The Wehrmann in Eisen: nailed statues as barometers of Habsburg social order during the First World War

Abstract

Beginning in early 1915, large nailed statues appeared across Austria-Hungary. These statues, which were carved of wood and covered in nails, took different forms. The most common was a shield or medieval knight, the Wehrmann in Eisen. Often placed in prominent public spaces, these statues became focal points for ceremonies aimed at uniting the local population in support of the Habsburg war effort. The rhetoric concerning these statues, used by officials in unveiling ceremonies and reproduced in newspapers, reinforced notions of wartime sacrifice expected of all citizens. This paper examines these nailed statues in both halves of the Dual Monarchy, arguing that these statues served an important function in the Habsburg wartime project to promote widespread patriotism and in the process upheld traditional gendered social order. Ultimately, these nailed statues and the events that took place at them exemplify efforts by those in positions of authority to maintain traditional gendered social order in wartime through this symbol of male battlefront sacrifice. The varied afterlives of these statues indicate the degree to which the statues failed to unite the Monarchy around a common Habsburg wartime project and were subject to use for political ends in the successor states.

Keywords:

• Austria-Hungary
• First World War
• Wehrmann in Eisen
• gender

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Hugh Agnew, Maureen Healy, Tamara Scheer, Nancy M Wingfield, the participants of the Habsburg Homefronts Workshop, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

1. This paper employs Cisleithanian place names in German and lists alternate names the first time a place is referenced through the duration of the First World War as a reflection of the use of German in state correspondence. Similarly, Hungarian place names will be used for the Hungarian half of the Monarchy with additional names the first time a place is mentioned. In both cases, where there is a standard English name it will be used, like Prague, Trieste, and Vienna. Local naming practices will be followed in the post-war era; thus, Brünn will be referred to as Brno.

2. Wien Rathaus Bibliothek (WiR), Tagblattsarchiv (TBA), 1650, 1651.

3. These objects were not unique to Austria. Jay Winter mentions “iron nail” memorials in the German-speaking areas of Europe, but he does not discuss them in detail in Sites of Memory, 78–85. Berlin unveiled an “Iron Hindenburg” on 4 September 1915. This monumental statue – 10 meters high – had room for two million nails. See Das Interessante Blatt, September 16, 1915, 14; and Wiener Zeitung, September 5, 1915, 12. Constantinople also unveiled a nailed statue, an “Iron Canon.” See Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, April 15, 1916, Evening Edition, 4; and Stajerc, April 16, 1916, 3.

4. Neue Freie Presse (NFP), March 6, 1915, 10; and Wiener Zeitung, March 6, 1915, 4.

5. NFP, March 3, 1915, 11 and Groner, Wien, wie es war, 479.

6. Státní okresní archiv (SOkA) Znojmo, Archiv města Znojma (AMZ), Valečne hospodářství, Box 64, Witwen- und Waisenhilfsfond der gesamten bewaffneten Macht, March 1, 1915.

7. For an examination of these monuments in the context of other war memorials, see Riesenfellner, “Todeszeichen,” and Goebel, The Great War and Medieval Memory. Stefan Eminger’s recent study focuses on nailed statues in Lower Austria. See Eminger “‘Der eisernen Zeit ein eisernes Denkmal!’” For a gendered approach focusing on Vienna’s Wehrmann, see Nierhaus, “Die nationalisierte Heimat,” 65, 68–71. On Vienna’s Wehrmann, see also Achleitner, ed., Der Wehrmann in Eisen . For a study of the nailings in Austria and Germany, see Diers, “Nagelmänner.” Hans-Christian Pust’s study gives an overview of Austria and Hungary, but also notes world-wide examples, see “Kriegsnagelungen,” 211–24.

8. Mosse, The Image of Man, 115–17.

9. Wiener Bilder, April 9, 1916, 6, 11. On the War Press Bureau, see Rauchensteiner, The First World War, 225.

10. Kohlfürst, “The Reception of Egger-Lienz Among German Nationalists,” in Totentanz: Egger-Lienz und der Krieg, 124–6, and Pereña, “The Danse Macabre 1908–1923,” in Totentanz, 148.

11. Winter, Sites of Memory, 5. See also Frantzen, Bloody Good, 1–2, 9.

12. For example, in Laibach/Ljubljana, the capital of Krain, the city’s coat of arms, a dragon perched atop the castle tower, occupied the center of the Wehrschild. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB), Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung, KS 1621318; 1914-1918/IV, “Wehrschild in Eisen 1915-Laibach-Mehrsprachiges Plakat.”

13. SOkA Znojmo, AMZ, Valečne hospodářství, Box 64, Witwen- und Waisenhilfsfond der gesamten bewaffneten Macht, March 16, 1915.

14. Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, January 18, 1916, Morning Edition, 5.

15. Wiener Bilder, June 18, 1916, 11; Wiener Zeitung June 5, 1916, 8.

16. Rauchensteiner, The First World War, 523–33.

17. Holitscher, In England-Ostpreussen-Südösterreich, 124.

18. Reichspost, July 12, 1916, 4.

19. Das Interessante Blatt, December 16, 1915, 6.

20. SOkA Znojmo, AMZ, Valečne hospodářství, Box 64, Witwen- und Waisenhilfsfond der gesamten bewaffneten Macht, March 1, 1915.

21. Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, May 31, 1915, Evening Edition, 5.

22. Salzburger Chronik, July 4, 1915, 4.

23. Moravaká zemská knihovna (MZK), Bruna Antiqua, no.131, “Velka nám. s Wehrmannem.”

24. Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, August 17, 1915, Evening Edition, 5.

25. WiR, TBA, 1651; Fremden-Blatt, October 9, 1915, Evening Edition, 2; Neues Wiener Journal, May 28, 1915, 10.

26. Grazer Tagblatt, May 21, 1915, 2–3.

27. Eisenzapf, Eiserner Wehrmann 1916, and Riesenfellner, “Todeszeichen,” 17–20.

28. Hildebrand, Die Donaumonarchie im Krieg, 155.

29. Molnár, Concise History of Hungary, 67–75; and Bak, “Late Medieval Period,” 70–4.

30. WiR, TBA, 1651.

31. Bourke, Dismembering the Male, 30. See also chapters 4–5.

32. ÖNB, WK1/KS/I/2/13/3 Por, Der Brünner-Wehrmann mit Wehrschild, Brünn, 1915, 5.

33. On troops passing through Prerau, see, for example, in Rauchensteiner, The First World War, 325.

34. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, 126.

35. Archiv města Brna (AMB), A 1/26, 503 M-4/ii/1, Verzeichnis der offiziellen Kriegserinnerungsgegenstände, 12.

36. Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, October 23, 1915, Morning Edition, 5.

37. Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA), Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchi, Ministerium des Innern, Präsidium A, Box 2214, Protocol 4256 M.I. 1916, Verzeichnis der offiziellen Verkaufsgegenstände, 6, 9.

38. AMB, A 1/26 , 503 M-4/ii/1, Vermittlungsstelle in Oberösterreich für das k.u.k. Kriegsfürsorgeamt in Linz an das Kriegsfürsorgeamt in Brünn, July 13, 1916; and Zl. 1752/praes. 1916 reply to the Vermittlungsstelle in Oberösterreich für das k.u.k. Kriegsfürsorgeamt, July 29, 1916.

39. Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1–3, 24.

40. Neuigkeits Welt Blatt, March 7, 1915, 9; and Wiener Kommunal-Kalender, 1026.

41. Kaiser Franz Josef I. und Kaiser Wilhelm II. im Film (1910–1916), 9 min., 9 sec. Footage of the unveiling begins at 4:41.

42. Wiener Zeitung, March 6, 1915, 4.

43. Neuigkeits Welt Blatt, March 7, 1915, 9.

44. Das Interessante Blatt, August 26, 1915, 11; and Neuigkeits Welt Blatt, August 31, 1915, 11.

45. Cohen, Politics of Ethnic Survival, 131–2, 185; Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints, 40, 78.

46. Prager Tagblatt, Noon Edition, June 28, 1915, 3–5.

47. Neuigkeits Welt-Blatt, June 20, 1915. See WiR, TBA, 1650. Women often played an important role in nail ceremonies in the military and civic-association banner ceremonies that Hugh Agnew analyzes in his in-progress study of political ritual and symbol in Czech nationalism in the nineteenth century.

48. Das interessante Blatt, December 16, 1915, 6.

49. The play was published first in four special issues of Kraus’ magazine, Die Fackel, beginning in November 1918 and subsequently in book form in 1922. For background on Kraus and the play, see Edward Timms and Fred Bridgham, “Introduction: Falsehood in Wartime” in Kraus, The Last Days of Mankind: The Complete Text, xvi.

50. Kraus, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit, 231–8.

51. Eminger, “Der eisernen Zeit ein eisernes Denkmal!,” 107–8.

52. ÖNB, WK1/KS/I/2/13/3 Por, Der Brünner-Wehrmann mit Wehrschild, Brünn, 1915, 3.

53. ÖNB, WK1/KS/I/2/13/3 Por, Der Brünner-Wehrmann mit Wehrschild, Brünn, 1915, 4.

54. K.k. österreichischer Militar- Witwen- und Waisenfonds, Bericht über das erste Bestandjahr 1914/15 (Vienna, 1915), 21–3.

55. ÖStA, Archiv der Republik, BMfsV, Kb, Box 1358, 4941 1918.

56. Eminger, “Der eisernen Zeit ein eisernes Denkmal!,” 119.

57. See Unowsky, The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism.

58. Cole, Military Culture and Popular Patriotism.

59. Eggenburger Zeitung, July 30, 1915, 4.

60. Linzer Volksblatt, May 27, 1915, 4.

61. Linzer Tages Post, August 8, 1915, 5.

62. Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, December 3, 1915, Morning Edition, 5.

63. Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, December 3, 1915, Evening Edition, 5.

64. Tagesbote aus Mähren und Schlesien, September 10, 1915, Evening Edition, 5.

65. Goebel, The Great War and Medieval Memory, 29.

66. Nikolsburger Wochenschrift, October 23, 1915, 4.

67. Nikolsburger Wochenschrift, October 23, 1915, 4.

68. Wingfield and Bucur, eds., Gender and War, 10.

69. Achleitner, 26, 30–8.

70. For example, see Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints, 135, 144–6; and Paces, Prague Panoramas, Chapter 5.

71. Moravská orlice, March 30, 1919, 3.

72. Lidové noviny, July 27, 1930, insert, 1.