Introduction
“From the day the war broke out there was such silence in her — she had perhaps [since] always made herself ready in her heart to make sacrifices.”1
With these words, Katharina Leuckmer, protagonist of Ida Boy-Ed’s Die Opferschale, acknowledged the sacrifice the First World War would demand of her as a woman and a mother, just as the war had demanded it of her own mother through the loss of her two sons. Traditionally considered a work of fiction characterized by German nationalist sentiments, Boy-Ed’s novel is perceived by many scholars to contain little historical or literary value, particularly in Western academic discourse. Nevertheless, such an assumption can be contested when the text is evaluated according to its contribution to the subjects of women’s wartime identities and maternal sacrifice. The gender roles present in German wartime society and literature depicted within the novel warrant a deeper investigation to uncover a veiled complexity previously overlooked by scholars.
Largely due to the patriotic, even propagandist, sentiments expressed throughout the novel, Die Opferschale was well received by the German public at the time of its release.2 Ida Boy-Ed had already asserted herself as a talented and prolific writer by the publication of the novel in 1916, and she was even considered to be “one of the most popular woman novelists in Germany.”3 Despite such a designation, she did not experience consistent success with her literary works, even after separating from her husband and moving from her home in Lübeck to Berlin to further her career.4
Published two years after the outbreak of the First World War, Die Opferschale, or “The Sacrificial Bowl,” closely follows the experiences of two female protagonists, Katharina Leuckmer and her sister-in-law, Guda, in the early months of the conflict. Katharina acts as the indisputable central figure, embodying the very ideal of maternity which Boy-Ed attempts to complicate throughout the text. On the surface, the novel appears as little more than a romance, featuring the plights of Guda in her engagement with an Englishman, Percy Lightstone, and Katharina in her relationship with single father Ottbert Rüdener. Tensions following the outbreak of war, as well as pressure from Percy to forsake Germany for England, lead Guda to postpone and eventually break off her engagement with him. Despite the extended absence of her husband, Katharina concerns herself with the wellbeing of her son Adam and her father-in-law Count Leuckmer. After developing a relationship with Ottbert, however, she dedicates herself to the care of his son as well, eventually assuming responsibility for the boy when his father is killed at the front.
First impressions may yield no more insight into the novel than what has already been determined by many World War I scholars, namely, that the text serves as little more than a tool of German propaganda. Consequently, Die Opferschale has generally been neglected by scholars and popularly interpreted in a manner similar to Catherine O’Brien’s analysis in Women’s Fictional Responses to the First World War: A Comparative Study of Selected Texts by French and German Writers. According to O’Brien, the novel exhibits only “interspersed” commentary on the “desire for female autonomy” and is overwhelmed by the patriotic sentiments expressed by its central female characters.5 Within the continually expanding study of women’s experiences during the First World War, a growing collection of scholarly works illuminate texts of mostly Western European authorship, with a particular emphasis on English literature. For instance, Sharon Ouditt, author of Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War, explores the significance of maternity vis-à-vis English women’s wartime identities as well as the impact of the war’s social, political, and cultural upheaval on European gender roles in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, the perceived superficiality of Boy-Ed’s novel has inspired scant scholarly attention, thus explaining its absence from studies concerning female wartime experiences and the role of motherhood in influencing women’s identities during this period. Die Opferschale’s general obscurity should not be confused with superficiality: the text is more complex than it appears. While Boy-Ed attempts to address and even critique women’s roles, specifically as mothers, in a socially appropriate and often nationalistic manner, she still attempts to insert herself into conversation with other wartime works. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to challenge assumptions about the superficiality of Boy-Ed’s novel by contextualizing it and asserting the text’s significance within World War I literature. In addition to revealing functions of the text beyond merely perpetuating German nationalist sentiments, the perspective of Die Opferschale and its author will be incorporated into larger conversations about motherhood and maternal identity in wartime literature and life, therefore illuminating the perspective within the limitations of the cultural and political climate in which the novel was published.
