sport in its early days and only became more widespread during the First World War when it was included in military training.9 Prior to 1914, *Westfalia Schalke* was mainly composed of the sons of craftsmen and not of members of the proletariat, as has often been claimed.10 However, already in the 1920s, the club and its players had come to represent the industrial era and the processes that typically accompanied it: urbanization, migration, proletarianization, and patronage by industrialists. For instance, Schalke's Ernst Kuzorra and Fritz Szepan, the main pillars for the club's success from the mid-1920s on, were sons of East-Prussian immigrants who had come to the Ruhr valley to work in the mines.11 Although a number of the players were themselves offcially miners (twelve out of twenty players in the team of 1920–1924), it is questionable whether they actually worked the tough shifts underground in addition to their football training.12 Ernst Kuzorra was famously recalled to have said that with the coal he broke, he could not have afforded a kettle to boil.13

However, the image of Schalke 04 as an underdog working-class club tied to the local mining community emerged early on. This image allegedly formed in opposition to the bourgeois offcial football association *Westdeutscher Spielverband* (WSV) which, before the First World War, initially refused to admit the club because of the juniority of its members. In 1930, after the club had become successful, the association banned fourteen players in the frst of the many scandals involving Schalke 04. Although a common practice at the time, the association decided to charge the team for receiving regular 'salaries' of ten marks per game (when only fve marks were permitted). Emotions ran high when, following the accusation, Willi Nier, Schalke's treasurer, drowned himself in one of the city's canals. At Nier's funeral, thousands of supporters lined the streets leading up to the stadium, where he was laid in state on the pitch. The

8For a history of the club, see Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*; Voss, Spiegel, and Seveneick, *100 Schalker Jahre*.

9Eisenberg, *English Sports*, 178–93.

10Goch, 'Fußball im Ruhrgebiet'.

11Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 36–37.

<sup>12</sup> *Ibid*., 46. The work at the mine involved numerous tasks above and below ground. It was often very technical work, beyond just the physical hewing of coal. See, for instance, 'Interview Willi Koslowski'.

13Meingast, 'Auf einer Stufe'.

perceived injustice done to the worker's club by the WSV's verdict (one local newspaper called it a 'stab in the back') attracted more spectators than ever—70,000 people attended Schalke's frst match after the ban in 1931 taking part in the collective enthusiasm for Schalke. Photos of the game show the stadium full to bursting point with supporters all around the pitch and even sitting on the goalposts.14

By the early 1930s, Schalke had become an institution in Gelsenkirchen. As a club affliated with the working class, it was able to unite crowds of enthusiastic fans each week. Because of its sporting success, the average number of spectators rose from 5000 in the early 1920s to 15,000 in 1926. A year later, Schalke 04 laid the foundations for its frst stadium, which would open as the *Kampfbahn Glückauf* (Good Luck Arena) in late summer, 1928, and could accommodate up to 34,000 fans.15 The name of the stadium recalled the club's mining heritage, an association that was already being criticized as disingenuous because of Schalke's fnancial means and the players' distance from the mining industry.16 The name was a nod to the miner's greeting *Glück Auf* and thus to Schalke's home mine *Consolidation*, which leased the grounds for the stadium and whose building department helped with the construction. The term (fghting track) takes up the idea of sports, and outdoor sports such as football in particular, as a means to physically educate and strengthen the citizens (specifcally, men) of the Weimar Republic, after military conscription in Germany was abolished in the Treaty of Versailles. References to sports as a way to 'lift up the health of the people' were frequent in the 1920s and foreshadowed the National Socialist obsession with physical education, preparing a template the Nazis would return to later.17

By the late 1920s, the attraction of the club to the masses had caught the eye of Gelsenkirchen's administration, the frst political institution to show an interest in the club. The city granted the club a low-priced loan for the new stadium and sent workers from its re-employment programme (initiated after the fnancial crises of the mid-1920s) to the construction site. This partnership between the club and a political body itself emerged in a time of crisis: in the unstable Weimar Republic, the industrial Ruhr valley was particularly hard hit by the economic situation; between 1922

<sup>14</sup>Grüne, *Glaube*, 54–56.

<sup>15</sup>Goch, 'Stadt, Fußball und Stadion', 35–36.

<sup>16</sup>Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 63.

<sup>17</sup>Oswald, *Fußball-Volksgemeinschaft*, 52–55.

and 1928, 25 per cent of mining jobs were lost. Around the same time, Schalke 04's matches were attracting more and more spectators.18 The city understood the socio-political potential the club, as a successful underdog with a working-class image, held as a home and emotional support to the unemployed and destitute. In 1928 when the stadium opened, Gelsenkirchen's mayor, Carl von Wedelstedt, underlined the political importance of the new Schalke stadium for the city: 'The feld is a gift that the club gave to itself … but in reality … to the whole city of Gelsenkirchen.'19 The club and its stadium thus became a 'home port', a source of pride for Gelsenkircheners.20

In subsequent years, this potential developed into an emotional template. More than merely an image, the template involved an active appropriation of that image in ritualized practices, responsibilities, and emotions. It was composed of feelings such as comradery and community and values like hard work and athletic excellence. The adoption on a national scale of Schalke 04's template as a workers' club emerged under National Socialism. The Nazi state, then, was the second political institution to appropriate the emotional template Schalke provided to promote and bolster its own ideology. The years between 1934 and 1942 (i.e. for most of National Socialist rule) were the club's most successful: every single year, Schalke 04 was a fnalist in either the Cup (*Pokal*) or the League's championship and won the League six times and the Cup once. The club from Germany's biggest coal mining district was too attractive for the National Socialist propaganda machine to ignore. It provided a template which matched the Nazi vision of a closely tied community that valued hard work, teamwork, comradeship, and family, as well as athleticism in preparation for the upcoming war.21 The collective enthusiasm for this club that everyone could join and its alleged apolitical nature was thus politicized for the new regime's aims.

This was true in particular for the players and brothers-in-law Ernst Kuzorra and Fritz Szepan, who developed the famous *Schalker Kreisel* tactic, a sophisticated short passing game that relied on the coordinated effort of a group of people who knew each other very well. The sports

<sup>18</sup>Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 47–48.

<sup>19</sup>Quoted in Goch, 'Stadt, Fußball und Stadion', 37–38.

<sup>20</sup>Krein, *Fußballknappen*, 41.

<sup>21</sup> See Oswald, *Fußball-Volksgemeinschaft*; Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 131.

magazine *Der Kicker* refected in the *Schalker Kreisel* the dictum 'common public interest precedes self-interest' and therefore considered the *Kreisel* an exemplar for Nazi society.22 Kuzorra and Szepan played on the Third Reich's national team, yet at the same time, they apparently remained down-to-earth locals and were part of Gelsenkirchen's daily life. Kuzorra opened a tobacco shop in 1927 and in 1934 Gelsenkirchen created a job in the city's youth department for Szepan. Szepan's job was announced thus: 'As a football player on the German national team, Szepan has been very successful … and therefore looked after the interests of the Third Reich and of the city of Gelsenkirchen.'23

After 1933, Kuzorra and Szepan publicly endorsed National Socialism, calling for people to vote for Adolf Hitler in the coming 'elections', promoted the NS charity *Winterhilfswerk* (Winter Relief), and toured Germany in a *KdF-Wagen* to advertise the Nazi leisure organization *Kraft durch Freude* (Strength through Joy).24 Ernst Kuzorra reiterated Nazi ideology about the German worker in the famous *Das Buch vom Deutschen Fußballmeister* ('Book of the German football champion'), which was dedicated to the Schalke team:

Sometimes, people have asked why of all teams a workers' team in the industrial neighbourhood of Schalke could win the highest trophies [*Ruhmestitel*] at the German football awards. … Worker, I think, is a proud word. Especially in this region and, thank God, all over Germany these days! … Each German who does his duty, be it on the highest or the lowest level, is in this new, broad, true sense a 'worker'.25

Nazi offcials attempted to leverage the collective enthusiasm for Schalke in aid of the regime's political goals. Strength through Joy, known for arranging subsidized leisure activities and holidays for Germans, also organized trips to Schalke's away games so that more people could attend and experience the Nazi *Volksgemeinschaft* through a victorious match.26

22Oswald, *Fußball-Volksgemeinschaft*, 84.

25Quoted in Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 142. The interview was probably fctitious.

<sup>26</sup> *Ibid*., 79.

<sup>23</sup>Quoted in Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 167. Szepan quit his position with the municipal administration in 1937.

<sup>24</sup>Oswald, *Fußball-Volksgemeinschaft*, 173–75; Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 128–43.

Schalke was also portrayed in the 1942 wartime movie *Das große Spiel* (The Big Game). In this feel-good flm, a fctional team called Gloria 03 from the mining town of Wupperbrück—immediately recognizable as Schalke 04—wins the German championship in an emotionally charged battle for victory. The flm's central protagonist, Werner Fehling, was in his professional life a pit foreman from Silesia, depicting the template of a hard-working miner and football player that would become so dear to the club. Despite the absence of an obvious display of Nazi iconography, the apolitical values depicted in the flm went hand in hand with the political goals of Nazi ideology and morality, such as the comradery of the *Volksgemeinschaft* community and a ferce struggle for success which turns an impending defeat into victory. This message was all the more important in 1942 when Germany was suffering its frst defeats in the Second World War. The flmmaker Robert Adolf Stemmle used the original footage of the 1941 championship fnal between Schalke and Rapid Wien at the Berlin Olympic Stadium. The flm premiered in Gelsenkirchen's *Apollo* movie theatre with Schalke offcials and players present and concluded with a reception with Nazi mayor Carl Engelbert Böhmer. In fact, all over Germany people were watching the movie: it was a box-offce hit and brought in 3.28 million *Reichsmark*. 27

Local Nazi offcials in Gelsenkirchen appropriated the feelings and rituals the club generated and which produced a feeling of belonging that bound citizens to the political regime. They organized lavish celebrations and offcial receptions for players after each title the club won. The support from the fans was immense: when the players arrived back home in Gelsenkirchen, thousands of excited Gelsenkircheners flled the streets to cheer for their idols. During the years of Nazi rule, the streets were paved with big and small swastikas, and torchlight accompanied the processions of Schalke players who were ringed by NSDAP representatives, along with members of the Nazi paramilitary organizations SA and SS. Shouts of *Sieg Heil* and the singing of Nazi songs further strengthened the connection between the regime and the club.28 In 1935, no less than six Nazi offcials spoke at a reception in honour of the team, among them delegates from the Ministry of Propaganda and the Regional Sports Offce

27Wick, 'Spielflm'; Oswald, *Fußball-Volksgemeinschaft*, 84–91.

<sup>28</sup>For a description of the celebrations, see Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 192–204.

(*Reichssportführung*), as well as a SA representative.29 Reporting on Schalke's reception (*Kameradschaftsabend*) for the German Cup victory in 1937, which featured several politicians, the local newspaper noted that the evening was 'again proof of the deep connection between the club, the party leadership, the city administration, and other authorities'.30 While the club itself did not approach the regime, Nazi offcials viewed Schalke 04 an ideal institution.31 The signifcant emotional template of the club that still exists today reached their full potential in the Nazi era: the idea of being hard-working 'simple people', close to the fans, with a sense of community and mutual aid, represented a participatory Third Reich that both players and fans could help to build and maintain. Nazi offcials tapped into the football club's experience of celebrating not only the players but also these values. By loyally supporting the club, fans could feel and enact the Nazi political agenda.

#### The Ineffectiveness of Emotional Templating in Times of Early Deindustrialization

The club could not replicate the successes of the Nazi years, but it unintentionally continued to mobilize emotional support for reconstruction and cushioned early deindustrialization. Despite its relative lack of success in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Schalke charm still seemed to work and home games attracted those who sought refuge from the city's strenuous reconstruction efforts, from industrial labour, and from the other physical and mental hardships of the post-war period.32 A last glimpse of Schalke's former standing was the championship the club secured in 1958. The subsequent parade resembled the ones from the Nazi years—with the exception of Nazi uniforms and fags, which were replaced by smaller fags in blue and white, Schalke's club colours. One hundred ffty thousand excited supporters lined the streets to greet the team at the train station: 'In their home town, [the players] were literally smothered with joy', the newsreel *UFA-Wochenschau* reported, and

<sup>29</sup>Oswald, *Fußball-Volksgemeinschaft*, 158.

<sup>30</sup>Goch and Silberbach, *Zwischen Blau und Weiß*, 197–98.

<sup>31</sup> *Ibid*., 248.

<sup>32</sup>Grüne, *Glaube*, 114–31.

adding: 'And even our cameramen, used to such celebrations over the decades, stated unanimously: This has never happened before.'33

It had happened before, but the club, its supporters, and the political institutions in Gelsenkirchen had attempted to forget Schalke's role as a model club for the National Socialist agenda. Only a few chose to remember that Fritz Szepan had bought a department store at the *Schalker Markt* in 1937, which had previously belonged to a Jewish family expropriated by the Nazis.34 Some of the *Volk* rhetoric survived the fall of the regime, however: the *Vereinsnachrichten*, Schalke's members' magazine,35 stressed the importance of health for 'securing national and social work' and stated that health remains 'for the people [Volk] and the state the frst and foremost premise'.36 This attests to the potency of emotional templates that united hard work and the emotional community of the *Volksgemeinschaft* beyond National Socialism and within the club even in the post-war era, and which forged the myth that Germans rebuilt the country in a collective grassroots effort. Schalke's ability to reactivate the emotional template of the hard-working *Gemeinschaft* (community) made it the ideal institution to propagate the myth of participatory reconstruction. In short, Schalke made its supporters feel that they were part of a renascent Germany.

Curiously, the club itself stopped evoking its carefully constructed image as an emotional community oriented around the mining industry, yet fans, politicians, and media still saw in it an institution that made people feel part of a bigger political and participatory project to overcome the post-war crisis and early deindustrialization. One reason for the club's withdrawal from the template was its lack of success on the feld, as well as several political and fnancial scandals. After the 1958 victory, the curtain fell on Schalke 04 and so too on the Ruhr valley. Schalke has still not won another Bundesliga championship, and the coal crisis, which began around the same time as Schalke's last championship, plunged Gelsenkirchen and the whole region into severe crisis. In 1957, 496,000 people worked in the mines in the Ruhr valley. By 1968, this number had halved.37 As in the

<sup>33</sup> 'UFA Wochenschau'.

34Goch, 'Vorzeigefußballer', 413.

35The magazine was renamed *Schalker Kreisel* in 1966, the year in which the frst of Gelsenkirchen's mines closed.

36Quoted in Havemann, *Samstags um halb 4*, 444.

<sup>37</sup> 'Abends duster'. For the history of the coal crisis, see, for instance, Nonn, *Ruhrbergbaukrise*.

last economic crisis in the 1920s, Schalke 04 should have attracted the desperate and destitute and inspired positive feelings of comradery, community, perseverance, and mastery when the mines closed. In 1966, when Gelsenkirchen's most modern and prestigious mine, *Graf Bismarck*, shut, an article in the weekly *Der Spiegel* underlined Schalke's role as the keeper of the area's mining heritage:

Preserver of such rites [of the mining era] are the miner's associations, of which there is one in each municipality of the Ruhr, except for Gelsenkirchen, where the football club FC Schalke 04, called the miners [*Knappen*], is the sole preserver of this tradition.38

In the 1960s, Schalke was increasingly ascribed the ability to meet the socio-political task of maintaining collective spirits in a crumbling city. This role refected the Federal Republic's ideal of a social market economy and attracted the attention of local Social Democratic politicians—the third institution drawn to the club. Gelsenkirchen, one commentator in the 1960s expressed, 'consists of the triad work, work, and Schalke'.39 When work disappeared in the early phase of deindustrialization, Schalke needed to survive. This is how local political institutions, most of them controlled by Social Democrats, saw the club. Therefore, despite the uneasy involvement in Nazi politics, the relationship between the club and local municipal institutions remained strong. 'Schalke is the goodwill of our city', Gelsenkirchen's treasurer, Hans-Georg König, stated.40 City leadership was particularly interested in keeping the club alive and took up offcial roles to support it. König became president of FC Schalke 04 in 1959—at the express request of local councillors. In his dual role, he established a system of secret accounts to buy players for the club. The funds were acquired using money from deferred local entertainment taxes, among other things. König implemented this system with the support of both Gelsenkirchen's town manager and the head of the local revenue department. The case went to court, but all the defendants escaped with minor fnes for tax avoidance because of the community support for the club.41 Endorsing the club was thus not merely an example of an emotional attachment to long-past traditions and victories, but was tied to an

<sup>38</sup> 'Klar zum Gefecht'.

<sup>40</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>41</sup> Schreiber, 'Tausend Freunde'.

<sup>39</sup>Harenberg, 'Schalke'.

institutional raison: 'The city stands unconditionally behind Schalke', the court ruled in 1964.42 After the verdict, Gelsenkirchen's mayor greeted König with red roses. He was only briefy suspended from his position as Gelsenkirchen's treasurer during which time he accepted a position as a supervisory board member of a coal mine. In 1968, he became chief municipal director. Gelsenkirchen was the only major city in West Germany, the editor-in-chief of a local newspaper noted, whose chief municipal director had previously been convicted for tax fraud.43

In the 1960s and 1970s, the city received few monetary benefts from the club, but it continued to think of it as an institution that could quell social unrest. Between 1963 and 1968, the city of Gelsenkirchen only levied 2.1 million *Deutsche Mark* from taxes and charges related to Schalke 04. This enabled the city to cover two-thirds of the costs of its public library, for a year.44 Yet Gelsenkirchen's municipal institutions held on to the political importance of the club for the emotional well-being of the city and its socio-political role as a space where people could feel part of a community, based on the emotional templates the club provided.

A 1972 *Spiegel* article, however, suggested that the club itself had not yet made the link between its industrial heritage and emotions part of its marketing strategy:

Football is what the people in the Ruhr valley [*Revier*] have instead of traditions. … The tradition [however] consists of survivors. Do not try to prove everything, to quote, to provide facts. Because that would not work. It is about feelings, and those are real, for sure, but they do not match reality. … And the tradition? In reality, it consists of a few survivors of Schalke's golden age, … whose favourite words are 'at the time' and 'do you still remember?' … The tradition, Schalke's long-term vice president Gustav Fahrmeyer once said, 'originates in the old Szepan-Kuzorra team. We administer it, but, how shall I put it, as a sort of publicity.'45

The traditions were not forgotten, but club offcials had not yet connected them to the experience of deindustrialization.

Despite the continued socio-political importance the city attached to Schalke, part of the template that branded the club a workers' and miners'

<sup>42</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>45</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>43</sup>Grüne, *Glaube,* 172; Schreiber, 'Tausend Freunde'.

<sup>44</sup> Schreiber, 'Tausend Freunde'.

club was not employed in the 1960s and 1970s. While miners and steelworkers from the Ruhr region were fghting intently to save their jobs, waving black fags at strikes and demonstrations, FC Schalke 04 was getting caught up in its next scandal: in 1972, the club won the Cup but was preoccupied with saving face in a Bundesliga scandal in which almost the entire team was given a one-year ban from playing in Germany because they had accepted money in exchange for throwing a game.46

Curiously, even non-Social Democratic politicians in the region stuck by the club. At a subsequent court trial, an MP and leading member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Jürgen Möllemann, mobilized national politics to help the club. He distributed fyers among attendees of the FDP's federal congress in Mainz in 1975, hoping to push through a proposal under urgency. The leafets read: 'The federal party convent must decide that the legal proceedings against Schalke 04 should be immediately suspended. Liberal Germany needs Schalke—in particular today.'47 Although fellow party members on the federal level could not agree to this proposition, it shows that even liberal politicians attached a crucial social and political signifcance to the club in the aftermath of the oil crisis.

In the 1960s, politicians apparently had more faith in the club than its fans base. The number of spectators at Schalke home games stagnated at around 20,000 per match.48 However, the local administration, which had already taken over the lease for the stadium and then bought it from the club in 1963, continued to assist the club.49 They decided to build a bigger new stadium in the geographical centre of Gelsenkirchen, outside the traditional Schalke neighbourhood. Breaking with the old mining and working-class tradition, the city advertised the stadium as a 'modern sports park' and paid 25 million *Deutsche Mark* for it.50 The North Rhine-Westphalian parliament contributed a further ten million, wanting to compete with multi-purpose stadiums in economically fourishing regions of Germany, like Munich's Olympic Stadium or Neckar Stadium in Stuttgart. The stadium was supposed to become one of the state's main sporting and entertainment venues and Gelsenkirchen's chief attraction.

46Grüne, *Glaube*, 217–20.

<sup>47</sup> 'Hohlspiegel'.

48For an overview of the spectators for each game and year since 1963, see 'Bundesliga-Zuschauer'.

49For a history of the construction of the *Park-Stadion*, see Goch, 'Stadt, Fußball und Stadion', 39–42.

50Quoted in *ibid*., 40.

The shift away from the club's roots became apparent in the naming of the new stadium. Initially, city planners suggested *Ruhr-Stadion*, a name which the club considered 'most suitable'.51 After a contest among residents, the local administration chose *Park-Stadion* instead, thereby refecting the impact of deindustrialization. In contrast to *Ruhr-Stadion*, which recalled the emotional template of 'the city of a thousand fres', as Gelsenkirchen was termed in Schalke's anthem, the *Park-Stadion*, which opened in 1973, conjured the image of a green, pleasant, and modern city. This marked a complete change in the local PR strategy, which now advertised the city with the slogan 'Gelsenkirchen is completely different from what you would expect'.52

Even when deindustrialization processes accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s, mining as an industrial tradition was still not included as part of the emotional template the club was willing to promote. When the tabloid *Bild Zeitung* planned to stage a photoshoot on the grounds of the *Hugo* mine in 1975, the only player on the team who had actually worked in a mine before becoming a professional football player, Klaus Fichtel, refused to be in the photo and waited in his car for the shoot to fnish. 'I don't have any nice memories of the mine. Should I place myself in front of the pit and make a happy face?' he asked.53 Further, President Hans-Joachim Fenne was trying to implement a more professional managerial style at Schalke 04 and keep emotions and traditions—the 'heart of Schalke'—to a minimum.54

Since the club had always relied on the political and fnancial backing of the city, it was slow to accept professionalization tendencies in football marketing and fnancing.55 When other clubs began selling advertising space on their shirts in the mid-1970s, for example, Schalke at frst refused to follow suit, simply printing 'Schalke' on their jerseys. 'Schalke is de facto a company …. We prefer to advertise ourselves', declared Fenne's predecessor President Günter Siebert.56 At that time, other clubs were discovering the advantages of identity-building and monetizing emotional

<sup>51</sup> *Ibid*.; *Schalker Kreisel*, 5 February 1972, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>52</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 13 March 1971, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>53</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 6 December 1975, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>54</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 24 January 1981, Schalke 04 Archiv. See also Havemann, *Samstags um halb 4*, 338–42.

55Havemann, *Samstags um halb 4*, 171.

<sup>56</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 11 September 1974, Schalke 04 Archiv; Havemann, *Samstags um halb 4*, 342.

attachment but Schalke refrained, relying instead on the continuous support it had enjoyed from state institutions at least since the Nazi era.57 While the club had provided the early exemplar for marketing ploys as a miners' and working-class club in the 1920s and 1930s, it neglected its own example in later years.

Searching for a response to ongoing deindustrialization in the 1970s and 1980s, politicians tried to redirect the feelings and practices attached to Schalke in order to portray it as a dynamic institution that anticipated an imagined post-industrial future. The image of a dirty, smoke-flled city was unlikely to be that future. Ultimately, however, this future-oriented redefnition was unsuccessful, partly because of the sporting failures of the 1970s and 1980s. While the club won the Cup in 1972, Schalke dropped to the second division three times in subsequent years: 1981, 1983, and 1988.

#### The Slow Re-emergence of Emotional Templating and Nostalgia Marketing from the 1980s and the Legacy of the 1930s

While this new marketing strategy from above failed, the club returned to the traditional components of its emotional template and established its political and social role by incorporating the participatory element of the club, its fans. *Treue* (loyalty) and solidarity emerged as the most-cited feelings that would weld the club and its fans together once more.58 The waves of economic and athletic loss Schalke 04 experienced led them to restate their allegiance to their supporters. Instead of celebrating the victories of the 1920s and 1930s, the community defantly united around the shared experience of defeat—both in terms of the economic fate of a rapidly deindustrializing town and in terms of the misfortunes of its team. The emotional template of rallying round the club, of everyone participating not only in the highs but also in the lows, was accompanied by a more active involvement of the fans. For instance, in 1981, the club almost missed out on a licence for the frst division because of its fnancial

<sup>57</sup>For more on attempts to professionalize the Bundesliga clubs in these years, see Havemann, *Samstags um halb 4*; Jonas, *Fußball*.

<sup>58</sup> 'Treue' regularly appeared in the *Kreisel* when the writer was describing or appealing to the behaviour of the fans, from the mid-1960s onwards, and in particular in the 1970s and 1980s. See, for instance, *Schalker Kreisel,* 22 October 1982, Schalke 04 Archiv.

diffculties. The fans rallied to help Schalke 04, 'the holy cow of the Ruhr valley' as the club magazine put it, making over a hundred donations, from children's pocket money to a gold barrel.59 Others bought commemorative medals the club was selling in order to generate income.60 The bulk of its fnancial backing, however, came once more from political institutions who were willing to intercede 'out of self-interest', as chief municipal director Heinrich Meya put it.61 He argued that as the owner of the stadium, the city would lose money if the club was relegated to the second division. This pattern of institutional support and mutual dependence between Gelsenkirchen's institutions and Schalke, the city's most precious fgurehead since the 1920s, continued up until the 1990s.

The club itself reacted to deindustrialization only reluctantly, by highlighting the participatory and solidary role of a post-mining community linked by emotional practices of unity and resilience, which collectively tried to remedy the social and political ills caused by deindustrialization. Schalke took up the mining and working-class aspect of its emotional template from the 1920s and 1930s and enriched it by positioning itself as Gelsenkirchen's main caring institution, where lost traditions and former miners themselves could fnd a home.

Initially, the club helped fans simply by keeping ticket prices and membership fees low, in acknowledgement of the diffcult situation many supporters who had lost their jobs faced—a policy the club continues still today.62 The frst signs that the club itself was beginning to resume its role as a socio-political institution emerged in the early 1980s, yet they were far from being formed into a fully fedged agenda. In December 1981, the club magazine published a short note titled: 'Schalke 04 cares about the unemployed too' and explained:

The unemployment rate is rising. Nowhere else is this so painfully felt than in the Ruhr valley, where the unemployment rate of over 8 per cent lies way above the German average. The Bundesliga clubs are affected as well, Schalke 04 among others. In Gelsenkirchen, the unemployment rate is 8.7 per cent. Manager Rudi Assauer refects: 'We already have the lowest

<sup>59</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 24 January 1981, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>60</sup>This was an initiative already in the late 1960s; see *Schalker Kreisel* 5 (1969), Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>61</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 24 May 1980, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>62</sup> See, for instance, *Schalker Kreisel*, 11 December 1971, Schalke 04 Archiv.

entrance fees of both divisions. But if the numbers continue to rise, we need to do more.'63

The magazine concluded: 'Looking back: after the Great Depression, the entrance fee for the unemployed was 20 and after the Second World War 50 Pfennigs. Ernst Kuzorra recalls: "We always had a lot of spectators, but, in times of great unemployment, they were particularly numerous."'64 There was indeed more to be done as unemployment rates continued to rise. In 1983, *Schalker Kreisel* published a short note offering help for unemployed youth 'who are members of Schalke 04 or have close relations to the club' to fnd a job or an apprenticeship while appealing to other club members to offer them available opportunities: 'As a big family association, we bear responsibility also for those who belong to our family. The teenagers, who faithfully and worthily come to the home games of our club, need our solidarity.'65

It was not until 1984 that the last mining accident in Gelsenkirchen provided an opportunity for Schalke to revive the emotions and practices of workers' club that had been lost in the previous decades. When on 16 February 1984 fve miners died in a cave-in, a charity match was organized for Easter Monday to beneft the dependents of the dead men. It was not the club itself though that suggested the initiative, but a former Schalke 04 player, Rolf Rüssmann, who at the time was playing for local rivals Borussia Dortmund.66 The charitable aspect was negligible, as the surviving dependents were already being cared for, explained the city's mayor, Werner Kuhlmann. Still, '[e]specially in this region, which is marked by mines, a sign of solidarity [*Verbundenheit*] does people good. The game is a unique opportunity for a big Schalke family reunion.'67 Again, representatives from the state institutions did not miss a chance to demonstrate their ties with the club and reiterate their historical closeness. Next to mayor Kuhlmann and Schalke manager Assauer, the state's federal minister and minister of labour attended the match along with 20,000

<sup>63</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 11 December 1981, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>64</sup> *Ibid*.

<sup>65</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 23 August 1983, Schalke 04 Archiv. In the 1980s, the aim to help youth was also due to the fact that the club—like others—had a massive problem with hooliganism. The risk of punishment from the football federation also led the club to act. For an introduction to hooliganism, see, for example, Frosdick and Marsh, *Football Hooliganism*.

<sup>66</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 9 March 1984, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>67</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 19 April 1984, Schalke 04 Archiv.

spectators.68 The match took place in the historic *Glückauf Kampfbahn*, further emphasizing the 'nostalgia party'.69 The marching band from *Consolidation* played and newspapers printed an iconic picture of Ernst Kuzorra sitting next to youngster Olaf Thon, a Gelsenkirchen native (who was 'born on coal', as *Schalker Kreisel* reiterated).70 The transmission from generation to generation of local patriotism around football and the mining heritage as well as the language of family in the context of a remembrance of the deceased miners aimed to recall past successes and to restore the glory of the club in the present by harking back to better days gone by.

