Ready for War? Conceptions of Military Manliness in the Prusso-German Officer Corps before the First World War

In the book chapter "Ready for War? Conceptions of Military Manliness in the Prusso-German Officer Corps before the First World War" in the edited volume Home/Front: The Military, War, and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany, author Marcus Funck charts the fragmentation of the aristocratic notion of masculinity in the  decade  before the First World War amidst fears hat an extended period of peace had weakened German men. One result was a concept of the officer in which "national conviction" defined in terms of toughness, stamina, service, and duty replaced social origin as the basis for membership. In this new concept of masculinity, war provided an arena where ideas of masculine toughness linked with national duty were further encouraged and legitimized.