| Existing comment:
Kriegzeit (Wartime) was a German publication that appeared in August 1914, during the heady first weeks of the war. Co-founded by the art dealer and publisher Paul Cassirer, along with Austrian writer and critic Alfred Gold, the journal engaged the talents of well-known artists of the day -- from avant-garde modernists to more traditional painters -- to pictorially support the war effort. The journal's early issues included countless patriotic exhortations that urged Germans to rally behind the military and the nation. Serving the same purpose, Germany's enemies -- the French, British, and Russians -- were negatively depicted in a number of woodcuts, lithographs, and paintings. Kriegzeit was published between August 1914 and March 1916, when it was replaced by Der Bildermann (The Picture Man). The new journal was far less bombastic; in fact, often its tone was noticeably anti-war, a message conveyed in many of the poems and artworks that it published. Thus, Der Bildermann reflected the increasing war weariness and disillusionment felt by artists, intellectuals, and more generally, the German public. The journal ceased publication in December 1916. By then, the appalling high loss of life on the war front, as well as protests and severe malnourishment on the home front, fueled the German government's decision to tighten its censorship laws and to severely curtail and growing chorus of opposition to the war. |