Celebrating the mining tradition was part of a veritable wave of nostalgia in the 1970s and 1980s and came in response to the economic hardships felt in particular in Germany's coal districts.71 Schalke 04's 'tradition' of visiting local mines emerged in the aftermath of the 1984 charity match. Rolf Rüssmann was accompanied by city manager Gerd Rehberg and former players to 'form an opinion about the work of the miners and to document the unity of the professional football players of the Revier [*Ruhr coalfelds*] with the miners [*Kumpel und Knappen*]'.72 This visit reiterated the practice of the 1930s, showing that the players remained connected to the common people. It physically linked the miners' and the players' bodies: both performed hard work for a greater good. It also projected the image of a caring club, taking up the template of mutual support that had repeatedly appeared in the club's history. The club ritualized these visits to the mines in the 1990s with Rehberg, and an increasing media presence, in tow.

In the process of its professionalization and sporting success after its return to the frst division, Schalke 04 assumed the role of a political institution in its own right.73 While in previous times, the club was merely used by political institutions seeking to bolster their own standing, it now became actively involved in local and regional politics. Rehberg epitomized

<sup>69</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 2 May 1984, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>68</sup> 'Nostalgie in Schalke: 20.000—und 150.000 DM', Zeitungsarchiv 7–30 April 1984, Schalke 04 Archiv; *Schalker Kreisel*, 7 April 1984, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>70</sup> 'Vier Generationen Schalke am Ball', Zeitungsarchiv 7–30 April 1984, Schalke 04 Archiv; *Schalker Kreisel,* 2 May 1984, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>71</sup>For the nostalgia boom in the 1970s and 1980s, see Becker, 'Rückkehr'. For nostalgia and deindustrialization, see, for example, Clarke, 'Closing Time'.

<sup>72</sup>The term 'Kumpel' also refers to 'buddy'.

<sup>73</sup> See Jonas, *Fußball*, 203–44.

this shift as a miner, deputy mayor, and Schalke offcial.74 Between 1994 and 2007, Rehberg headed Schalke 04's steering committee. During his tenure, Schalke reinvented an emotional template around its mining history. In November 1995, for instance, the choir of the mining consortium *Ruhrkohle AG* sang techno versions of the old mining hymns in the stadium to familiarize the younger generation with the club's traditions.75

At a time of mass protests against the closing of the mines in the Ruhr valley, Schalke 04 supported miners in need by providing them with a communal space in which they could share and shed their anger and mourn their losses. The club thus enabled political participation in its stadium and also took a political stand against the closures, in line with the governing Social Democratic party in North Rhine-Westphalia. In February 1995, Schalke 04 invited 2000 miners to march around the feld in their mining gear with posters protesting the decision to shut down the area's mines at the local derby, Schalke 04 against MSV Duisburg.76 Rehberg commented on the protests in the members' magazine of the mining association: 'It goes without saying that our club in particular fghts for the survival of the mines.'77 Rehberg himself had frst-hand experience with the elimination of jobs in the mining industry, having voluntarily quit his position as pit foreman in 1992, at the age of ffty-six, as part of a measure to reduce jobs in the sector in a socially palatable way.78 On 11 March 1997, Rehberg allegedly prevented a demonstration against the closure of mine *Hugo* from turning violent.79 After months of debate, the Federal Parliament decided to drastically reduce the subsidies for German coal, a decision that would, it was claimed, put 36,000 jobs at risk. Fifteen thousand miners went to Bonn to rally for their cause. Those who had stayed in Gelsenkirchen assembled at *Hugo*. As the protests

74On Rehberg, see the popular science biography Ć ato, *Gerhard Rehberg* and FC Schalke 04, 'S04-Ehrenpräsident Gerhard Rehberg wird 80 Jahre'.

<sup>75</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 11 November 1995, Schalke 04 Archiv. Nowadays, the *Steigerlied* is sung during halftime at home games but it does not seem to have been sung on a regular basis before the mid- to late 1990s.

<sup>76</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 12 March 1995, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>77</sup>*Ruhrkohle* 3 (1995), quoted after 'Die Schalker Knappen'.

<sup>78</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 25 February 1995, Schalke 04 Archiv. The government used the term 'Anpassung' for this measure; see Bundesamt für Wirtschaft und Ausfuhrkontrolle, 'Anpassungsgeld Steinkohlenbergbau'.

79Biermann and Ulrich, 'Letzten Tage'.

gathered steam, the director of the mine called Rehberg, desperate, and pleaded with him to come to the mine. Rehberg drove there, climbed on a roof, and held a speech condemning the government but also calming the miners. He fnished his speech by inviting the miners to the Schalke home game that night. Five thousand men in worker's uniform came to the match carrying miner's lamps. A delegation was invited to walk around the feld with their banners as spectators enthusiastically shouted *Ruhrpott, Ruhrpott!* (a variant of *Ruhrgebiet*, or 'Ruhr valley', a reference to the area's mining heritage). One of the miners, Klaus Herzmanatus, the head of the workers' council at *Hugo* at the time, reportedly had tears in his eyes as he sat on the tribune, telling journalists: 'Football has always been there for the people of the coal region [*Revier*].'80

Schalke thus reappropriated and altered its inherited emotional template to market itself as an institution that cared for the unemployed, the youth, and those in need—of which there were many in Gelsenkirchen and its immediate surroundings. With the arrival of Rehberg and Schalke's mythical manager Rudi Assauer, the club relaunched its initiative from the 1980s to help unemployed youth by fnding or even providing them apprenticeships. Schalke 04 teamed up with the municipal employment offce, which regularly placed adverts in the club magazine, and rewarded the unemployed who were willing to search for a job for themselves with a free ticket to a Schalke game.81 'In the past three years', Assauer declared in 1996, 'the club has provided ffteen youth with apprenticeships'.82 Schalke 04's offce thus turned into a 'place of refuge for people with smaller and bigger problems' and claimed its 'big social responsibility'.83

The year 1997 marked a watershed moment for the club and for perceptions of the Ruhr valley. That year, football emerged as way to unite the people of the region around a positive experience and a reason to proudly identify with the Ruhr valley: Borussia Dortmund won the Champions League and Schalke won the UEFA Cup.84 The surprising success of a team with no big stars helped the reinvented narrative of the miners' club take root. While neighbouring club Borussia Dortmund involved itself with big fnance and went public in 2000, Schalke fully embraced the

84Kisters, *Ruhrpott*.

<sup>80</sup>Quoted in *ibid*.

<sup>81</sup> *Schalker Kreisel,* 20 September 1997, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>82</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 27 August 1996, Schalke 04 Archiv.

<sup>83</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 16 March 1996 Schalke 04 Archiv; *Schalker Kreisel*, 1 August 1997, Schalke 04 Archiv.

traditional component of its emotional template and simultaneously augmented it with a socio-political mission: to provide a home for the victims of deindustrialization.85 It did this by marketing itself as a caring institution that cooperated with but was independent from the state entities that had supported the club since the 1920s. This somewhat reversed the template of the 1970s, when the people of the region had shown their support and care for the club. Since the mid-1990s, the infuence of traditional institutions such as political parties—notably the Social Democrats unions, and the church had faded, and even state organizations in the Ruhr valley suffered from a lack of income. But Schalke 04 emerged as a powerful entity that took on the compassionate elements traditionally provided by these institutions.

Schalke distinguishes itself from most other professional football clubs in Europe at present because it is a registered association and not a forproft institution. Thus, it offcially remains a participatory institution in the hands of its members. Despite its evolution into a professional business along with the other Bundesliga clubs, the club—and its fans in particular insist on its socio-political mission as a non-proft (as an *eingetragener Verein*, German law requires the association to beneft the public). The club underlined this social mission with the establishment of the *Schalke Hilft* foundation in 2008 mentioned above, which aims to provide help for those affected by the demise of the regional coal sector.

The opening of Schalke's newest stadium showcases this development. It assumed the tradition of the legendary *Glückauf Kampfbahn* and branded itself with the symbols of an *Ersatz*-mine. The stadium, which combines an ultra-modern facility with over 62,000 seats with the area's mining heritage, is built on top of two seams of *Hugo* and *Consolidation*, the two mines with the strongest emotional ties to the club.86 The stadium's name *Arena auf Schalke* (Arena on Schalke) refers to going to work at the mines, a phrase which, in the local dialect, would be expressed using the proposition *auf*, 'on'. Instead of going *auf* the mine, fans can go *auf* Schalke. Furthermore, the entrance to the stadium looks like a coal stratum. When it opened in 2001, the last Gelsenkirchen mine, *Hugo*, had just closed its doors. Miners from *Hugo* donated a coal lorry to the club

<sup>85</sup>For the marketing strategy of Borussia Dortmund, see Biermann, *Vom Fußball träumen*, 215–22.

<sup>86</sup>Goch, 'Stadt, Fußball und Stadion', 44.

upon its closure. It sits in front of Schalke's main offce building on *Ernst-Kuzorra-Weg*, named after Schalke's famous player and miner.

In contrast to previous stadiums, the club built and owns the *Arena*, not the city of Gelsenkirchen (although it convinced the state of North Rhine-Westphalia to secure the credit, reiterating the importance of the stadium to the economically weak region). The club sought to display its social responsibility in the building process by awarding the construction constructs to local frms and thus creating jobs in a city struggling with structural change. The club itself proudly touted the economic benefts of the *Arena* for the region and the importance of the club as an essential provider of apprenticeships in the city.87 In 2006, the club had 250 permanent employees (not including the actual football team) and 1200 employees during events at the stadium.88

The stadium was constructed in light of the new era of fan participation using the old template of a miners' and workers' club. It was conceived as a place to unite supporters and accompany them in their journey from birth to death. Fans could purchase building stones to support the project, an idea taken from the *Glückauf Kampfbahn*, underscoring the participatory nature of the building process. Fans received a small metal tag on 'the wall of 1,000 friends'. The name of the wall refers to a line in the club's anthem: 'With a thousand friends who stand together, FC Schalke 04 will never disappear'.89 A chapel where fans can be baptized or married and a Schalke cemetery where fans can be buried alongside some of the club's mythical players template the lifelong Schalke experience.

Whenever a mine in the region closed, the miners were invited to a home game and specially honoured. For instance, when in 2015 the *Auguste Victoria* mine closed in Marl, just north of Gelsenkirchen, Schalke president Clemens Tönnies addressed the miners who had been invited that night, appealing to emotions of solidarity, unity, and mutual aid between the club and the miners in mourning:

It is a black day for the Ruhr valley. It is a black day for the black gold. And it is a black day for FC Schalke 04. … Dear miners of Auguste Victoria, be assured that we will not forget you. Many of you and many of the previous generations of miners were fans of FC Schalke 04 and remained always

88Goch, 'Stadt, Fußball und Stadion', 46.

<sup>89</sup> *Ibid*., 43–44.

<sup>87</sup> *Schalker Kreisel*, 11 November 2000, Schalke 04 Archiv.

faithful to FC Schalke 04, and stood by us in bad times. And now, we do the same for you … We invited you today to the Arena, our shared living room, from miner to miner. We are thankful and also proud that you fnish off this painful day together with us at Schalke.90

The 2018 ceremony mentioned in the opening paragraph was thus simply the culmination of this process of emotional templating as 'the miners' and workers' club' (*Kumpel- und Malocherklub*), which became a trademark in the hard-fought marketing game of the Bundesliga.

Unwittingly, Schalke fell back on components of the emotional template that the Nazis had cherished so much. Increasingly, the club referred to the emotions of that time, evoking comradery, community, family, perseverance, and its ability to unite and capture a large number of supporters. While Fritz Szepan's contribution had become problematic because of his Nazi past, other members of the successful *Schalker Kreisel* team were included in the club's emotional templating, in particular, the element of communal mourning. This templating was also prompted and demanded by the fans. In 2013, after multiple unsuccessful appeals to the social responsibility of the club, a former *Wehrmacht* comrade's plea to 'bring home' the remains of Adolf Urban reached Tönnies. Urban, a member of the *Schalker Kreisel* team in the 1930s and 1940s, had been drafted into the *Wehrmacht* and died in Russia in May 1943. Tönnies few with a delegation of Schalke offcials to Korpowo, Russia, to exhume Urban and rebury him in the new Schalke cemetery next to the stadium. Schalke offcials and members of the 2013 team attended the burial service, as a miners' band played the *Steigerlied*. 91 'We are obliged to cultivate our traditions', said Schalke's fan liaison offcer Rolf Rojek at Urban's grave, 'Otherwise, we won't have a future.'92

#### Conclusion

This chapter has demonstrated the force and attraction of the emotional template around the mining and working-class traditions at the heart of Schalke 04. It has shown how an allegedly apolitical sports club became an institution that served a socio-political role because of its prescribed ability

<sup>90</sup>FC Schalke 04, 'Rede von Clemens Tönnies an die Kumpel der Zeche Auguste Victoria'.

<sup>91</sup> 'Schalke holt Kreisel-Stürmer Urban nach Hause'.

<sup>92</sup>Muras, 'Schalke holt Adolf Urban aus Russland zurück'.

to unite people in a community of feeling throughout major crises in twentieth-century German history—whether under National Socialism or in the Federal Republic of Germany, during the Second World War and the post-war period and, most prominently, in its recent history in the era of deindustrialization. Both democratic and authoritarian regimes and administrations turned to the club and instrumentalized its emotional template in order to shape and maintain a community and to make people feel part of the political system—in short, to make them *feel* political. In the past twenty to thirty years, as traditional working-class institutions such as the unions and the Social Democrats have lost their power in a neoliberal and post-industrial society, the club marketed itself as an institution in its own right by taking on certain elements of political institutions: chiefy their participatory and caring dimensions. With the impending end of coal mining in the Ruhr valley, the club took an explicitly political stance against the ills of deindustrialization. It sought to align itself with its mining heritage by marketing itself as *the* socio-political institution in Gelsenkirchen and the surrounding Ruhr valley that could provide a community of feeling in modern post-industrial society.

The image of the club as a charitable institution for the disenfranchised shattered during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Schalke 04 was one of the clubs particularly hard-hit in the Bundesliga because of the sudden absence of its participatory element: the fans in the stadium. Once again, as has happened several times throughout its history, political institutions rescued the club from bankruptcy. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia acted as a guarantor for a thirty million euro loan to ensure the club's immediate survival. This recalls the darker times the club faced in the 1960s and 1970s, although all participants assured the media that rescuing Schalke was a business undertaking like any other—and not an emotional affair.93

In need of money, the club abandoned its previously demonstrated socio-political responsibility. In a move much-criticized by fan organizations, who insisted, following the emotional template, on the commitment of the club to the working class and the poor, the club stipulated that the 44,000 season-ticket holders would only receive a reimbursement for their tickets if they explained their fnancial constraints in a written statement. The club appealed to the solidarity of its supporters

<sup>93</sup> 'Bürgen für die Knappen'.

during a challenging time.94 But this language of solidarity no longer worked, as it seemed forced. It reminded too many of the obligations to produce fnancial documentation for the employment offce, a well-known experience for many of the club's supporters, as Gelsenkirchen still ranks among the poorest cities in Germany with the highest rates of unemployment.

Which past will shape Schalke's emotional templates in the future? Perhaps it will stick to its old strategy of harking back to the comradery and glorious past of 'the city of a thousand fres'. Or, an option that seems equally likely, the new fnancial crisis might trigger the end of the club's nostalgia marketing, as occurred in the 1970s. In the fall of 2020, the club made plans to dismiss the head of Schalke's 'tradition' department.95 In times of acute crisis for the survival of FC Schalke 04, the long-worshipped parts of its emotional template, that of a workers' and miners' club, seem to be dispensable.

> Julia Wambach (wambach@mpib-berlin.mpg.de)

#### Bibliography


<sup>94</sup>Leszinski, 'Härtefall-Antrag'.

<sup>95</sup> 'Gerüchte über Umstrukturierung der Geschäftsstelle'.


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# Feeling Political by Collective Singing: Political Youth Organizations in Germany, 1920–1960

#### *Juliane Brauer*

Weimar, August 1920: On a midsummer's day in this small German town, the melodious opening lines of a soon-to-be-famous song rang through the streets. 'When we stride side by side/and all the old songs sing', sang the boys and girls of the Socialist Workers' Youth, who had gathered for their nationwide youth convention. In the mid-1930s, the same tune could be heard from the tents of the Hitler Youth on their summer camp as they trilled, 'and the forests echo and ring/we feel it must prevail'. And in 1946, at the end of a 'folkloric afternoon' in a crudely furnished and poorly heated room in the Allied Occupation Zones of Germany, the melody burst once again from the energetic throats of the re-established social democratic youth organization, *Die Falken* (The Falcons), as they sang its fnal line, 'The new time moves with us!' So, too, did the girls and boys of the newly founded *Freie Deutsche Jugend* (Free German Youth) in the Soviet Occupation Zone, as they likewise ventured out from their bombdestroyed cities to go hiking in the countryside on the weekend of Pentecost in June 1946.

Hardly any other song sung over the course of the twentieth century has been so strongly associated with confdence and hope as *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* (When we stride side by side). Written in 1913 by Hermann Claudius as a hiking song (*Wanderlied*) 'dedicated to the new

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2022 277

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_10

generation', it was later put to music by the composer Michael Englert in 1916.1 But it was in 1920 on that summer weekend in Weimar that it became imprinted as an anthem for political youngsters. With such rousing lines as 'The new time moves with us!', the song not only expressed the spirit of socialist optimism and hope in Germany's frst democracy. These expectations for the future were skilfully woven together with the powerful contemporary trope of a youthful generation, thirsty for action, and taking great strides forward. Under various ideological auspices, hope and confdence became political emotions that were to be learnt, embodied, and enacted by these young citizens of tomorrow.

This chapter traces the history of the song through the Weimar and Nazi period to the end of the 1950s in a divided, post-war Germany. The 1920 convention seems to be the moment when the act of singing the song acquired the emotional templating it has retained for over a century. The chapter presents a series of case studies in which the collective practice of singing this song played an important role for members of twentiethcentury youth associations in terms of learning how to feel political in the correct way, that is, how to hope for the right kind of 'new time' and, depending on the political community, what exactly to feel when striding 'side by side'. An in-depth analysis of how the song was sung in specifc institutional contexts reveals how collective singing was choreographed to generate particular thoughts, feelings, and actions for specifc political purposes. Hope, optimism, and zest for life were engendered and channelled in line with a desire for a better, happier future.2

By examining the institutional frameworks through which feelings of community strength became important emotions for political action, this chapter illustrates in detail how both the institutional templating of futureoriented emotions and the emotional templating within youth associations as 'singing communities' took place. Given their fundamentally different ideological programmes, it is important to investigate whether—and how the specifc meanings and expressions of these emotions also differed depending on the organization, or whether it was only their vision that changed. A trace of these shifts can be recognized in the song itself: even

<sup>1</sup>This dedication was included in the song's frst print-run.

<sup>2</sup>This chapter is based on a range of source materials from the 1920s to the 1950s, including educational guides, songbooks, political programmes, logbooks, records of festivals and camps, minutes of youth meetings, and the newspapers and journals of the various youth organizations.

though it seems at frst glance to be one song, changes in its meaning and signifcance can be seen in the numerous alterations that were made to both the lyrics and the melody. Yet it is also important to ask how and why traditions were transferable between different political systems, able to be carried over from one to the next. Which emotions were generated, communicated, and learnt when? How did young people negotiate and navigate these specifc forms of emotional templating? Did emotional templating manifest differently depending on ideological perspective and, if so, in what way?

#### Moment of Emergence: The 'Weimar Song'

On the last weekend of August 1920, around 2000 young people travelled from all over Germany to the provincial Thuringian town of Weimar to take part in the inaugural gathering of the Federation of Workers' Youth Associations.3 Initially founded on 25 March 1919, it was the frst umbrella organization of the Socialist Workers' Youth. In Weimar, the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD) jubilantly launched what it saw as a strong party wing for younger workers who, fuelled by hope for the Republic and after four years of war, were elated with a new attitude to life. The gathering became the symbol of a unique spirit of optimism that was linked to a blossoming generation of working-class youth, as indicated by a record of the event published three years later under the title 'The Young Workers' Weimar'.4 Throughout the weekend, participants were to experience and internalize a novel feeling of solidarity and togetherness on the town's streets, at rallies and meetings, in games, and through sport: a quintessential example of 'street politics'.5 'The bond of solidarity will embrace us more strongly than ever before', the Federation's newspaper enthused.6 Accordingly, the gathering was advertised widely and with emotive appeal as a 'military show' of a new generation welded together by an 'overwhelming feeling of unbreakable solidarity'.7

As the birthplace of the frst German Republic's constituent assembly, Weimar was widely seen as 'the Bethlehem of German culture'. The town's name stood symbolically for democracy and its main cornerstones,

<sup>3</sup> Schley, *Arbeiterjugend*, 51.

<sup>4</sup>Müller, *Weimar*.

<sup>5</sup> See Chap. 12 by Ute Frevert and Chap. 11 by Caroline Moine in this volume.

<sup>6</sup>Turtz, 'Reichs-Jugendtag'. Unless otherwise noted, all translations by Kate Davison.

<sup>7</sup> 'Auf zum Reichsjugendtag!'

expressed in the educational programme of the social democratic youth movement.8 The legend of the Weimar experience was fed by the fact that it was precisely on this weekend in 1920 that a new sense of togetherness, self-confdence, and common strength was to emerge as the emotional template for SPD's newly founded youth federation. This templating took effect through the practice of collective singing—done while walking, hiking, driving, at rallies, playing games together, or in the evening around the campfre. Though meeting 'for the frst time in their lives', they 'looked one another in the eye and their hearts said "*du*"'—the German informal address reserved for friends as opposed to the formal 'Sie'—as they 'sang songs, laughed, and shed tears of silent awe, deep within their soul'.9 In addition, songs themselves acted as conduits for confdent and forward-looking emotions to be conveyed and internalized.

Indeed, singing together was already a familiar practice among German youth. Since the turn of the century, they had been hiking and singing in the early workers' youth clubs or the middle-class *Wandervogel* movement.10 Nevertheless, there was a special signifcance in the singing of new songs in Weimar that year, so soon after the end of the First World War. The organizers were well aware that words alone would not suffce to convince younger generations of their socialist vision of the future. Socialism, after all, was 'not merely a matter of critical intellect, but also a matter of the heart'.11

Two songs in particular are associated with the Weimar convention: *Wir sind jung, die Welt ist offen* (We are young, the world is open), written by Jürgen Brand in 1914 and put to music by Michael Englert in 1919, and *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'*. Both had been circulating for several years, but only became hits with the help of the Workers' Youth Associations in August 1920. At that time, only one song from the pre-war repertoire of the organized workers' youth movement was still popular: *Dem Morgenrot entgegen (Die Junge Garde)* (Towards dawn—the young guard), written by Heinrich Eildermann in 1907, with music by Andreas Hofer. Yet it was not this militant tune of the 'Young Guard of the proletariat' that raised voices into a 'singing community' in Weimar, but the more recently penned hiking song, which better captured the new spirit of

<sup>8</sup> *Ibid*. 9Müller, *Weimar*, 5–6. 10Gruhn, *Musikerziehung*, 167–70. 11Müller, *Weimar*, 9.

optimism and came to symbolize precisely this emotional state. As one participant recalled, 'We sang many songs in the melody days of Weimar: battle songs, folk songs, hiking songs, full of cheek, wit, and contemplation. But it was *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* that could be heard again and again, rising up from our voices, victorious, powerful.'12

What gave these two Weimar songs such a special quality? Both were written around the same time within the context of the working-class hiking movement (*Wanderbewegung*) as songs of 'youthful awakening'.13 And both got their big break in Weimar in August 1920, aided by the fact that the Hamburg Youth Choir, which provided musical accompaniment at the event's main rally, opened with *Wir sind jung, die Welt ist offen* and ended with *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* (Fig. 10.1). It was the latter, however, that was branded with the greatest signifcance when it was introduced by Max Westphal, then youth secretary of the Socialist Youth in Hamburg and soon to be chairman of the Federation of Workers' Youth Associations, as a future '*Bundeslied*' (anthem) for the movement. 'Powerful, enthralling, and ablaze with boundless jubilation', recounted an eyewitness, 'the chorus resonated throughout the hall: "The new time moves with us!"'14

Although the lyrics of *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* romanticized the singing of 'old songs', it was through singing new songs that a specifc language of emotion was templated within the newly founded youth organization. It was communicated through the familiar practice of collective singing and materialized as a pattern in the new songs themselves. Yet the song lyrics also expressed ambivalence between old and new. The trope of the forest with its 'lush birch and saplings green', symbolizing the power of untouched wilderness, reinforced the traditional romantic myth of a special German connection between man and 'mother earth'. That connection was not lost in the modern world of work; on the contrary, modernity seemed only to make the relationship more intimate, as suggested in the fourth stanza's cryptic line: 'as in old eternal times/she binds them together'. This was reinforced in the ffth stanza's celebration of a new equality between the sexes.

Both the song itself and the practice of singing it collectively exemplifed a mixture of continuity and change. The goal was to activate an

<sup>12</sup> *Ibid*., 72. 13Boock, 'Wir sind jung', 137. 14Müller, *Weimar*, 24.

**Fig. 10.1** *Wann wir schreiten Seit' and Seit'* by Michael Englert and Hermann Claudius

emotional disposition of enthusiasm and cheerfulness, infused with a hopeful vision of a socialist future that was uniquely youthful. This was captured especially well in the refrain 'The new time moves with us!' An upbeat and light-hearted song, perfect for singing while hiking and rambling, *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* harked back to the listening and singing habits of workers' youth groups before the war ('and all the old songs sing'). Its author, the neo-romantic working-class poet Hermann Claudius (a grandson of the famous German poet Matthias Claudius), claimed to have written the song while he himself was actually out hiking on an ordinary 'ramble on the heath with some youths' in 1913.15 His choice of words was specifc. The song's subjects do not wander, march, or walk: they 'stride' (*schreiten*). This verb alone encapsulates the whole habitus of the song, denoting earnest, measured, self-confdent collective movement. Unlike mere walking, it has a strong sense of direction: an active orientation towards the future, driving forward, advancing, taking action.16

The success of the song's declaration 'The new time moves with us!' lay not only in its 'unprecedented seductive power',17 but also in its musical interpretation. Its composer Michael Englert made a crucial change to Claudius' poem by repeating the last line of each stanza. Musically, this was more than a mere repetition, but rather an interplay of building tension, escalation, and the absence of resolution. In the through-composition of the fnal decisive line, Englert dispensed entirely with the rhythmically advancing changes in the verses. By opting for quarters, halves, and dotted halves, he took the tempo out of the lively walking rhythm and composed a static-sounding exclamation mark. This is underlined by the song's tonal repetitions. At the same time, its melodic progression breaks this monolithic impression. On its frst occurrence in the opening stanza, the line 'The new time moves with us!' ends in harmonic limbo on E as a half and over-bound note. Even in the repetition at the end, Englert withheld any resolution of this unusual melodic phrase. Instead, he moderated it with a fvefold tonal repetition on the dominant root note (D), thus allowing the line's message to more fully resound and reverberate.18 It is this

18This is also how Johannes Schult described it in *Aufbruch einer Jugend*, 135: 'The long drawn-out fnal notes remained at the same level, as though suspended; they offered no reso-

<sup>15</sup>Claudius, *Zehn Gedichte*, 15.

<sup>16</sup>Cf. Grimm and Grimm, 'Schreiten', 1733.

<sup>17</sup>Brecht, 'Leben des Galilei', 1103.

through-composed musical ambivalence of static and dynamic that explains the enormous impact of the song's fnal line in particular. Whereas elsewhere the song evoked the power of 'old eternal times', both the melodic and textual promise of this fnal refrain were of new beginnings. Over time, the phrase 'The new time moves with us!' has even become a well-known slogan independent of the song as a whole.19

In the 1930s, a new musical interpretation of the song was composed by Arnim Knab, which likewise became famous. A direct comparison of the two melodies, however, convincingly shows that it was Michael Englert's original musical interpretation that catapulted *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* to such lasting success as a political song. Arnim Knab limited himself to a rhythmically light-footed melody, consisting almost entirely of tonal steps and offering few surprises in terms of harmony, aside from a brief excursion into the minor key. Not surprisingly, Knab's less musically militant version found favour in the bourgeois youth movement, while Englert's interpretation was preferred in working-class political contexts.

*Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* contained everything a newly formed youth organization needed: solid roots in mythical traditions and a frm footing in the existing social and political environment—that is, the world in which its young singers actually lived—with a clear nod to progressive change (especially concerning gender equality) and a carefree attitude towards an undetermined, yet promising future. In this way, the song gave various youth organizations at different historical junctures a material anchor in their formation of political institutions through emotional templating.

As a celebration of militant optimism, the 'August days' in Weimar had a knock-on effect on working-class youth organizations. A veritable food of new memberships fowed in during the third quarter of 1920 as over 10,400 young people joined the Federation of Workers' Youth Associations. This was at least 25 per cent more than in the previous two quarters.20 For many who attended, the convention remained an

lution, sounding into the distance and gesturing towards the future, and were thus similar in nature to youth itself.'

