POWs in Austria(-Hungary) 1914-1918: Forced labour and violence

Until the 1990s historians have not been interested in the issue of captivity during World War One. Even now the relevant historiography concerning Austria-Hungary is still dominated by studies on single POW camps. As a rule, such studies are restricted to a more or less limited focus and stress the importance of POW camps on a local level. Overviews of the situation of POWs in the Habsburg Empire are rare. While there is an obvious gap of research in regard of the fate of POWs in the Habsburg Empire during WWI the large number of soldiers in Austro-Hungarian captivity (nearly two million) emphasizes the significance of the topic. Meanwhile, international scientific research has already raised a lot of questions on captivity during the First World War. The results and ongoing discussions show the importance of the issue for the history of WWI as a whole. It is the aim of the project team to take up these questions and consider new approaches in order to examine the situation of POWs in the Danube Monarchy. Thus, historiography on the situation of POWs in Austria-Hungary will be able to reach international standards of research. The examination of POWs` forced labour in the context of a "total war" and its "propaganda campaigns", the collaboration between civilian and military authorities in regard to POW agenda and the treatment of prisoners of war in consideration of an often supposed "brutalization" of warfare in World War One will help to gain further insights into the history of captivity as a whole. The same is to be said about how civil authorities and diplomatic agencies looked at POW policy, estimated and illustrated it (officially and unofficially). The results will lead to further questions and consider the research on violence in wartime, the commemorative culture of Habsburg postwar societies concerning captivity or the debates on war crimes. Moreover, the project will particularly focus on the situation of POWs who were used as forced labourers by the responsible authorities of the so-called "Armee im Felde". There, that means within the combat zones, hostile soldiers had to work despite the regulations of the Hague convention. This issue has been totally neglected by historiography so far. First of all the research team will address views and perspectives of Austro-Hungarian authorities involved in POW agenda, without ignoring relevant objections. Therefore reports of humanitarian organisations, comments of protecting powers or notions of enemy states addressing the situation of POWs in the Habsburg state will be taken into account. The main focus in this project is put on the reconstruction of an "official" or bureaucratic "POW discourse" of k.u.k. authorities including inofficial examinations and discussions. The project team, consisting of historians who already have been concerned with the history of captivity in WWI, will be able to contribute to an international scientific research on World War One by using a broad basis of sources including permanent evaluation of the theoretic-methodological research design.

The project on prisoners of war in Austria(-Hungary) 1914-1918 focused on POW labour and violence. The goal was to explore the fate of captured servicemen in the Habsburg Empire exceeding previous studies that primarily focused on single POW camps in the hinterland or on special groups of prisoners of war as for example Russians. Arguing that the living conditions of POWs in the Danube Monarchy were predominantly characterized by (forced) labour the project team first of all turned to investigate the life of POWs beyond the barbed wire of camps. Still, since 1915 the majority of prisoners left the POW camps because they were used for labour in the interior of the monarchy as well as in the combat zones. Consequently, various opportunities to violate the stipulations of the Hague Convention concerning the treatment of POWs arose. During the project the research team tried to filter out different types of violence related to prisoners of war in Austria-Hungary. Moreover, it explored the respective perspectives and actions of responsible Austro-Hungarian authorities and shed light on the question how they responded to complaints of POWs as well as to respective appeals of various organisations and authorities abroad. Starting its research work the project team faced an obvious gap in this respect. Unlike the obvious lacuna regarding POW labour in Austria-Hungary, international research on captivity during the First World War with new approaches and inspiring reflections underpinned the importance of the issue and made it even more desirable for the Austrian project to catch up with international debates. Moreover, when the project started, the centennial of the beginning of World War One was commemorated with numerous events, including a great number of scientific conferences in Austria as well as abroad of course, not only in 2014 but also in the following years. This circumstance provided ideal conditions for disseminating the results of the research project and, in addition, enabled the research team to participate in discussions on special issues related to the project with experts from different countries. Moreover, the project authored 30 articles that were published in scientific journals as well as in several omnibus volumes. These articles as well as the papers that were presented in the course of the conferences the project team participated in addressed a wide range of aspects closely interlinked with the core issues. As a result, the team for instance turned to the role of POWs as military migrants, the practice of religions in captivity, ethnological research on POWs, the treatment of prisoners of war as an issue of propaganda or forced labour as a problem of international law during the war. The research project provided a picture of captivity in Austria-Hungary much more differentiated than it was before by reflecting the peculiarities of a multiethnic Empire. Hence, the outcome of the project is not at least a plea for identifying war captivities and accepting the diversity both of Austro-Hungarian POW politics and corresponding experiences of those affected.