Katherine Arens

Vita variabilis: Handelnde und ihre Welt nach Hannah Arendt und Ludwig Wittgenstein by Tobias Matzner (review)

missionary work. Severe language barriers, feelings of incompetence, overwork, and disappointment about their work assignments caused some to suffer severe breakdowns and psychological crises. Th is is an important insight that speaks to the potential of oral histories to introduce intriguing nuances to a body of research that generally stresses the professionalism and astounding successes of modern women religious congregations. At the same time, the author’s reliance on a set number of oral histories also imposed clear limits on her ability to analyze the sisters’ experiences as missionaries in South Africa under apartheid rule. Ministering to the black population of South Africa, Catholic missionaries were oft en in the crossfi re of an aggressive apartheid regime that viewed the Catholic Church as the “Roomse gevaar” (“Roman danger,” 188). Martina Gugglberger writes, for instance, that in the 1970s, groups of young Catholic sisters were instrumental in the Catholic Church’s fi ght to integrate their private schools in South Africa. But unfortunately the author is unable to develop this important line of inquiry in any kind of depth, since the women she interviewed revealed litt le about the political confl icts and diffi culties that living and working under apartheid must have frequently entailed. Th e sisters were equally reticent about sharing insights about living in a religious community that fi rst admitted black African sisters as full members in 1962. But these omissions should not detract readers from the fact that Martina Gugglberger’s monograph constitutes an important and immensely readable addition to the history of religious women in modern Europe that will be of great interest to scholars of women and religion. Martina Cucchiara Blufft on University

Auf den Spuren Bernard Bolzanos: Essays by Peter Demetz (review)

aft er the war could take a more nuanced view. Military fi ction can provide a useful perspective from below— in the books Stindl examines, lieutenants and captains are shown as heroic and tragic victims of the war, caught up in events beyond their control. Doomed to sacrifi ce, suff ering, and probably death, the exact fate of literary characters varied from one author to another. By looking at both German and Austrian fi ctional military literature, Stindl is able to underline several diff erences. Of course, German clichés emphasize order and military effi ciency and virtue, while the Austrians seem to muddle their way toward piety. More fundamentally, military clichés help to illustrate how Austrians and Germans saw their respective states. For German authors, the army was just a subsection of the German experience— the military soul. Th e army was certainly central to the German state, but there was a German identity distinct from the army. For Austrian authors, the army embodied the Austrian spirit. Th e young Austrian offi cers portrayed in fi ction lived the values, aspirations, and failings of the Habsburg project to an extent that was unmatched in Germany. It is not surprising that books about the Austrian army— notably Radetzkymarsch and Th e Good Soldier Schwejk— are the essential starting points for memory about the AustroHungarian Empire. Of course, the continuity of the German state and the death of AustriaHungary have given German authors more thematic options, but stories about the death of AustriaHungary’s army are essentially stories about the death of AustriaHungary’s soul. Ein Bild von einem Mann is a great introduction to the world of German and Austrian military fi ction and suggests topics for further research. For example, Stindl’s list of clichés would serve well as a model for a systematic study of German or Austrian offi cer memoirs. Many of the fi ctional beats described in Stindl fi t into actual military careers, and a comparison of fi ction and manufactured memory should illuminate both nicely, particularly since many authors had military careers. John E. Fahey Purdue University