Aufsätze / Articles. Vernichtungskrieg und Imperialer Nationalstaat: Russland und Deutschland im Vergleich

Abstract

Abstract Ukraine is witness to an unusual kind of war, a Vernichtungskrieg, a war of wanton destruction. In the modern age there are few wars of this type, the most infamous being the aggression of Nazi Germany. The scale of destruction is now very different from then, but I ask whether we can nevertheless learn about the forces driving these two events by looking at one similarity: a deep historical tradition in both places that aims to create empire as well as nation state in the same space, that is the effort to build a nation state within the frame of an empire. This combination seems to produce the worst of both worlds: the intolerance and desire of homogeneity of the nation state, but also the wide geographic dispersion and great power ambitions of the empire.