This year marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War, thus it is no surprise that over the past few years there has been a renewed interest in the "War to end all wars." At times, it seemed that the Great War was the forgotten war, easily overshadowed by the next war that pushed the Great War on the back burner, even though the decisions and impact of World War I are still with us. While we have some firsthand accounts available, the material is sparse compared to the efforts of preserving the memories of subsequent wars. On a positive note, it seems that we learned something from history, namely to preserve Veterans' experiences of the war. The Library of Congress has a small collection, accessible here www.loc.gov/vets/stories/wwi-trenches.html; and a quick search on Youtube also yields some results www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_EURh1ws_s . I assume that the vast majority of World War I Veterans simply did not want to talk about their war experience. Just like James Fredwin Crook, they continued their pre-war lives - got married, raised a family, trying to keep the family farm during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, and then seeing their sons off to fight yet another World War. 
What has been better preserved and easily available are World War I Propaganda Posters. A simple internet search can leave you spending hours looking at these artistic marvels. 

The US came late to the Great War and thus war propaganda. The British by 1917 were the real masters of the propaganda poster trade, and the US simply recycled quite a few of the posters - adjusted for the US audience of course. Unlike the British, the US had a large German population. The US tried to walk a fine line to convince the American population that they were waging war against "Prussianism, Kaiserism, German Militarism" and not the German population (across the Atlantic as well as on US soil). Judging by reports of anti-German sentiments ranging from school children being beaten up because of their German last name to painting German houses yellow to taking and selling livestock of Mennonite farmers to buy Liberty Bonds to the lynching of Robert Prager I wonder if the American public was able to make that distinction. The posters clearly appealed to the public's emotions, and in a sense painted every German-American living in the US as a disloyal, unpatriotic traitor. The posters created the image of the "uncivilized Hun" that needed to be defeated to save not only Europe but also American civilization. The posters created, encouraged, and maintained the image of the enemy at home, German-Americans.

One of my favorite Anti-German World War One Propaganda Poster is Destroy this Mad Brute, created by Harry R. Hopps in 1918. The poster was used as a recruitment tool, encouraging men to enlist. It depicts a King Kong look-alike gorilla wearing a German-style military helmet (Pickelhaube) with “Militarism” imprinted on it. The ape-like creature also sports a blond mustache, eerily similar to Kaiser Wilhelm II. The creature is drooling, his mouth is wide open, showing his teeth. He is holding a white woman in his left arm. She is partially wearing a light blue dress and is showing her bare breasts. The woman is covering her eyes with her right hand. The gorilla is holding a large wooden club with the word “Kultur” (culture) printed on it in his right hand. Both hands of the gorilla and the club are bloody. In the background is the silhouette of a destroyed city. Between the city and the gorilla is a body of water, presumably the Atlantic Ocean. It seems that the gorilla just arrived on the shores of the United States, as “America” is printed under his feet, thus playing on the public’s fears of a German invasion. The underlying message of this poster revealed that the enemy might already be in the country. Americans needed to be concerned with the enemy among them. This enemy was the millions of German-Americans who from the outset of the war were suspected of being spies and traitors. 
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The poster has a striking resemblance to King Kong from the 1933 movie, even down to holding a distressed damsel, representing western civilization, in his arms. I wonder if Hollywood took this poster as a model, and if it brought back memories of the "uncivilized Hun" at a time when a former Private in the Imperial German Army during the Great War was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Zonenrand has been quiet for a while now. A lot has happened since the last post, mainly a move halfway across the US to attend graduate school, which is still ongoing. One of my research interests lies in the US involvement during the Great War, or World War I. Having moved to North Dakota, a state whose population can trace its roots to either Scandinavian (Norwegian and Swedish) or German (mainly Germans from Russia) heritage, with a sprinkling of the usual Anglo-Saxons, it is interesting to research North Dakotans' attitudes to US involvement in the Great War. One of my classes kind of touched on that. The idea of the class was to "Trace the Dead," where each student would trace the lives of six to eight US soldiers who served in the Great War and died during the war (either killed in action, or died of wounds or influenza). Our class focused on tracing the war dead of Polk County, Minnesota. The class quickly turned into an addiction for me - it was/is simply fascinating to retrace the lives of the average soldier from the northern Prairie drafted for the Great War. Simply using a genealogy search engine like Ancestry provided this class access to each soldier's live. Instead of being merely a number of the 116,516 US war dead, the class told each soldier's story. By using War Registration Cards and US Census records, we were able to trace our soldiers and gain a glimpse into not only their lives but their families as well. 

