Review of Irish Studies in Europe (Oct 2018)

‘The Mind of the English Adversary Is Laid Bare’: Ernie O’Malley’s 'On Another Man’s Wound' in Germany and Irish Aspects of German National Socialist Propaganda, 1938-1943

  • Fergal Lenehan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.32803/rise.v2i2.1906
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 2
pp. 134 – 150

Abstract

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Ernie O’Malley’s memoir of the Irish revolution, On Another Man’s Wound, was translated into German and published in Berlin in 1938, with further editions appearing during World War 2 in 1941 and 1943. While academics dealing with O’Malley have indeed shown awareness of this, depictions of the publication of O’Malley’s work in Nazi Germany have been devoid of wider context and not always factually correct. This article places the publication of O’Malley’s book within the wider context of Irish aspects of anti-British Nazi propaganda, while also recreating the intellectual context of the Metzner Verlag, the book’s German publisher. It is argued that O’Malley’s text, as a work depicting the workings of the British army in Ireland with a degree of authenticity, became an important source of antiBritish Nazi propaganda. While intercultural, global and European aspects of Irish Studies have indeed been examined for many years, this article also argues for the merits of a Cultural Transfer History strand within a Europeanist Irish Studies.