19Hermann Kurzke ('Liedkarriere') rightly emphasizes, however, that this through-composition only applies to the middle lines of the frst and sixth stanzas and not those of the other stanzas.

<sup>20</sup> Schley, *Arbeiterjugend*, 53. Organization along political lines was a general phenomenon of the Weimar Republic. In 1927, about 40 per cent of all young people (56 per cent of boys 'unforgettable experience'.21 The memories were indelibly imprinted above all else by their experiences of collective singing, dancing, playing, and hiking. In other words, leisure-time activities were the most important in creating a sense of togetherness and solidarity, rather than those more explicitly focused on political education. Recognizing the emotional templating that was taking place through cultural and leisure activities, the Federation began to focus more on shared experiences and less on instruction and education.22

In light of the broader political events of 1920, the euphoria about the future displayed at the convention is remarkable and deserves closer examination as the central political emotion of the time.23 The failed *Kapp Putsch* in March, the serious clashes of government troops with armed workers and the Ruhr Red Army in March and April, and the bitter losses of the SPD in the Reichstag elections of June 1920, which led to a loss of government for the reform-oriented Social Democrats and their Weimar coalition, were all clear signs that the frst German Republic was on shaky ground.24 It is as a response to these uncertainties, not to mention past experiences, that the emotional templating of socialist youth organizations as communities of self-confdent, optimistic youngsters that were both future-orientated and rooted in traditions can be understood.

The Weimar Republic was a boom time for 'youth', both the concept and the generation of adolescents coming of age in the wake of the First World War. During this time, a particular mythology around youth, youthfulness, and young people developed that valourized strength, *joie de vivre*, and confdence in the future. Youth and youthfulness became increasingly linked to hopes for—and expectations of—better times ahead.25 Within this cult of youth, the period of adolescence served as a canvas for projecting the 'expectations, hopes, and fears of the older

and 26 per cent of girls) were members of political organizations. See Mitterauer, *Sozialgeschichte*, 230. In 1923, with the merging of the Independent Socialist Proletarian Youth, the Socialist Workers' Youth Association swelled to more than 105,000 members, but this corresponded to just 2–3 per cent of the total working youth, according to contemporary calculations; Frobenius, *Jugendbewegung*, 240.

21Albert List, 'Erinnerung', quoted in Schley, *Arbeiterjugend*, 53.

<sup>22</sup> See the percentage breakdown in Schley, *Arbeiterjugend*, 53. This changed dramatically over the course of the 1920s, when socialist youth organizations were increasingly understood as political educational institutions.

<sup>23</sup> Schley (*Arbeiterjugend*, 60) speaks of an 'illusory overestimation of social development'.

<sup>25</sup> Stambolis, *Mythos Jugend*, 20–22.

<sup>24</sup>Cf. Winkler, *Revolution*, 352–53.

generation' with respect to 'collective self-confdence and the creation of meaning'.26 The younger generation had a special signifcance for the future of society as it was envisioned at the time.27

The 1920s and 1930s were characterized by an upsurge in the size and number of youth organizations in Germany and an increase in the politicization of their memberships. Despite their varied demographics and occasional conficts in political and religious orientation, they cultivated similar rituals for collective bonding and public representation.28 Particular emphasis was placed on feelings of belonging and security among peers and like-minded people beyond the family and school. Within these communities, a 'missionary feeling'29 developed, or as the contemporary psychologist and educationalist Eduard Spranger diagnosed it, a unique type of 'youthful enthusiasm'.30 It was precisely these elements of the youth myth that were crystallized in the song *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* and, through the practice of collective singing, would ultimately be forming a kind of 'emotional glue' within the Federation.

Considering the historical context, it was truly remarkable that the euphoric enthusiasm for the future expressed by participants at the Weimar convention was so strong. Scarcely two years had passed since the end of the First World War. Aged between fourteen and twenty-one years, these up-and-coming women and men had experienced the war at close quarters. This gave special meaning to lines such as 'we feel it must succeed/ The new time moves with us!' The older adolescents had even fought at the front themselves, and some had returned as invalids. Younger girls and boys had been compelled to work in industrial (war) production due to both the economic hardships faced by their families and the shortage of skilled workers. Overall, the working and living conditions for children and young people during the war had deteriorated rapidly.31

28These rituals included 'large-scale events …, militarization, disciplinary procedures, and the wearing of uniforms'; Mitterauer, *Sozialgeschichte*, 227.

<sup>26</sup>Reulecke, 'Jugend', 87.

<sup>27</sup>Benninghaus, 'Die Jugendlichen', 238. Among other things this resulted in an increased attention to educational and social issues facing young people—'youth' was discovered as an independent 'pedagogical province'; cf. Zinnecker, 'Jugend', 483. Hall, *Youth*. Hall was very inspired by the German youth movement.

<sup>29</sup>Trommler, 'Mission', 39.

<sup>30</sup> Spranger, *Psychologie*, 291.

<sup>31</sup>Cf. Peukert, *Jugend*; Winkler, *Revolution*, 156.

Nevertheless, the gathering in Weimar is a telling example of how the Workers' Youth movement became a conduit for the Social Democratic project. 'In this song', Erich Ollenhauer observed in 1929, 'young workers rejoice in our newly won freedom. … At last, after years of oppression, exploitation, and the nameless suffering of a four-year global confagration, we have fnally sighted land and the workers have laid the foundations for a new state and economic order.'32 With their singing, laughing, and dancing, the new generation left 'all darkness, all hopelessness' behind. With this politically ambiguous, noncommittal, yet enticing promise, and lacking a concrete defnition of 'we' and 'us', the song was able to spread beyond the circles of the Workers' Youth. According to Ollenhauer, it was sung 'from the Bismarck Youth through to the Communist Youth League'.33 Over the course of the 1920s, singing the song had thus become an act of affrmation across a wide spectrum of youth associations.34 These fertile 'singing communities' flled a dawning era with their own values and ideas. *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* lent itself to an ideologically fexible strategy of binding young people together by way of their enthusiasm and cheerfulness around a vague promise of a better age.

#### 'The Third Reich Moves with Us!': Singing in the *'Volksgemeinschaft'*

Even young National Socialists sang *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'*, and with fervour. This is unsurprising in light of the song's career outlined above, with its ideological ambiguity and political fexibility. It also makes sense in terms of the similarities in emotional templating between these two seemingly dissimilar contexts. In early 1920, just a few months before the young Social Democrats in Weimar celebrated their new beginning, another party had been founded under Adolf Hitler. Like all political parties in the Weimar Republic, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) tried to establish its own youth wing. First attempted in 1922, it was not until the party congress of July 1926—likewise held in Weimar—that

32Ollenhauer, 'Jugendlied'.

<sup>33</sup> *Ibid*.

34According to Frobenius (*Jugendbewegung*, 275), the 'Weimar song' was soon 'on everyone's lips'—'from traditional folk groups through to the communists …. In the lives of today's youth, however, a new, liberating element is taking hold. When they go out into the woods on Sundays in traditional guild clothing with guitars and mandolins, young people of all ranks and parties feel a newly awakened, overfowing attitude of life.'

numerous, already-existing National Socialist youth groups were fnally recognized under one banner as an offcial wing of the NSDAP: the *Hitlerjugend* (HJ), or Hitler Youth. In June 1930, a corresponding organization for girls was also recognized as an offcial party wing under the name *Bund deutscher Mädel* (BdM), or the League of German Girls. The 'Law on the Hitler Youth' promulgated on 1 December 1936 decreed that 'All of the German youth in the Reich is organized within the Hitler-Youth'.35

The primary aim of National Socialist youth instruction was to mould a sense of belonging among boys through the HJ and girls through the BdM, to then mobilize them emotionally for political action. As with the Social Democrats, the overarching narrative was one of boldly venturing into a 'new time', only this time it was towards a promise of National Socialist utopia. In practice, National Socialist youth leaders made use of precisely those collectivizing rituals and leisure activities that had already been tried and tested by other youth organizations of the Weimar Republic. Similar motifs from the mythology surrounding youth were employed for the templating of political emotions: young people became symbolic fgures for new beginnings and the inauguration of a 'new' state with their hands-on orientation towards the future.36

Despite these superfcial similarities in the emotional templating strategies of the National Socialist and Social Democrat youth organizations, there are critical differences when it comes to the character of these communities and the precise content of their respective promises for the future. Although equally eager to create the 'new man', in the National Socialists' utopian vision, this 'new man' was to be a *Herrenmensch* (a member of the master race) in the prophesied *Volksgemeinschaft* (people's community). In contrast to the young Social Democrats, for whom 'community' meant solidarity, helpfulness, friendship, and equality between the women and men of tomorrow, their National Socialist counterparts sought to promote the idea of community as *Volksgemeinschaft*, which valued selfassurance, combativeness, superiority, a willingness to make sacrifces, obedience, willpower, and strong belief in a leader.37

In accordance with the contrasting emotion rules and emotional templating of these two 'interpretative communities', the meaning of the song

<sup>35</sup> 'Law on the Hitler Youth', 972.

<sup>36</sup>Cf. *Ibid*.: 'The future of the German Nation depends on its youth'.

<sup>37</sup> Schörken, *Jugend 1945*, 203.

*Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* shifted and changed.38 Although the National Socialist youth associations sang the very same lyrics as the socialists, the song's ideologically fexible 'we' was interpreted in a different way. It was no longer an invitation for everybody to join in, but instead expressed a mission and an obligation.39 The racist ideology of National Socialism defned very clearly who did and did not belong to the *Volksgemeinschaft*—that is, who was and was not part of the 'we'—and excluded any boys and girls who did not match the ideal of the *Herrenmensch*. Recent scholarship has come to defne *Volksgemeinschaft* as a practice of 'self-mobilization' that identifes 'others' and uses violence to persecute them, while also drawing on 'an experiential dimension or emotions that are repeatedly produced via various media and mechanisms of group formation'.40 As with the Social Democratic Federation of Workers' Youth Associations, it was essential for newly established National Socialist youth organizations to implement methods of 'self-mobilization' and selfdefnition as practices of emotional learning.

The question is: were the emotions felt by members while singing together in two such ideologically contrasting communities different, even though they were singing the same song? What observations can we make about the transmission of traditions and practices from one group or generation to the next? The youth associations of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich were political organizations with starkly different values and rules, yet they were internalized in the same way: through the practice of collective singing and with the same songs. Even if the language of emotion appears to have been similarly based on youthful enthusiasm and hope for the future, it was changed and adapted in subtle ways. Differences can be seen in the political meanings attributed to the emotions, but probably not in the way emotions themselves were actually felt.

Political education through collective experiences mainly occurred during organized leisure activities: sport, social nights, excursions, camps, competitions, festivals, celebrations, and other group events. Countless memories recorded at the time by girls and boys of the National Socialist youth organizations show that the emotional experiences of children and

<sup>39</sup>*Volksgemeinschaft* in National Socialism meant 'the promise … of a "völkisch" unity. This meant … at the same time, the enforcement of new inequalities, namely the inclusion of all racially defned *Volksgenossen* and the exclusion of all *Gemeinschaftsfremde*. This was directly linked to the idea of the use of, or call to violence'; Thamer, 'Volksgemeinschaft', 29.

<sup>40</sup> *Ibid*., 30.

<sup>38</sup>Cf. Fish, *Interpretative Communities*, 4–5.

young people tied them to the institution and ideology in which the experience was generated.41 The 'leisure camps' organized by the BdM and HJ were particularly memorable events. They took place far away from family and school and were structured around fxed daily and weekly schedules, with collective singing playing a central and formative role.42 Women who were asked decades later about their music-related memories emphasized that it was singing together that made their experiences with the BdM a positive memory. Some of them even claimed (albeit for different reasons) that collective singing was the only positive experience in all their years of membership.43 The common refrain in these recollections was that singing was ubiquitous: they sang while marching, before and after meals, in the evenings outdoors, while hiking, and at the beginning, middle, and end of social evenings, and we can assume the same rituals played out for the boys in the HJ. In other words, 'there was singing all the time'.44 And yet, as one woman recalled, 'It was nice that this was so. I never want to forget that time in my life. … We all really grew together, we were all bound in friendship to one another.'45 The camp schedules prescribed an hour of singing 'hymns and confessional songs' or 'songs of the movement' each day and on social afternoons, learning folk songs from the local region. On other days, after some 'hiking sport', the girls sat together for two hours to sing 'hiking songs'.46 They sang a mixture of traditional folk songs, songs of the *Bündische Jugend* and the new repertoire of festive and doctrinal songs of National Socialism.47

Remarkably, for the purposes of emotional templating, it seems to have made little difference what exactly was sung, whether it be a newly composed song or an older, well-known favourite. Nor was the positive and powerful emotional experience of singing together bound to any particular musical genre.48 National Socialist youth organizations not only mimicked the singing practices and structures of other middle-class and

<sup>46</sup> 'Weekly Schedule of a BdM Leisure Camp'.

48Niessen, *Lieder*, 211: 'I sang in such a way that I could experience it … in these folk songs … the way my imagination went along with it. … And the National Socialist songs that we also sang … our mindset went along accordingly, you know?'

<sup>41</sup> See also Miller-Kipp, *Auch Du*, 100–1.

<sup>42</sup> See also the biographically qualitative study by Niessen, *Lieder*.

<sup>43</sup> *Ibid*., 206.

<sup>44</sup> *Ibid*., 203.

<sup>45</sup> *Ibid*., 204. Quotations taken from an interview conducted and transcribed by Niessen.

<sup>47</sup>For an analysis of the songs, see Klopffeisch, *Lieder*; Frommann, *Lieder*; Stoverock, *Musik*.

party-affliated associations, but also copied their songs. The musical repertoire of the HJ and BdM originated largely in that of the pre-existing youth movement.49 This had the advantage that familiar melodies and songs made it possible to build familiarity with the new National Socialist youth organizations very quickly, while also facilitating outreach to youth audiences across a spectrum of social milieus. This was important as the NSDAP saw itself both as a workers' party and a middle-class youth organization.

Several well-known songs were adapted by the NSDAP for emotional templating.50 *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* was one of the most important examples. In the early years of the National Socialist 'movement', it was a standard number within the HJ and BdM. Some National Socialist songbooks simply reprinted the original, only discarding the ffth stanza, which promoted sexual equality. Such ideas had no place within National Socialism's strictly gender-differentiated pedagogy.51 In other songbooks, only the frst two or three original verses were kept, supplemented by three new verses that were formulated to match with Michael Englert's original melody (Fig. 10.252).

In the Social Democratic daily newspaper *Neuer Vorwärts* of 1934, the National Socialist adaptation of the beloved old Weimar song was lampooned by an anonymous author, who wrote, 'The Hitler Youth sings "The Third Reich moves with us!" because even their brownshirtwordsmiths know that a "new time" is the last thing that moves with them.'53 It is impossible to determine how signifcant the modifcation was for the daily experience of singing the song. What the supplementary stanzas made clear, however, was that the original song's image of peaceful, future-oriented youngsters who valued equal rights and were at one with nature had now been replaced by a call to arms in the 'German fght for

49Klopffeisch, *Lieder*, 143. Klopffeisch notes that more than 50 per cent of the songs came from the bourgeois youth movement. But both personal and compositional traditions continued in National Socialist youth organizations.

50The best-known and most well-researched is *Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit*; cf. Eckhard, *Brüder*. For a list of all songs adapted from the social democratic and communist traditions, see Fuhr, *Proletarische Musik*, 252–54; Dithmar, 'Lied'.

<sup>51</sup> Scheller, *Singend*.

<sup>52</sup> Stoverock, *Musik*, 297–98; Dithmar, 'Lied', 27. Another version can be found in the SA songbook in which the social democratic idea of solidarity was even more bluntly replaced with 'bloody hatred and struggle'; cf. Roth, *Massenlied*, 125.

<sup>53</sup> 'Alles muß in Scherben gehen'.

**Fig. 10.2** Three new verses of *Wann wir schreiten Seit' and Seit'* in National Socialist songbooks. (Stoverock, *Musik*, 297–98; Dithmar, 'Lied', 27)

freedom'. The old hiking song had become a marching and fghting song, although the precise objectives of such a deadly struggle by steel-hearted, iron-willed youths remained murky. It can be assumed, further, that this more combative variant of the song was sung exclusively by the young men and boys of the HJ. The new 'we' was unmistakably masculine, as indicated in the appeal to 'brothers' and the pledge 'when it counts, to show the man' with hearts of 'steel'.

Interestingly, the earlier versions by both Michael Englert and Arnim Knab can also be found in some National Socialist songbooks. Englert's original was sung more often in schools and within National Socialist organizations for adults, while the youth groups tended to prefer Knab's melody. This is perhaps due to the fact that the HJ and BdM had adopted the song from the middle-class youth movement, for which Knab had composed his version. His name and that of the original lyricist, Hermann Claudius, can also be found beneath other songs and poems in National Socialist songbooks, and both had at least some ideological sympathies in that direction. Claudius even composed a prayer for the *Führer*. 54 More important, however, was the fact that their songs and poems were well matched to National Socialist collective singing practices. There were no diffculties integrating the beloved song of the Federation of Workers' Youth Associations into the repertoire of the BdM and HJ, and even changing it altogether. Curiously, the girls seem to have continued to sing the original text (with Knab's music)—except, of course, for the ffth stanza—since it was included in at least some BdM songbooks under the title 'Youth hiking song'.55 In some cases it was even compulsory for them to learn it.56

The categorization of *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* as a hiking song or something to be sung on cosy evenings gave it an apolitical air. Yet this apparent detachment from ideological demands was precisely what made it so attractive, as has already been shown in relation to the Young Workers' Clubs. The feeling of belonging to a chosen milieu, with whom a 'new time' was moving—whatever shape that might take—and whose selfconfdence was derived precisely from this dynamic, was experienced by girls and boys in the Social Democrat and the National Socialist youth movements alike as they sang at leisure camps, on hikes, or at social evenings and developed emotional bonds in their new 'singing community'. Recorded memories illustrate the extent to which National Socialist youth organizations also met young people's needs for belonging, community, future prospects, integration, and orientation. These needs were addressed and satisfed through the ritual of collective singing.57

In stark contrast to these girls' memories of social evenings, youth leisure camps, and hikes, *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* was also heard and sung in other contexts during the period of the Third Reich. In concentration camps, prisoners were forced to sing German folk songs during roll call or while being marched off for heavy labour. Being forced to sing on command served to discipline and humiliate prisoners and allowed the SS guards to demonstrate power not only over their voices and ears but over their bodies and minds.58 In the Börgermoor concentration camp, prisoners were forced to sing as an accompaniment to punitive sports. At the

<sup>54</sup>Cf. Klee, *Kulturlexikon*, 98–99.

<sup>55</sup>Reichsjugendführung, *Wir Mädel singen*, 120.

<sup>56</sup>Kulturabteilung des Obergaues Westfalen, *Pfichtlieder*, 19–20.

<sup>57</sup>Rosenbaum, *Kinderalltag*.

<sup>58</sup>Brauer, *Sachsenhausen*, 91–106; Brauer, 'Torturous'.

whim of the SS, the unoffcial hymn of the German Empire, *Die Wacht am Rhein*, would be played and—as if to mock the Federation of Workers' Youth Associations—*Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'*. 59

Under such conditions, the line 'The new time moves with us!' acquired an entirely different meaning. Instead of certainty about the future, the forced singing of this song stood for destroyed hopes, emotional isolation, and the loss of future life. For prisoners who in earlier years had sung this very song full of hope and enthusiasm in the youthful, politically engaged communities of Workers' Youth Associations, the command for them to sing it in the concentration camp must have been especially bitter. The fact that they had previously been politically activated through the emotional templating of collective singing now made them doubly prisoners of the National Socialist regime. In the 'universe' of 'absolute power' that was the concentration camp system,60 their optimistic and upbeat strides of earlier times now took on the tormenting rhythm and relentless pace of prisoners marching in columns.61 Conversely, 'The new time moves with us!' could also often secretly be heard in the barracks of German political prisoners. Even when commanded to do so, prisoners could comply with the guards' orders while also using singing to muster hope or recall the optimism they had felt at Workers' Youth events. Although it was used by the SS for humiliation, the song's emotional signifcance for the political prisoners was so great that they continued to sing it throughout their years of imprisonment, alongside other songs of the labour movement such as *Die Gedanken sind frei*. 62

#### 'Nest Warmth' and Visions of the Future: Singing among the *Falken* and the Free German Youth

At the end of the war, the generation of young people sworn through their membership of the HJ and BdM to the values and principles of the *Volksgemeinschaft* felt betrayed, disillusioned, and hopeless. 'A feeling of deep bitterness and abandonment held the upper hand for a long, long time', recalled nineteen-year-old Hilde P. in 1950, summing up the

<sup>59</sup>Fackler, *Stimme*, 134.

<sup>60</sup> Sofsky, *Terror*, 17.

<sup>61</sup>Brauer, 'Torturous', 11–12.

<sup>62</sup>Brauer, *Sachsenhausen*, 157–62, further examples in Fackler, *Stimme*, 225.

prevailing mood of her generation after 1945.63 Allied observers attested to the widespread 'political apathy and non-conformism' among younger people in all parts of Germany. 'In fact, large numbers of youths appear to have lost not only their belief but even their faculty to believe in anything', said the German émigré and future US diplomat Henry Kellermann in 1946.64 The deep traces of militarism and nationalism in the minds and hearts of German adolescents that the Allies documented led them to diagnose an 'overwhelming feeling of hopelessness' and 'a deep crisis of meaning'.65

These examples show how far removed post-war youth were from the enthusiastic and optimistic emotional templating that had characterized the 1920s and 1930s. Across Germany, initiatives designed to offer children and young people in political communities a new foothold were adopted in all zones of occupation. The implementation of this new youth policy, however, differed profoundly in the East and West. In the Allied Occupation Zones, the revival of political youth work was uneven and haphazard. On the one hand, it was characterized by the requirements and permissions of the occupying powers and, on the other, by immense material hardship. The founding of party-aligned youth organizations was not permitted until 1947.66 From the middle of 1947, the youth associations of the SPD were able to commence work under the name Socialist Youth Movement—The Falcons (*Sozialistische Jugendbewegung*—*Die Falken*).67

In the Soviet Occupation Zone, things were vastly different. Young people, seen to be the 'standard-bearers of a new era', were obliged to be cheerful, enthusiastic, and hands-on.68 Given their actual emotional state, however, this amounted in plain terms to a total emotional re-education; *joie de vivre*, dedication, and spiritedness were still a long way off. The desired 'education of new people' required effective strategies and an institutional framework for implementing them. Detailed plans for a postwar youth policy in the Soviet Occupation Zone had already been drawn up in Soviet exile. From as early as the summer of 1945, 'anti-fascist youth committees' were founded across the zone, designed to guarantee uniform and consistent anti-fascist education, and that was made more

<sup>63</sup>Hass, *Schicksal*, 77; cf. Schörken, *Niederlage*, 19.

<sup>64</sup>Kellermann, *German Youth*, 4.

<sup>65</sup>Füssl, *Umerziehung*, 58–75, quotes 104.

<sup>66</sup> See *ibid*., 120–47.

<sup>67</sup>Cf. Brücher, *Jugendbewegung*.

<sup>68</sup>Zentralrat der Freien Deutschen Jugend, 'Aufruf', 1.

attractive by offering leisure activities such as sports, sewing (for girls), reading circles, or dancing in newly established clubhouses.69 In addition, both boys and girls were introduced to new, post-Nazi ideologies and values—at least that was the idea.70

At frst glance, the situation in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the early German Democratic Republic (GDR) seemed to resemble that of the Weimar Republic. According to reports in daily newspapers and programmes of political events, *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* was the most sung song in the decade from 1945 to 1955. In the early 1950s, the three radio stations in the GDR even used the refrain '*Mit uns zieht die neue Zeit*' as an interval jingle. Just like the *Falken* in the Allied Occupation Zones, the GDR's early anti-fascist youth committees and from March 1946 the newly established Free German Youth (FDJ) offered an active and age-specifc community life to a generation of girls and boys disoriented by the war. Daytrips, music, singing, games, folk dances, parties, celebrations, working groups, and even career guidance were all part of the programme, as was political training and education. Communist youth functionaries were eager for these 'sincerely happy and free youngsters' to resume singing, hiking, and building from as early as September 1945.71 In 'colourful costume … with songs and games', they were to roam the new homeland.72 According to one commentator, young girls and boys felt a 'sacred seriousness in their hearts when they sing "The new time moves with us!"; even we old people can still learn a lot from their faith, devotion, and commitment'.73 In the Communist imagination, it was imperative for young people to develop a cheerful, enthusiastic, and hands-on attitude in order to fulfl their 'most fundamental destiny': building the new future.74 The fortune of the new socialist state was in the hands of its youth.

69This was regulated by an order issued on 31 July 1945 by General Georgij Konstantinovič Žukov. Cf. Noack, 'Jugendpolitik'.

70Landesjugendausschuss Sachsen, 'Richtlinien für die sozialpolitische Tätigkeit der Jugendausschüsse, 16. Oktober 1945' and 'Hauptpunkte demokratischer Jugenderziehung, Dresden, den 20. Oktober 1945', Communal Archive Bautzen (CAB), 63004-715, Bl. 219, 215.

71König, 'Jungen': 'We, the Antifascist Youth, we have understood that a new, truly joyful, and free generation can only fourish in a democratic Germany.'

72Antifaschistisches Jugendkomitee Magdeburg, 'Jugend'.

73Pawlowitsch, 'Jugend'.

74Hornecker, 'Neues Leben': 'If youth is the future, then it must not be cheated of its very purpose.'

This belief explains the special attention devoted to winning the hearts of this generation and the vigour with which spokeswomen and men urged it to 'move' in a specifc direction. The emotional templating of young people in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the early GDR matched the Communist vision of self-confdent progress towards a 'new time'. In contrast to youth groups in the Western occupation zones, the FDJ was less concerned with creating community than with activating its members politically. This was done by harnessing the enthusiasm they perceived and generating a feeling of certainty in line with a vision of socialist utopia, a familiar scheme that dated back to the 1920s and 1930s. Schoolchildren in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the early GDR learnt and sang workers' songs with titles such as *Wir sind das Bauvolk der kommenden Welt* (We are the builders of the world to come) composed by Fritz Brügel and Hasso Grabner in 1929 and *Der Zukunft entgegen* (Towards the future) composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1932, along with *Wir sind jung, die Welt ist offen*. At the top of the list, in schools, at public rallies, and at other political events was always the song of Weimar, *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'*. 75

A decree issued by the Erfurt District Education Offce in December 1948 exemplifes its popularity. It specifed in detail how local schools were to be opened in January 1949 with a 'ceremony in keeping with the two-year plan'. As an introductory song, one school council suggested *Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit* (Brothers, to the sun, to freedom) 'or another suitable song of the FDJ'. The ceremony was to end, however, with 'the singing of *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'*'.76 Reports from several Erfurt schools show that they adhered to these instructions. The fnal line 'The new time moves with us!' seemed especially ftting for the desired emotional template of the 'new spirit' in the post-war years. It was an unsurprising choice, since teachers with links to the Communist Party (KPD) and the SPD knew the song from their own childhood and teenage years and may even have been present at the Weimar convention. The same went for party functionaries who had likewise received their own emotional templating in the early years of the Weimar Republic, such as

<sup>75</sup>Cf. T. H., 'Auftakt': 'The impressive ceremony ended with the joint singing of the song *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'*, at the end of which the meaningful words resounded: "The new time moves with us!"'; Werner, 'Pfngstgruß'; A., 'Programm'; U. I., 'Schulbank'.

<sup>76</sup>Kreisbildungsamt Erfurt, 'Brief an alle Schulleiter, 31 December 1948', in Communal Archive Erfurt (CAE) 1-5/36-16450.

Erich Honecker, the frst chairman of the FDJ, who had had his frst taste of political leadership in the 1920s through the communist youth association. Still others remembered the song from their time in the HJ or the BdM.

For this generation of teachers and functionaries in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the song was a powerful reminder of the enthusiastic mood and the certainty about the future they had felt in their younger days. Such feelings were sorely needed after the catastrophic experiences of the Second World War.77 Yet, even if the words, melody, and rhythm were the same, it must have felt very different for the young people singing it now compared with the summer of 1920. Despite its antiquated lyrics and the now-destroyed illusion of a unity between man and nature, the song's promise of a 'new time' in which humanity would 'stride side by side' was more necessary than ever before. Still, it did not seem quite right for this 'new time', and while it did not disappear altogether from the repertoire, towards the end of the 1940s it was replaced by new songs written for a new generation in the newly established GDR.

In the Western occupation zones, political youth work was at frst a far cry from the pre-war emotional templating of unconditional optimism. In light of the material hardships, high unemployment, and psychological conditions among children and young people, youth welfare was a primary task of the Social Democrats.78 Providing children with 'safety security—love' or nest warmth (*Nestwärme*) was one of the frst goals of their youth wing, the *Falken*. 79 The focus was less on looking to the future and more about building a political community in the here and now. 'Join your community!' appealed the Braunschweig chapter of the *Falken* in 1947; 'Learn once again to shape your own young lives together in a free and democratic way'.80 As new as the post-war situation was, the practices adopted by the *Falken* were familiar. Again, it was communal singing that structured group life within the association; any seeming continuity with the National Socialist youth associations' use of the practice was of little concern.81

<sup>80</sup> SJD–Die Falken, Gruppen Aufwärts und Lichtstürmer, 'Gruppenbuch 1946–1948', Archiv Arbeiterjugendbewegung (AAJB), SJD-BS-BS, 22/001.

