Events
“Lay down your Arms!” Bertha von Suttner and Anti-War Writing in German-Speaking Countries, 1889-1922
On 02, Nov 2015 | In Events | By Nicola Gauld
2015 Institute for German Studies Distinguished Lecture
by Professor Ritchie Robertson (University of Oxford)
“Lay down your Arms!” Bertha von Suttner and Anti-War Writing in German-Speaking Countries, 1889-1922
Tuesday 10 November 2015, 5 p.m
Professor Robertson will start from the work of Bertha von Suttner, the peace campaigner who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905, and from her bestselling novel Die Waffen nieder! (1889; translated as Lay Down your Arms!). He will ask what Suttner’s novel, and other anti-war writing of the period, tells us about why peace is so difficult to attain and what motives lead people to support war and militarism. The end point, 1922, is the publication date of Karl Kraus’s great satire against the First World War and its supporters, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind).
WHEN: Tuesday 10 November 2015, 5 p.m
WHERE: Muirhead Tower, Room 417, University of Birmingham
The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.