Wartime Society in Germany
It comes as little surprise that the First World War featured dramatic dichotomies, with the most relevant being the binary opposition in the gender and sexual dynamics of an intrinsically patriarchal society. Like many wartime experiences, gender and sexual roles were understood as strictly masculine and feminine, justifying division within both European society and the literary world.6 For the passivity of the feminine, there existed the aggressivity of the masculine; the separation between women and men into “domestic life” and “public life” in pre-war society therefore only widened with their physical separation during war, culminating in the concepts of the Home Front and the battlefront.7
Even prior to the wartime manifestation of gender division, German society dictated stringent rules for female and male behavior in the interests of the greater nation. In the nineteenth century especially, literature became the instrument through which society promoted “gender-specific national values,” which middle- class girls and young women were expected to embody.8 Utilizing literature as the preferred weapon of cultural indoctrination, structural institutions imposed the standard for behavior as well as the ideal for life. At a time when modern feminism was gradually gaining support, groups such as the Catholic Centre Party in Germany actively enforced “an idealized concept of motherhood” for women as an alternative to joining the workforce.9 Thus, many women’s confinement to the role of wives and mothers meant their confinement to the “domestic sphere,” as defined by the responsibilities and restrictions of the home. The outbreak of war did little to mitigate these views about women’s roles and in fact strengthened their presence in German society. To some degree, activism for women’s rights did attract attention and momentum during this period, with several activists attempting to take advantage of the unstable social and political environment to propose improvements in women’s “sphere of activity and influence.”10 However, the State responded to the fragility of wartime society by enforcing the divisions of gender and sexual roles more than ever before. Traditional conceptions of women’s passivity developed into images of the vulnerable and submissive housewife, while men’s aggressivity transformed into the chivalric and “bloodthirsty” soldier.11 Patriotic sentiments asserted the position of men as the “champions and defenders” of the Vaterland at the battlefront while firmly establishing the position of women on the domestic Home Front.12 Social divisions thus manifested as physical distance between the sexes, expressed in their different forms of participation in the war. Moreover, German propaganda solidified the tightening restraints on women, with a heavy emphasis on their responsibility in the home and the kitchen especially; many middle-class and upper-class women were subjected to greater demands than ever before in terms of their contributions within the domestic sphere.13
Moreover, German propaganda excessively popularized the idea of the “housewife” and “mother,” whose domestic associations and subservient position were also addressed in Die Opferschale.14 No one exemplifies the contemporary conception of women’s duties in the home more than Boy-Ed’s central character, Katharina. After the outbreak of war, Katharina notes that she is more closely attached to her role within this sphere as she reflects on the importance of the Herd, or hearth. She, like many middle- class women at the time, considers herself the manager of the house and thus a valuable member of the place which men were expected to protect and women to keep pure.15 Boy-Ed herself emphasizes the necessity of defending the hearth during wartime in her 1915 article “The Soldier Mother,” claiming that the home acts as “the condensed representation of the State.”16 Likewise, her character Katharina understands her responsibility of maintaining the hearth as a direct contribution to the war effort, even implying that maintaining the home was a facet of the war that lay exclusively in women’s hands.17
Inherent to the union of femininity and domesticity in early twentieth-century society is the disparity in power between men and women, a reality that does not go unnoticed by Boy-Ed. A veiled critique of women’s subservient position emerges in Katharina’s inner frustrations with obeying the orders of a man who displays no consideration for the feelings of others: the same man whose betrothed, Guda, declares that she is a victim of “the violence of his male personality.”18 While these particular instances involve commentary on an Englishman, and therefore can also be interpreted as negative sentiments toward the English in response to the events of the war, Boy-Ed’s other criticisms reveal a pattern critiquing the dynamic between men and women. For example, Boy-Ed comments on the dependence of women on men through the Leuckmers’ precarious financial situation; enduring her own troubles with her son’s inheritance, Katharina insists that the women of the family should be involved in the family’s economy, since women too often find themselves without the knowledge to handle their own financial affairs.19
