Was ist Krieg?

Carl von Clausewitz defines war as a fight. Bernd Hüppauf's foundation of a cultural history of war objects: There is no war without discourse. Looking at war discourse from its beginnings in Mesopotamia to the intelligent weapons of cyber and drone warfare shows that war consists of military fighting and cultural discourse. Military history fetishizes facts, while a cultural history of war integrates them into a web of meanings. Only this brings enthusiasm, fear, cruelty, and horror into view as elements of war. And only this makes it possible to describe the web of symbols, actions, and meanings from which every memory construes the reality of war. Looking at experience, ethics, subjectivity, and identity is what reveals the continuity of war through 3000 years of war history to the present day. This results in nothing less than the necessity of a yet-to-be-written morality of feelings for the question: Are soldiers even allowed to kill?

Bernd Hüppauf (Prof. Dr.) ist Emeritus für Deutsche Literatur und Literaturtheorie der New York University. Sein Forschungsschwerpunkt ist die Mentalitäts- und Kulturgeschichte der Moderne. Bei transcript erschien von ihm u.a. »Vom Frosch. Eine Kulturgeschichte zwischen Tierphilosophie und Ökologie« (2011).