abstract: This article examines how Germans serving in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria emulated literary and scientific practices from travel literature in an attempt to refashion themselves according to common ideas about nation, gender and the self. Afrikanische Spiele (1936) and In der Fremdenlegion (1909) are two popular examples of autobiographical fiction by former legionnaires as part of a cautionary awareness campaign. Their analysis illustrates why this campaign often had an opposite effect and what about the idea of the Legion was so attractive to young German men in the early twentieth century.
Lilú Kruspe (Fri,) studied this question.