Abstract

The Austro-German Alpine Club (DOeAV) was one of the most important bourgeois federations in Germany and Austria-Hungary before the First World War. This paper discusses the question if the perception of the Great War 1914-1918, and especially of the war in the Alps against Italy 1915-1918, by the DOeAV was characterized by a general adaption to the dominant, culture-based German war ideology elaborated in the so-called “ideas of 1914”. Since Austria-Hungary lacked an own coherent war ideology except the fight for the Emperor and the fatherland, and actually became a mere German satellite due to its military weakness during the war, one may expect that the binational club should have experienced a more or less complete ideological takeover by the German side. Nevertheless, the paper finds that although typical elements of the ideologization of the war were doubtlessly clearly present in the Club’s main publication series, the DOeAV did not adhere totally to the German perception of the war but preserved a minimum of differentiation and respect for the enemy. This may be explained by the specialties of the military constellations on the Southern front of 1915-1918, the structural pecularities of the DOeAV which was in fact a South German-Austrian club, and the specific alpinist appreciation of both sides’ performance in the mountain war.