The War Come Home
Subtitle: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: September 17, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 299
ISBN-13: 9780520220089
Subjects: Disability: social aspects; European history: First World War; Social welfare & social services; First World War, 1914-1918; Inter-war period, 1918-1939; History; Germany; Politics / Current Events; Veterans; Sociology; British Isles; United Kingdom, Great Britain; Government - Comparative; Public Policy - Social Services & Welfare; History / General; Disabled veterans; 20th century; Care; Great Britain; World War, 1914-1918
First sentence: At the same time every year, from 1919 to 1934, Miss Hilda Monamy King mailed a donation of IS. 6d. to the London War Seal Mansions for Disabled Ex-Servicemen.
Description: "Disabled veterans were the First World War's most conspicuous legacy. Nearly eight million men in Europe returned from the First World War permanently disabled by injury or disease. In The War Come Home, Deborah Cohen offers a comparative analysis of the very different ways in which two belligerent nations--Germany and Britain--cared for their disabled. At the heart of this book is an apparent paradox. Although postwar Germany provided its disabled veterans with generous benefits, they came to despise the state that favored them. Disabled men proved susceptible to the Nazi cause. By contrast, British ex-servicemen remained loyal subjects, though they received only meager material compensation. Cohen explores the meaning of this paradox by focusing on the interplay between state agencies and private philanthropies on one hand, and the evolving relationship between disabled men and the general public on the other. Written with verve and compassion, The War Come Home describes in affecting detail disabled veterans' lives and their treatment at the hands of government agencies and private charities in Britain and Germany. Cohen's study moves from the intimate confines of veterans' homes to the offices of high-level bureaucrats she tells of veterans' protests, of disabled men's families, and of the well-heeled philanthropists who made a cause of the war's victims. This superbly researched book provides an important new perspective on the ways in which states and societies confront the consequences of industrialized warfare." -- Publisher.