Schrecklichkeit

[shrek-likh-kahyt]

noun

German.

1. frightfulness; horror.

Example Sentences

The official German policy against civilians was described as Schrecklichkeit — frightfulness.

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Germany originated all three, part of a policy of schrecklichkeit, or terror, that shocked a world still clinging to the 18th-century conviction that wars should be fought only between armies on the battlefield and civilians should be spared — a conviction sealed with solemn treaties among the European powers.

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It would be more accurate to say that our technology has exceeded our inhumanity: We are all purveyors of schrecklichkeit now.

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I would like to have seen more discussion of German military theorizing about the value of the new weapons — Preston makes it seem as if the fundamental justification was indeed schrecklichkeit, if not simply the kaiser’s perpetual, dyspeptic indignation — but perhaps the German military gave little thought to long-term strategy in the face of the colossal loss of life on all sides: 10 million military deaths, 7 million civilians, total casualties of more than 37 million across that first world-scale war.

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There is much besides this to indicate that Carlyle’s praise of Germany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth  centuries is anything but evidence that he would endorse Kultur and Schrecklichkeit.

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