Emil Lederer: Altmann, Prof. Dr. P.: Soziale Mobilmachung (1916)

Emil Lederer’s review examines Altmann’s published lecture of 12 June 1915, treating social mobilization as the indispensable counterpart to military mobilization. He endorses its central conceptual move: modern war is defined not merely by mass armies, weapons, and transport, but by the confrontation of entire peoples. Technological development thus produces a return to organized popular warfare, with annihilation as its terrible horizon. Social mobilization releases the resources that sustain both effective action and endurance.

Lederer follows Altmann’s account through four connected tasks: psychological commitment, economic and financial organization, welfare provision for those left behind, and care for the coming generation. Their foundation is collective willingness to regard the war as a vital common concern:

Eine solche innere Organisation des ganzen Volkes auf die Kriegszwecke hin ist nur möglich bei innerer Bereitwilligkeit der Gesamtheit, den Krieg als ihre eigene, vitale Angelegenheit aufzufassen; darum ist der erste Schritt die seelische Mobilmachung, eine der wichtigsten, wenngleich auch schwierigsten Aufgaben für den Staatsmann.

English translation: Such an inner organization of the whole people directed toward the purposes of war is possible only where there is an inner willingness on the part of the community as a whole to conceive of the war as its own vital concern; hence the first step is spiritual mobilization, one of the most important, though also one of the most difficult, tasks for the statesman.

Welfare, in this framework, is a condition of universal military service: sacrifice can be demanded only when the livelihoods of dependants are secured. Although Lederer accepts Altmann’s praise of Germany’s performance, he qualifies any inference of uniquely German resilience. Germany’s enemies have also organized themselves under severe pressure, despite weaker organizational starting points:

Es läßt sich z. B. nicht ohne weiteres sagen, daß die »soziale Widerstandsschwelle«, um den bildhaften Ausdruck des Verfassers anzuwenden, bei den Franzosen niedriger ist als in Deutschland.

English translation: It cannot, for example, simply be said that the "social threshold of resistance," to employ the author's figurative expression, is lower among the French than in Germany.

This comparative correction gives the review its critical edge. Mobilization cannot be evaluated through patriotic confidence alone; French endurance challenges assumptions about national differences in social resistance. Lederer likewise praises Altmann’s recognition of women’s essential participation while approving his rejection of an impractical compulsory service-year proposal.

The closing paragraph shifts from organizational analysis to the lecture’s historical significance. Altmann’s practical involvement in Mannheim wartime welfare grounds his account in everyday realities and distinguishes its emotional force from empty enthusiasm. Yet Lederer marks a distance between the lecture’s first-war-year outlook and the experience accumulated since:

Wir werden heute, ein Jahr beinahe nachdem der Vortrag gehalten ist — wahrscheinlich in Uebereinstimmung mit dem Verfasser, manches in den Wirkungen des Krieges, auch auf das Innere der Menschen, anders beurteilen als er.

English translation: Today, almost a year after the lecture was delivered, we shall — probably in agreement with the author — judge much in the effects of the war, including its effects upon the inner life of men, differently than he did.

The unchanged publication therefore has a double value: it offers a substantive account of society’s organization for war and preserves the mood of an already receding moment. Lederer’s appreciation remains qualified by comparative evidence, practical limits, and an emerging historical distance from early wartime expectations.