The Myth of Langemarck
The myth of Langemarck is based on a single report from the German High Command on 11 November 1914. This report was repeated on the front pages of newspapers across the country. It read:
"We made good progress yesterday in the Yser sector. West of Langemarck, young regiments broke forward with the song "Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles" against the front line of enemy positions and took them. Approximately 2000 men of the French infantry line were captured and six machine guns were captured."
This account, in all probability, was not true. Most historians agree that there was never such a singing regiment of youth. At most, students made up 20% of the regiments in action that day, and it seems unlikely that they sang anything in the heat of battle, much less a patriotic hymn. In fact, the battle did not even take place at Langemarck, but rather near the town of Bixchote; the only reason anyone has offered for the error in the account is that Langemarck sounds more Germanic than the strangely spelled Bixchote. The High Command often produced false reports, under the belief that high morale was necessary to offset the material disadvantages of the German effort, and this appears to have been one such morale-boosting effort.
Nonetheless, this myth was to prove very important for Germany after the War. Langemarck was referred to more than almost any other battle. The myth (whether it was fictional or real is not really important) mobilized the emotions associated with youth, powerful emotions in a German attempting to rebuild itself after a devastating defeat. During the Weimar Republic (which lasted until the Nazis gained power in 1933), Langemarck was a rallying cry for those who placed their faith in the German spirit. Meetings were held; pilgrimages were made; books, poems, even musical pieces were written. This rhetoric became increasingly associated with the conservative Right, especially the National Socialists. One writer claimed in 1932 that "National Socialism and 'Langemarck' are one and the same." The sacrificial deaths of students were seen to have their fulfillment, even their resurrection, in the party of Hitler, who himself claimed to have served at Langemarck. Soon after the Second World War began, the military issued a communiqué reporting that "the Reich war flag is waving [again] over the monument to the German youth at Langemarck, the scene of the heroic struggle in 1914." Hitler himself soon made a pilgrimage to the site, paying his tribute to those whose legacy he believed himself to represent.