Duelling and the Fantasmatic Spectre of Male Honour in Imperial Germany: The Kaiser’s Will and Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest

Underneath the historiographical disagreements about military honor and dueling in Imperial Germany there lurks a consensus that most duelists simply internalized the dictates of honor. This article troubles that presumption by attending to the Prussian-German military honor code’s mixed messages and impossible demands, which I interpret through Slavoj Žižek’s concept of a fantasmatic specter. After analyzing a variety of military texts, I illustrate the value of a psychoanalytic approach via a case study and re-examination of Theodor Fontane’s novel Effi Briest (1894/95).