As Boy-Ed’s remarks indicate, the war signaled an exceptional period of change in relations between the sexes, despite the demands of the State that men and women adhere to traditional, static roles. While traditional conceptions of gender roles and sexual dynamics prevailed in propaganda and public opinion, individual experiences reveal how the war complicated the dynamic between men and women.20 Even efforts by the State to regulate the dramatically changing population—impacted by the absence of millions of men from the onset of war in August 1914 as well as the perceived surplus of women who remained with their families—could not counter the ensuing effects, except by showing contempt for “unpatriotic” acts by women, such as having relations with war prisoners.21 Nevertheless, the separation of families and the prominent role of many women at the Home Front encouraged “an older model of female heroism” that characterized the ideal of the “New Woman,” distinguished from other members of her sex as one who survived without male protection.22 While Boy-Ed’s text does not directly allude to this emerging concept, the changing order of the world does interest her central figure, who contemplates her call to action in the war as well as the optimistic possibilities that an overturned society could provide—especially for women.23
In speculating about these possibilities, Boy-Ed addresses the needs of the Vaterland first and foremost. Like the publications of her contemporaries, Boy-Ed’s novel is a product of its time, and as such, it both exemplifies and perpetuates nationalist sentiments that influenced German public opinion. Indeed, it was hardly the first text to do so. Since the nineteenth century, German institutions utilized language and literature to convey and promote patriotism, especially to girls of a young age.24 The State’s regulation of “bodies, minds, and hearts”—in other words, its regulation of gender, political, and cultural identity through emotion—is consistent with Die Opferschale’s emphasis on the relationship between romantic love and national love, or patriotism.25 Boy-Ed repeatedly highlights how love for husband and love for country overlap through Guda, who struggles with accepting Percy Lightstone as her husband when it would mean forsaking her homeland and her “German soul.”26
For most men, loyalty to the homeland was most clearly expressed through the mass conscription at the start of the Great War. From the perspective of those who watched them leave, large numbers poured “[f]rom all points of the compass” to participate in what many believed would be the largest conflict of their lifetimes.27 Whereas these men could proudly and eagerly bear “a sword, rifle or bayonet in 1914,” women’s participation in the war effort encompassed entirely different activities and was largely limited to the Home Front.28 However, many women exhibited a desire to diminish the widening “segregation” between them and their male loved ones at the battlefront by inserting themselves in numerous positions. Some of these positions confined them to their traditionally feminine roles, despite the upheaval of continental war, and others attempted to utilize the traditional as means for greater change.29 While women integrated themselves into the war effort in a variety of capacities, the most popular roles for women included nurses, activists, and “domesticated nurturer[s],” also referred to as the Women at Home.30
Liberation and obligation culminated in the image of the Great War Nurse, whose popularity in Western Europe especially explains the well-known example of Vera Brittain as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse.31 In the European context, the nurse represented a complication in the relationship between men and women due to women’s transition into a previously prohibited realm. While the qualities and responsibilities of a Red Cross nurse appeared to adhere to the conventional image of women taking care of others— before and often rather than themselves—the development of this position also indicated a larger pattern that impacted women during the war: an atmosphere of growing emancipation initiated by an “unprecedented access to jobs in the ‘male’ domain.”32 The nurse was perhaps the most revered “type” of woman during this time. Notably, Ida Boy-Ed acknowledges the implications of the role in her description of Tiny, Guda’s close friend, and her surprising but eventually transformative decision to become a sister to help the wounded.33 Such an occupation seemed fitting for a young woman whose “feminine” infatuations with romance had characterized her personality until the outbreak of war. In fact, the nurse’s popularity during wartime society is largely explained by the patriotically feminine aspects embedded in the role; still subservient, gentle, and nurturing, women exchanged one apron for another in this particular form of war work.34 Obligation to the patriarchy became that which members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), for example, upheld “in the name of patriotism.”35