Most soldiers were first-generation American citizens, their parents immigrating to the US from Norway and Sweden. A few were born abroad and came to the US as toddlers. Researching the family origins at times proved to be challenging - last names being spelled differently on each US Census, the draft registration card, the US Army Transport Service Passenger Lists, and gravestones (How many different spellings of Ingebretsen can you come up with?). Some soldiers were easier to trace than others. One of my soldiers turned out to be a bit of a mystery man, at least that was my nickname for him. Henry Lindblom registered for the draft on June 5, 1917. On his draft card, he did not claim an exemption from the draft, he did not have any dependents, and he was single. Henry was inducted into the Army on February 23, 1918. Two months later he was sailing on the USS Leviathan to join the roughly 2 million doughboys fighting in the trenches of France to "make the world safe for democracy" and fight "the war to end all wars." Sadly, Henry did not make it back to eastern Minnesota to continue his life as a farmer. He was killed on October 22, 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. His final resting place is at Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Lorraine, France, in plot D, row 23, grave 19. 

What makes Henry Lindblom a mystery man is that he lists a Selma Olson Lindblom as his wife and emergency contact on the troop ship's embarkation record. This means, Henry must have gotten married some time after he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917 and April 24, 1918, when he embarked on the USS Leviathan to France. I was unable to locate a marriage license, or any record that would indicate Henry and Selma were married. So perhaps, he listed her as his wife when "legally" she was not. In addition, Henry Lindblom left behind a son, Harry Eugene Lindblom, wo was born about 6 weeks before his father's death. It is unclear if news of the birth made it to France. Like his father, Harry served in the US Army as a Private First Class from March 6, 1942 to January 4, 1946. Unlike his father, Harry survived the Second World War and returned home. He died October 15, 2000, and is buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery. 

Tracing individual stories like Henry Lindblom bring the Great War home to the prairie and show us how world events impacted even the Northern Great Plains. While traveling through western North Dakota this past week, my husband and I stumbled upon Sunny Side Cemetery near Trotters, North Dakota. Trotters is located in Golden Valley County, about 30 miles north of Beach, North Dakota, on highway ND-16. Cemeteries in the proverbial middle of nowhere are typical of ND. Considering the sparse population in homesteading country, this is no surprise. Sunny Side Cemetery was small, about 80 graves, ranging in dates from the late 1880s to 2015. The graves of US Military Veterans, about ten percent of the graves, were decorated with the US flag and a sign indicating the service and conflict. The majority served during the Korean War, with World War II closely following. And then my husband saw the World War I marker on one gravestone. It was quite the humbling experience to see the grave of a World War I Veteran in the prairie, surrounded by nothing but wheat fields as far as the eye could see. There, in one of the most remote places, the Great War still impacted a community. James Fredwin Crook survived the war. I am not even sure if he even went overseas to join his fellow Northern Prairie doughboys, as I was unable to locate his name on the US Army Transport Service Passenger Lists. But I did find his Draft Registration Card. Like Henry Lindblom, James registered for the draft on June 5, 1917. He served as a Private in Battery C, 40th Field Artillery from July 21, 1918 to February 7, 1919. After his military service, Private Crook returned to farming in the Golden Valley County and died on February 22, 1973 at the age of 83. Like thousands of other doughboys from small communities of the Northern Great Plains, Private Crook's service during the Great War is remembered at his final resting place. A war 5000 miles away was not this abstract far-away battle between empires, but impacted even small farming communities on the prairie of western North Dakota.

