The Sacrifice: Part I

What does war bring about? What is it like to be the one left to experience the death of loved ones in the front lines of war? Kathe Kollwitz lived through many storms one involving losing her second son Peter in action. In the journal article by Regina Schulte and Pamela Selwyn titled, “Kathe Kollwitz’s Sacrifice”, the authors use direct quotes and researched in detail what it was like for Kollwitz’s to have lost her son Peter in war.

In 1914, “George Simmel deemed worthy of ‘participating in the sacrifice’. A sacral aura filled the whole world.” *¹ Kollwitz’s eldest son Hans, joined the German military forces. Later that same year her son Peter heard the silent pleading of the fatherland, and despite his youth he too decided to volunteer for the military services. Naturally, there was resistance from his parents to dissuade him from this life changing commitment. They saw Peter’s determination in how he freely offered himself in so that they too would need to offer him up as well. Kollwitz’s, “son was not the only one, however, who, swept along be the ideas of the free German youth movement, made a sacrifice for the fatherland.”* ² The grief, despair, divided hearts, and the written consents of countless families finalizing the uncertainty of their children’s return. Many like Kollwitz’s began celebrating the ritual of sacrifice with their tears. *² This sacrifice as Kollwitz’s calls it would be the beginning of her journey that stimulated her aspiration to create significant personal historical occurrences from the war in her artworks.

^*1 Schulte, Regina, and Pamela Selwyn. "Käthe Kollwitz's Sacrifice." History Workshop Journal,             no. 41 (1996): 193-221. Accessed March 30, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/4289436, 193.

^*2 Schulte, Regina, and Pamela Selwyn, 194.