With the outbreak of World War I, German poetry became a mouthpiece for enthusiastic mobilization and interpretations of the war. It was the poets who, in August 1914, appealed to the fighting spirit of those involved in the conflict and sought to awaken inner conviction and willingness to sacrifice. The vast majority of prominent German-speaking authors, including Thomas Mann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Gerhart Hauptmann, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Robert Musil, closely linked their personal existence and poetic programs to the serious reality of war, even though this significantly compromised their intellectual independence. While many younger authors paid with their lives for their front-line service or suffered deep wounds to body and soul, those who were slightly older were thrown off course in their artistic creativity for a long time. Important cultural features of modernity.