Activists from the women’s movement likewise witnessed significant contradictions in their efforts as a consequence of wartime patriotism. Despite notions by some female activists that the outbreak of war signaled an opportunity for growth in women’s roles, disunity among European groups led to setbacks and differing social, political, and economic expectations.36 For instance, groups such as the suffragists altered their demands for equality in light of the war; others utilized traditional conceptions of women’s roles for the purpose of pursuing their pacifist (or anti-pacifist) cause.37 Maternity as an image was of particular interest for female activists. The role of women as “life-givers” strongly opposed the demands of war and the role of men as “life- takers,” suggesting a strong correlation between motherhood—and by extension, womanhood—and pacifism.38 However, as numerous propagandist works and Boy-Ed’s own novel illustrate, women’s “responsibility” to support men’s participation in the war also prevailed, particularly in German society.39 Katharina’s unwillingness to prevent her brothers from participating in the war reveals sentiments of that responsibility as well as pride in her loved ones’ eagerness to enlist, suggesting that to insist otherwise would be an act of cowardice on her part.40 With obvious “discord within the women’s movement,” a variety of responses influenced women from different backgrounds in their perception of wartime roles and aspirations for future improvements in their situations.41
Women at Home in Life and Literature
New anxieties about women’s roles during the war surfaced in the construct of the Women at Home. In several wartime texts by female authors, the individual situations of women “left behind” form the crux of the narratives as they cope with the absence of their male loved ones. Ida Boy-Ed’s text is no different. Nevertheless, the image of the Women at Home is complicated by the different dimensions of activity performed by these women. In other words, it is not as simple as claiming that they were left at an honorary front where the war hardly, if ever, reared its disagreeable head. Despite the significant decline in males from numerous households, many women continued to structure their lives “around their homes and their men.”42
In many respects, the existence of war did little to disrupt the “womanly values” to which many female individuals were held, particularly those from the middle- to upper-classes.43 As the famous example of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth illustrates, European middle and upper-class women had been generally unaffected by the war until it infiltrated the lives of their loved ones. Boy-Ed also depicts this illusion of distance in her remarks about the war seeming much more a word than a “threatening reality,” that is, until Katharina’s brothers depart for the front.44 Out of sight, the war might have been nearly out of mind as well. After all, what anguish could war inflict on these women when an expanse separated them from the true conflict?
Despite assumptions otherwise, anguish would achieve new dimensions in the suffering of the Women at Home, particularly the venerable and vulnerable mothers. Tasked with maintaining an untouchable “haven in an increasingly hostile world,” the presumed domain of women encompassed the home, which served as both a physical site and an embodiment of moral virtue.45 While men faced hunger at the front, many of their female loved ones at home worked to maintain the health and comfort of the household in periods of food scarcity and financial instability.46 Emotional demands for women also reached new heights during the war. Failing to serve the homeland’s needs would incite humiliation and condemnation for women labeled “unpatriotic”; even displaying unhappiness for their circumstances was grounds for such an accusation.47
Strong and silent became the ideal to which women were forced to adhere, even within the world of literature. Coinciding with her image of “The Soldier Mother,” Boy-Ed refers to this ideal even prior to the publication of Die Opferschale. Inspired by her experiences in the war, she comments on female suffering, specifically that of mothers, and the necessity for a woman to “fight her sorrow quietly.”48 Boy-Ed reiterates this expectation through Katharina’s insistence that Tiny’s emotional outburst following the departure of their loved ones is not only unwarranted but also inappropriate.49 Moreover, the emphasis on women’s internal suffering as a consequence of their place on the Home Front emerges in the comment by Boy-Ed that suffering women should “stand up straight and awaken the ability to bear bravely.”50
This internalization of women’s suffering, however, encouraged alternate outlets of emotion. Through the expression of sincere and silent patriotism, for example, some Women at Home developed an alternate persona known as “the domestic patriot.”51 In keeping with the ideals associated with womanhood, “the domestic patriot” embodied the popular virtues of silence and strength alongside diligence and selflessness that inspired many women to contribute to the war effort by quietly working at home.52 Selflessness in particular was a trait admired in both men and women: when referring to the ideal German man, Boy-Ed herself alludes to his desire to be of use when he can.53 Women’s usefulness extends to their contribution to society by cultivating the home and maintaining the family. During the war, these tasks reached new dimensions of significance when the lives of numerous young men, who previously served as the protectors of their families, were rapidly being extinguished.
