I can't speak to 1920, but I've been listening to the audiobooks of Richard Evan's Third Reich Trilogy where he talks about the work of sculptor Ernst Barlach who was commissioned to do a number of war memorial sculptures in the 20s and 30s. In particular he discusses this wood sculpture from 1929, which clearly depicts the tragic/melancholic side. For the figures at the bottom: the grieving mother, a skeletal figure, and a man with a gas mask clutching his head. With the three figures at the top standing in a cemetery with a cross marking the years of the war.

While his work, including his war memorials, had defenders even among the Nazis it was eventually declared to be degenerate for not depicting the heroic/noble German cause.