Fit for Active Service

The cartoon-like nature of the piece carried political and social overtones. Grosz drew what is essentially a sketch, alluding to the primitive nature of conscription. Some of the surrounding soldiers are drawn in the composite view, again suggesting the overt superficialness of war and society. The simplicity of the line drawing "contributes to the directness and immediacy of the work, which scathingly portrays the German Army."^[2] The cartoon gains credibility by including a tone of malicious humor, despite the traumatic and horrible subject matter, and it also establishes the viewer as a passive observer, perhaps as one of the German soldiers.

George Grosz was drafted by the German military upon the initial outbreak of World War I. He was able to avoid conscription, though, after having been deemed unfit for duty.^[3] In 1917, however, he was sent to an insane asylum, where he was examined by doctors and judged as fit for active service.^[2] He was later discharged, after having attempted suicide.^[3]

The scene depicted in Fit for Active Service connotes trauma and horror of Grosz's own war experience. He reported:

Of course, there was a kind of mass enthusiasm at the start. But this intoxication soon evaporated, leaving a huge vacuum... And then after a few years when everything bogged down, when we were defeated, when everything went to pieces, all that remained at least for me and most of my friends, were disgust and horror.^[2]

Although he was originally associated with Dadaism,^[2] his art is now referred to as art of the New Objectivity movement, a post-war movement in which veterans of World War I communicated the horror, destruction, and trauma of the war.