Representing the Irish Civil War (1922–23) in Nazi-Era German ‘Ireland Books’: Hermann Harder’s Irische Heimkehr (Irish Journey Home) (1937) in Wider Context

This article examines representations of the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) in Nazi Germany, centring specifically on Hermann Harder's episodic work Irische Heimkehr (Irish Journey Home), published originally in 1937. This is read in relation to all of the other ‘Ireland books' published in this period which also depict the civil war, as part of an Irish-German cultural transfer history. Nazi-era representations of the Irish Civil War invariably view it essentially as a tragedy, either venerating Éamon de Valera as a ‘strongman' figure or seeing the war in terms of the incomplete territorialisation of nationality, while other authors remain pro-treaty and view this side of the civil war as representing ‘order’. These authors use Irish events and recent Irish history to make implicit, and sometimes explicit, arguments that relate to Germany. All of these aspects are to be seen in Irische Heimkehr, while the book also makes calls for military heroism.