July seems to be a fairly popular month for political upheavals in the modern era. After all, the American and French Revolutions happened during the summer month named after Julius Caesar, the famous Roman General/Emperor/Dictator/Conqueror. Perhaps the month's namesake served as some form of inspiration for the various forms of political unrest, especially since Julius Caesar met a pretty brutal death by betrayal. Or perhaps, and more likely, it is just coincidence. July is usually the height of the summer, it is hot, it is miserable, people are getting tired of the heat --- maybe that facilitates revolutionary actions.
The Balkan Crisis also intensified during July 1914, when the major Western Powers prepared for a war that was supposed to end all wars. Fast forward a mere three decades to July 20, 1944 and one can find another political uprising of sort: the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler by a group of high-ranking military officers.
But back to the most widely-known and arguably most important and far-reaching events of those hot summer days of 1776 and 1789. The implications of these two revolutions would eventually be carried around the world (and still are), and they still impact us to this day. While the importance of the American Revolution cannot be underestimated, to a degree it was a somewhat isolated event. Isolated mainly because of its geography. The residents of the British colonies in the New World decided they could just as well govern themselves and rid themselves of a mad monarch and tyrannical despot some 3000 miles away. For the rest of Europe that was pretty far away and American Independence deemed no immediate threat. The ideas of the Enlightenment that influenced and shaped the rebel colonists were born in Europe and spread throughout the continent across the Atlantic ocean. The geographical isolation of the American colonies made it easier to accommodate, spread, and implement Enlightenment ideas, thus giving the American colonists (who were British subjects after all) a greater taste of freedom and self-governance. 
Just thirteen years later, European monarchs would encounter the threat of the ideas of the American Revolution and the Enlightenment on their home continent. While the American Revolution was radical in its creation of a republican government that existed only by the consent of the people, and the insistence that every man possessed inalienable rights that could not be taken away by the government the French Revolution added brutal violence to its radicalism. It was the threat of losing not only absolute power but the very real threat of being overrun by mob rule and losing one's head that threatened the existence of Europe's monarchies. 
As radical as both revolutions were, they both left out parts of society. Just like the previous ruler had limited rights and privileges to the ruling political class, the inalienable and natural rights proclaimed in the American and French Revolutions were not all-inclusive and did not extend to women, the property-less, and in the case of the newly founded United States, slaves. Nevertheless, both revolutions helped spread the ideas of inalienable rights, natural rights, liberty, equality, government by consent, and government's duty to preserve the rights of the people. These ideas continue to help create a "more perfect union," and should be the guiding light for any nation to include people who are on the margin of society. 


 

Recently, I finally watched "The Iron Lady," the movie adaptation of Margaret Thatcher's life. I thought the movie was ok. Unlike other fellow students of history, I do not watch movies about historic events to see how well or not they portray an actual event/era/person. Rather, I watch them for entertainment - because that is what they are - and if it is a subject I am not familiar with, and I enjoy the movie and want to learn more about it, then I usually do research about it. I think "history" movies are a great opportunity to get people interested and excited about a subject, and get them started to read and learn more about it. This is exactly what "The Iron Lady" did to me: even though I grew up during her government, I am not very familiar with her other than that  she was a staunch anti-communist - very much like Ronald Reagan. Obviously, ones political opinion and principles have a lot to do with how one fews these conservative Cold War warriors. However, one cannot underestimate the important role they played in tearing down the Iron Curtain, with the help of Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and of course the countless courageous citizens of Eastern Europe. 
Since the movie somewhat hit home, I decided to do more research - off to the local library! The movie did not really go into detail about the close political relationship and friendship Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan had. I believe that without their special relationship, the Iron Curtain would have stayed closed longer. Both were staunch conservatives and staunch anti-communists who believed unequivocally in freedom and free-market economy. Of course, outspending the former "evil empire" also helped in its downfall but the economic side of the Cold War is a topic for another blog. 
I was able to check out Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher -  A Political Marriage by Nicholas Wapshott. The book offers a detailed look into Thatcher and Reagan's politically intimate relationship by relying on personal correspondence, as well as official records and letters/notes by their political aides and cabinet members. The book examines their upbringing, education and their eventual entry into politics. It was interesting to read how their different styles in governing (Reagan being the hands-off manager, who had broad ideas and left the nitty-gritty details to his cabinet members/aides, while Thatcher was more of a micro-manager, needing to be involved in the tiniest details of every policy decision) brought similar results. For the most part they were on the same page when it came to confronting the Soviet Union, although Thatcher was adamantly opposed to Reagan's idealistic proposal to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The Iron Lady considered it simply fantastical, unrealistic, and also wholly dangerous for Western Europe. In her view, the nuclear stand-off, the knowledge of MAD (mutual assured destruction) was somewhat an assurance to keep the Soviets in check. However, Reagan's fantastical idea also opened the door for renewed arms limitation discussions, especially after Gorbachev was (s)elected General Secretary. It was Thatcher who met Gorbachev first, at one of the funerals for the dying old communist guard that seemed to occur on a regular basis during the early 1980s. Her assessment of the new Soviet leader certainly helped to encourage Reagan to seek ways to improve US-Soviet relations. The result of this "new and improved" relationship is now history - the Iron Curtain fell, the Cold War officially ended, Germany was re-united thanks, in no small part, to the strong alliance between the political power couple of the twentieth century.