81This is shown by entries in group/branch books from AAJB, from 1947 to the end of the 1950s.

<sup>77</sup>Cf. Brauer, 'Disciplining'.

<sup>78</sup>Gröschel, 'Tradition und Neubeginn', 27–28.

<sup>79</sup>Heydorn, 'Nestwärme'.

Yet the emotional templating among the *Falken* was much more reserved than in the early years of the Weimar Republic. They met away from the public eye in closed rooms and went hiking in the countryside. It was only on special occasions such as the Socialist Youth Day in Hamburg in 1950 that they actively made themselves audible and visible. Their enthusiasm seemed stifed. A sense of confdence in the future played much less of a role than the prevailing feelings of belonging, mutual aid, and support. Singing seemed equally less important, despite its role in determining group life within the *Falken*. The minute books from the frst ten years after the war meticulously documented what was sung and when, yet their scribes did not refrain from making ironic remarks about these singing rituals. At the beginning of group evenings, as a farewell, or even in the midst of proceedings, many old and some new songs helped loosen the mood. Some gatherings were explicitly organized as an 'afternoon of song'.82 As with the FDJ, the 'Weimar song' was by far the most popular in the *Falken* songbooks of the post-war decade.83 It was typically sung as the fnale at a 'relaxed afternoon' recital, following a lively mixture of folk songs, old *Falken* songs and workers' songs, or appeared regularly in schedule proposals for political events, such as the annual celebrations on 1 May.84

Curiously, however, there are hardly any references in the *Falken* chronicles to the emotional power of the song's last line, once considered so poignant. One exception can be found in the recollections of retired school councillor and SPD member, Johannes Schult. At the age of seventy, he still remembered singing *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* at the Weimar convention in August 1920, when he was secretary of the SPD youth wing. In an essay published in 1956, Schult romantically glorifed this pivotal moment in the formation of a strong and serious youth movement: 'The effect of the song was tremendous. One had to experience it, it cannot be described. Tears ran down the cheeks of hard men, and the eyes of the all the young participants shone brightly.'85 Almost forty years

<sup>82</sup>Gruppe Ost Rote Falken, 'Protokolle und Fahrtenberichte', entry from 24 November 1949, in AAJB, Gruppenbücher (Ursula Krause-Scheuffer), SJD-BW-StO 1–6.

<sup>83</sup>Cf. Brauer, *Zeitgefühle*, 96–105; cf. also Jobs, 'Liedkultur', appendix 3.

<sup>84</sup>Cf. 'Gruppenbuch: Tagebuch der Jugendgruppe Die Falken, Ortsgruppe Schwabach, 1946–1948', in AAJB SJD-MF-SC(Beck, Gerd97/9)22/0001; Werner Ortmann, 'Gruppenbuch, Falkengruppe Oberkassel, Wanderfalken: Programmvorschlag, 1. Mai, März 1947', in AAJB SJD-NR 22/08

<sup>85</sup> Schult, *Aufbruch einer Jugend*, 35.

later, the memory was as stirring as ever. Yet despite the song's resonance for veterans like Schult, post-war communal singing among the *Falken* could no longer connect with the emotional templating of the early Weimar Republic. The same observation can be made here for the Soviet Occupation Zone: the song primarily evoked positive memories for older SPD politicians whose formative political experiences had been in the early socialist youth movement. This was particularly the case for the former youth leader Erich Ollenhauer. After the Second World War, he became leader of the SPD and the party spokesperson in the Bundestag.

As for the *Falken*, we do not know what hopes and dreams they now harboured while singing the song. Like their contemporaries in the fedgling GDR, many of their members would have been familiar with it from their days in the HJ and the BdM. Over the course of the 1950s, however, communal singing was gradually replaced by collective listening to new pop music. It was not until the growth of the pacifst Easter March movement in the 1960s that communal singing was rediscovered as a form of protest. This time, however, the predominantly young demonstrators sang new songs that were less vague in their promises for the future and instead expressed concrete political criticisms in the present.

#### Conclusion

Over the course of the 1960s, the popularity of *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* declined in both East and West Germany, albeit for different reasons. In the GDR, new songs that corresponded more closely with the country's 'new spirit' were promoted and learnt with great diligence. In the Federal Republic, the practice of collective singing steadily declined as the 1950s wore on. The song never completely disappeared from the repertoires of hiking and sport clubs, the *Bündische Jugend*, or the scouts, but it had lost much of its earlier power as a means for political mobilization. Despite its decline, it still came to be considered the unoffcial anthem of the SPD. From the 1980s onwards, it was routinely heard at party congresses. The emotional templating accomplished through its collective singing over several decades was so lasting that, towards the end of the twentieth century, a new, youthful generation of singers was no longer necessary. Even today, aging social democratic 'song lovers' still sing it shoulder to shoulder with their likewise aging party leaders with full-breasted euphoria about the future. So it was on 19 March 2017 when, accompanied by a small choir from the Berlin-based group *Vorwärts-Liederfreunde*, the 'song troupe of German Social Democracy', the party's unanimously elected new leader Martin Schulz triumphantly sang 'The new time moves with us!'86 A century after its creation, the song's familiar lines and melodies can still unleash the same old rousing, youthful and forward-looking, collective magic.

This chapter has shown how emotional templating took place within youth organizations in twentieth-century Germany. Emotions were given an institutional framework through feelings of community, which became important for political action. Besides the song itself, collective singing played a crucial role in the establishment of political communities among young people. This collective singing is an emotional practice through which 'singing communities' emerged as political institutions in concrete contexts. Collective singing offered a framework for political youth organizations to use bodies, language, spaces, and other media to ensure that their young members internalized hope for ideologically specifc visions of a better future and became motivated to self-confdently demand this future for themselves. Collective singing involved learning, negotiating, and modifying emotional templates in specifc situations. Political experiences became emotionally charged through singing and can thus be understood as 'embodied experiences'.87 In the tangible contexts in which it was performed, 'interpretive communities' attributed meaning to one specifc song as a form of emotional templating.

What is striking is the tenacity with which different singing communities at different times held frm to *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'*. These were always situations of new discovery and creation in which the song sounded special. The aim in these situations was to bind girls and boys to new institutions—political youth organizations—by engendering shared feelings. Although over the decades verses were omitted or added, alternative melodies sung, and the meaning attributed to the lyrics changed, the fnal line 'The new time moves with us!' retained its emotional appeal. Yet the 'we' in the song's title was a social entity that had to be continually redefned: lacking specifcity, it always invited new groups to fnd themselves refected in it. This underscores the emotional signifcance that was gained by individual songs through the concrete practice of singing: its 'spatial confgurations', 'temporal experiences', or 'interpretive

<sup>86</sup> 'Wann wir schreiten Seit an Seit—vorwärts-Liederfreunde'; Vorwärts-Liederfreunde, 'Info'.

<sup>87</sup>Corness, 'Embodiment'.

communities'.88 Through their use and the way they were interpreted and performed, the songs themselves became channels for emotional templating.

> Juliane Brauer (jbrauer@uni-wuppertal.de)

#### Bibliography

A. 'Das Programm für die Gedächtnisfeiern'. *Berliner Zeitung*, 7 September 1945, 3.


<sup>88</sup>Fish, *Interpretative Communities*, 4.


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### Feeling Political across Borders: International Solidarity Movements, 1820s–1980s

*Caroline Moine*

Paris, 24 October 2019: two weeks after the beginning of the social revolt in Chile against the government's neoliberal policies, a collectively authored op-ed piece in support of the protesters was published in the French daily *Le Monde*. After underlining the 'cynicism' of the 'frightening inequality' that had existed in Chilean society since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990), the signatories concluded as follows:

We are in solidarity with the formidable popular movement that has risen up. We demand that Chilean President Sebastian Piñera withdraw his troops and armoured vehicles and listen to the demands of his people. We stand with the protesters and the social forces that are calling for another system, another life. We mourn those killed by repression, but we French or Francebased intellectuals and artists want to believe that justice will fnally return to this country that is suffering, yet so dear to us.1

In this appeal, deepest sympathy, compassion, sadness, and anger in the face of the distant suffering of 'the Chilean people' were mingled with the hope that a new social order would emerge and that one day, justice would be done in the face of a state denounced as violent and cynical. The presence of tanks and soldiers in the streets of Santiago de Chile also

1Collectif, 'Chili'. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

© The Author(s) 2022 307

U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_11

resurrected an emotional shock felt from one continent to another during the military coup d'état forty-six years earlier on 11 September 1973, which had resulted in a profound surge of international solidarity. The Chilean case thus testifes not only to the role played by emotions in international solidarity movements but also to their permanence and effectiveness. The Chilean demonstrators of 2019 drew heavily on the emotional repertoire of the 1970s and 1980s by using songs, but also photographs and images from that period, conscious of reaching a broad public audience, beyond social networks and generational distinctions, but also beyond borders.2

The claim of international solidarity evident in this example, and explored more broadly in this chapter, refers to a set of discourses and practices born out of the relationship between people who are aware, despite the geographical and cultural distance that may separate them, of a community of interests that entails an obligation for some to act, serve, and assist others.3 The ways in which emotions have been defned, evaluated, expressed, and elaborated—what Alain Corbin has called the 'lexicon of the heart within politics'—and the emotional templating that takes place within this process of political mobilization are still too often neglected in the history of social movements, even though their relevance is increasingly demonstrated.4 Where political engagement is both collective and international, it is especially important to ask which emotions and what kinds of 'emotional communities' have led individual actors to fght together in an '*esprit de corps*', in order to both inspire and give voice to an experience of collective devotion on a public, international scale.5 How do mobilizations across borders create emotional templates for political, religious, and social identities, but also intensify these identities and encourage a sense of belonging, from one country or continent to another?

2Numerous online videos testify to this assumed heritage, including covers of the song *El pueblo unido jamás será vencido*, which became the anthem of the resistance to the dictatorship after 1973. See, for example, a performance in December 2019 by the band Inti-Illimani ('El pueblo unido jamas será vencido'), originally formed in 1967: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Cuzl\_QTBlWI, accessed 15 July 2021.

<sup>3</sup> Sterjnø, *Solidarity*; Wildt, 'Solidarität', 1006.

4Corbin, introduction, 7; Häberlen and Spinney, introduction; Gould, 'Political Despair'; Traïni, *Emotions*; Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta, *Passionate Politics*.

5Rosenwein, *Emotional Communities*; Kemper, 'Nichtregierungsorganisationen'.

Focusing on the modern period, this chapter follows the profound change in attitudes or *mentalités* heralded by the Enlightenment, which, as Bertrand Taithe reminds us, was based 'on the transfer of compassion [from selfsh] to distant, even universal objects'.6 However, in this new paradigm, as Luc Boltanski has shown, 'distance is a fundamental dimension of a politics which has the specifc task of a *unifcation* which overcomes dispersion by setting up the "durable institutions" needed to establish equivalence between spatially and temporally *local* situations'.7 The history of international solidarity movements since the nineteenth century must therefore be understood as the history of an evolving and complex institutionalization and its emotional templating. Whether in the name of 'universal brotherhood', 'solidarity of peoples', or in defence of 'human rights', the challenge posed by analysing the relationship between emotions and calls for international solidarity is the same. The task is to understand how this sense of common belonging arose, was expressed, and developed through these mobilizations, or perhaps even declined, transforming enthusiasm into disillusionment on an international and transnational scale.8

Three political moments are particularly relevant for the broader history of these mobilizations in Europe over the last two centuries: the philhellenic movement of the 1820s, the marshalling of support for the Republicans during the Spanish War from 1936 to 1939, and the solidarity campaigns against the Chilean dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. Using these three examples, it is possible to trace emotional echoes from one cause to another, by analysing how the political actions, media coverage, and political emotions characteristic of these three moments were interwoven—and became disentangled—through time. They illustrate how international solidarity movements have strongly contributed to an evolving relationship between emotions and politics at national, international, and transnational levels.9

<sup>6</sup>Taithe, 'Empathies', 365.

<sup>7</sup>Boltanski, *Distant Suffering*, 7, emphasis in original.

<sup>8</sup>Flam, 'Micromobilization'.

<sup>9</sup>Keck and Sikkink, *Activists*, 95; Tarrow, *Activism*; Gould, 'Transnational Solidarities'; Konieczna and Skinner, *Anti-Apartheid*.

#### The Philhellenic Movement of the 1820s: People's Solidarity against Cold State Diplomacy

When the Greek uprising against the Ottoman Empire broke out in March 1821, demanding independence from the Sublime Porte, the European public had little awareness of this region at the far end of the continent, which had long been seen merely as a theatre for Venetian and Ottoman rivalries. The confict, which lasted more than eight years and led to the creation of the First Hellenic Republic in 1830, nevertheless had a lasting effect on international public opinion in Europe and beyond. It provoked a 'profound shaking of conscience' and a 'broad mobilization of hearts' in favour of the Greek insurgents.10 This 'highly contagious emotion' resulted in active and multifaceted support for the insurgent movement: advocacy work within support committees in Zurich, Stuttgart, London, Madrid, and Paris, the collection of donations, and a wide range of cultural expressions, such as paintings, songs, poetry, and pamphlets. It also inspired hundreds of German, Swiss, Italian, English, and French volunteers to go fght the Ottoman army.11

These manifestations of solidarity towards the Greek population took after those led by anti-slavery activists, with their religious and bourgeois roots, considered to be the frst transnational humanitarian and solidarity movement. For abolitionists, the denunciation of the suffering faced by African slaves expressed a recognition of the latter as human beings, capable of feeling the same emotions as themselves, and therefore subject to the same suffering. Unlike the Greek case, however, their commitment did not go as far as automatically recognizing the same rights for all.12 Moreover, the mobilizations in favour of the Greek insurgents were part of a wider phenomenon that became known as 'philhellenism', or 'love of the Greeks'. First coined in connection with volunteers fghting in Greece, the term encompasses two historical phenomena.13 First, it describes the scientifc, aesthetic, and philosophical movement devoted to the study of

10Mazurel, 'Nous sommes tous des Grecs', 73.

11No more than about a thousand volunteers of all nationalities went to fght in Greece: Germans, French, British, Italians, Swiss, North Americans, and a few Poles, Swedes, Spaniards, and Danes. See Barau, 'Mobilisation des philhellènes', 51–52; Mazurel, *Vertiges*, esp. second part devoted to volunteers.

12Klose, *Cause of Humanity*, 80.

<sup>13</sup> In the scientifc feld, it was not until 1896 that it appeared in the writings of a Viennese Germanist, Gerhard Grimm ('Philhellenismus').

ancient Greece that was initiated in the second half of the eighteenth century. Second, it denotes 'the affrmation of a lasting solidarity with the Greek people', who were considered throughout the nineteenth century one of the last oppressed nationalities in Europe in need of defending.14 Indeed, the Greek uprising occurred at a pivotal moment in the early nineteenth century. As William Reddy has pointed out, this was when the 'legacy and … features of practice' of the sentimentalist period 'were set in a new intellectual framework and put to new uses', now combining a romantic mood with the rise of political liberalism.15

Philhellenic sentiment was based primarily on enthusiasm for Greek culture, which was a central reference point for European and Western elites. Their admiration was not so much for its contemporary incarnation as for a largely fantasized representation of Ancient Greece.16 Support for the new Greek independence movement was framed as a feeling of gratitude and debt towards those considered to be the fathers of democracy and European civilization. 'We are all Greeks', proclaimed the English writer Percy Bysshe Shelley; '[O]ur laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece.'17 These cultural references and feelings acted as a bonding agent at the heart of the transnational philhellenic movement.

Enthusiasm for the Greek cause also had romantic roots, of course. Philhellenic discourse was neoclassical in word and romantic in spirit.18 Reference to the Middle Ages was important, especially the memory and legacy of the Crusades, manifesting as a 'resurgence of an immemorial solidarity'.19 The simultaneous fascination and repulsion towards the East—associated with the struggle of Christianity and humanity against a Muslim world of barbarians and miscreants—was once again revived. Helping Christian Europe's Greek co-religionists became a duty, a necessity. In 1825, a new crusade was greeted in an appeal in favour of the sacred cause of the Greeks by the French royalist writer François-René de Chateaubriand, printed as *Appel en faveur de la cause sacrée des Grecs*, while his Waldensian colleague, the liberal Benjamin Constant launched in

<sup>14</sup>Espagne and Pécout, introduction, 5.

<sup>15</sup>Reddy, *Navigation*, 217.

<sup>16</sup>Heß, 'Missolonghi', 85.

<sup>17</sup> Shelley, 'Hellas', 409.

<sup>18</sup>Bouyssy, *Essai*, 126.

<sup>19</sup>Mazurel, 'Nous sommes tous des Grecs', 77.

sensationalist terms his dramatic appeal to the Christian nations (*Appel aux nations chrétiennes en faveur des Grecs*):

A country fooded with blood and covered with ruins, entire populations disappear under the sword or in the midst of the fames, women subjected in the very midst of these torments to the last outrages of the victors' brutality, old people subjected to terrible torture, impaled captives hanging from the masts of infdel ships, thousands of heads sent by ferocious slaves to their foolish masters—such is the spectacle that Greece offers to our eyes wherever Muslims enter … Is there a need to awaken the emotions of humanity with words?20

In addition, supporters of the Greek insurgents were also driven by liberal political motivations. While the Holy Alliance States refused to take sides and condemn Constantinople's abuses, the Greek cause became a means of expressing opposition to the conservative politics that prevailed in Europe. In supporting Greek aspirations, the philhellenes sought to defend the idea of universal solidarity among people so dear to the Romantics, not to mention the principles of self-determination and freedom in one's own country. Many of the volunteers were veterans of the Napoleonic campaigns.

The philhellenic movement was primarily represented and templated within the Catholic or radical liberal milieus of the enlightened bourgeoisie and brought together a range of political sensibilities including royalist and republican circles, social philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham (one of the frst to use the neologism 'international' in 1780), and Saint-Simonians.21 If one also considers the organizers, both the large and small donors and the volunteers who went to fght in Greece, the movement was very broad-based, attracting popular support from the workers of Manchester to the peasants of Hesse.22 Social boundaries seemed to melt in the face of the terror provoked by horror stories about Turkish rule and the motivation inspired by the Greek dream of independence.23 This led to the creation of a multitude of associations and committees, both local and national.24

<sup>20</sup>Constant, *Appel*, 7.

<sup>21</sup>Klose, *Cause of Humanity*, 40; Schönhärl, 'Decision-Making Processes'.

<sup>22</sup>Hauser, *Anfänge*, 189–92.

<sup>23</sup>Grimm, 'Philhellenismus'.

<sup>24</sup>Barau, *Cause des Grecs*.

This philhellenic impulse facilitated the emergence of the 'frst militants in the modern sense of the term', with no legitimacy other than their own will to act.25 Through their intervention in the public arena, popular opinion became an important element of power that now had to be taken into account by the political leaders. The work of winning over public opinion was carried out on an international scale through a vast media campaign. Pamphlets, testimonies, newspaper articles, and other materials were produced, translated, and disseminated by well-organized networks.26 The London Greek Committee, established in March 1823, created a 'Literary Sub-Committee' in charge of transmitting information to the press. In the midst of a revolution, the new media landscape of the 1820s played a key role in mobilizing large numbers of people internationally. In a political exchange of unprecedented intensity, both philhellenes and their opponents discovered the effectiveness of mass-distributed propaganda that transcended borders.27

Beyond the press, works of art and cultural productions permeated the daily lives of Europeans in a food of images and philhellenic references that circulated widely, thus contributing to the formation of a common imagination beyond geographical and social borders. The achievements of the Greek army were chronicled in songs, almanacs, paintings, engravings, and even crockery.28

Delacroix's *La Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi*, exhibited in August 1826, was painted in reaction to the fourth siege by the Ottomans of the fortifed town of Missolonghi (Fig. 11.1).29 Press descriptions of the fall and destruction of the city in the spring of that year had provoked deep shock among readers. Within the monumental painting, the cold, blue, and grey-blue colours of the female fgure are contrasted with the warm tones of both the janissary in the background and the sleeve from which the arm of a corpse emerges in the foreground. Inspired by Byron's work, which Delacroix—like so many others in Europe or abroad—had read, the allegory shows a martyred woman whose silent appeal also made her a subject of history and a spokesperson for a cause that would seize the future.30 Exhibited in London and then Paris, the painting epitomizes

<sup>25</sup>Hauser, *Anfänge*, 15.

<sup>26</sup>Barau, 'Médiatisation'.

<sup>27</sup>Hauser, *Anfänge*, 189.

<sup>28</sup>Mazurel, *Vertiges*, 122–35.

<sup>29</sup>Constans, *Grèce en révolte*.

<sup>30</sup>Bouyssy, *Essai*, 163–67.

**Fig. 11.1** Eugène Delacroix, *La Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi*, 1826, oil on canvas, 213 × 142 cm. © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

how, in a fusion of historical epochs, philhellenism was able to convey and mobilize emotions from classical antiquity (Victory), Christianity (Marian colours and fgure), Romanticism, and Orientalism for a political cause.

Yet these representations and reports all had in common a biased and binary vision of the confict, counterposing evil (Ottomans) to good (Greeks), barbarity to civilization, and, more or less consciously, silencing the massacres committed by the Greeks. One argument used to justify this imbalance was that, whereas on the Turkish side the atrocities were committed by a state, on the Greek side popular violent outbursts were merely a reaction to the aggressions and humiliations they had suffered. Aside from informing public audiences, the goal of these partial accounts and cultural representations was above all to provoke fear, compassion, and anger. This abundant use of emotion reached its peak with philhellenism. Maïté Bouyssy has shown the extent to which the mobilization of blood proved to be particularly convincing within French philhellenic discourse: tears and blood, multiplied in waves, were central issues in the portrayal of collective action. Neither the Great Terror nor the revolutionary or Napoleonic wars had produced 'such a representation of blood'.31 Geographical distance and the small number of direct witnesses in the Greek case favoured bloody embellishment in partisan representations, dispensing with the need to refect on shared responsibility, as could often be the case for events in closer proximity. The collective imagination was deeply imprinted by these images and stories of distant horror and barbarity, which provoked fear, disgust, and anger, while also catering to the audience's preparedness to almost voyeuristically revel in such carnage.

A transnational philhellenic community was thus born. Transcending state borders, it sought to form a counter-monopoly on information in response to initial refusals by governments to condemn abuses committed by the Turkish side or to intervene in the confict.32 The attitudes of individual states were almost immediately interpreted as cynical, cold, and distant, their leaders insensitive to the suffering of Greek men, women, and children. This elicited sharp attacks on certain leaders, such as the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh. A proponent of maintaining the status quo established at the Congress of Vienna, Castlereagh even told Parliament that the atrocities committed by the Greeks were as bad as those committed by the Turks, which earned virulent condemnation from the philhellenes. Byron in particular used his fame to express his hatred of the minister, whom he described as a '[c]old-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant!'33

With their romantic vision of universal solidarity among people, the philhellenes were pretending to propose a different model of diplomacy from that of the Holy Alliance, which was considered to be a despotic and inhuman system. This dichotomy between passion-flled public opinion and cold, calculating governments was disputed by the Austrian minister

<sup>31</sup> *Ibid*., 125.

<sup>32</sup>Hauser, *Anfänge*, 136–39.

<sup>33</sup>Coleridge, *Works of Lord Byron*, 7. This version of *Don Juan* was fnally published after the death of the poet only.

Metternich, who defended the realism of diplomatic policy.34 In 1824, he denounced the new British minister Canning, who supported the philhellenes, as '[t]he personifed symptom of the disastrous evil which is found in all the pulsations of its fatherland, of an evil which threatens to deliver its exhausted body to dissolution'.35 Metternich hoped that the British cabinet would eventually remember 'the natural mobility of popular opinions and the danger of the extremes to which they so quickly lead'. Canning, for his part, highlighted the contrast between Austrian despotism with democracy, stating that governments in the US and France governments 'could not keep popular feeling … within due bounds'.36

A new conception of the relationship between the people, public opinion, and governments emerged from philhellenic passion on an international scale.37 The infuence exerted by the philhellenic movement on the various states remains a matter of debate within the historiography. One interpretation is that the philhellenes by successfully 'ridiculing the offcial diplomatic discourse' paved the way for Navarin's decisive 1827 expedition led by Great Britain, Russia, and France, which resulted in the crushing defeat of the Turkish feet.38 An alternative view is that the governments involved followed the primary interests of the great powers and were indifferent to calls for revenge by the philhellenes.39 Notwithstanding this debate, the broad resonance of the philhellenic mobilizations revealed the effectiveness of its emotional templates, that is, a passionate, unashamedly biased commitment to the Greek cause: the common will among people to make themselves heard and to act beyond national frameworks based on a shared and increasingly mediatized vision of solidarity was put into action. For this reason, they can be understood as precursors of today's social movements.40 Philhellenism contributed to the structuring, organizing, and politicization of public opinion, a key element in 'the long,

34Bass, *Freedom's Battle*, 52.

35Metternich to Esterhazy, 17 October 1824, in Metternich, *Mémoires*, 132–33. See Bass, *Freedom's Battle*, 118.

36George Canning to Wellesley, 27 September 1825, in Wellesley, *Despatches*, 506. See Bass, *Freedom's Battle*, 120.

<sup>37</sup> See Maras, *Philhellenismus*.

<sup>38</sup> See Bouyssy, *Essai*; Bass, *Freedom's Battle*.

39Green, 'Humanitarianism', 1163.

40Historian Gary Bass even talks about philhellenic committees as the frst humanitarian NGOs and the forerunners of Amnesty International.

nervous, aggressive wait of the *Vormärz*' across the German lands and on a European and transnational scale in the wait for 1848.41

#### The Spanish Civil War: Feeling and Institutionalizing the International Socialist Brotherhood

The campaigns in support of Greek independence foreshadowed other struggles for the creation of nation-states and the Springtime of the Peoples of Europe in 1848. With great empathy, European audiences followed the struggle of the Poles in the 1830s and that of the Italians in the Risorgimento from 1848 to 1871 via the press and other committed publications. Emigrants and diasporic communities played a decisive role as transmitters of news and go-betweens.42 In 1851, the Italian revolutionary and patriot Giuseppe Mazzini, later dubbed the 'Prophet of the Religion of Humanity',43 declared:

[T]he conviction is gaining ground that if on any spot of the world, even within the limits of an independent nation, some glaring wrong should be done … then other nations are not absolved from all concern in the matter simply because of large distance between them and the scene of the wrong.44

In fact, the nineteenth century—typically seen as the 'century of nationalism'—was also the century of internationalism. This was refected by the establishment of institutions and in an ever-increasing sense of belonging to a common brotherhood, in which religious roots fused with new political aspirations.45

The workers' movement played an essential and active role here.46 After the failure of the revolutions of 1848, Karl Marx eschewed the concept of 'fraternity' to describe the workers' movement but also avoided the concept of 'solidarity', due to its association with ideas of national unity.47 It

47The term is absent from *The Communist Manifesto*; Braskén, *International Workers' Relief*, 18–19.

<sup>41</sup>Roth, 'Zithern', 28.

<sup>42</sup>Diaz, *Asile*.

<sup>43</sup>Rosenberg, *Mazzini*.

<sup>44</sup>Mazzini, 'Nonintervention', 217–18.

<sup>45</sup>Geyer and Paulmann, *Internationalism*; Klose, Cause of Humanity, 39–41.

<sup>46</sup>Preston, 'Political Solidarity', 466.

was not until 1864 with the creation of the International Workers' Association (IWA), or First International, that Marx fnally agreed to use the term. In both size and ambition, the IWA heralded a new era. It sought to go beyond the scope of advocacy work,48 stating that it was 'one of the great aims of the Association to develop among the workers of the different countries not only the *feeling* but the *fact of* their fraternity and to unite them to form the army of emancipation'.49 Fraternity in action was thus clearly distinguished from the largely symbolic fraternity of the bourgeoisie.50 The emergence of the workers' internationalism in the second half of the nineteenth century, which found expression in socialist and communist political parties, transformed this call for universal fraternity in action into a set of practices and emotions that were located at the heart of a complex relationship between social movements and state policies, between internationalism and patriotism. Different types of actors were mobilized, at different scales.

Solidarity was a much-discussed theme at various international congresses of the labour movement. At the outbreak of the First World War, however, it came under scrutiny. The deck was shuffed again in 1917 by the Russian revolution, then in 1919 with the creation of the Comintern, or Third International, and once more in 1921 with the emergence of international solidarity as core principle in the foreign policy of the new Soviet state. The centralized and bureaucratic Comintern fully embraced a process of institutionalization, inoculating itself against the fragilities intrinsic to other international associations and affrming the existence and vitality of a culture of workers' autonomy.51 It also created an auxiliary network of organizations at the crossroads of trade union action, humanitarian, and political mutual aid that broadened the meaning of international workers' solidarity and its associated practices.52 Solidarity thus became the fundament for ideological and political confrontation—a tool for demonstrating the moral and economic superiority of one system over the other and its fdelity or not to Moscow.53

52Dogliani, 'Socialist Internationalism', 55–56.

<sup>53</sup> In 1931, Willi Münzenberg convened the World Congress of International Solidarity in Berlin and edited *Solidarität: Zehn Jahre Internationale Arbeiterhilfe 1921–1931*.

<sup>48</sup>Delalande, 'Transnational Solidarity'.

<sup>49</sup>Freymond, *Première Internationale*, 30.

