Dialectical View on Disturbed Harmony in the First World War Letters of German Students in 1914-1918

In this article the collection of letters written by voluntary students during the First World War is analyzed from a philosophical point of view. The collection was assembled by Philipp Witkop during the years of the First World War and after it. The author of the article analyzes two philosophical tendencies of materialism and idealism, which appear in the letters. These two philosophical tendencies are considered as phenomena of well-ordered life in peaceful times. The main material of this research is the original text of the collection of letters, as compiled by Philipp Witkop. Then, the texts of Clausewitz, Scheler, Heidegger and Ernst Jünger were added to further enrich the scope of the study. To assess the genuinity and political meaning of the compilation of letters, the author consulted with the contemporary researchers and their results. The main method of this study is the method of reading the text, conducting conceptual analysis and then attempting to develop a philosophical scheme in order to create a senseful context of what was read. Finally, the attempt is made to reunify the contradictions which were discovered as a result of the textual analysis. This attempt of reunification of the discovered contradictions is called the dialectical synthesis. Thus, the dialectical method is one of the important methods employed during the course of this study. The phenomenon of war could be successfully defined as a phenomenon of the destruction of the harmony of usual, peaceful order of life in a state. The author comes to the conclusion that the content of the letters can be mainly divided in two subgroups. The first subgroup is the subgroup of Idealism. Roughly speaking, these are the students who are enthusiastic about the participation in the war. They have an intellectual tendency towards collectivism. The second subgroup is the subgroup of materialism. This is the subgroup of those students who do not approve of the war. The mindset of these students can be called individualistic. Finally, some letters which attempt to create a dialectical synthesis of these two tendencies could be identified. This dialectical synthesis overcomes the fear of death. But it does not abandon the value of the individual conciousness and the individual personality. The discovery of the dialectical syntheses gives the prove that there can be a more complex attitude towards the historical phenomenon of war as a destructor of well-ordered harmony. It is possible not only to be afraid of death and miss the peaceful times, but also to radically welcome the new times of war. The author highlights the complexity of the human being. But at the same time, the author offers an argument for the possibility to create a senseful philosophical scheme to make sense of the complex properties of the human experience.