War Diary

As a volunteer war artist, Max Slevogt recorded his impressions in a sketchbook. Some pages from it can be seen in the exhibition.

He depicts troop deployments, soldiers and the wounded. But also dead horses and a field slaughterhouse.

This page shows destroyed houses in Lille in the evening. According to the diary, the sketch takes just a few minutes. The driver of his car stops briefly to ask for directions. In this short time, Slevogt captures the scene on paper.

He later uses the motif again. It appears in simplified form on the cover of the War Diary published by Bruno Cassirer.

Cassirer himself is also affected by the war. As he writes to Slevogt in a letter, he is required to join the Landsturm militia. All men not serving in the army or navy are called up for this militia.

Cassirer is not drafted in the end. In Berlin, he officially works in the military administration, but at the same time continues to run his publishing house.

Slevogt, on the other hand, breaks off his service after only three weeks. The experiences of the war are too harrowing for him.

In a letter dated 17 August 1914, Cassirer reports to Slevogt from Berlin on the current political situation shortly after the outbreak of the First World War.

Dear Slevogt,

[... ] There is admittedly plenty to do here, since the poor population is suffering great hardship as a result of unemployment. First of all, we founded a soup kitchen to feed those that are completely destitute.

I myself must join the Landsturm in the next few days. Of course, I don’t know yet whether I will be needed, because there’s a huge rush of all those who are somehow able to serve. In my family, some are in the active army, others have enlisted in the automobile corps and made their cars available.

I don’t know whether you get all the news that we do here. The solidarity of the entire people is truly impressive.

The phenomenal correctness of the military organisation is impressive and the trust in the army is completely unconditional. The news from both borders (also very reliable private messages that I have) is excellent, and it looks like a big and perhaps decisive blow will be struck any day now.

I’m sure this terrible war, which was necessary because a European plot wanted to force it on Germany and Austria a few years down the line, will shake our cultural relations with the different nations for years, but it will hopefully blow away the sultry atmosphere in Europe and bring us an undreamed-of upswing.

Of course, my work is completely suspended. And heaven knows when people in Germany will be able to think of art again.

Sending warmest greetings. Yours, Bruno Cassirer