Kriegstagebücher

Information

Diaries from World War I that was presented and research done by Joseph Bédier that took accounts of daily diaries of the German soldiers with different military rank. The diaries were used in publications of various articles dealing with the atrocities brought by German soldiers toward the Belgium civilians and French soldiers. There are two outlines of the diaries.

Selected soldiers from battalion to high command level were used, which would later be written in historical documents for war. The purpose in keeping diaries is to have daily accounts of “troop movements, orders given, engagements with the enemy, losses, and so on”. The second form was private diaries in which were private to soldiers to take more personal thoughts and accounts of events. Bédier used these diaries to helped connect together accounts of thirty-six incidents of sexual and sadistic crimes that the German soldiers carry out against the Belgium civilians and French soldiers.

References

*Joseph Bédier, Les crimes allemands d’après les témoignages allemands (1915)

*Horne, John, and Alan Kramer. German "Atrocities" and Franco-German Opinion, 1914: The New Evidence of German Soldiers' Diaries. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994.