<sup>50</sup>Frevert, 'Solidarität', 307.

<sup>51</sup>Delalande, *Lutte*, 270.

The Spanish Civil War that followed General Franco's coup d'état of 16 July 1936 against the left-wing Republican alliance government of the Popular Front, in power since February, was a crucial moment. International workers' solidarity now took centre stage in the great confrontation between democracy, fascism, and communism. Socialists, communists, and anarchists were brought together in the same anti-fascist struggle, through international communist action and organizations such as the International Solidarity Fund. Solidarity committees founded in different countries, mostly by the communists, were responsible for advocacy work, but also for collecting money, arms and, later, humanitarian aid, especially for Spanish refugee children. Photographic reports published in the European left-wing press depicting the destruction caused by the war fuelled the emotional response sought by the republicans of Madrid and left-wingers in their effort to reach a broad public audience. These many reports, showing wounded and deceased men, women, and children in scenes of general ruin, together with internationally distributed posters calling for solidarity with the Spanish people, stimulated empathy among the general public for the Republican camp.

The Republican government in Madrid produced one of the most famous of these posters (Fig. 11.2). It depicts a woman and a small child,

**Fig. 11.2** Poster published by the Ministry of Propaganda, Spain in 1937 in English, French, and Spanish. English version: © Imperial War Museum (Art.IVM PST 8660); French version: © The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Photo SCALA, Florence; Spanish version: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Plakatsammlung, archive no. K-0028

the very icon of innocence, being terrorized by bombing—a reference to the violent air raids on the Spanish capital. Produced by a Spaniard whose identity is still under discussion, this modern graphic composition, which applied the technique of photomontage using a photograph taken by the Hungarian photographer Robert Capa, was one of the frst visual manifestations of international cooperation regarding Spain. The religious dimension of the motif is obvious and enabled the poster to speak to an audience beyond left-wing political activists alone. The accompanying text, grave but fully integrated into the overall graphic design, directly addressed the audience with a call for solidarity: 'What are you doing to prevent this?' It demanded that the sadness and fear caused by the motif be transformed into a willingness to act and react; it also evoked guilt and even shame for inaction in the face of the tragedies taking place in Spain. The poster was translated into several languages in order to address different national audiences. The international mobilization for Spain played a decisive role in both crystallizing an anti-fascist political identity that was rooted in militant practices and establishing, on the basis of popular images, a political discourse of international solidarity and humanitarianism.54

At the heart of the confict, however, different emotional politics were expressed on either side of the front line, but also within the left wing, defned by specifc expectations of the fghters. From July to September 1936, there was a wave of relatively spontaneous support from foreign militants or exiled Spaniards eager to show solidarity with the Popular Front government in Madrid in its armed struggle against fascism. Studies on the reasons for the departure of international volunteers to Spain illustrate how political opinions and socio-economic circumstances were intertwined.55 As for many of the Philhellenic volunteers 100 years earlier, unemployment was a factor, but the template of revolutionary romanticism, echoing the Russian revolution of 1917, and a desire to learn from the experience of combat played major roles. In the end, it was the preexisting political commitment of organized militants that dominated: nearly 80 per cent of the French volunteers were political activists or members of a left-wing party or trade union before travelling to Spain. For them, it was a question of going to fght for common interests, even to the point of risking their lives, alongside 'comrades' whose struggles,

<sup>54</sup>Farré, *Colis de guerre*, 87–103.

<sup>55</sup> Skoutelsky, *Espoir*, 190–200.

humiliations, and hardships they shared.56 They went to Spain to pursue a political and emotional education. As the Frenchman Simon Lagunas, a communist activist since 1934, remembered:

There is something that people cannot understand about what we experienced, which is very important, and that is anti-fascism. It was the cement of the time. … So as far as Spain is concerned, with the victory in the elections [in February 1936], there was overfowing enthusiasm in the French working class, among the French people, and when Franco's attack began, then it turned into anger. And there was a current of solidarity of a strength we can hardly imagine now.57

Commitment in Spain thus represented a continuity of experience with what the philosopher Simone Weil called the 'pure, undiluted joy' of shared victory and fraternity, which she herself had experimented in France in the 1930s and which acted as an effective template at local, national, and later transnational levels.58 And yet, militant enthusiasm intermingled with anger and revolt. The non-interventionist stance taken by the British and French governments, made offcial on 6 September 1936, incited shock and outrage, just as the inaction of the European States over the events in Constantinople that had mobilized the Philhellenes. 'We did not want to be cowardly witnesses to an immense deception: "nonintervention"', wrote one French Brigadist.59 It was therefore necessary, through private action, to make up for the failure of the authorities.

These feelings of enthusiasm and anger were both encouraged and hindered, however, by one key actor: Moscow, and, by extension, its communist network, which made full use of emotions in its public messaging. Moscow's position of offcial support for the movement from October 1936 was a response both to this disappointment and to the momentum that had arisen in favour of solidarity, while still aligned with the interests of the Soviet state. The creation of the International Brigades in October 1936 was a de facto attempt to form a multinational army under Communist control to fght against the Francoists. The ambition was to

<sup>59</sup> 'Mon vieux bataillon', *Le Soldat de la République*, 23 December 1937, quoted in Skoutelsky, *Espoir*, 182.

<sup>56</sup>Bayertz, *Solidarität*, 21.

<sup>57</sup> Skoutelsky, *Espoir*, 174–75.

<sup>58</sup>Testimony of the philosopher Simone Weil about the factory occupations of June 1936: 'La condition ouvrière, 1937', in Weil, *Écrits*, 209; Skoutelsky, *Espoir*, 182–83.

bring militant enthusiasm under strict discipline. This was largely staged in the international communist or popular press—from the French magazine *Regards*, to *Life* in the US, through to the German *Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung*—in reports by pro-republican journalists and photographers including Gerta Pohorylle alias Gerda Taro from Germany, Erne Endrö Friedmann alias Robert Capa from Hungary, or David Seymour alias Chim from Poland.60 The Italian communist journalist Teresa Noce remembers how the women activists of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) were at pains to remind the energetic volunteers that it was a real war, where people suffered and died.61 The emotional discourses on the Republican side, seen in the example of the International Brigades, illustrate the way in which communist, partisan, and state propaganda, in the name of international solidarity, combined the call for militant jubilation with efforts to regulate emotions.

Thirty-fve thousand combatants were engaged in the International Brigades, coming from Europe but also from the Americas and Asia. Many of them were workers, half of them communists, mostly men, aged between twenty-six and thirty-four.62 The internationalism inscribed on the posters, proclaimed in militant songs, expressed in speeches, and implicit within the offcial name of the volunteer force was no empty rhetoric. It had long been a daily, lived experience for many left-wing activists who sympathized with Polish, German, and Italian political exiles at home.63 The German communist writer Erich Weinert's *Song of the International Brigades*, which he wrote in Spain, began: 'We, born in the distant fatherland/Took nothing but hatred in our hearts' and continued 'Spain's freedom is now our honour/Our heart is international'.64

However, although the hearts of more than 3300 Italian anti-fascist Brigadists did beat for Spain, they continued to beat for Italy as well. Spain became the geographical and symbolic space in which to gain armed experience, moral strength, and legitimacy, so that Italians opposed to Mussolini could return pride and dignity to Italy and later fght fascism on Italian soil.65 The namesake of the Italian anti-fascist battalion, Giuseppe Garibaldi

60Fontaine, *Guerre d'Espagne*.

61Noce, *Rivoluzionaria professionale*, 186–200.

64German text by Erich Weinert, written during the Spanish War, music by Carlos Palacio, performed by Ernst Busch**.**

65Maltone, 'Garibaldiens'.

<sup>62</sup>Berg, *Brigaden*, *passim*.

<sup>63</sup> Skoutelsky, *Espoir*, 182–83.

(1807–1882), was an important symbol of Italian patriotism and the triumph of national unity but, having fought in Latin America and Europe to defend the freedom of peoples, was also a 'hero of both worlds'. A humanist, universalist, fraternalist, and pacifst, the fgure of Garibaldi became associated with a commitment to republican Spain, in an effort to counteract his appropriation by the fascists. Garibaldi also represented a moral stance, a model for how to behave, and a genuine feeling.66 This testifes to the close interweaving of patriotic and internationalist feelings in solidarity with Republican Spain.

The battle of Guadalajara in March 1937, where the communist Garibaldi Brigade fought against legionnaires sent by Mussolini, allowed observers to perceive the performative force of the emotions at the heart of the anti-fascist mobilization on one side and the Francoists on the other.67 The battle ended in a republican victory. The communist Brigadist Luigi Longo described it as a clash of two contrasting worlds of emotions:

Two worlds met and measured each other in Guadalajara: the fascist world of misery, oppression, and brutal force, represented by Mussolini's legions, and the world of the people with its spontaneous and creative enthusiasm, its faith in the most glorious national traditions of freedom and solidarity among peoples, its unlimited sense of sacrifce and its countless resources. … With their heroism and sacrifce, the Garibaldians saved the honour of the Italian people, the reputation of its human qualities and its moral and military effectiveness.68

The emotional strength of the anti-fascist commitment was presented as an asset, not a limitation, to military effectiveness. It is interesting to note that, on the fascist side, the military defeat was also explained in terms of emotional communities in opposition.69 The fascist legionnaires were defeated not because of military inferiority, the argument went, but due to their lack of idealism and heroism—in other words, because of ethical inferiority. The Italian fascist general in charge regretted that his men had been 'passive' and 'incapable of feeling the slightest hatred for the

<sup>66</sup> *Ibid*., 113–14.

<sup>67</sup>The fascist Corpo Truppe Volontarie counted up to 80,000 men, including 30,000 fascist militiamen. Many were unemployed, thinking of going to East Africa and fnally landing in the middle of the Spanish War.

<sup>68</sup>Quoted in Vidali, *Spagna*, 217–18.

<sup>69</sup> See Chap. 8 by Hannah Malone in this volume.

adversary'. The Garibaldi Brigade, by contrast, fought 'masterfully and in a fanatical and hateful manner'.70

In September 1938, the International Brigades were disbanded. Moscow undertook to withdraw the foreign volunteers from Spain in a strategic bid to win support from Paris and London, even on an unoffcial level, in the struggle against fascism, and violently brought the remaining fghters to heel, including carrying out summary executions. The strategic interests of the Soviet state had fnally prevailed over militant internationalist enthusiasm. The fnal military defeat of the republicans led to a deep sense of shame and humiliation, followed by despair, when France, where many international volunteers had sought refuge, put them in camps. In his notebook, the Italian communist Giancarlo Pajetta wrote: 'January 1939. For us, the border is still closed. … How true the words of Ernst Busch's song sound: "Born in a faraway land, now our homeland is here". And how painfully ironic its end is: "We will return home when fascism is defeated."'71

Many veterans of the war in Spain felt deeply disillusioned once the universalist and militant enthusiasm had dissipated; there was also the feeling of having been betrayed by Moscow and that the proclaimed policy of international solidarity had been hijacked by Stalin. Commitment to antifascism led these freedom fghters into the international resistance in Europe and kept them away from their homeland for years, sometimes long after the end of the war.

#### International Solidarity and the Defence of Human Rights in Chile after 1973: Competing Political Emotions?

After 1945, neither the socialist and communist political parties nor Moscow maintained a monopoly on international solidarity and its political emotions. In an increasingly interconnected international arena and an accelerating process of globalization, the institutional landscape of solidarity had indeed changed. The legitimacy of the United Nations and many international non-governmental institutions was not only based precisely on the principle of solidarity but also on the universal defence of human

<sup>70</sup>Mario Roatta to Mussolini, 20 March 1937, telegram, ACS Collection Segreteria Personale del Duce, bundle CR, fle 72, quoted in Maltone, 'Garibaldiens', 147.

<sup>71</sup>Pajetta, *Ricordi di Spagna*, 166.

rights. Moreover, among a more divided Left, the existential international struggle against fascism in the 1930s and 1940s had rematerialized in a struggle for freedom and justice against North American imperialism, with the Cold War and anti-colonial movements as a backdrop. Hot on the heels of the mobilizations against the Vietnam War—'the Spain of our generation' according to European intellectuals—the international solidarity movement against the coup d'état in Santiago de Chile on 11 September 1973 and the resulting dictatorship, which lasted up until Pinochet's departure in 1990, appears to have been exemplary in refecting the new diversity of emotional policies conducted in the name of solidarity.72

The fall of the Popular Unity government under the socialist President Salvador Allende provoked strong reactions all over the world as soon as it was announced. Immediate shock took hold beyond Chile and the international left as photographs and video footage depicting the aerial bombing of the presidential palace of La Moneda, the seat of democratically elected power, by its own army were broadcast, along with images of soldier patrols sowing terror in the streets of the capital. The violence was not only symbolic but physical as well. These images were also associated with a sound document: President Allende's last speech, delivered from within La Moneda while the bombing took place. Broadcast on the radio over a background of gunfre and explosions just before his suicide, his words were not of despair or fear, but expressed frmness and courage: 'These are my last words, I am sure that the sacrifce will not be in vain and that at least it will be a moral punishment for cowardice and treason.' Copies of the recording, saved from the military raids, were sent abroad a few days later via the Chilean Communist Party. This journey was the beginning of a long international career for the speech. The East German record label Eterna made 5000 audio copies, which sold out within three days. In France or Canada, the speech accompanied an anthology of Popular Unity songs, which became anthems of resistance to the junta almost overnight (Fig. 11.3).73

Its intense media coverage made 11 September 1973 a global event, anchoring it in a common imaginary that was highly emotional, dramatic, and sombre. The tone was set for the left: Allende's sacrifce had made him

<sup>72</sup> SDS-Bundesvorstand, 'Aufruf'; Eckel, 'Allende's Shadow'.

<sup>73</sup>*Chansons et musique de la résistance chilienne*. See Chap. 10 by Juliane Brauer in this volume.

**Fig. 11.3** Album cover of the last speech of Salvador Allende, 1973, published by Eterna, VEB Deutsche Schallplatten

a hero and a martyr who fought with determination—to the death against the cruel and traitorous junta personifed in the fgure of General Augusto Pinochet. A portrait of Pinochet taken by the Dutch photographer Chas Gerretsen became the very icon of evil, hatred, and terror for public audiences around the world.74 The solidarity mobilizations that ensued drew largely on this material, which the event itself had delivered, giving shape to a specifc template: that of a commitment based on anger and fear, especially on part of the exiled Chileans, linked through these iconic, spectacular, and emotionally charged images of good and evil.

<sup>74</sup>Château, 'Augusto Pinochet'; Oquendo-Villar, 'Dress for Success'.

The European left responded quickly to this violence and repression, initiating several political campaigns for solidarity with the 'Chilean people'. The campaigns had three main objectives: to denounce the crimes of the Chilean dictatorship and secure its diplomatic isolation on the world stage, to obtain the release of the junta's political prisoners, and to defend and support the continued political struggle of the Popular Unity alliance. Solidarity activists in Europe threw themselves into intense advocacy work to raise public awareness through publications, such as newspapers or newsletters, political and cultural events, fundraising, and providing material aid to Chilean political exiles. Key actors in these campaigns were Moscow and its numerous affliates in international communist political and cultural networks: parties and trade unions, record or flm distribution companies, and publishing houses helped to spread a united message of offcial solidarity with Chile to an international public audience, both in the East and in the West. The physical presence and testimony of Chilean political exiles in the movement—women and men who had themselves experienced repression and torture and became committed solidarity activists abroad—contributed greatly to the mobilization of emotion beyond traditional communist circles.

A common language of words and gestures combined with a shared musical repertoire enabled the creation of an international emotional community. In the dominant emotional template of campaign discourse, solidarity was felt, expressed, and exercised not for 'victims', but for 'combatants' and 'resistance fghters': it encouraged not pity for their suffering but respect and admiration for the courage of 'comrades' in struggle. The gesture of the raised fst, a time-honoured symbol in the language of leftwing internationalist political struggle, was repeated on stage, on posters, on record sleeves. The media played an essential role in helping to consolidate and spread these political and combative emotions from one country to another, on a transnational level.75 Concerts bringing together European musicians and exiled Chilean musicians, such as the famous bands Inti-Illimani or Quilapayún, mass demonstrations of people brandishing the names and portraits of 'heroes', political meetings, art and photography

<sup>75</sup>Moine, 'Mobilisations de solidarité'.

exhibitions, and flm screenings were all moments and places where the emotions aroused by the fate of the 'Chilean people' were collectively performed and expressed.76 The main goal was to remind people that they were part of the same community of people struggling against inequality, American imperialism, and capitalism. Lurking in the shadows but omitted from contemporary accounts, however, were the divisions between communists, socialists, Christian democrats, and left-wing democrats, for from these mobilizations there also had to emerge a sense of hope that political victory would be won through class struggle: 'The people united will never be defeated!' (*El pueblo unido jamás será vencido)*.

This powerful political and emotional motto, which lay at the heart of the international solidarity campaigns in Europe, was perfectly synthesized in a large, brightly coloured fresco mural that was painted on a wall at the University of Bielefeld in West Germany in 1976 (Fig. 11.4). Heavily inspired by Latin American visual political culture, the mural was painted over a span of fourteen hours in a clandestine cooperation between university students and the Salvador Allende Brigade of Chilean artists in exile. Its message to everyone who walked through the main hall of the building was upbeat: from the pain and tears born of the repression and terror inficted by American imperialism, a unity is emerging among the Chilean people (miners, peasants, workers), whose commitment to struggle is breathing new life into the dove of peace and the hope of seeing a peaceful, free, and independent Chile reborn. The mural's obvious visual references to Picasso's *Guernica* (1937, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid) renewed for the students and staff of this German university the link between two great moments in the emotional history of international, anti-fascist solidarity. In the German text painted along the entire length of the mural,

**Fig. 11.4** Chile mural in the Central Hall of the University of Bielefeld, 1976. © Britta Ledebur, 7 November 2014, Archive of Bielefeld University

<sup>76</sup> See Chap. 12 by Ute Frevert in this volume.

keywords such as 'antifascism', 'struggle', 'suffering', and 'terror', but also 'future', were linked to an emotional vision of victory against the dictatorship. Like this mural, the solidarity campaigns used iconography as part of their mobilization strategy, in order to show, rather than merely suggest, emotions. This enabled emotions to have a profound infuence on the political imagination of the period.

Yet there was also another tone present in the speeches and emotional rituals denouncing the crimes committed by the Chilean dictatorship: a universalist defence of human rights. The coup in Chile was a decisive moment for Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization launched in 1961. During the 1960s and 1970s, it became the main organization advocating for human rights, which, according to Samuel Moyn, 'spawned a new brand and age of internationalist citizen advocacy'.77 The political dedication of its founder, Peter Benenson, born in London in 1921, can be traced back to his involvement in anti-fascist solidarity between the wars. At the age of sixteen, he and his school friends collected money to help orphaned victims of the Spanish Civil War, and later, as a law student, he helped two young Jewish Germans fee the Nazi regime.78 After a decade practising as a barrister and two unsuccessful bids for election with the Labour Party, Benenson confronted the disappointment he felt towards existing political institutions by proposing a new mode and space of action that aimed to be explicitly apolitical and non-partisan.

In May 1961, Benenson issued the initial Amnesty call for the release of prisoners of conscience throughout the world, East and West, North and South. His new movement was 'designed in particular to absorb the latent enthusiasm of great numbers of such idealists who have, since the eclipse of Socialism, become increasingly frustrated'.79 The idea was to capitalize on the restlessness of women and men who were dissatisfed with institutional political structures but felt powerless in the face of the world situation: 'The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done.'80 The injunction was clear: not to allow oneself to be overwhelmed by the experience of negative feelings, but to transform them into hope and action. It was this kind of emotional templating, despair that was diverted into action, that lay at the

<sup>77</sup>Moyn, *Last Utopia*, 11–43.

<sup>78</sup> ITW oral history of AI, 12/11/1983, quoted in Hopgood, *Keepers*, 56.

<sup>79</sup>Buchanan, 'Truth', 593.

<sup>80</sup>Benenson, 'Forgotten Prisoners', 21.

heart of Amnesty's pledge. This could only be done in an internationalist spirit, Benenson implored. Quickly renamed Amnesty *International*, the movement—almost exclusively Western and male—adopted an emotional template designed to make everyone feel that they belonged to a higher, equal, universal humanity: 'It is to give to him who feels cut off from God a sense of belonging to something much greater than himself, of being a small part of the entire human race.'81 Amnesty thus represented a dual legacy: that of European Christian ecumenism and that of the new social movements and the New Left-extra parliamentary, anti-authoritarian, and critical of both American and Soviet imperialism.82 The goal was to offer a response, in discourse and praxis, to political upheavals both past (fascism, Nazism, genocide of the European Jews during the Second World War) and present (Cold War, globalization, secularization in the West). Sceptical of traditional forms of authority and institutions, especially church and state, Benenson wanted to assert a new moral authority. How did this translate in terms of emotions?

The preface to Amnesty's September 1974 report on a year of dictatorship in Chile stated:

In publishing the report, Amnesty International hopes that it will provide a factual basis for a continuing program of assistance to the victims of the coup and, what is equally urgent, for a renewed campaign of international pressure upon the Chilean Government to restore human rights in Chile.83

Seeking to distance itself from the antagonistic political rhetoric of other international solidarity initiatives, Amnesty spoke of 'victims' rather than 'comrades in struggle'. The authors of the report also insisted on its factual nature. This was a founding principle of Amnesty's work, which it sought to raise above politics and confict—it was necessary to be able to inform and persuade through factual rigour, not by arousing emotions such as pity, compassion, or fear.84 Only the testimonies of torture victims or relatives of the disappeared, the cornerstone of these reports, could allow the expression of emotions. Amnesty's reports thus ensured the documentation of evidence, which then fed into the actions of national and international political institutions, but also local and regional political

<sup>81</sup>Buchanan, 'Truth', 593–94.

<sup>82</sup>Wildenthal, *Language*, 76–87.

<sup>83</sup>Amnesty International, Chile, 5.

<sup>84</sup>Dudai, 'Human Rights Reports'.

solidarity committees. The Chile Solidarity Committee in West Berlin, for example, which brought together activists from the New Left, worked with Amnesty. Amnesty increasingly gained a reputation for sober rhetoric, not lukewarm positions, and this enabled it to reach audiences beyond activist circles. The Committee regularly made the pages of its newsletter, the *Chile-Nachrichten*, available for Amnesty press releases.85

Emotions were not, however, absent from Amnesty's discourse and practice. Indeed, the choice to become a member was based on individuals' emotional states in moments when they reached a tipping point towards taking action. In 1981, journalist Carola Stern, co-founder of the group's West German section, recounted one student's motivations for joining:

[S]he had noticed how, when watching the daily television news, her horror at fresh acts of terror was gradually disappearing, how bland indifference was taking the place of sensitivity. She said she had come to Amnesty International lest, while she was still young, she lose the capacity to show solidarity and to love other people.86

Individuals could feel emotionally overwhelmed by the fow of information in an increasingly mediatized society. Amnesty offered individuals a platform for taking action, while listening to their emotions, in a way that was more than just a gesture. The practice of writing letters to prisoners, which was at the heart of Amnesty's work from the very beginning, went beyond statistics and impersonal relationships and made it possible to establish a bond, however tenuous, with another living person. This balance between compassion on the one hand and the desire to keep one's own emotions at a distance on the other was a constant subject of debate within the Amnesty leadership, particularly at the National Secretariat in London between expert researchers and those responsible for communication and campaigns, but also between national sections, casting doubt on the unity of the organization's message.87

By the early 1980s, Amnesty had reached a peak position of moral authority, having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977. However, it was now facing competition from other non-governmental

<sup>85</sup> 'Ai Chile Koordinationsgruppe Frankfurt'.

<sup>86</sup>Quoted in Amnesty International, *AI in Quotes*, 40.

<sup>87</sup>Hopgood, *Keepers*, 111.

organizations such as Human Rights Watch, founded in 1978. In this light, Amnesty's US section decided to adjust its public image in order to reach a younger audience, especially those who had grown up in a globalized world dominated by audio-visual media. It organized international music tours of acclaimed artists, most of them Anglo-Saxon, who performed the role of human rights ambassadors on stage.88 Following two successful tours in 1986 and 1988, in October 1990, the third one made a stop in Chile. Pinochet's departure from power in March had ushered in a phase of transition to democracy. Amnesty wanted to welcome this new stage in Chile's history, while still raising international public awareness: the struggle had to continue so that justice could be done.89 They decided to hold two concerts in a highly symbolic venue that was far from being emotionally neutral: the National Stadium in Santiago. Having been used as a concentration camp in the frst weeks of the dictatorship, it held a sinister memory for Chileans and non-Chileans alike. To counter this association, a giant backdrop reading 'From Chile … Embrace Hope' adorned the stage. To close the second concert, during the performance of 'They Dance Alone' in Spanish by the British musician Sting, a song he had written in homage to the mothers of the regime's victims, women from the Association of the Families of the Disappeared joined him on stage.90 Each of them held up a portrait of their loved one, 'in a powerful talismanic function'.91

With its carefully chosen emotional language and visual codes, this performance was a public relations event with blurred political contours. Emotions were no more just suggested, but clearly stipulated. The event was also broadcast on television, thus transmitting Amnesty's message and actions to a much wider community: a global media audience. This event inaugurated a new kind of emotional template, namely, emotions as a spectacle for a large audience, for Amnesty International, which sparked a series of internal debates. Despite this, its effect in terms of membership was signifcant, with numbers in Chile increasing by 2000 in the following weeks.

Between 1973 and 1990, emotions not only remained an essential tool for international solidarity mobilizations; their templating had to change

<sup>88</sup>Möckel, 'Humanitarianism'.

<sup>89</sup> See Chap. 4 by Agnes Arndt in this volume.

<sup>90</sup> 'Sting–The Dance Alone (Amnesty in Chile–1990)'.

<sup>91</sup>Pointon, *Hanging*, 5.

and evolve too. The political cultures and emotional policies of the various actors in international solidarity changed in order to cope on the one hand with a growing feeling of being overwhelmed by a more global circulation of information and on the other hand with increasing political disillusionment among those on the left.92

#### Conclusion

The history of international solidarity movements from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries illustrates the decisive role emotions played in the emergence of new political cultures. Philhellenic enthusiasm contributed to the formation of a democratic space in Europe. Greek support committees appealed to a public audience that transcended state borders and heralded political parties in the making. In the 1930s, as the movement for international workers' solidarity became more generalized and politicized, it was also extended through a process of institutionalization led by the Comintern, which contributed greatly to shaping the emotional styles linked to appeals for solidarity and their associated actions. The Spanish Civil War nourished the pathos in left-wing narratives, among them the myth of the fghter for international communist solidarity, whose institutionalized political emotions triumphed over those of socialists, anarchists, and so on. Forty years later, as communists and other leftwingers denounced the Chilean dictatorship, another new voice could also be heard with a very different tone: that of Amnesty International that defended human rights in the name of universalism. In each of these political moments, international solidarity created new frameworks not only for patriotic but also for internationalist and universalist sentiments.

What all three examples discussed here demonstrate is how international solidarity movements have contributed in their discourses and practices to the establishment of distinct emotional templates, each time drawing inspiration from previous mobilizations. Following a process of growing institutionalization combining state and non-state actors, international solidarity mobilizations have provided an important framework for anchoring the political feelings of citizens, both individually and collectively, in transnational space.

Beyond questions of success, failure, and effectiveness, at least one observation about these international solidarity movements is obvious: the

<sup>92</sup>Traverso, *Left-Wing Melancholia*.

images and sounds produced and reproduced through these mobilizations have become part of our common imagination. Present-day political emotions largely follow the templates forged in these moments of solidarity. This collective imprinting has sometimes been to the detriment of their protest qualities. The fresco mural in Bielefeld, which was clandestinely produced, is nowadays a monument under heritage protection. Nevertheless, even today, the mobilization of solidarity with Chile demonstrates the extent to which political emotions persist as performative phenomena on an intergenerational and international scale.

> Caroline Moine (moine@mpib-berlin.mpg.de)

#### Bibliography


Vidali, Vittorio. *Spagna lunga battaglia*. Milan: Vangelista, 1975.


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### Feeling Political in Demonstrations: Street Politics in Germany, 1832–2018

#### *Ute Frevert*

Leipzig, 25 September 1989: it is 5 p.m. on a Monday. About 2000 men and women gather in a protestant church in the city centre for an hour of prayer and singing. Outside, many more people are waiting. As soon as prayers end and participants leave the church, they mingle with the crowd outside and start walking through the streets and squares of the city. They do not march in orderly rows or columns. Instead, their steps and body language are casual, informal. They wear ordinary clothes. Many hold hands. They shout slogans like 'Freedom' or 'Authorize the Neues Forum' (an activist platform for political reform). They clap their hands, and they sing. Two songs stand out: *We shall overcome*, the hymn of the US civil rights movement, and the *Internationale*, the socialist anthem from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Though everyone raised in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has learnt the *Internationale* at school, the American song is less familiar. Still, many join in the chorus with tears in their eyes. Stasi men wait with clubs and dogs, ready to beat and arrest anyone who catches their attention. Fear grips the old and the young. Nevertheless, even at the sight of armoured police vehicles, a ffty-six-yearold man reported, 'I did not feel left alone, and we learned to walk upright'.1

1Neues Forum Leipzig, *Jetzt oder nie*, 31; Löscher and Vogel, 'Leipziger Herbst', esp. 130, 140.

