The Swiss Sonderbund War, the German colonial wars, the First World War up until denazification and re-education after the Second World War - these and other themes are the topics of the contributions to this volume. They are all concerned with war experiences and attitudes to war as dealt with in literature and film. They thereby focus on authors and directors such as Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Adda Freifrau von Liliencron, Georg Kaiser, Fritz Lang, but also almost forgotten bestseller authors, such as Heinrich Wandt, who take a critical stance on war. The contributions are supplemented by critiques of pertinent new publications and a bibliography of studies from the disciplines of literature, linguistics, history and cinematographical and art studies from the year 2008.