While Katharina exemplifies the merit of working quietly for the sake of others, she likewise displays contemporary society’s distaste for the “useless” in a time of great necessity.54 After hearing that Aunt Jenny—whose death would determine the financial fate of Katharina’s family through the promise of an inheritance—had finally passed away, Katharina’s reaction hardly seems appropriate for the anguish she expressed earlier in concern for her son’s future. With the overwhelming losses of war, Aunt Jenny’s death seems immeasurable “against the important, strong, existence of young heroes who protect the Fatherland.”55 The implication is that during wartime, Aunt Jenny’s contribution to her homeland had been minimal, highlighted only by the unwitting sacrifice of her nephew, Katharina’s husband, to the front.
Sacrifice and Maternal Identity
Sacrifice is nevertheless the ideal by which many women are defined in wartime. Even in times of peace, an expectation of self-sacrifice accompanies the role of German middle-class women, and had in fact been embedded in their self-perceptions from an early age.56 During the war, Women at Home were especially vulnerable to these external and internal perceptions: first, in their sacrifice of their male loved ones, and second, in their sacrifice of themselves for the sake of “others worse off.”57 By the early twentieth century, women were accustomed not only to the inherent sacrifice demanded in the familial context, but also in the national context. Boy-Ed comments on these expectations through the example of the bride and groom, in which the bride “‘renounces more than [herself as] a [single] woman,’” but her home as well.58 Why else would the author also refer to the constraints of marriage through a comparison of the wedding dress to the death dress?59 By this reasoning, marriage marks the permanent sacrifice of a woman’s home and love for her home in exchange for the love of her husband and his home. Boy-Ed thus draws a provocative line between romantic love and national love. War simultaneously unites the two ideas into one conception of selfless love, while also forcing them into conflict with each other: phenomena which are examined in Die Opferschale through the inner struggles of Guda and Katharina. Furthermore, Boy-Ed explores the consequences of these conceptions of love that significantly impact the lives of her two female protagonists, including the sacrifice of personal happiness. Guda’s struggle with sacrificing her homeland mirrors her concern for sacrificing her German identity for her soon-to-be-husband and his identity as an Englishman. Notably, Boy-Ed’s portrayal of Guda’s relationship with Percy Lightstone also inspires questions about the inferior position of women to men. For instance, his description of Germany as a child extending “its hands for things that do not belong to it” illuminates his perception of his own fiancée, whom he deems unable to understand the political complexities of a world at war.60 His patronizing remarks are indeed what sparks dissatisfaction and unrest within Guda, who reevaluates whether Percy indeed loves her German soul and accepts her as well as herhomeland. Her realization is further brought to light by none other than the concerned Katharina, who refers to a biblical passage in the Book of Ruth: “Where you go, I want to go too; where you stay, I stay there too. Your people are my people, and your God is my God.”61 In forcing Guda to accept his people as her own while refusing to do the same for hers, Percy demonstrates the limits of his love.
Vital to Boy-Ed’s illustration of romantic and national love is the synonymous relationship between “man” and “country.”62 After all, Guda’s concern with forsaking her homeland for its enemy during war exemplifies the extent to which her personal sacrifice would influence her German loyalty. Eventually, Guda’s love for her country surpasses her love for Percy, inciting her to break off their engagement and answer the call of her Vaterland instead.63 Interestingly, however, her position reveals how the duty of women in marriage to their husbands mirrors the duty of women in war to their country. If “the nation was a family writ large,” then women were the caretakers of the entire nation, as well as of their own families.64
Who undertook that responsibility personally but the heads of the households in the absence of men, the designated caretakers of the children who could perform such duties in spite of their own suffering? Mothers. Even in forsaking their own happiness, their sole concern became the happiness of others. As Count Leuckmer insinuates when reflecting on Katharina’s failed marriage, even marriage can be superseded by a greater force: if marriage is for no other end, it is for the sake of children.65 For Katharina, her sole purpose in life is her son. However, the outbreak of war illuminates an even deeper desire to devote herself to the country’s youth and, by extension, to the fate of her homeland. Thus, her experience is not restricted to the typical sacrifice demanded by war, that is, the sacrifice of male loved ones at the front. Motherhood requires an altogether greater sacrifice, a self-sacrifice that extends to one’s very life and happiness. Boy-Ed’s attention to such a theme amidstan atmosphere of patriotism in the first few months of the Great War finds no expression more obvious than in the title of her text. Die Opferschale, translated as “The Offering Bowl” or “The Sacrificial Bowl,” alludes to the sacrifice of many mothers and women as a facet of their position, embedded in the society of which Boy-Ed was also a part. The responsibility of women in war, as well as in their daily lives, requires them to place their happiness in the offering bowl.