© The Author(s) 2022 341 U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8\_12

Despite the fear and the brutality, the weekly 'Monday demonstrations' in Leipzig in the autumn of 1989 continued, drawing increasing numbers of participants. On 2 October, more than 20,000 people took part. A week later, the crowd had grown to 80,000. By 16 October, 120,000 people protested, and by 23 October this number had more than doubled again. Protesters carried banners and posters with individual messages that changed from week to week. They also diversifed their props and brought candles and fowers too. Among them were families with children, factory workers, young students, as well as, increasingly, older people in their forties and ffties. Chanting slogans such as 'Democracy now or never', 'We are the people', 'Free elections', and 'Freedom to travel', they seemed as surprised as they were happy to be part of a huge, spontaneous street movement without leaders, programmes, or central organization.2 'Nobody has mobilized these 300,000 people to the ring road', fftythree-year-old Reiner Tetzner wrote on 23 October. 'Not even a new party or association could have done this. Men and women come of their own accord to join the weekly people's assembly, walk around the inner city alongside like-minded citizens, and then go home. The stronger the current, the more power and strength I feel myself.'3 'All of a sudden', another participant observed, 'people talked politics' and, in a selfdignifying way, felt political—in the sense that they cast off the feeling of 'deep humiliation' and claimed to having an active say in how they lived, individually as well as collectively.4

The streets and squares overfowed with emotions. There was not only fear, but enthusiasm, unbridled joy, hope, and optimism combined with a feeling of deliberate, self-determined togetherness and solidarity. The protesters were united in their conviction that things had to change, against a shared opponent: the state apparatus monopolized by the ruling party. Abolishing that regime and reforming the system for the better was their common goal. Week by week, the goal became more concrete through the addition of specifc demands and desires. People arranged to meet again 'next Monday' and step up the pressure. Experiencing the 'autumn of change outdoors' induced 'a feeling of great liberation'.5 They suddenly understood how to be political and act politically in a self-defned and

<sup>2</sup>Zwahr, *Ende*, 24–26, 37–52, 110. As a history professor, the author acted as 'participant observer' and chronicler of Monday demonstrations.

<sup>3</sup>Tetzner, *Leipziger Ring*, 51.

<sup>4</sup>Zwahr, *Ende*, 102.

<sup>5</sup>Lindner and Grüneberger, *Demonteure*, 124.

self-empowering way. This emotional experience was crafted on the street as a new 'tribune of the people' in mass demonstrations in Leipzig and other cities across the GDR.6

Street politics have long been a staple in democratic or democratizing societies. Historically versed observers of the Monday demonstrations felt reminded of the 1848 revolution, when Germany witnessed for the frst time a mass movement of people challenging the old regime and demanding freedom (of the press, of assembly, of religion, etc.).7 From that time on, protest marches and demonstrations had become an integral, though contested, part of politics. They offered the chance to form and share feelings about politics, and they communicated those feelings to the wider public as well as to other political institutions and arenas. These emotionally expressive manifestations of political desires and concerns took place in the open air, under a 'free sky' (*unter freiem Himmel*). Freedom and openness came with the promise of equal, unrestrained movement of bodies, minds, and souls.

Some saw this as a threat to formally institutionalized politics as they played out in parliaments, government offces, or assembly halls.8 Whereas these spaces were architecturally closed and confned, streets and squares as sites of demonstrations allowed for a wider range of social action. They made it possible, said the critics, for emotions to run wild and infect large crowds whose behaviour could no longer be controlled and contained. All political regimes, even democratic ones, therefore took precautions against open-air assemblies and marches, especially those that came close to offcial sites of politics.9

Demonstrations did and do indeed lay claim to the public sphere as a 'space of appearance' as Hannah Arendt has famously called it.10 Taking up a position in such space requires certain kinds of performative acts that 'signify', in Judith Butler's words, 'prior to, and apart from, any particular demands' people make. They do so not necessarily by way of 'linguistic performativity', but through 'a concerted bodily enactment'.11 Enactment heavily depends on emotions coming to the fore as they move people to coordinate and synchronize their actions. 'Feeling political', then, emerges as the result of a situated experience of self-effcacy. At the same time,

<sup>6</sup>Gibas and Gries, 'Vorschlag', 481.

<sup>7</sup>Niethammer, 'Volk', esp. 268. For comparison, see Obermann, *Flugblätter*.

<sup>8</sup> See Chap. 3 by Philipp Nielsen.

<sup>9</sup>Ott, *Recht*, 20–54; Maltzahn, *Versammlungsgesetz*; Kaiser, 'Bannmeile'.

<sup>10</sup>Arendt, *Human Condition*, 198–99.

<sup>11</sup>Butler, *Notes*, 8–9.

emotions are themselves modelled and regulated by the very practices that constitute such enactment and experience: walking, running or marching, singing and chanting, clapping, cheering or booing, or carrying banners, fags, badges, candles.

Demonstrations can thus be studied as collective bodily performances that template political feelings. Although they are staged outside of, and often in opposition to, formalized structures and convey a lower grade of social and legal institutionalization, they develop their own power as 'localized plebiscites' and 'tools to realize popular sovereignty' by enabling the direct communication, expressive representation, and emotional dramatization of public matters.12 Furthermore, they aim to infuence other sites and actors of politics by this very plebiscite and leave an imprint on political deliberation and decision-making in legislative and executive bodies.

As a matter of fact, demonstrations did and still do play a decisive role in setting the political agenda and assuring citizens' participation and sovereignty. From their very emergence in the nineteenth century, through various transformations during the twentieth century, political activities conducted under the free and open sky generated distinct rules, practices, and meanings.13 Undoubtedly, these were less scripted and ritualized than parliamentary or party protocols. Yet a close analysis shows how emotional templating worked even under the auspices of rather spontaneous and unorganized political action. The cases investigated below come from German history, starting with the 1848 revolution and what preceded it, continuing with turn-of-the century politics, and fnishing with newer modes of political participation observable since the 1960s, including the peaceful GDR revolution of 1989.

#### Moments of Emergence: Feeling Political, 1830s–1840s

Street politics in Germany did not begin in 1848, nor were its formats restricted to demonstrations and protest marches. As 'repertoires of contention', street politics embraced popular rebellion as much as events such

<sup>12</sup>Ossenbühl, 'Versammlungsfreiheit', esp. 54, 64; Dietel and Gintzel, *Demonstrationsund Versammlungsfreiheit* (1989), 47; Preuß, 'Nötigung'.

<sup>13</sup>Following the defnition of 'institution' by March and Olsen, 'Appropriateness'.

as the liberal-democratic Hambach festival of 1832.14 Non-contentious repertoires included offcial parades with citizens lining the streets in order to welcome, congratulate, or pay homage to kings and princes.15 Others used the public sphere for tumultuous riots, mostly in the context of rising bread prices and famine.16 Such protests were buttressed by a moral economy that included expectations about the duties of governing bodies and the rights of the poor. When the good order of things, humans, and saints had been violated, men and women took to the streets and demanded that order be reinstated. This also involved practices of communal justice like rough music or charivaris, as they were collectively performed against social transgressors.17

Local authorities tried their best to prevent, curb, and outlaw such practices. They also increasingly retreated from public spectacles of offcial retribution which had been common during the early modern period. Punishments like fogging, pillorying, or execution that had attracted large crowds gradually disappeared from streets and squares and became hidden behind prison doors. Urban space was given over to commercial traffc and social encounters that became closely monitored and regulated by police and military.18

At the same time, governments all over Europe started to sense the dangers of modern street politics as they emerged during and after the French Revolution. Much of what happened in Paris in 1789 still followed older patterns of popular upheaval, like the storming of the Bastille prison and the women's march to Versailles. A great deal of political activity took place in clubs and behind closed parliamentary doors. Yet speeches, debates, and resolutions also cut their way through to the outside world and sparked demonstrations as well as festive manifestations. The 1830 revolution added barricades and fghting to the common picture of urban unrest. In Germany, at that time composed of thirty-fve monarchical states and four free cities, citizens remained calm (which, as a Prussian governor had warned in 1806, was their frst civic duty). The attempt by

<sup>14</sup>Tilly, *Stories*, 5–6, defnes 'repertoires of contention' as 'a set of performances by which members of any pair of politically constituted actors make claims on each other, claims that, if realized, would affect their object's interests'.

<sup>15</sup>Holenstein, 'Huldigung'; Schwengelbeck, *Politik des Zeremoniells*.

<sup>16</sup>Gailus, 'Food Riots'.

<sup>17</sup> See the classic studies by Thompson, *Customs in Common*, 185–258 (on the moral economy of the English crowd), 467–538 (on rough music).

<sup>18</sup> Jessen, *Polizei*, 28–32, 41–43.

university students in 1817 to rally behind 'honour, freedom, fatherland' had been met with harsh police repression. Against this background, people with liberal and democratic views chose rather cautiously to declare them in parliamentary bodies that some states had set up during the early nineteenth century, and/or in cultural associations such as singing clubs, carnival, and gymnastic societies.19

Such clubs and societies lacked the radical attire of students' assemblies and torchlight processions. Yet they were by no means unpolitical. Through song, theatrical performance, and physical practice, hearts, bodies, minds, and souls were thought to be elevated and synchronized in a common bid for personal freedom, democratic rule, and national belonging. Collective singing enhanced enthusiasm, courage, solidarity, and hope. Physical education and training formed strong bodies that withstood corruption and offered protection to weaker fellow citizens, among them women and children. Self-evidently, association membership was restricted to (middle class) men only. Their wives and daughters could, at times, be involved in larger festivities that combined open-air and roofed elements. But they were not supposed to participate in their own right or play an active, let alone dominant, role.

When, in 1832, the former Palatine regional governor and journalist Jakob Siebenpfeiffer convened the frst mass demonstration in German history, he explicitly invited men *and* women to join the Hambach festival and celebrate liberal ideas about constitutional rule and democratic participation.20 While he praised the future role of women as free and independent citizens, they should not go so far as to claim positions of power. They could attend political meetings and assemblies, be present in patriotic associations and clubs, and ornament national festivals, but they should not rule or govern, he thought. Apart from violating the laws of nature, such power would run against male dignity.21 This warning was echoed by the liberal professor and politician Carl Welcker who, in 1838, went out of his way to propel women's social and civic emancipation forward. In politics, though, he believed women should take a less prominent role. Besides repeating Siebenpfeiffer's reasons, Welcker added his own: emotions. Due to women's fragile nervous systems and physical weakness,

<sup>19</sup> Sperber, *Rhineland Radicals*, chs. 2–3; Siemann, *German Revolution*, 35–44.

<sup>20</sup>Nordblom, 'Resistance'.

<sup>21</sup>Haasis, *Volksfest*, 157.

they would simply not be able to live through the passionate struggles waged in the political arena.22

Welcker and Siebenpfeiffer, like most of their contemporaries, shared a belief in naturally given gender differences that were not to be blurred. Women were designed and pre-destined for family tasks, while men did business and, as a modern invention, went to war and into politics. Just as women were not to bear arms, they were to keep away from political deliberation and decision-making on the grounds that it was, by its very nature, contentious and combative. Ideally, Welcker noted in 1832, politicians and lawmakers should appeal to intellect and reason in a 'cool, calm, reporting, observing, informative' style that avoided 'warm and emotional' language. As a member of the Second Chamber of the Baden State Parliament, though, he knew from personal experience that this ideal was neither convincing nor realistic. People's wishes and intentions, he argued, worked through minds and hearts, and both should be politically engaged. In particular, this concerned issues related to the good and bad fortunes of the fatherland. They enlisted heart-felt emotions as much as strategic consideration. 'Warmer words' rather than 'cold speeches' were what was needed to mobilize patriotic feelings and invigorate citizens as well as civil servants.23

Those warmer words were indeed being spoken at the lectern, and they sometimes radiated considerable heat. Yet, speakers and interlocutors had to be on guard and employ them carefully. Under no circumstances should passions prompt them to lose control and physically go after their counterpart. Controlling and dispensing their passions in a measured way demanded a degree of self-discipline that, from the perspective of early liberal academics, neither women nor members of the lower classes could maintain and master. Even those who came out in favour of active citizenship and popular participation had reservations about who should and could participate, and how. Middle-class men, they held, were not only better educated and more knowledgeable in political matters. They also possessed refned and 'cultivated emotions' (*veredelte Gefühle*), which allowed them to respond appropriately to what the fatherland wanted and needed.24 In light of increasingly frequent food riots, urban tumults, and

<sup>22</sup>Welcker, 'Geschlechtsverhältnisse', esp. 638–39.

<sup>23</sup>Welcker, 'Zeitungsschreiber', quote 443. As to civil servants, see Chap. 2 by Francesco Buscemi.

<sup>24</sup>Haasis, *Volksfest*, 151–52.

street fghts, middle-class observers were torn between accepting such practices as the weapons of the weak and shunning them as dangerous outbursts of untempered emotion and unlimited violence.25

Such fears also abounded during the early stages of what turned out to be the 1848 revolution, which broke out at various sites and in diverse forms, in assembly halls and parliaments, street rallies and open-air assemblies. Pro-government newspapers quickly raised the question of whether 'the frenzy of enthusiasm' that had gripped the people would yield to a 'frenzy of rage'. Initially, the Paris news had startled academics, students, artists, merchants, and craftsmen alike. Pubs and reading rooms developed into political meeting places. Yet reading reports from France aloud to public audiences no longer quenched their 'newly awakened political ambitions': there were 'excited discussions' and 'exclamations that would not have been tolerated by the police'. Larger gathering places were needed and found. Assemblies of several hundreds or even thousands of men drafted petitions. They spoke of the 'power of enthusiasm' that rallied the people around their king but had to be nurtured by 'free institutions' and 'greater political freedom'. Most speakers belonged to the educated classes, while journeymen and workers formed part of both the indoor and outdoor audience.26

Although political meetings usually took place in confned spaces, the sheer number of attendants made it necessary to move beyond their walls. Those outside experienced the situation differently from people who could see and hear the speakers, and make themselves heard also. Even if information travelled quickly, it did so without proof of accuracy. Densely packed rooms, foors, and staircases allowed for all kinds of noise, commotion, and resonance. Conficting opinions voiced inside evoked more fervour outside, as was the case during a Berlin city hall meeting in early March 1848. When the representatives disagreed about procedures, the audience gave multiple signs of disapproval, raising a 'truly awful clamour', and objected to leaving the site. Eventually, someone managed to turn the tide by suggesting that they should instead cheer and applaud those whose stance had won their support.27

Not every political assembly ended on such a cheerful and peaceful note. A few days later, about 20,000 Berliners gathered in the popular

<sup>25</sup>Brophy, *Popular Culture*, 216–52.

<sup>26</sup>Wolff, *Revolutions-Chronik*, 7, 15–17, 27, 29.

<sup>27</sup> *Ibid*., 41–42.

Tiergarten area west of the Brandenburg Gate. Middle-class families mingled with young people, journeymen, and workers. Impromptu speeches were given, disputes and discussions erupted, and the Chief Constable implored everybody to remain calm. His assurance that all grievances would be met was greeted with a cheer. On their way back to the city centre, however, citizens clashed with soldiers on horseback who freely used their bayonets to slash pedestrians. Many were wounded, and some got arrested. The death toll was even bigger on March 18, when an equally numerous crowd, most of them 'decently dressed', gathered in front of the royal palace to hear the king make political concessions. Again, the military intervened—thus sparking the revolution, with its barricades and street fghting as well as innumerable public meetings and demonstrations.28

Offcially, popular assemblies had been forbidden after the Hambach festival in 1832. Political crowds were feared by the authorities as potentially unruly and revolutionary. During the 'excitement' and 'movement' that followed the 1848 events in France, however, they could no longer be contained or prohibited. In early April, a royal ordinance fnally declared that every unarmed Prussian had the right to assemble and join an association. More than a year later, when many liberal achievements had already been annulled, the government severely restricted those rights: political assemblies ('in which public affairs were discussed and infuenced') had to be announced to the local police. Policemen sat in on those meetings and made sure that no one stirred up punishable offences; in such cases it was within their authority to send everybody home and participants would be required to immediately leave the premises in order to avoid a fery commotion. The fear that discussions and debates among an 'excited crowd' might be transformed into 'deeds' was profound.29

Above all, it was the political associations thought to exert infuence through 'mass demonstrations and terrorism' that came under close surveillance. Membership was restricted to adult men; neither women nor men under twenty years of age were allowed in. If they did attend and refuse to leave a political meeting, the meeting could be dissolved by the police. Even greater restrictions applied to public assemblies and parades under the open sky. As they might be a threat to 'public safety and order', including traffc, the authorities kept a wary eye, particularly in the wake

<sup>28</sup> *Ibid*., 60–64, 124–30.

<sup>29</sup> *Stenographische Berichte*, 2778, 2772.

of the revolution, in light of the 'agitation that still exists in many parts of the country and is carefully being nurtured by political associations'.30

Such deliberations, decisions, and events clearly showed that participatory politics as they emerged before and during the 1848 revolution were dreaded by the government. Conservatives despised them as opening the door to people who could and would not take responsibility for what they asked for. Liberals, too, kept their distance. Although they argued in favour of constitutional rule and political representation, they felt uncomfortable about popular movements that had, in the past, often instigated turmoil and violence. The 1848 incidents again proved how fast demonstrations could get out of hand, especially when less 'educated' and 'refned' people joined them. Even though politics could not do without a certain amount of passion, that passion had to be measured and regulated, preferably in closed rooms with a limited, all-male, middle- and upper-class audience.

Lower-class people, in contrast, were more accustomed to open-air gatherings, processions, and confuences that were less spatially contained. Although they also followed a certain protocol, such gatherings demanded less organization, planning, and monitoring. With younger men participating—as journeymen, day labourers, and factory workers—they could easily turn more passionate. Gifted orators readily prompted the audience to act in what the sociologist Max Weber later called 'irrational' ways even though such ways followed their own logic and might well have seemed more rational to participants than to distant observers.

#### Mass Politics around 1900

Weber, a liberal-minded professor with a vivid concern for contemporary politics, strongly opposed 'irrational mob rule' on the grounds that it undermined sober political strategy making, as he saw it. Instead 'the democracy of the street' harboured a disposition to 'putch, sabotage and similar politically sterile outbursts' that remained erratic and turned destructive.31 Such 'mass' behaviour seemed inappropriate in political matters, and not just for Weber and his professional interest in modern

<sup>30</sup> *Ibid*., 2773–74, 2777. In 1850, restrictions on political associations and public gatherings were legally enshrined. In Prussia, the law remained in force until 1908.

<sup>31</sup>Weber, *Economy*, 1460–61.

rationality. Weber had read Gustave Le Bon's popular book on *La psychologie des foules* and quoted frequently from it in his own work.

Against the background of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune, Le Bon described the masses—a term widely used at the time—as the new force in modern democratic politics. From the 1793 *levée en masse* (which Le Bon extolled for its heroic passion and historic achievement) to later general strikes (*Massenstreik* in German), masses had made history and turned the political tables. There were virtuous and criminal masses—depending on whom they listened to and by whom they were infuenced. As a common feature, they shared a feminine character which meant that they were easily aroused, emotionally arrested, and acted in an exaggerated manner. Emotions travelled fast (a medical doctor by training, Le Bon used the term 'contagion') and thus produced a strong sense of community. In masses of the same type, as formed around social classes, castes, and sects, that sense was stable and long-lasting, whereas in others, like street crowds, it was short and feeting.32

Masses needed and gathered around a charismatic leader who gave them direction and purpose. In contemporary French politics, Le Bon saw this happening both in left-wing proletarian politics and in the right-wing Boulanger movement. But he also observed emotional mass behaviour in parliament, in court juries, and among educated citizens. Passion loomed large whenever and wherever groups of people convened and found someone who aggressively used the rhetorical tools of assertion, repetition, and contagion, mental as well as emotional. Mere words did not suffce, however; masses wanted, as Le Bon noted, colourful images and convincing narratives about past, present, and future. Symbols such as fags, fowers, and uniforms, but also songs and chants played a crucial role in emotionally motivating people and keeping them on board.

In Germany, Weber witnessed similar movements and processes. Although he unwaveringly supported organized party and parliamentary politics as the best and most rationally minded way to advance political goals, he also knew about the power of passions. He even went so far as to argue that politics and politicians without passion were failing in their duties. Nevertheless, hot passion had to stand side by side with cool

<sup>32</sup>Le Bon, *Crowd*, xx, 10, 21, 30, 35–37, 165–66, 189–90. See Reicher and Stott, 'Becoming'; Bailey, 'Social Emotions', esp. 221–28. On European conceptions of the masses since 1789, see Jonsson, *History of the Masses*.

refection and serious effort.33 This was what he saw lacking in street politics as they had developed since the late nineteenth century.

But was this really true? Even charismatic socialist leaders like Ferdinand Lassalle who had founded the frst labour party in 1863 diligently worked to match passion with *sang froid*. Time and again, he warned against 'blurry emotional politics' and advocated 'cold analysis' so that 'principles and interests' rather than 'personal hatred' and 'false patriotism' would inform people's political sympathies and opinions.34 The Socialist Workers' Party that emerged under the leadership of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht in 1875 strictly followed Marxist theories and organizational strategies that left little room for spontaneity and frenetic action. As most party activities were legally outlawed and prosecuted by the police between 1878 and 1890, members were forced to mainly focus on electoral campaigning. This in turn infuenced the tonal approach to politics and the way potential voters were addressed.

Under such repressive conditions, street politics as they had been practised during the 1848 revolution were utterly out of the question. Party meetings and electoral campaigning mostly took place indoors and followed parliamentary protocols. Arguments were exchanged through addresses and counter-addresses. Oratory skills were rehearsed beforehand, and party members were trained to speak up and express their opinion. The audience decided who would chair the meeting and for how long speakers should talk. Words had to be carefully weighed so as not to alarm the police offcer sent to watch over the assembly. Decorum was generally observed, and confrontations, though lively and sharp, remained within the boundaries of what was then deemed politically correct and polite.35

Elections thus fgured as educational rituals. They taught party members as well as voters how to talk politics and persuade others. Words mattered; handbills and leafets crowded with text were distributed in the tens of millions. Even if, as one leading party offcial confrmed, election campaigns triggered a high amount of enthusiasm, that enthusiasm could at best be merely voiced, rather than performed.36

<sup>33</sup>Weber, 'Politics', esp. 180–81, 196, 198.

<sup>34</sup>Lassalle, *Reden*, 372–73. As to Lassalle's celebrity status and emotional appeal, see Hake, *Proletarian Dream*, 120–37.

<sup>35</sup>Anderson, *Practicing Democracy*, 289–305, 362–73.

<sup>36</sup>Bernstein, 'Klassenpolitik', esp. 653.

This was altogether different when political gatherings once again began to take place in the open air. After the Anti-Socialist Laws expired in 1890, Social Democrats gradually reclaimed the streets for political action, be it strikes summoned by workers' unions and associations or public demonstrations. Although the agenda was set by central and local party leaders, it still relied on large numbers of people becoming 'infamed' and 'stirred up'. They also had to be 'taught' how to make their political claims known to a wider public and, above all, to the authorities. The latter did not appreciate them 'taking politics to the streets', as the complaints of Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow in 1908 attested. Under no circumstances would they 'tolerate agitators laying claim to rule the streets', and the police received orders to take drastic measures.37

Even without police intervention, however, such power over the streets was far from easily secured. As the gifted agitator of the socialist left Rosa Luxemburg reminded her comrades, demonstrations and rallies had 'their own logic and psychology' and their own dynamic: they tended to 'escalate and intensify' and demanded new, more effective forms and slogans. If these new expressions were blocked by the leadership, the 'masses' would be left disappointed, and their enthusiasm would simply evaporate. While Luxemburg urged party leaders to provide those new emotional templates, others were reluctant. Instead of feeding radicalism, they rather sought to tame and 'contain' the energy displayed during mass demonstrations.38

Not surprisingly, it was around this very time that the journalist Leopold Schönhoff coined the term *Straßenpolitik*. 'Street politics', he wrote in 1908, 'whether welcome or not', were an expression of 'profound need and powerful yearning', and they served as an effective 'de-escalation'. Popular hopes and worries might prove far more dangerous behind closed doors than in the open air, where they could be observed 'by a thousand uncovered eyes'.39 Social Democrats, to be sure, did much to both enact and 'de-escalate' such street politics when they called for mass demonstrations to demand suffrage reform in Prussia during the early twentieth century. Cognisant of the tight restrictions set by the local police, organizers saw to it that public safety was guaranteed, traffc

<sup>37</sup>Warneken, *Als die Deutschen*, quotes 15 (Ströbel in 1910), 7 (Bernstein in 1904), 9 (Bülow).

<sup>38</sup> *Ibid*., 18.

<sup>39</sup> Schönhoff, 'Politik', quotes 21, 23.

remained undisturbed, and onlookers unscathed. They intervened whenever someone lost their temper or was about to clash with the police. Liberal observers noted that the demonstrations calling for an end to the three-class franchise were not dominated by 'dull rage and passion' but conveyed 'a festive and elevated mood'.40 Dressed up in their Sunday clothes, some demonstrators marched in disciplined columns, while others walked casually and buoyantly. They made no noise, nor did they even talk loudly—what some bystanders interpreted as a menacing silence. At other times, however, they sang together, as a powerful means of instilling courage, strength, and synchronicity.41

Marching in unison had a similar effect. It set bodies in motion and was intended to impart a striking display of force and determination. In demonstrations human bodies were spectacular conduits of alignment and pressure. The signal they sent was simultaneously peaceful and threatening. It expressed feelings of confdence, pride, and passionate commitment, while at the same time channelling those feelings and bringing them under disciplinary control. The 'giant body of the proletariat' made itself visible, full of vigour and resolve, of exuberant 'joy' and 'brotherly kindness'. Some observers were reminded of military formations, which only enhanced an impression of barely concealed power and aggression. Socialists themselves spoke of 'workers' battalions' whose 'loud footsteps' chided the complacent 'bourgeoisie' and demanded change.42

These proletarian masses, in short, had nothing in common with the rioting crowds that had haunted bourgeois imagination since the early nineteenth century. There was neither tumult nor chaos. Instead, the masses displayed highly disciplined behaviour that refuted the condescending stereotype of wild people with violent temper and dissolute passion. Short moments of expressive action were restricted to waving red fags over Bismarck statues. Nobody was harmed, not even monuments dedicated to repressive and disliked politicians.

The same held true for the annual 1 May demonstrations that gathered steam in the 1890s. They were increasingly organized as family

<sup>40</sup>Heuss, 'Jagows Bekehrung'.

<sup>41</sup> See Chap. 10 by Juliane Brauer.

<sup>42</sup>Warneken, 'Massentritt'; Warneken, 'Gewalt', quote 105; Warneken, *Als die Deutschen*, quotes 60–61; Lindenberger, *Straßenpolitik*, 304–403.

outings, consisting of casual walks ending with coffee and cake in the presence of women and children. This peaceful impression was further emphasized by participants wearing red carnations on the lapel or across the bosom. This could hardly be interpreted as a violent message, especially considering the fower's polysemic meaning: red carnations were known to be the Kaiser's favourite fowers, and red generally fgured as the colour of love.43

Red carnations were also worn by female suffrage campaigners from 1910 onwards. Instead of staging public parades and demonstrations, they met in local assemblies where they listened to male and female speakers and songs sung by male choirs. Still, there was a public air to such events because women would frst gather in their local neighbourhood before walking 'in orderly rows' together to the designated assembly halls. Whenever any male onlookers tried to ridicule the women or heckle them with tasteless jokes, they received a quick retort. Even the slur of 'red suffragettes' fell fat, powerless against 'the serious and dignifed demonstration'.44

These demonstrations, rallies, and meetings were meticulously organized by party members. Millions of leafets were distributed beforehand and articles in the socialist press called upon proletarian women to 'come out' and raise their voices for their due rights. The fery rhetoric of their appeals contained plenty of emotional catchwords such as 'pain', 'misery', 'humiliation', 'contempt', 'complaints', and 'sorrows'. They also referred to 'enthusiasm' and 'hope', invoking a benign and victorious future. Above all, they stressed the importance of being publicly visible and speaking loudly, with one voice. This, participants were assured, would increase both resilience and self-confdence.45

The general picture was, therefore, one of well-orchestrated socialist street politics that effectively enhanced the political pressure exercised through parliamentary interventions and electoral campaigning. Other parties and associations quickly comprehended the added value of public political manifestations. While liberals continued to privilege appeals to individual citizens and remained reluctant to mobilize on a grand scale, nationalists increasingly used the public sphere not only to show off their

<sup>43</sup>Frevert, 'Flowers', 202–21.

<sup>44</sup> 'Heraus mit dem Frauenwahlrecht!' See also Bader-Zaar, 'With Banners Flying'.

<sup>45</sup>*Vorwärts: Berliner Volksblatt*, 23 February 1913, 6; 27 February 1913, 9; 28 February 1913, 10; 1 March 1913, 9; 2 March 1913, 1.

monarchist sentiments, but also to convey and gather support for their political interests and objectives.46 Patriotic rallies and parades set the stage for the pro-war gatherings that erupted in July and early August 1914.47

Demonstrations had thus become a highly visible element of political life since the 1890s; they were reported in the press, served as an argument in parliamentary debates, and left a lasting impression on participants. They taught and reminded them of the fact that modern democratic politics were not just about electing one's representatives into parliament. By joining a demonstration or attending a rally, citizens behaved and presented as active political subjects—with bodies, minds, and hearts. They acted emotionally and in doing so enthused others. Ideally, they sought to visibly rearrange the political furniture and enjoy a powerful echo in other political institutions. But even if they fell short of this, the movement itself introduced a sense of collective pride and solidarity as it strengthened their comprehension of self-effcacy and personal agency.

