Memoirs from the time of military occupation: Romania’s Europeanisation and Germany’s civilising mission (1916-1918)

Claudiu-Lucian TOPOR

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2024-0019

Abstract: The occupation policies and the interaction of the Germans with the populations of Eastern Europe have become a topic of interest especially in postWorld War II research interested in observing the continuity or discontinuity with the policies adopted by the German authorities in the context of the First World War. But what about Romania? With the attack in the summer of 1916, the Reich Germans’ perceptions of Romanians changed fundamentally as it became necessary to inculcate a new image of Romania as an aggressor nation. The official propaganda presented the German combatants with the image of a treacherous Romania and a people dominated by pretense. The German military occupation of Romania ended in the fall of 1918, but the publication of the memoirs of the former combatants did not take the end of the war into account. The memoirs were enriched every year after 1916. In the inter-war years, however, there was also a new impetus in the publicity generated by the need to justify the reasons for the war. German memoirs portray the Romanians as dirty, fickle, cunning and treacherous. Germany’s war in Eastern Europe is thus transformed into a struggle that ultimately reveals the supremacy of German culture. Occupied Romania was not only to be exploited economically but also entrusted to a cultural mission. As is evident from many of the writings written during the war, the victorious Germany discovered a new colonial mission in the East: to transform the backward natives from a savage mob into a civilized people of Europe.

Keywords: Germany; War; Military occupation; civilization; Romanian people.