The leadup to the First World War was characterized by a tense atmosphere as everyone in Dörrebach awaited news of a solution to Europe’s quickly deteriorating political situation. Few people wanted to believe that a war would break out, and indeed when some workers came back from town on 31 July 1914 bringing with them news of Germany’s mobilization, few people would believe them (the war had in fact broken out three days earlier). The official word came from policeman Böhmer on 1 August. The whole village was woken up by the toll of the village bell at about midnight. No sooner had Böhmer read out the Mobilization Order than pandemonium broke out in Dörrebach’s streets, despite the late hour. A crowd gathered at reeve Bernhard May’s home in the hope of finding out more news while weeping was heard from the village’s women and children. The disquiet lasted all night. The next day, Philipp Dhein’s and Eva Gerhardt’s general stores were both beset by housewives seeking to buy whatever they could in the way of food, reasoning that it would soon become scarce. Flour and salt were items of particular interest. This hoarding unfortunately characterized the whole war on the home front. The sellers, for their part, raised prices and reaped greater profits. There also arose a degree of paranoia about spies in the villagers’ midst. Needless to say, any foreigner was suspect. Two young lads from the village nearly got themselves shot when on the way back from Seibersbach, where they had gone to buy bread, they chose to rest awhile in a roadside ditch next to a rye field. Somebody spotted them there and took them for spies. The village was soon on alert and the local forester, armed with the guns that he thought he would need, arrived on the scene. The lads were recognized in time, though, before there was any shooting.