With the end of World War I, some 7 million German soldiers, many of them on foot, returned to their home towns - an enormous social integration task. The vast majority of soldiers, some of whom were also prisoners of war, were disillusione and alienated from civilian and working life. A few lucky ones were able to return to their jobs, for example in farms, but the unemployment rate rose from zero to eight percent in early 1919: a very difficult task for the young republic, which had no infrastructure to absorb these people. Disappointed by the monarchy or radicalized by the experience of violence in the war, many of them joined revolutionary communist groups or far-right paramilitary Freikorps, which engaged in bloody clashes. They could not find a livelihood in the Reichswehr, which was limited to a maximum of 100,000 men under the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty. Of the 14,000 soldiers who had gone to war from the Hohenzollern lands belonging to the Free State of Prussia, about 10,000 returned. The procession of returning soldiers in front of the town hall of Sigmaringen shows this:
In Focus - War Returnees
In the "In Focus" section, we present special highlights from archives that are represented in the Archivportal-D. These selected archival materials provide an insight into the holdings and offer research suggestions for a possible search in the Archivportal-D or in the online collection "Weimar Republic". The online collection is still very new, and so we are first presenting archival materials on the history of the Weimar Republic. We are happy about your interest and many new users in the Archivportal-D.
Many of those who returned home suffered from external disfigurement. Psychological damage was also widespread, such as anxiety disorders, states of aggression, depression, war tremors and suicides. The invalid homes and mental institutions were quickly overcrowded, and the assistance available only at the communal or private level was insufficient. The disabled relied heavily on family support or the opportunity to work. There was no public welfare for the war-disabled. It was not until the Reichsversorgungsgesetz of 1920 that state welfare was regulated, but it allowed only minimal provision and concentrated on getting the injured back into work. The so-called "Prussian Cripple Welfare Act" of the same year also provided the first legal basis for outpatient and inpatient care for people with physical disabilities.
The more invalids returned, the more often the public reacted aggressively but the fallen were celebrated as heroes. Public reactions to the returning wounded, on the other hand, ranged from often downplaying the issue in the press to open social ostracism and ridicule.
We thank the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg and the Bundesarchiv for providing the sources.
Links to the sources in the online collection
War returnees in the Fürst-Wilhelm-Straße in Sigmaringen 1918/1919
Implementation statement of July 27, 1920 on the law on public cripple care
Research options
If you are interested in further sources on war returnees in the Deutsches Reich, use the A-Z Index to select "Kriegsheimkehrer" and combine this thematic keyword with the geographic "Deutsches Reich" or "Hohenzollernsche Lande".
In the object gallery on the main page of the online collection you will find more objects for the keywords: Kriegsheimkehrer, Kriegsveteran, Kriegsinvalide