Emotions were inherent and visible at all stages of these events, in marching and walking, singing and chanting, in the waving of hats, and the wearing of certain clothes and symbols. The physical experience of being one among many moving in unison added to the sense of strength and power in the performance of street politics. In turn, collective action shaped and templated the feelings that participants took home from each public forum and would bring to the next. As stated in a socialist brochure of 1892, 'nothing strengthens the sense of self and power among the repressed class as much as mass demonstrations do'. Demonstrations operated like 'healthy bodily movements' that energized the mind, banished apathy and 'political lethargy', and fostered 'revolutionary passion': 'Each participant gains courage by seeing so many hitherto unfamiliar others join them in fghting for a common cause. The elementary feeling of solidarity and the sense of togetherness engender a mass spirit that imbues and sweeps along every single person.'48

<sup>46</sup>On liberal reluctance to mass mobilization, see Hettling, *Politische Bürgerlichkeit*, 153–84. 47Lindenberger, *Straßenpolitik*, 359–81; Johann, *Innenansicht*, 15–17. Anti-war rallies

had, since 1911, gathered tens of thousands of (mostly socialist) participants.

<sup>48</sup>Müller, *Werth*, 25–26.

#### New Feelings and Social Movements, 1960s–1980s

While organized and ideologically distinguished street politics continued and even expanded during the Weimar Republic, they suffered a marked decline after the Second World War. Although West Germany's Basic Law confrmed the right of citizens to assemble freely and boosted the role of parties as major political institutions, party leaders were reluctant to reintroduce participatory politics in the form of mass demonstrations and rallies. The word 'mass' itself fell into disrepute and was replaced by concepts of plurality and social differentiation.49 Politicians warned against demagogical propaganda designed to provoke 'agitation', and thereby evoking memories of 'bad times', rather than offering sound and sober arguments. Agitation was clearly on the agenda of parties on the extreme right and left, yet they remained small and were legally prohibited in the mid-1950s.50 Mainstream parties, by contrast, refrained from rallying their members and voters to public gatherings. Campaign rallies increasingly focused on no-nonsense information rather than emotional appeals; the latter were, by and large, restricted to both raising and soothing fears of Communist rule in Germany's East after 1945.51

The reluctance to mobilize was motivated by two negative experiences. First, people remembered the Weimar Republic as a period of intense political polarization that ultimately drowned the country in violence. Parties on both the left and the right had formed militias numbering between 2.5 and 3 million men in total by the early 1930s, who roamed the streets in search for equally combative opponents.52 Women who had initially marched in protest against post-war food shortages or the legal ban on abortion gradually left the streets to younger men whose 'hatred' for the enemy stood side by side with their 'enthusiasm' for their own struggle.53 Street politics in the hands of extremist parties acquired an overtly antagonistic, aggressive, and paramilitary face.

49Nolte, *Ordnung*, 303–14 (see also, for the 1920s, 118–27). On the interwar period, see Jonsson, *Crowds*.

<sup>50</sup> See, for example, the 1954 New Year's Eve address by Theodor Heuss, frst federal president, in Kiehl, *Alle Jahre wieder*, 84.

51Mergel, *Propaganda*, chs. 7–8.

<sup>52</sup> Schumann, *Violence*, chs. 6–8; Loberg, *Struggle*, esp. chs. 3–4; Hake, *Proletarian Dream*, 238–54; Gailus and Siemens, *Horst Wessel*; Reichardt, *Faschistische Kampfbünde*, esp. 406–35; Reichardt, 'Fascist Marches'.

53Hagemann, 'Men's Demonstrations'; Swett, *Neighbors*, 95–100; Rosenhaft, *Beating*; Rosenhaft, 'Working-Class Life'; Brown, *Weimar Radicals*.

Second, memories of violent political marches and street fghting during the Weimar period were compounded by the subsequent experience of Nazi rallies and parades that, after 1933, had transformed public space into a site of state theatre. Instead of paying homage to kings and emperors, as in former times, citizens now gathered to cheer and celebrate the Führer and his many 'wonders'. They did not do so in a spontaneous or self-organized fashion, however. Rather, the regime immediately started to prepare and stage mass events 'on a grand scale'. As Hitler saw it, 'mass demonstrations' promoted what he called 'mass suggestion', turning every individual into an animated and high-spirited 'member of a community' inspired and guided by a charismatic leader.54

Mass demonstrations, Nazi-style, took various forms and appealed to different constituencies. On the one hand, Stormtroopers and members of the Hitler Youth appeared regularly in public to convey the disciplined and uniformed presence of the National Socialist movement. These appearances were all choreographed to emphasize shared motion and emotion. Although charged by 'enthusiasm', participants marched in rows of four and struck up patriotic and military songs as well as Nazi hymns. Passion and fanaticism, positively connoted, thus visibly generated order and community.55

On the other hand, the regime organized large rallies in which ordinary citizens were invited to participate. On 1 May 1933 Berlin's Lustgarten was flled with schoolchildren gathered under a sea of swastikas to listen patiently to their propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. When Hitler and the ageing Reich President Paul von Hindenburg arrived by car, they were greeted with jubilation and deafening cheers. The Lustgarten event was followed by central May Day celebrations attended by 1.5 million people. In one clever and sophisticated manoeuvre, the regime hijacked the socialist Labour Day tradition and transformed it into a work-free holiday 'for the whole people'. Berliners came, as Goebbels noted, 'with kith and kin', mingling 'workers with middle classes, employer with employee, high and low'. Responsible for the organization of this 'masterpiece' of a 'mass demonstration', the minister had ensured the 'demonstration of a nation', of a united Volk 'standing shoulder to shoulder'. After Hitler's speech the audience felt a 'great rush of enthusiasm': 'It's no longer just a phrase: we have become one nation of brothers. And the one who showed us the way

<sup>54</sup>Hitler, *Mein Kampf*, 121.

<sup>55</sup>Frevert, 'Faith', 479–86.

now stands upright in his car as it conveys him back to his offce on Wilhelmstrasse along a *via triumphalis* that has formed around him, made up of living, human bodies.'56

Mass demonstrations of this kind took place all over the country and all year round, on different occasions that were carefully chosen and organized. Tapping into folk traditions as well as inventing new ones, the regime continuously held festive celebrations that reached out to all racially agreeable citizens. The 'masses' who attended these outdoor events were both passive and active: they were given speeches designed to emotionally 'excite' them, and they performed coordinated actions that were meant to enhance their feelings of belonging, purpose, and power.

After 1945, the memories of those events further contributed to the widespread shunning of 'mass' demonstrations and rallies in the West, where they were seen as tools of emotional domination and ideological manipulation. The fact that East Germany followed a different trajectory—one that had a lot in common with the Nazi past—only strengthened this negative stance. From the very start, the Communist regime in the GDR organized parades and rallies with mandatory attendance. In order to create visual proof of the alleged unity between state, party, and citizens, they privileged a particular spatial arrangement: while ordered masses, uniformly dressed and carrying fags, marched on the street, party and state offcials stood or sat on an elevated tribune and watched the marching and cheering crowds from above.57 Unlike the West, the East took pride in setting up *Massenorganisationen* numbering many millions each. Membership of these organizations was, again, far from voluntary and their rhetoric was intensely emotional. Love (for one's fatherland or the Soviet Union) and hatred (of 'imperialism' and 'militarism') loomed large, as did notions of enmity (towards 'capitalist' countries) and warm friendship (towards socialist 'brother nations').

Initially, such language seemed to impress participants, especially those of a younger age. In the 1960s and 1970s, nearly all children between six and fourteen years were members of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organization. Marching songs prepared them for regular May Day parades in front of the 'tribune of honour' mostly staffed by elderly men. The Free German Youth (FDJ), whose membership reached 2.3 million in 1981,

57On the ritualized relationship between offcials watching from the static, elevated tribune and the marching 'masses' at their feet, see Gibas and Gries, 'Vorschlag'.

<sup>56</sup>Fröhlich, *Joseph Goebbels*, quotes 413–15.

also took part in offcial parades and festivals, with members easily identifable through their blue shirts, banners, and badges. Torchlight processions added emotional surplus value to the performance of optimism, determination, and loyalty.58

Mobilizing people for public action in support of centrally defned goals and issues was no diffcult task, then. Street politics, GDR style, meant the enactment of political emotions like trust, enthusiasm, solidarity, and pride. The younger the participants were, the easier it was to impregnate them with those feelings and ideological references. By contrast, citizens who chose not to march in step were immediately targeted by security and educational institutions and made to feel the disciplining and punishing power of the state.

By the late 1980s, that power was confronted and challenged by a rapidly growing movement of discontent, predominantly fuelled by the younger generation. Starting in autumn 1989, people reclaimed the street to protest against a regime that had nothing to offer but repression and a hollow admonition 'not to use the street as a site for political demands and discussion'.59 The protesters chose not to follow this advice and instead began to rediscover, step by step, a democratic tradition of street politics. Independently of any formal organization, authority, or leadership, citizens young and old focked to the streets, transformed them into 'tribunes of the people' and challenged the autocratic government. The overwhelming number of protesters eventually forced the political elite off their 'tribune of honour', making way for fresh voices to set the political agenda.60

This was remarkable for two reasons. First, independent demonstrations in the GDR faced severe repression by the security apparatus that used all necessary means to crush them. The memory of 1953, when grassroots protests had been violently stamped down by Russian tanks, loomed large. Second, East Germans were not habituated to protesting independently and publicly standing up to their government. They were accustomed to making written petitions or sending anonymous letters of complaint. Yet they lacked the experience of taking to the street—except when ordered to do so from above, for offcial rallies and mass events.

#### 58Brauer, *Zeitgefühle*.

59Quote from the offcial Leipzig radio programme of 19 October 1989, in Löscher and Vogel, 'Leipziger Herbst', 145.

60Gibas and Gries, 'Vorschlag'. Many of those who participated in the demonstrations compared them to mass attendance at offcial 1 May rallies, emphasizing that 'this was now totally different' (Lindner and Grüneberger, *Demonteure*, 124, 61). See Pollack, *Volk*, ch. 1.

In the Federal Republic, such experience had become, since the 1960s, a crucial part of many people's lifestyle and political repertoire. The new habit of 'going on a demo' also entailed new ways of moving and new political feelings, as could be witnessed during the annual Easter Marches. Invented by the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, they drew ever larger crowds throughout West Germany, reaching a climax in 1968. As the term 'march' had raised concerns, peace activists tried hard to prevent these marches from resembling any type of synchronized movement modelled on military and Nazi patterns. Furthermore, participants insisted that they were there on their own behalf, as individual citizens concerned about war and the deployment of nuclear weapons. Party politics were absent, as were other offcial institutions.61

Emotions, too, were kept ostentatiously at bay. This was meant as a visible sign of dissociating the marches from the past. Instead arguments mattered, and so did evidence-based information about the impending dangers of rearmament and the Cold War. Internally, though, the Easter March movement did develop social mechanisms that helped sustain it, and that typically drew on emotional practices. Singing was one of them. New songs were created, old ones resuscitated, and some even travelled across the Iron Curtain to be shared by GDR youth groups.

In 1968, offcial statistical data began to include the headcounts of street demonstrations, and conservatives bemoaned the end of 'troublefree life' (*störungsfreies Leben*) in the Federal Republic.62 Meanwhile, students had turned out to be the most ardent and vocal political activists.63 Their critiques did not stop at the university, but extended to the state and its domestic or foreign policy, as well as to the media. The way criticism was expressed greatly irritated the authorities and bore little resemblance to former modes of street politics. Protesters usually did not march in line, but invented their own rhythms of movement, mixing walking with running. They shouted catchy slogans and carried self-made banners, often with images and caricatures. Even though the messages were serious, participants obviously enjoyed what they were doing. They found pleasure in

61Nehring, *Politics of Security*; Otto, *Ostermarsch*.

62Ossenbühl, 'Versammlungsfreiheit', 54; Ott, *Recht*, 8, 67–68. Liberals, by contrast, applauded demonstrations as dynamic 'signs of a democratic society' and as a means to 'infuence authority structures'; see Dietel and Gintzel, *Demonstrations- und Versammlungsfreiheit* (1968), 1, 28; Dietel et al., *Demonstrationen*.

63Richter, 'Opposition'; Rucht, 'Ereignisse', 116–30; Gilcher-Holtey, *68er Bewegung*; Gildea, Mark and Warring, *Europe's 1968*.

acting collectively, dominating public space, and provoking passers-by and pedestrians with their unconventional performance. Their faces and bodies did not look tense but joyful, happy, and relaxed. They linked arms, chatted, laughed. The very next moment, they accelerated their pace and rushed forward, only to stop after a few seconds and resume their easygoing demeanour.

Such tactics were new and did not conform to past patterns. The police responsible for 'public safety' often felt unprepared. When they reacted aggressively, sometimes with unveiled brutality, demonstrations became more militant and violent.64 Emotional attitudes were not brought to the streets ready-made, but created and learnt there, often in physical encounters with armed policemen who did not hesitate to use sticks and cubs to restore order. For many protesters, this experience fuelled ferce opposition and alienation from 'the system' and the 'repressive' state that guarded it. A minority even left the open street altogether and took their politics underground, launching terrorist attacks on state representatives and turning their back on political dialogue and negotiation.65

The majority took a different stance, though. They founded new parties (the Greens), changed old ones, and joined social movements. Centring on feminism, peace, anti-nuclear energy, and the environment, those movements went public in creative ways. They made their concerns known through acts of civil disobedience, masquerade, and carnivalesque behaviour. They invented 'die-ins' and 'human carpets' at street junctions and squares. They formed 'human chains' stretching hundreds of miles, with participants holding hands to demonstrate solidarity and connectedness. More explicitly than their forerunners, they emphasized emotions as a key motivational force of political action. Participants frankly addressed their fear, rage, and hope and called on one other to 'demonstrate feelings' so that 'something profound and intense can emerge'.66 Women in particular were determined to seek new forms of 'speech and action' (Arendt) in the public realm. Accentuating their sensibility and vulnerability went hand in hand with demanding a radical transformation in political decisionmaking. Under the headline 'the personal is political', activists both

<sup>64</sup>Hodenberg, *Achtundsechzig*, ch. 2; as to (changing) police tactics, see Weinhauer, *Schutzpolizei*.

<sup>65</sup>Gildea et al., 'Violence', ch. 10; Terhoeven, *Rote Armee Fraktion*; Colvin, *Ulrike Meinhof*.

<sup>66</sup>Balistier, *Straßenprotest*, 228–32, quote 230; Biess, *German Angst*, ch. 8.

expanded the range of what was considered political and connected it to what was seen as the most personal: emotions.67

They thus initiated a new phase in the long history of political participation. Even the most radical opponents of the liberal-capitalist system sought to integrate *Gefühl und Härte*, gentle feelings and toughness. They combined their own feelings of being 'affected' (*betroffen*) by global violence and injustice with strategies for undermining and ultimately overthrowing the political and economic system they deemed responsible. They also accused the system, as many had done before them, of deliberate insensitivity. Opposing and challenging capitalist society, then, also meant creating an alternative subculture of warm and tender authenticity. Militant street politics, as they reemerged in the 1980s, were accompanied by claims for protective autonomous spheres where left-leaning groups could practise and experience subjectivity, solidarity, and belonging. 'In street fghting', it was observed, politics could become 'directly affective everybody feels that he or she is acting politically'. This joy of 'feeling political' was buttressed by new forms of communal living that rejected 'alienated' forms of consumption, work, leisure, love, and family relations.68

#### Conclusion

Feeling political, as the chapter has argued, is an experience that can be traced back to street politics in the frst half of the nineteenth century. The feeling emerged through the performance of new 'repertoires of contention' that confronted the authorities with participatory claims voiced by large numbers of citizens. Compared to parliamentary sessions and other assemblies, open-air rallies and protest marches privileged collective bodily movement rather than individual speech. Walking, strolling, and marching, as well as singing, shouting, clapping hands, and waving hats, fags, and banners rendered demonstrations emotionally dynamic and lively, as much for bystanders and spectators (including the police) as for those participating.

Feeling political could mean different things depending on historical circumstances. It could engender a sense of self-confdence and selfdetermination that flled participants with pride and optimism. Acting

<sup>67</sup>Davis, 'Personal is Political'; Davis, 'Redefning the Political'.

<sup>68</sup> Scherer, 'Berlin (West)', quote 211, see also 201, 207, 214. Cf. Reichardt, *Authentizität*; Häberlen, *Alternative Left*.

collectively and moving forward strengthened the individual's sense of power. People felt in their bones, to take up a quote from the early 1980s, that they were acting as opposed to watching, listening, and following instructions.69 One hundred years earlier, as demonstrations were becoming a major political tool within the socialist movement, that feeling was crucial for mobilizing followers and stirring up opponents. For strategic reasons, however, activists did not let their emotions get out of hand. Rather than feeding middle-class images of wild and unruly crowds, they instead tried to create an impression of orderly, structured masses who threatened the system with their very discipline, coupled with carefully harnessed, emotional fervour.

Authoritarian regimes never felt at ease with citizens taking politics to the street and setting their own agenda. Yet they learnt to use street politics for their own purposes. Political participation now served the goal of enlisting and manifesting popular support for the state and creating an image of unity between government and people. Both the National Socialist regime and GDR state socialism set up mass organizations that regularly mobilized their members to march in unison, hold rallies and parades, carry the authorized fag, and chant slogans provided by the ruling party.

In democracies, political mobilization and participation followed different standards. Demonstrations resembled protest marches rather than choreographed parades. They were not ordered from above but answered to bottom-up dynamics. Initially organized along party lines and, as in the 1920s, strongly polarized and polarizing, they were later integrated into new modes of political action that transcended party memberships and reached out to broader sections of the population. New social movements emerging in the 1970s experimented with a style of street politics that was far more spontaneous, diverse, and colourful than earlier manifestations. The new street politics also produced and foregrounded new emotions, as proof of individual commitment and political urgency. While protesters in the past had proudly evoked a 'mass spirit' of solidarity, participants now emphasized personal feelings of *Betroffenheit* (concern, affectedness), fear, and indignation. Such feelings were templated, framed, and contextualized by collective action and thus acquired political potency—as illustrated by the youth movement *Fridays for Future* since its inception in 2018. Performing emotions like outrage and sadness vis-à-vis the danger of

<sup>69</sup> Scherer, 'Berlin (West)', 211; Spengler, 'Avantgarde', esp. 183.

climate change here serves the goal of buttressing well-argued, sciencebased demands and propositions addressed to political leaders.

Street politics thus continue to play an important role in contemporary democratic societies. By inviting and necessitating a specifc emotional performativity that lends them a unique thrill and power, they challenge and revitalize other political institutions. They mobilize citizens individually and collectively to feel political in their own, self-determined way and somewhat independently from any particular demands. At the same time, they work as an institution with rules and practices that template participants' emotions in connection with joint bodily enactments. People usually do not get involved in street politics with prefxed emotions; rather, they construct their emotions in the process of being part of a demonstration.

In the course of history, street politics take on different meanings and purposes, and emotional templating changes accordingly. Once demonstrations become socially accepted as a fully legitimate element of democratic politics, they are free to experiment with more playful and less disciplined bodily enactments and emotional performances. Currently, the spectrum extends from vivacious *Fridays for Future* types with its high proportion of female participants to the violence-prone, markedly masculine marches of the extreme right. As a general rule, however, 'feeling political' in demonstrations and street rallies—in contrast to party meetings, public assemblies, or going to the polls—comes with a degree and intensity of emotional excitement and self-transformation that far exceeds most other forms of political participation.

> Ute Frevert (frevert@mpib-berlin.mpg.de)

#### Bibliography


Schmidt, Pascal Eitler, Bettina Hitzer, Nina Verheyen, Benno Gammerl, Christian Bailey, and Margrit Pernau, 201–29. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.


**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### Person Index1

#### **A**

Adenauer, Konrad, 49, 82–83 Allende, Salvador, 325–326 Alter, Jonathan, 182 Annan, Kof, 92 Arendt, Hannah, 104–105, 343, 362 Arledge, Bernadine, 179 Assauer, Rudi, 264–265, 268 Austin, J. L., 6

#### **B**

Badoglio, Pietro, 229 Ball, George, 168 Balzac, Honoré de, 39–40 Barrett, Lisa Feldman, 10 Barthes, Roland, 150 Bassiouni, M. Cherif, 105–106 Beaurepaire, Nicolas-Joseph, 34 Bebel, August, 69, 74, 77, 79, 352 Benenson, Peter, 329–330 Bensouda, Fatou Bom, 105, 112

Bentham, Jeremy, 312 Berezin, Mabel, 229 Berghoff, Lewis, 173 Biden, Joe, 122, 146 Billy, André, 209 Bismarck, Otto von, 13, 70–71, 138, 354 Boals, W. W., 175 Böhmer, Carl Engelbert, 256 Boltanski, Luc, 309 Bon, Jean, 197 Bonaparte, Louis-Napoléon, *see* Napoleon III Bottai, Giuseppe, 238 Bouyssy, Maïté, 315 Brand, Jürgen, 280 Brügel, Fritz, 297 Buescher, William, 180 Bülow, Bernhard von, 353 Burin des Roziers, Étienne, 52 Burin, Fred, 94 Busch, Ernst, 322n64, 324

1Note: Page numbers followed by 'n' refer to notes.

© The Author(s) 2022 373 U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8

Bush, George H. W., 111 Bush, George W., 111, 149, 150 Bush, Laura, 149, 150 Butler, Judith, 343 Byron, Lord, 313, 315

#### **C**

Calley Jr., William Laws, 107–108 Canning, George, 316 Capa, Robert (= Erne Endrö Friedmann), 320, 322 Carnot, Lazare Hippolyte, 40–41, 41n34, 43, 45–46, 45n51 Carter, Jimmy, 149 Cassese, Antonio, 101 Cassin, René, 105, 211 Castelbajac, Marie-Barthélemy de, 38 Castiglioni, Giannino, 220, 224, 227, 236, 238 Castlereagh, Lord, 315 Charpentier, Henri, 179 Chateaubriand, François-René de, 311 Churchill, Winston, 49–50 Claudius, Hermann, 277, 282, 283, 292–293 Claudius, Matthias, 283 Clinton, Bill, 149, 150 Clinton, Hilary, 149, 150 Clooney, Amal, 91–92, 105, 112–113 Cohen, Lizabeth, 160n5 Constant, Benjamin, 311 Corbin, Alain, 308 Cregg, Frank, 165–167 Cypher, M. A., 174

#### **D**

d'Andigné, M. F., 197 D'Natale, Josie, 159 Dalisson, Rémi, 208n50 Darwin, Charles, 5–6, 9 David, Jacques-Louis, 137 de Gaulle, Charles, 46n55, 48–49, 51–52 Deacon, Floyd, 180 Debré, Michel, 46–47, 46n55, 50–51 Del Ponte, Carla, 105 Delacroix, Eugène, 313, 314 Dreyfus, Alfred, 206n45

#### **E**

Ecer, Bohuslav, 105 ̌ Ehlers, Hermann, 84 Eichhorn, Emil, 76–78 Eildermann, Heinrich, 280 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 111 Emanuele Filiberto, Prince, 2nd Duke of Aosta, 238 Englert, Michael, 278, 280, 282–284, 291–292 Estournelles de Constant, Jean d, 196

#### **F**

Fahrmeyer, Gustav, 260 Fairey, Shepard, 143–147, 149 Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta, 231 Falloux, Alfred de, 43 Fenne, Hans-Joachim, 262 Ferencz, Benjamin Berell, 19, 94–97, 99–100, 104–113 Fetter, Newton, 159–160 Fichtel, Klaus, 262 Fisch, Walter, 84 Forckenbeck, Max von, 72 Franco, Francisco, 20, 319, 321 Frank, Edith, 175 Friedmann, Erne Endrö (= Robert Capa), 322

#### **G**

Gadda, Carlo Emilio, 239 Gagern, Heinrich von, 62 Gambetta, Leon, 206 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 322–323 Garrett, Erwin, 173 Gasperi, Alcide De, 49 Gerretsen, Chas, 326 Goebbels, Joseph, 358 Goschler, Constantin, 109 Gouges, Olympe de, 50 Grabner, Hasso, 297 Graef, Walther, 77–78 Graham, F. B., 159–160 Green, James, 159 Greppi, Giovanni, 220, 224, 227, 236, 238 Groote, Alfred, 70–71

#### **H**

Hall, G. Stanley, 286n27 Hamilton, Alexander, 128–129 Hanna, Mark, 133 Hariman, Robert, 145 Hart, Friedrich, 62 Hart, John, 180–181 Haßelmann, Britta, 59–60 Hedler, Wolfgang, 83 Herzmanatus, Klaus, 268 Heuss, Theodor, 357n50 Hindenburg, Paul von, 358 Hitler, Adolf, 15, 20, 94, 138, 140, 149, 239, 241, 255, 287, 293, 358 Hofer, Andreas, 280 Höllein, Emil, 77 Honecker, Erich, 298 Hoover, Herbert Clark, 142, 160 Hundley, Frances, 169 Hunt, Lynn, 104

#### **J**

Jackson, Andrew, 140 Jaulmes, Gustave, 196 Jaurès, Jean, 49 Jay, John, 128–129 Jefferson, Thomas, 129, 132, 140

#### **K**

Kantak, Kasimir, 68, 71 Kellermann, Henry, 295 Kennedy, John F., 142–143 Keyes, Ken, 109 King, Mable Young, 175 Kleist-Retzow, Hans Hugo von, 72 Knab, Arnim, 284, 292–293 Köhler, Erich, 82–84 König, Hans-Georg, 259–260 Köster, Hans, 70 Kuhlmann, Werner, 265 Kuzorra, Ernst, 252, 254–255, 260, 265–266, 270

#### **L**

Lagunas, Simon, 321 Lang, Friedrich, 63–64 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 352, 352n34 Lauterpacht, Hersch, 105 Le Bon, Gustave, 351 Le Brun, Charles, 128, 128n19, 129 Le Pen, Marine, 27, 54 Lemkin, Raphael, 97, 105 Leogrande, Clelia, 230 Levetzow, Albert von, 73 Leviné, Eugene, 79 Liebknecht, Wilhelm, 64n15, 69, 72–74, 79, 352 Lincoln, Abraham, 132, 139–140, 143 Lindquist, Bertha, 159 Löbe, Paul, 76, 80–81, 84

Long, Marceau, 50 Longo, Luigi, 323 Louis XVI, 35 Lucaites, John Louis, 145 Luxemburg, Rosa, 353 Lyons, Frank, 180

#### **M**

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 133 Macron, Emmanuel, 27–28, 52–54 Madison, James, 128 Marcel, Alexandre, 196 March, James, 4–5 Mare, André, 196 Martens, Fyodor Fyodorovich, 101 Marx, Karl, 317 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 317 McCloy, John (1876–1945), 108 McCloy, John J. (1895–1989), 108 McCrea, John L., 138 Meeks, John, 182–183 Mendes, Manuel, 171 Metternich, Klemens von, 316 Meya, Heinrich, 264 Mohrbacher, Fred, 167 Möllemann, Jürgen, 261 More, Thomas, 50 Mosse, George L., 191n8 Moulin, Jean, 48 Moyn, Samuel, 104, 329 Murad, Nadia, 91, 113 Musmanno, Michael Angelo, 97 Mussolini, Benito, 20, 219–226, 229, 230n33, 231, 237–243, 322–323

#### **N**

Napoleon, 18, 52, 137 Napoleon III, 14, 43 Nier, Willi, 252

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 12 Nixon, Richard, 108 Noce, Teresa, 322

#### **O**

Obama, Barack, 19, 126, 132, 143–149, 151 Offenstadt, Nicolas, 189 Ollenhauer, Erich, 82, 287, 300 Olsen, Johan, 4–5 Orwell, George, 50

#### **P**

Padden, Frank, 169 Paine, Thomas, 109 Pajetta, Giancarlo, 324 Palacio, Carlos, 322n64 Parks, Rosa, 50 Parrish, Elsie, 176 Penrose, Boies, 133 Péricard, Jacques, 199–200, 202 Picasso, Pablo, 328 Piñera, Sebastian, 307 Pinochet, Augusto, 307, 325–326, 332 Pisani, Edgar, 51 Pohorylle, Gerda (= Gerda Taro), 322 Powers, Anne Campbell, 171 Prost, Antoine, 190–192, 190n5, 191n7, 191n8, 201–202

#### **Q**

Quincy Adams, John, 123

#### **R**

Racine, Pierre, 50 Rauschenberg, Robert, 143 Reddy, William M., 6, 240, 311 Rehberg, Gerd, 266–268, 267n74 Reitler, Anna, 79 Renner, Heinz, 82, 84 Richardson, Mrs. N. E., 173 Riesser, Jakob, 79–80 Roberts, Owen Josephus, 175 Robespierre, Maximilien de, 50 Robinson, Jacob, 105 Roeren, Hermann, 73 Rojek, Rolf, 271 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 135 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 14–15, 19, 126, 132–143, 134n41, 148–149, 151, 159–183 Roosevelt, Theodore, 132, 140 Root, Elihu, 108 Rosenfeld, Kurt, 79 Rosenwein, Barbara H., 8n15 Rosten, Leo, 142 Roth, Christian, 79 Rüssmann, Rolf, 265–266

#### **S**

Saint-Just, Louis Antoine, 49 Salvini, Matteo, 242 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 189 Schäfer, Hermann, 84 Schmitt, Carl, 13–14, 13n25, 16, 112 Schönhoff, Leopold, 353 Schorr, Daniel, 142n61 Schult, Johannes, 283n18, 299–300 Schulz, Martin, 301 Schumacher, Kurt, 82–83 Schuman, Robert, 49 Schwerin-Putzar, Graf Maximilian von, 65 Scoy, C. H. Van, 168 Seymour, David (= Chim), 322 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 311 Shostakovich, Dimitri, 297

Siebenpfeiffer, Jakob, 346–347 Siebert, Günter, 262 Simmons, Eugene, 174 Simson, Eduard von, 68–69 Simyan, Jules, 196 Spaak, Paul-Henri, 49 Sperduti, Giuseppe, 101 Spranger, Eduard, 286 Stalin, Joseph, 138, 324 Stein, Sally, 135, 137 Stemmle, Robert Adolf, 256 Stern, Carola, 331 Sting, 332 Strauß, Franz Josef, 84 Stuart, Gilbert, 126, 127, 130 Sturken, Marita, 145 Süe, Louis, 196 Szepan, Fritz, 252, 254–255, 255n23, 258, 260, 271

#### **T**

Tadić, Dusan, 104 Taithe, Bertrand, 309 Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de, 133 Taro, Gerda (= Gerda Pohorylle), 322 Taylor, Telford, 95, 98 Tetzner, Reiner, 342 Tew, Mamie O., 177 Thiers, Adolphe, 39, 39n27 Thon, Olaf, 266 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 39, 149 Tönnies, Clemens, 270–271 Traynor, J. Frank, 180 Trump, Donald, 121–122, 147, 149, 151

#### **U** Urban, Adolf, 271

#### **V**

Virchow, Rudolf, 13 Vivien, Alexandre-François, 39, 39n27, 45 von Vincke, Georg, 66

#### **W**

Waldeck, Benedikt, 71 Wallraf, Max, 80 Warhol, Andy, 143 Washington, George, 19, 121, 125–132, 137, 139–140, 142, 148–149, 151 Washington, Martha, 131 Weber, Max, 2–3, 350–352 Wedelstedt, Carl von, 254 Weil, Simone, 321, 321n58

Weinert, Erich, 322, 322n64 Welcker, Carl Theodor, 346–347 Westphal, Max, 281 Wigard, Franz, 63–64 Wilhelm I, 72 Wilhelm II, 75, 102, 209 Wilson, D. E., 174 Wilson, Woodrow, 140 Windthorst, Ludwig, 66–67 Winter, Jay, 213 Woodruff, Mary, 163–164

#### **Z**

Zola, Emile, 206, 206n45 Žukov, Georgij Konstantinovič, 296n69

### Subject Index1

#### **A**

Abolitionism, 310 Acoustics, 64, 66–67, 193, 210n55 Affect, 10, 16, 124, 228n25, 363 theory, 3, 8–9, 8n14 Aggression, 93, 101, 106–107, 147, 314, 354 Agitation, 16, 84, 121, 350, 353, 357 Agitprop, 143 Algerian War (1954–1962), 49, 189 American constitutional revolution of 1937, 170, 176, 176n64, 182 Revolution (1765–1783), 131 Amnesty International, 104, 316n40, 329–333 Anger, 8n15, 148, 240 and commemoration, 200, 207, 222, 267 and FDR, 133, 175, 177 and jurisdiction, 100, 113–114 and movements, 21, 307, 315, 321, 326

and parliament, 60, 64–65 Anticolonialism, 104, 325 fascism, 15, 190, 296, 296n71, 319–325, 328–329 Socialist laws (1878–1888), 72–73, 353 Anxiety, 19, 34, 166–167 Architecture, 343 and parliament, 18, 65 and remembrance, 193, 196, 213 of ossuaries, 20, 221, 224, 231–234, 232n39, 238, 242–243 Armenian genocide, 101–102 Armistice, 193, 201 day, 190, 192, 196, 200, 205–206, 212–214; and date, 194, 202–203, 207; and holiday, 193, 207–208 *See also Jour de l'Armistice Athenaeum Portrait* (1796), 126, 128, 132, 142 Athleticism, 233, 254

1Note: Page numbers followed by 'n' refer to notes.

