Description
The presence of foreigners and the role they play in conflicts abroad have increasingly become part of the public discourse. This has most recently been portrayed in the cases of fighting both for and against the Islamic State, but also with the creation of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion in 2022. Both contexts have resulted in questions regarding continuation and escalation of the conflicts, but also what happens when these individuals decide to return to their home countries. Through the use of discourse analysis, this paper, therefore, aims to understand how the German state, the media, and non-state actors have reacted to citizens returning from various conflicts abroad. Starting with the so-called ‘Spain fighters’ from the Spanish Civil War, the paper asks to what extent these different returnees were perceived as belonging to their home state? By looking at examples across multiple ideologies and time periods, the paper provides an important contribution regarding post-conflict reintegration, questions of citizenship, and understanding the potential consequences for future cases of ‘foreign war volunteering’.