Initially, the patriotic sentiments conveyed through Boy-Ed’s central protagonist appear contradictory to her subtle commentary on the sacrifice inherent in Katharina’s role as a German woman and mother. Katharina’s struggle with her maternal identity is an internal conflict that serves as a reflection of contemporary expectations of female behavior, as well as an illustration of the author’s own doubts. While Katharina’s status as a mother is by no means called into question by herself or those around her, the extent to which she adheres to the demands of such a designation in wartime society is deliberated within the text. For instance, Katharina reflects on her early acceptance of the role, stemming from her childhood and her responsibility for her younger brothers. In other words, there was practically always a time in her life when she was needed or when someone needed to be cared for, which accounts for her feeling as if she “always had to be a mother.”66
Katharina’s early experience with motherhood—even prior to becoming a physical mother—does not prevent her from questioning the role into which she was seemingly thrust from a young age. When she is asked to relay difficult news to Guda, for instance, she speculates about whether she will be eternally resigned to the role of “acting mother” for her loved ones: “Was that her lot, over and over again? Hold, carry, guide others?”67 Boy- Ed appears to imply that even women who initially embrace the “honor” of motherhood demonstrate doubts about the demands associated with such a role. In fact, Katharina expresses bitterness towards her position by suggesting that there “really had to be written somewhere in the stars that she was appointed guardian of all who came close to her in life,” confirming the seemingly unalterable situation in which she finds herself while emphasizing her inability to think of herself before everyone else in her life.68 She never had “the right” to think about herself first.
However, she does have the right to think of others, and even as a single mother, Katharina’s “maternal tendencies” are perceived as beneficial to society.69 The image of women as nurturers most likely inspired her to return amidst her own skepticism to her position as caretaker. Despite continual—and not interpersonal, as some scholars would suggest—struggles with the idea of whether she is “destined” for the role of mother or whether she considers her identity distinct from her maternal role, Boy-Ed’s central protagonist exhibits a strong attachment to her designation as caretaker. Nothing else would encourage her to admit that her “affinity” and “talent” is best expressed by caring for local boys whose families are affected by the developments of war.70 Moreover, Katharina’s eventual acceptance of her duty and her suffering, indicative of greater sacrifice, may support the argument of her character serving as an instrument “for patriarchal and patriotic propaganda.”71
Such a motive may also be illustrated by the religious associations within Boy-Ed’s text, as well as the importance of the Virgin Mary, in imagery and in character, within female First World War literature. A notable reference to the Virgin Mary, aside from the powerful visions of the woman holding the sacrificial bowl, occurs after Katharina offers to care for her lover Ottbert’s son when Ottbert is called to the front: a request he considers akin to promising him her life through the dedication of herself to his son.72 Although he is her adopted son, Katharina expresses no doubts about “sacrificing” her life to ensure his, an act which is reminiscent of the Virgin Mary’s devotion to her son Jesus. In fact, Boy-Ed’s allusions to the Holy Mother and motherly devotion include a depiction of mothers creating “crowns for their sons from the stars in the sky,” which, despite their best efforts, transform into painful crowns of thorns.73 The image of the Virgin Mary, as well as her associations with religious sacrifice, are not uncommon in World War I literature. Many Great War textual portrayals of mothers relate to the agony of the Virgin Mary in witnessing the death of her only son, much in the same way many mothers during wartime experienced the tragic deaths of their sons.74 The Holy Mother’s sacrifice of her only son mirrors the sacrifice by numerous mothers for the greater love of their homeland.75 While Katharina’s sacrifice of her son is not the cause of her suffering in the novel, it is for the sake of her homeland, including the promise of its future through the German youth, that she sacrifices her personal happiness.