I am trying to incorporate different aspects of history into my website's theme, Zonenrand. While I started this blog primarily to explore various aspects of living near the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, I also envision this blog to engage with all aspects of living near a border - be it a physical or psychological border. I am trying to involve this blog with exploring and engaging the history of people(s) who were marginalized and thus found themselves at the edge of society/culture, either voluntarily or forced by a majority. Several groups come to mind: minorities, immigrants, women, and even people who deliberately chose not to participate and/or withdraw from society. The role of these groups in history was often (and at times still is) relegated to the edge of society. Thus, their contributions and their role in society were either not acknowledged or marginalized as not being important. Nevertheless, even in their marginalized role these groups have an impact on society and on history. Over the next couple of months, time permitting, I will explore the history of groups who have been at one point in their history at the edge of society. 

I was watching this documentary about the Cold War in my hometown area (produced by the MDR, a regional TV channel out of Thüringen), and it reminded me how blissful ignorant I was throughout my childhood. Unfortunately, it is in German but it highlights why and how the Rhön region developed into one of the hottest placers during the Cold War. While the border between the two Germanys was more permeable in the countryside than in Berlin, East Germany tightened its border security and reinforced the inner-german border after the Berlin Wall was built. Already in the 1950s, East Germany implemented forced relocations of families who lived within 5km of the border, in the so-called Speergebiet. Nevertheless, both sides recognized the importance of the era and started building observation points. For the US Army, Observation Point Alpha near Rasdorf become its most important "peephole" into the East. As James Hamilton states in the video, OP Alpha "was the end of the Western World." Its main purpose was to observe East German and Soviet troop movements, recognize a potential attack from the East, and try to delay Soviet advancements as much as possible. Hopelessly outnumbered, at best, the US troops would act as a speed bump. At worst, the area would be turned into a nuclear wasteland. 
Growing up at the Zonenrandgebiet, within close proximity of the Iron Curtain, it simply never occurred to me that the Cold War was being played out in my backyard and what potential danger we might face. Yes, there was the presence of US soldiers. My hometown is located between 2 US bases of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment ("Blackhorse Regiment"), Fulda and Bad Hersfeld, both of them have been closed since 1994. While US soldiers were a familiar presence in our lives I had very little interaction with them. My parents did not "adopt a US soldier" to have him or her spent Christmas with a German family, nor were my parents farmers and had soldiers helping them during harvest time. Nevertheless, US soldier were part of the daily life and it was quite "normal" for us to see them. Of course, officials on both sides stressed the importance of creating a friendly atmosphere between the local population and the US Military by encouraging interaction. 
And yet, throughout my childhood I remained blissfully ignorant about the role my hometown region played in the global significance of the Cold War. I am wondering if this ignorance was part of the US Military's strategy for the region. For me, it was "normal" to live near the Iron Curtain, and I do not think my childhood was any different than someone who grew up hundreds of miles away from the inner-german border. While the daily reminder of the divided Germany was right there, I simply did not think my life would be cut short by a Soviet invasion. Perhaps by creating this atmosphere of "normalcy" for the local population, the US appeared as protectors and defenders of freedom and our way of life in the Zonenrandgebiet, thus winning the "hearts and minds" of the local population. I am curious to see how others experienced the border - Germans and Americans alike.