© The Author(s) 2022 379 U. Frevert et al., *Feeling Political*, Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89858-8

Authoritarianism, 15–16, 20, 139, 182, 272, 364 Authority, 2, 39, 97, 224, 257, 361n62 in parliament, 64, 69, 71, 82, 86 state, 31, 34, 36–37, 54, 211, 330, 349, 353, 360–361, 363

#### **B**

Belonging, 5, 52, 286, 293 and movements, 21, 299, 308–309, 317, 330, 359, 363 and Nazism, 256, 288, 293 and ossuaries, 242 and portrayal, 19, 124, 147 to the state, 53, 346 Bismarck Youth, 287 Black Lives Matter, 123 Blackness, 147–148 Bodily enactment, 343–344, 356, 363, 365 gestures, 5 Body, 44, 128, 240, 293, 301, 341 and emotion, 9–10 politic, 72, 125–126, 135, 137, 161n7, 169, 178, 241 private *vs.* political, 213n62 *See also* Disability; Illness Boldness, 47, 49, 128, 129, 132, 135, 137, 160n5, 288 Bravery, 225, 237, 242 *Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit* (song), 291n50, 297 *Bund deutscher Mädel, see* League of German Girls Bureaucracy, 11, 17–18, 28–29, 37–39, 41, 45–46, 52–53, 318

#### **C**

Call to order, 62, 67–69, 71–72, 74, 78, 80, 82–83, 85 Capitalism, 13, 160n2, 161n5, 328, 359, 363

Carnation, red, 355 Catholic, 131, 195, 312 Church, 14, 36, 43, 231–232, 234, 242; and commemoration, 20, 191, 203–206, 208, 212, 223; and *Kulturkampf*, 13 ~ism, 230, 232–235 mass, 204, 230, 234, 240, 249 Charisma, 2, 160, 351–352, 358 Chilean coup d'état (1973), 308, 325–326, 329–330 Chile Solidarity Committee, 331 Christian faith, 148 ~ity, 311–312, 314, 330 solemnity, 202 Civil disobedience, 362 rights, 144, 341 Class struggle, 13, 45, 133, 328 Cold War, 84, 106, 110, 325, 330, 361 Comintern, *see* Third International Commodifcation, 143 Communism, 296–297, 319 Communist Youth League, 287 Compassion, 15, 113, 124, 269 and movements, 21, 307–309, 315, 330–331 Comradeship, 160, 199, 227, 256, 327, 330 and Schalke 04, 254, 259, 271, 273 Concentration camp, 293–294, 332 Corruption, 38–40, 38n25, 346 Courage, 19, 159, 162, 168, 170, 325 and demonstration, 356 and singing, 346, 354 in war, 34, 237, 327 Court international, 102, 105 of justice, 3, 14, 17, 100, 109, 259–261, 351


#### **D**

Deindustrialization, 20–21, 249–250, 257–272, 266n71 *Dem Morgenrot entgegen* (song), 280 *Democracy in America* (book), 149 Demonstration and body, 344, 354, 363, 365 and public sphere, 3, 343, 353 and violence, 349–350, 362 mass, 327, 346, 353, 356–359 May Day, 354 Monday, 341–343, 342n2, 360n60 De-racialization, 146–148, 151 *Der Zukunft entgegen* (song), 297 Despair, 95, 113, 259, 268, 324–325, 329 Devotion, 238, 296, 308 and commemoration, 20, 193, 212, 214n62, 229, 232, 234 of civil servant, 34, 45, 51 Dictatorship, 15, 21, 308n2 Chilean, 307, 325, 327, 329–330, 332–333 Italian, 20, 220–221, 224–225, 231–232, 241, 243 National Socialist, 15 Dignity, 68n30, 76n65, 322, 346 and commemoration, 207, 211, 228 and humanity, 96–98, 113, 180

of German parliament, 60, 68–69, 73–74, 76–78, 84–85 of School of Administration, 42 Disability, 126, 134–137, 134n41, 140 Discipline, 178, 322, 360 and demonstration, 354, 364–365 and fascism, 224, 237–239, 243, 293, 358 and German parliament, 61, 66–67, 72–76, 81 and leadership, 121, 134, 149 of French pupils, 42, 50 self-, 347 Disease, 133, 169 Disgust, 114, 315, 329 Disillusion, 133, 142, 200, 294, 309, 324, 333 Disrespect, 64, 72 *Don Juan* (poem), 315n33

#### **E**

Easter March, 300, 361 East German Uprising (1953), 360 Education, 67, 159, 162n10, 168, 180, 286n27 and social class, 347–348, 350–351 and trial, 96 and youth organization, 280, 285, 285n22 emotional, 231, 237–238, 321 higher, 28, 47 in Soviet Occupation Zone, 295–296 of French civil servants, 43, 52 physical, 253, 346 political, 41, 285, 352 Einsatzgruppen Trial, 93, 95–100, 107–108, 113

Election Bundestag, 85 campaign, 13, 124n9, 352, 355 free, 342 in France, 54, 195, 204 in Spain, 321 presidential, 121, 124–125, 133–135, 143, 145–146, 148–151, 180 rally, 11, 13 Reichstag, 73, 78–80, 255, 285, 352 *El pueblo unido jamás será vencido* (song), 308n2 Emancipation, 318, 346 Emotion concept of, 9–10 ~ology, 7 script, 7–8, 8n14, 8n15, 208 Emotional capital, 107, 234 community, 14, 65, 228, 228n25, 241, 278, 327; and Schalke 04, 251, 254, 258–260, 264, 271–272 practice, 4, 29, 53, 166n23, 192–193, 212–213, 212n59, 221, 234 regime, 7, 7n12, 61 style, 16, 19–20, 121, 124, 126, 148, 191n10, 199, 333; and commemoration, 191, 200, 209, 214; in courtroom, 103–104 *See also* Education, emotional Emotive, 6, 9, 30n7, 240–241, 279 Empathy, 17, 97–98, 104, 124, 160, 160n5, 317, 319 ENA (École Nationale d'Administration), 18, 28–29, 46–51, 53–54 Enactment, 4, 8, 16, 162, 278, 353, 360 *See also* Bodily, enactment

Enthusiasm, 309, 321, 323, 329, 342, 348, 352–353, 357–358, 360 and commemoration, 204 and *Fête de la Victoire*, 197–198 and philhellenism, 311, 333 and singing, 283, 294, 346 and solidarity, 21 collective, 253–255 for future, 286–287, 289, 298, 355 militant, 321–322, 324 national, 194, 205 of the youth, 286, 295–297, 299 political, 43 veterans', 199 European Union, 52

#### **F**

Faith, 2, 34, 111, 296, 323 and FDR, 140, 159, 162, 168, 182–183 and Italian fascism, 228, 232–234 and Schalke 04, 261, 265, 271 ~fulness, 30, 33, 35 political, 18, 31 *Falken, Die*, 277, 294–296, 298–300 Fan, 21, 263n58 base, 250, 253, 257–258, 261, 269–271 participation, 263, 270, 272 support for, 264, 272 support from, 256, 264 Fearlessness, 237 February Revolution (1848), 29, 38, 40, 44–45, 53, 348–349 Federation of Workers' Youth Associations, 279–281, 284–286, 289, 293–294 Film, 94, 134, 178, 234, 327 First International, 318 Fraternity, 317, 318, 321 Freedom, 40, 45, 49

fghter, 322–324 of expression, 50, 230 of opinion, 98 of speech, 72, 74 Free German Youth, 277, 294, 296–299, 359 French Revolution (1789–1799), 3, 14, 18, 28–39, 30n7, 43–44, 46, 64, 126, 194, 345, 351 Fridays for Future, 365

#### **G**

*Gedanken sind frei, Die* (song), 294 Gender, 30, 38n25, 42n38, 122, 131, 146, 239 difference, 227, 347, 351 equality, 281, 284, 288, 291 *See also* Manliness; Womanliness Genocide, 93, 95, 97, 101, 110, 330 #GeorgeTalks (app), 121, 122 German revolutions (1918–1919), 75 German revolutions (1848–1849), 22, 62, 317, 343–344, 348–350, 352 *Gilets jaunes*, 27–28, 53 Globalization, 93–94, 98, 105, 324, 330, 332–333 Glorifcation, 20, 193–194, 197–198, 200, 202, 205–206, 209, 222, 236, 299 Grassroots, 208, 258, 360 Greek revolution (1821–1829), 310, 313–316 Grief, 20, 98, 100, 113, 221, 230 and commemoration, 193, 198, 200, 203–205, 208, 211–213 and gender, 227 and ossuary, 219, 222, 226, 236, 241, 243 private, 203, 222, 229, 241 Grievance, 19, 27, 349 *Große Spiel, Das* (flm), 256

Group formation, 124, 289–290, 299–301 *Guernica* (painting), 328

#### **H**

Hague Peace Conferences, 98, 101 Hail to the Emperor, 72–76 Hambach festival, 345–346, 349 Hate, 59–60, 85, 133, 171–172, 175–176, 324 Hatred, 227, 322–323, 326, 357, 359 and jurisdiction, 98, 114 and oath-taking, 34, 36–37 and politics, 14, 133, 315, 352 legitimacy of, 37, 37n20 Heroism, 179, 323, 351 and commemoration, 223, 225–226, 235 and grief, 20, 241 and war, 222 Hero-worship, 132, 326–327 Hiking, 277, 280–281, 283, 285, 290, 296, 299–300 song, 277, 280–281, 290–291, 293 Hitler Youth, 21, 277, 288, 290–294, 298, 300, 358 Holiday bank, 165–166 national, 189, 193–194, 202 public, 207–208, 208n50, 358 Honour, 38, 38n25, 40, 40n30, 228, 238, 249, 270, 323, 346 and commemoration, 193, 196, 198, 211, 226, 228–229 and gender, 239 of the Reichstag, 68–69, 76 tribune of, 359–360 Hooliganism, 265n65 Hopelessness, 287, 294–295 Humanitarianism, 190, 316n40, 318, 320

Human rights, 21, 91, 98, 104, 108, 114, 332 defence of, 97, 104, 112, 309, 324–325, 329–330, 333 Human Rights Watch, 332 Humiliation, 34, 314, 321, 324, 342, 355 and pride, 229 and singing, 293–294 in parliament, 59, 73, 79 Humour, 39, 69–71, 77–78, 80–81, 84, 86, 140

#### **I**

Icon, 126, 143, 145, 266, 320, 326–327 Iconography, 32, 123, 125, 125n13, 130, 149, 256, 329 Identity, 5, 124, 190n5, 225, 238, 308, 320 -building, 262 fascist, 228 group, 130, 132 national, 225 parliamentarians, 65, 86 Illness, 39, 134, 140, 142–143 Image act, 125, 125n13 Imagery, 48–49, 123, 128, 135, 137, 140, 145, 151, 232, 239 *See also* Symbolism Imitation, 20, 47, 149, 237 Imperialism, 325, 328, 330, 359 Individuation, 163–164, 168, 170, 176, 178, 182 Institution, defnition of, 4–5 International Brigades, 321–324 International Criminal Court, 12, 18–19, 93–94, 103, 106, 110–113 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, 92, 104, 106

*Internationale* (song), 341 Internationalism, 190, 317–318, 322–324, 327, 329–330, 333 International Military Tribunal, 92n4, 95, 102 Inti Illimani (music band), 327

#### **J**

Jay Treaty, 127–129 Jew, 79, 94, 96–97, 100, 109, 109n64, 131, 239, 258, 329–330 *Jour de l'Armistice*, 15, 189, 189n1, 192–193, 198, 202, 205, 208–211, 211n58, 214 July Revolution (1830), 39–40, 345 Justice, 5, 19, 91–92, 95–96, 111, 211, 307, 325, 332 and humanity, 97, 108 communal, 345 in~, 253, 363

#### **K**

*Kapp Putsch* (1920), 285 Krupp case, 101 *Kulturkampf*, 13

#### **L**

Labour movement, 21, 160n2, 294, 318 *La Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi* (painting), 313, 314 Language, 6, 10–11, 36 concept of, 5 *Lansdowne Portrait, The* (1796), 126–131, 126n16, 128n22, 129n23 Laughter, 59–60, 69–72, 77, 86, 280, 287, 362 Leadership

ideal of, 125–126 image of, 14, 122, 123, 127–128, 133–134, 137–138 styles, 123 traits, 124, 136 League of German Girls, 288, 290–294, 298, 300 *L'expression des passions* (1667), 128 Liberalism, 22, 206n45, 311 Loyalty, 45n50, 73, 130, 136, 181, 237–239, 360 civil servant's, 18, 29, 36, 50, 53 fan, 257, 263, 263n58 oath, 30, 35

#### **M**

Manipulation, 16, 20, 359 Manliness, 11, 132, 236, 292, 330, 346, 349–350, 365 Marketing, 50, 250, 260, 262–263, 268–269, 269n85, 272–273 Martens Clause, 101 Martyr, 50, 53, 219, 225, 232, 242, 326 Masses, 124n9, 140, 202, 253, 353–354, 357, 359, 359n57, 364 concept of, 351, 351n32 May Day, 299, 354, 358, 360n60 Meme, 146 Merriment, 69–71, 77, 86 Metaphor, 32, 161n7, 163–164, 166–167, 169, 172, 174, 180–181, 209 *See also* Court-packing Militancy, 28n4, 53, 280, 284, 313, 320, 322, 362–363 of bureaucracy, 29, 31–33, 36, 39, 43–45 *See also* Enthusiasm, militant; Optimism, militant Militarism, 202, 229, 242, 295, 359, 361

anti-, 190, 225 Mimicry, 5, 290 Mine, 249–253, 252n12, 258–260, 258n35, 262, 265–270 Minute's silence, 190, 193, 208–211, 210n55, 214, 214n62 Monarchy, 122, 127, 130, 172, 356 in France, 14, 18, 28, 33–35, 38–39, 41 in Germany, 73, 345 Mount Rushmore National Memorial, 132 Mourning, 20, 198, 203–205, 203n38, 207, 211–213, 213n62, 226, 234, 307 and deindustrialization, 250, 267, 270–271 ring, 130, 131 Music, 35, 37, 193, 234, 281, 290, 296 composition, 278, 280, 283–284 concert, 327, 332 pop, 300 repertoire, 290–291, 327 rough, 345, 345n17 My Lai, massacre of, 107–108, 107n59

#### **N**

Name display in ossuary, 235, 238 Naming, 48–50, 101, 251, 253, 262, 269–270, 322, 323 re~, 258n35, 330 Nationalism, 68, 222, 228, 230–231, 295, 317, 355 National Socialism, 21–22, 253, 287, 330, 358–359, 361, 364 and football, 249n1, 250, 254–258, 271–272 *See also* Hitler Youth; League of German Girls; *Volksgemeinschaft* Neutrality, 18, 93, 105, 126–127, 129–130, 332 New Deal, 19, 133–134, 137, 160n5, 161–164, 162n10, 167–168, 170, 175, 182 Newsreel, 134, 257 *Nine Old Men, The* (book), 171 Nobel Peace Prize, 91, 331 Noise, 41, 210, 348, 354 in parliament, 60, 63–64, 69–70, 72, 78, 82–83, 86 Nostalgia, 39, 143, 250, 263, 266, 266n71, 273 Nuremberg Military Tribunal, 19, 105 moment, 91–92 trials, 92, 94, 102–104, 106–107, 110–112 *See also* Einsatzgruppen Trial; Krupp case

#### **O**

Oath, 18, 29–37, 30n7, 37n22, 37n23, 43, 46, 53 *Obama Hope* (poster), 143–146 Obedience, 28, 30–31, 224, 228, 288 Optimism, 140, 298, 342, 360, 363 and fascism, 224, 226 militant, 284 socialist, 278–279, 281, 285, 294–295 unfagging, 140, 142 Orientalism, 314 Ossuary, 20, 220–221, 223–238, 241–243 of Caporetto, 233–234 of Montello, 233, 237 of Mount Grappa, 226–228, 234n47, 236 of Oslavia, 233 of Pasubio, 230, 230n33

of Pian di Salesei, 233 of Redipuglia, 220, 226, 231, 233, 235, 236, 238–242 of Rovereto, 233 Outrage, 27, 62, 110, 312, 321, 364

#### **P**

Pacifsm, 222, 225–226, 237, 300 patriotic, 190–191, 198, 207, 212 Parade, 3, 225, 356, 364 military, 194, 196–198, 203 Nazi, 257, 358 offcial, 345, 359–360, 364 public, 349 veterans', 198 Patriotism, 143, 346–347, 352, 356, 358 and naming, 49 and oath-taking, 36–37 and ossuary, 229–230, 236 and sacrifce, 238 and solidarity, 22, 318, 323, 333 expressions of, 179–180 local, 266 *See also* Pacifsm, patriotic Peaceful Revolution (1989), 344, 360 Peace movement, 109, 356n47, 361–362 Perseverance, 132, 135, 259, 271 Person perception, 124 Philhellenism, 21, 309–316, 310n13, 316n40, 320–321, 333 Photography, 134 Piety, 70, 226 Plebiscite, 344 Political campaign, 1, 44, 140, 171n47, 173, 176 Popularity, 42n38, 51, 133, 140, 143, 160, 209, 297, 300 Populism, 1, 1n1, 16, 27, 200

Portrait, 14, 19, 121, 123–125, 134, 137, 149, 151, 326–327, 332 desk, 137–139, 138n54 offcial, 125, 149, 150 royal, 130 ruler, 122–123, 123n4, 130 trivial ruler, 125, 125n15, 130 unfnished, 142 Portraiture, 124–125, 143, 151 Portrayal, 19, 123–126, 128, 149–150, 315 Presidential, 145 demeanour, 126, 143, 149 style, 122, 136, 140, 148–149 tradition, 143, 151 Propaganda, 124, 254, 313, 322, 357 fascist, 220–221, 223, 225–226, 230, 237–238, 242–243 Protest against deindustrialization, 261, 267–268 march, 343–344, 363–364 Protestant, 249, 341 *Psychologie des foules, La* (book), 351

#### **Q**

Quilapayun (music band), 327

#### **R**

Race, 96, 98, 146, 148, 233, 288 Racialization, 131 Racism, 103, 147–148, 180, 239, 289, 289n39, 359 Radicalism, 30, 35, 44, 79, 81, 195, 204, 312, 346, 353, 363 Rage, 17, 100, 113, 200, 348, 354, 362 Rally and body, 363 and ossuary, 225, 234, 239

and public sphere, 3 mass, 353, 357, 359 Nazi, 358 offcial, 359, 360n60, 364 Rape, 91, 110 Rationality, 2, 5, 10, 107, 109, 350–351 and gender, 11 in courtroom, 94, 104, 113 in parliament, 67, 74, 77, 83 Reburial, 206, 221, 224, 271 *See also* Ossuary Religion, 4, 6, 103, 146, 286, 317 and fascism, 232 and philhellenism, 311 freedom of, 343 Resentment, 15, 175, 222, 228 Respect, 30–31, 36, 50, 225, 242, 327 in parliament, 63, 74 to parliament, 69, 78, 85 to the fallen, 210, 232 Reverence, 173, 193, 198, 204, 208, 235 Risorgimento (1848–1871), 225, 317 Romanticism, 314, 320 *Roosevelt: Dictator or Democrat?* (book), 139 Russian revolution (1917), 318, 320

#### **S**

Sacrifce, 140, 222–223, 225, 228, 231–233, 235, 238, 240, 323 *See also* Self-sacrifce Sadness, 113, 209, 226, 228, 235, 307, 320, 364 Scandal, 196, 252, 258–261 School of Administration (École d'Administration), 18, 41–46, 41n36, 45n51, 53

Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1937), 224, 228–230, 238–239 Secularism, 194–195, 204–205, 206n45 Secularization, 203, 269, 330 Selfconfdence, 280, 283, 285–286, 293, 297, 301, 355, 363 determination, 312, 342, 363, 365 effcacy, 343, 356 sacrifce, 226, 231, 237, 288, 325–326 *Sens de l'État*, 27, 43, 45–47, 51–52, 54 Sentimentalism, 30, 36–37, 43, 311 Sexual violence, 91–92 Shame, 225, 228, 243, 320, 324 Silence, 5, 42, 42n38, 99, 137, 354 *See also* Minute's silence Smile, 12, 140, 142–143, 149, 237 Socialism, 104, 222, 280, 283, 297, 329, 364 Socialist Workers' Youth, 277, 279 Socialist Workers' Youth Association, 280, 285n20 *Song of the International Brigades* (song), 322, 322n64, 324 Sound, 10, 192, 209–210, 234, 240, 334 Sovereignty, 15, 41, 344 Space, 10, 98, 301, 309, 329, 348 architectural, 18, 62, 221, 232, 234, 343 communal, 260, 267 democratic, 333 public, 161n7, 343, 358, 362 sacred, 233, 235 transnational, 322, 333 urban, 345 Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), 21, 229, 309, 319–324, 322n64, 323n67, 329, 333

Spatial, 68, 70, 193n13, 301, 350 arrangement, 18, 65, 81, 232–233, 359 Speech act theory, 6 and new media, 19 free *vs.* scripted, 81 out the window, 64, 64n15, 75, 81 regulation of, 18, 60, 63, 65, 68, 75–76, 75n63, 81, 352 (*see also*  Call to order) tempo, 163, 163n12, 177 *See also* Freedom, of speech Stadium, 250, 252–254, 256, 261–262, 264, 267, 269–272, 332 Statesman-like, 19, 123, 130, 148 *Steigerlied* (song), 250, 267n75, 271 Stenography, 13, 64, 64n17, 66, 69–70, 78–80 Street fght, 348–349, 358, 363 Suffrage, 12–13, 131, 353 *See also* Women's, suffrage Supreme Court (USA), 133, 161, 165, 170–176 Symbolism, 32, 110, 128, 128n21, 231–234, 241 *See also* Imagery

#### **T**

Template, concept of, 7–9, 11 Templating, concept of, 6–7 Terror, 34, 50, 64, 135, 227, 312, 315, 320, 325–326, 328, 331 Terrorism, 63–64, 110, 349, 362 *They Dance Alone* (song), 332 Third International, 318, 333 Togetherness, 21, 150, 279–280, 285, 287, 290, 356

Tokyo Trial, 102 Tone of voice, 5, 161n7, 162–164, 167, 173, 176–178, 180, 182 *See also* Voice (sound) Totalitarianism, 3, 224, 231, 231n35 *Totenburgen*, 241 Tourism, 226 Trade union, 318, 327 in France, 40, 44–45, 320 in Germany, 12, 269, 272, 353 Transparency, 30, 30n7 Travel literature, 221, 226–228, 234–236 Treaty of Versailles, 102, 253 Triumphalism, 20, 194, 203, 206, 214, 222, 242 Trust, 2, 17, 162, 178, 360 citizens', 16, 19, 27, 52, 54 concept of, 6

#### **U**

United Nations, 92, 105, 110, 324 United Nations Security Council, 91–92, 109–110 United Nations War Crimes Commission, 103 Universalism, 22, 113, 190, 324, 329, 333 Unknown soldier, 190, 223, 238 tomb of the, 206, 210, 222–223 US Military Tribunal, 96–97, 99, 101

#### **V**

*Vaughan Portraits* (1795), 126 Veterans' association, 48, 189–192, 190n5, 199, 201–203, 207–209, 212–213 organization, 20, 191, 199, 201, 205, 207

reintegration, 179–180, 195 Vietnam War, 106–107, 325 Voice (sound), 80, 96, 121, 136–137, 159, 162, 163n12, 166n23, 179–181 *See also* Tone of voice *Volksgemeinschaft*, 250, 255–256, 258, 288–289, 289n39, 294 Volunteer, 310, 310n11, 312, 320–321 *See also* International Brigades Vote of non-confdence, 81

#### **W**

*Wacht am Rhein, Die* (song), 294 *Wandervogel* (youth movement), 280 *Wann wir schreiten Seit' an Seit'* (song), 21, 277–278, 280–284, 283n18, 286–287, 287n34, 289, 291–294, 296–301, 297n75 War, 111–112, 164n15, 202, 225, 228–229, 231, 238, 241, 356, 361 bond, 181 crimes, 92–93, 95–97, 101–102 (*see also* Crimes against humanity; Genocide) preparation for, 140, 161, 177, 222, 229, 243, 254 profteering, 133, 199 rhetoric, 177–181, 227, 229, 231, 237–238, 242 Wartburg Festival (1817), 346 *We shall overcome* (song), 341 Whiteness, 131–132, 147–148 *Wir sind das Bauvolk der kommenden Welt* (song), 297 *Wir sind jung, die Welt ist offen* (song), 280–281, 297 Womanliness, 79–80, 346–347, 349

Women's movement, 110 participation, 11, 22, 59, 79–80, 346–347 protest, 357, 362, 365 suffrage, 12, 131, 355 Wording, 41, 111, 240, 283, 325, 347, 352, 355 and jurisdiction, 97, 99, 101 by FDR, 136, 162

of oaths, 30n7, 31, 33, 35, 37, 37n22 Working-class image, 252–254, 261, 263–265, 271–273

#### **Y**

Yellow vests, *see Gilets jaunes* Youth, 287n34 cult of, 285 myth, 285–286, 286n27, 288