Conclusion
The religious overtones within Ida Boy-Ed’s text do not distract from the general sentiments of female suffering expressed in the novel, and indeed reveal a greater dimension of grief than one that can be resolved through patriotism. Though Katharina’s role as mother becomes her consolation and purpose after the death of her loved ones, her experiences throughout the narrative illustrate a tension between her patriotic ideas and her personal happiness.76 In this respect, Boy-Ed may be attempting to revive feelings experienced by many German women in the early stages of the war through her work. Katharina, like her sister-in-law Guda, must sacrifice one for the other: for Katharina, this means offering up her personal happiness for the future of her homeland, represented by the children under her care including her son and Ottbert’s son. Rather than conveying a blatant display of nationalism with little regard for the complications of Katharina’s acceptance, Boy-Ed’s depiction of such an exchange instead reiterates previous doubts about the necessity of sacrifice to motherhood, especially during war. Katharina’s own words, “the deepest love has the greatest sacrifice,” recall the personal sacrifice of her male loved ones, and simultaneously, the more powerful love that inspired that “greatest sacrifice.”78 In other words, her deepest love is not for Ottbert, nor for her children, but for her homeland.
Nevertheless, Katharina’s inner struggle with the implications of her maternal identity suggests that her acceptance is not a heedless decision but rather a product of her upbringing and her responsibility as a maternal figure in the lives of her loved ones. Even the existence of these doubts within the novel implies that Boy-Ed was not only aware of resistance, at least individually, to the gender norms that confined women to a sphere separate from that of men, but perhaps also wished to question the ideal to which patriarchal society dictated she and other women should adhere. Following the outbreak of war especially, propaganda featuring “medieval images of male chivalry and female vulnerability” and similar State-sponsored messages served to weaken women at a time in which they were rapidly gaining new forms of independence and authority.78 In response, female authors such as Boy-Ed constructed their works to communicate messages of patriotism through the influence of their female protagonists.79
Still, this does not mean that the characters served no other ends. Boy-Ed and other female authors during World War I took advantage of the realm in which women displayed some amount of improvement in their positions to expand female influence. Regardless of their physical distance from the conflict of war, European society witnessed a rise in the “assertion of female authority within the boundaries of patriotism” that paradoxically assisted and damaged aspirations for greater equality in gender relations.80 The traditionally “weaker” sex became more powerful through their inherent weakness, and simultaneously, was expected to express strength in their daily behavior and responsibilities at the Home Front.81 Silent strength thus became an expression of virtue. Moreover, while suffering was admired in women as an intrinsic aspect to their experiences in both peacetime and wartime, Katharina’s expression of silent suffering seems appropriate for contemporary conceptions of mothers than for any other “type” of woman. After all, Guda’s emotional episodes do not hinder her from becoming the ideal German woman, willing to sacrifice her personal happiness and romantic love for the sake of her Vaterland. Yet Katharina’s lack of deep emotional expression appears to elevate her above her sister-in-law to a higher standard for women: that of a mother.
