Turbulente Lebensläufe: Multivalente Bewerbungsstrategien für den preußischen Staatsdienst nach 1815

This article analyses curricula vitae (CVs) submitted in the context of applications in the Prussian civil service in the Rhineland after 1815. The rhetoric of the CVs was multivalent. First, candidates presented their claims to a post via a narrative of their fate during the long period of Napoleonic rule. Secondly, applicants stylised their willingness to make sacrifices during the ‘wars of liberation’ as a sacred dedication to the ‘fatherland’. Thirdly and finally, there were applicants who had not taken part in the ‘wars of liberation' and tried to make up for this lack of patriotic engagement through substitute services.