Memorabilia from the First World War

Pho­tographs, post­cards, let­ters, diaries, medals and sacred sto­ries.  This is what peo­ple brought to our first road­show in Frank­furt am Main yes­ter­day, March 31.

Dr. Bodo Böettcher, for exam­ple, brought a small diary that cap­tured his father’s expe­ri­ence of the war. In the diary, you could see where and how fre­quently Friedrich Böettcher’s troop had trav­eled. It showed that the gen­er­als lacked a clear plan, throw­ing their troops from one place to another, some­thing you don’t see a lot in the lit­er­a­ture on the First World War, Dr. Böettcher said.  Friedrich was also “crazy enough” to vol­un­teer to go to war – first in Düs­sel­dorf, but was rejected, then in Han­nover, but was rejected again, and then in Span­dau, where he was finally admit­ted. But it was the same “crazy” guy who burst into tears, when he heard that the Sec­ond World War broke out, because “he and his gen­er­a­tion knew the mean­ing of war”, Dr. Böettcher added.

If you also have some­thing to con­tribute about the First World War, we’ll be happy to wel­come you at our upcom­ing road­shows, or see your con­tri­bu­tions directly uploaded to the web­site — www.europeana1914-1918.eu.

The next pub­lic digi­ti­sa­tion road­shows are in

–Staats­bib­lio­thek zu Berlin – PK – 2  April, 10–17 hours

–Bay­erische Staats­bib­lio­thek, München – 6 April, 10–20 hours

–Würt­tem­ber­gis­che Landesbibliothek/Bibliothek fur Zeit­geschichte, Stuttgart – 12 April, 10–20 hours.