Thus, while maintaining morale and popular support for the war, many Women at Home also experienced personal suffering that was not separate from their identities as women or mothers. Boy-Ed’s illustration of this ideal, particularly as it applies to maternal identity, is not one that simply accepts the passivity of women nor their perceptions as victims, regardless of what the title of her novel may suggest. In fact, another translation for the word Opfer is “victim,” which may refer to the status of her sex that Boy-Ed attempts to address in the guise of a romance. If it were the case that the author was enforcing previously-established restrictions in gender roles, she would have excluded critiques of the power disparity between men and women which emerged in discussions of female financial dependence on men and the submission of women’s desires to those of their male relatives, as well as the “powerlessness” of mothers in conforming to contemporary expectations of their gender.82 Guda and Percy’s relationship exemplifies problematic characteristics in the general dynamic between the sexes; despite her personal misgivings about her future sister-in-law, for example, Guda is resigned to indulging her for the simple reason that her fiancé’s wishes “were the most important in the world,” more important than even her own.83
As Boy-Ed makes clear through her work, such a facet of gender relations is not limited to wartime society. Womanhood, and to a larger degree, motherhood, is defined by perpetual sacrifice from the time a woman is married to the time she is forced to sacrifice her children and her personal happiness for a greater good. Boy- Ed’s references to the saintly woman holding the sacrificial bowl as the Holy Mother do not alone indicate the extent to which sacrifice is embedded in the culture and society of wartime Germany and Europe more generally. Nevertheless, the author raises subtle objections to these demands through her central protagonist’s internal struggle to reconcile with expectations that she should devote herself solely to the care of others and concern herself more for their happiness than her own. The theme of maternal sacrifice as expressed in World War I literature achieves an entirely different and deeper meaning when what is called to be sacrificed is the woman herself.
Die Opferschale’s complexity in exhibiting deeper dimensions to the subjects of feminine and maternal wartime identities reveals motives for constructing Katharina’s character in terms that include, but are not limited to, patriotic sentiments meant to uphold support for Germany’s involvement in the Great War. Simply put, Boy-Ed utilizes Katharina’s character as a socially appropriate vehicle through which she depicts an inner conflict of maternal identity that is also indicative of many women’s conflicts with their roles as participants in the war and as mothers in German society, both of which demand an offering of their domestic services and children to the war effort as well as the sacrifice of their personal happiness. By “socially appropriate,” what Boy-Ed reveals is the traditional values and expectations associated with home life within the domestic sphere dominated by female activity. After all, the opportunities that existed in wartime for women to improve their situations still centered on the domestic expectations of their gender; even as nurses and activists, women participated in the war only within certain boundaries of propriety, adhering to the “caretaker” role and the importance of maternal qualities. The very same can be said of Boy-Ed’s character Katharina, whose role as the prevailing maternal figure serves as a position through which the author conveys personal critiques of the expectations that characterize women’s roles and status as well as the overwhelming emphasis upon maternal self-sacrifice.
Consequently, the text’s classification as merely a romantic narrative is compromised by Ida Boy-Ed’s efforts to work within strict German cultural and social boundaries in the early twentieth century. While the novel did perpetuate propagandist sentiments of the time, and even catered to them specifically to attain some success, it also expressed such messages as a means of exploring a more delicate issue: women’s position in society. Moreover, Boy-Ed’s inclusion of and emphasis on the “ideal” maternal figure, Katharina, raises additional questions about the subtle criticism revealed through her character. The Women at Home, central to Boy-Ed’s narrative, embody more than the traditional conception of women as the ones left behind, resigned to wait patiently for the return of the “stronger” sex. Indeed, Die Opferschale demonstrates a depth to women’s efforts at the Home Front, suggesting that they reciprocated men’s involvement at the battlefront.84 To a greater degree than many of the women who participated in the war as nurses and activists, Women at Home were subjected to inconsistent perspectives about gender roles that influenced their individual experiences with the absence of their male loved ones and the growth of their independence, even beyond the constraints of the domestic sphere.
Like its contemporaries, Boy-Ed’s text is inarguably a product of its time and of the social, political, and cultural climate in which it was constructed. Nevertheless, the contents and themes of Die Opferschale have demonstrated that evaluating such a text only on the basis of its “overtly propagandist tone” would be a mistake.85 Boy-Ed’s contribution to the subjects of women’s wartime identities and maternal sacrifice within female Great War literature follows the pattern of other scholars who highlight the theme of female suffering in similar works. Suffering was not only inherent to the female experience of war but was also integral to the experience of many mothers, as Boy-Ed asserts in her novel. While Ida Boy-Ed’s text may be considered a piece of fiction inspired by nationalist ideas, therefore containing little credibility in the depiction of the situations of middle-class women in wartime, the novel’s veiled critique of the necessity of sacrifice to motherhood instead illuminates an aspect of female suffering during the First World War often unacknowledged by scholars.
