Abstract
In the city of Ulm in the southwest of the German Empire on 12 March 1917 two boys, aged 16 and 17 years old, went into a house and broke into the basement of a local widow. They stole 20 bottles of sparkling wine, 150 eggs and a bucket full of soft soap. At that time, the impact of the First World War had reached its climax on the German “home front”. Though food had been rationed since 1914, by 1917 the situation had deteriorated to the point that in the district of Blaubeuren, people were allotted a ration of 30 eggs for a whole year.1 The winter of 1916. 1917 had brought massive supply shortfalls. The only available food for large parts of the population gave that winter its infamous name: Swede winter. Swedes were considered as food for animals in times of peace. Many people suffered from hunger and the rationing of everyday items had deeply affected almost the entire population (with the exception of the upper class). As the father of one of the boys said to his son: “There, you can see how people are still living in the third year of the war, you should take it from them.” And actually, his son did on several occasions.2
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Notes
See Ute Daniel, “Der Krieg der Frauen 1914–;1918: Zur Innenansicht des Ersten Weltkrieges in Deutschland”, in Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich and Irina Renz (eds), Keiner fühlt sich hier mehr als Mensch...: Erlebnis und Wirkung des Ersten Weltkrieges (Essen: Klartext, 1993), p. 141.
See Thomas Crofts, The Criminal Responsibility of Children and Young Persons: A Comparison of English and German Law (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 108–110.
This chapter is based on my PhD thesis, see Sarah Bornhorst, Selbstversorger: Jugendkriminalität während des 1. Weltkriegs im Landgerichtsbezirk Ulm (Konstanz: UVK, 2010).
See Manfred Scheck, Zwischen Weltkrieg und Revolution: Zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung in Württemberg (Köln: Böhlau, 1981), p. 11.
See Karl Ditt, Zweite Industrialisierung und Konsum: Energieversorgung, Haushaltstechnik und Massenkultur am Beispiel nordenglischer und westfälischer Städte 1880–;1939 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2011), p. 759.
See D. Owen Carrigan, Juvenile Delinquency in Canada: A History (Ontario: Irwin Publishing, 1998), p. 81.
Gustav Aschaffenburg, Das Verbrechen und seine Bekämpfung: Einleitung in die Kriminalpsychologie für Mediziner, Juristen und Soziologen; ein Beitrag zur Reform der Strafgesetzgebung (Heidelberg: Winter, 1906), p. 242
See Dietrich Oberwittler, Von der Strafe zur Erziehung? Jugendkriminalpolitik in England und Deutschland (1850–;1920) (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2000), p. 298.
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© 2014 Sarah Bornhorst
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Bornhorst, S. (2014). Bad Boys? Juvenile Delinquency during the First World War in Wilhelmine Germany. In: Juvenile Delinquency and the Limits of Western Influence, 1850–2000. Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349521_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349521_6
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