Pub Date : 2023-12-17DOI: 10.1177/16118944231221036
Andrea Martini
Although Italy was one of the first European countries to tolerate the existence of a fascist party, the democratic governments of its immediate postwar engaged in a genuine and important reflection on the means to counter the re-emergence of fascism. Thus Italy too, like its European counterparts, sought to conceive of itself as a militant democracy. This article aims to illuminate its efforts and its approach, and also to cast light on the evident limits and contradictions. Looking at the Italian case while observing how other European countries tackled the re-emergence of fascism in the same period will make clear the intrinsic difficulties of turning a democracy into a militant one only a short time after the fall of an authoritarian regime and in the aftermath of an inevitably problematic transition.
{"title":"Fighting Against ‘Apology of Fascism’: Origins and Contradictions of the Italian Approach to Militant Democracy","authors":"Andrea Martini","doi":"10.1177/16118944231221036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231221036","url":null,"abstract":"Although Italy was one of the first European countries to tolerate the existence of a fascist party, the democratic governments of its immediate postwar engaged in a genuine and important reflection on the means to counter the re-emergence of fascism. Thus Italy too, like its European counterparts, sought to conceive of itself as a militant democracy. This article aims to illuminate its efforts and its approach, and also to cast light on the evident limits and contradictions. Looking at the Italian case while observing how other European countries tackled the re-emergence of fascism in the same period will make clear the intrinsic difficulties of turning a democracy into a militant one only a short time after the fall of an authoritarian regime and in the aftermath of an inevitably problematic transition.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"7 23","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138966553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-17DOI: 10.1177/16118944231221037
Igor Ivašković
The article examines Slovenian liberal and clerical magazines to analyse the adaptations of the political narratives of the two main Slovenian political parties from the assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 until early in the final stage of World War I in March 1918. Slovenian clericals, who gathered together in the Slovenian People's Party, reacted to the killings in Sarajevo by adopting a strong pro-Habsburg and anti-Serbian position. Their magazines even called for a military invasion of Serbia. In comparison, their primary political competitors on Slovenian soil, the Slovenian liberals congregated in the National Progressive Party and condemned the act of assassination, yet they were critical of the Austrian anti-Serbian policy for having escalated the war. These two Slovenian political parties were also divided on the issue of the future envisioned for the Slovenian nation within South Slavic state formations. The clericals pressed for realization of the trialist idea, which forecast a Croatian–Slovenian state unit within the Habsburg Monarchy with its centre in Zagreb. The liberals, in contrast, dreamed of a larger South Slavic state that would bring all South Slavs together and have its centre in Serbia. The development of the war, chiefly the Entente's foreseeable victory, the threat of implementation of the London Pact, and the fact that Austrian Germans characterized all emancipatory Slovenian political movements as an anti-state element, all worked to force Slovenian clericals to cooperate with their pre-war enemies. The overriding aim was for them to retain their leading position among Slovenians by formally cooperating with the liberal stream, including taking over part of the liberal political strategy, in order to ensure that it was in the best possible position in the South Slavic state at end of the war.
{"title":"From Bitter Enemies to Political Partners: Shifting Viewpoints of Slovenian Clericals and Liberals During the World War I","authors":"Igor Ivašković","doi":"10.1177/16118944231221037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231221037","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines Slovenian liberal and clerical magazines to analyse the adaptations of the political narratives of the two main Slovenian political parties from the assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 until early in the final stage of World War I in March 1918. Slovenian clericals, who gathered together in the Slovenian People's Party, reacted to the killings in Sarajevo by adopting a strong pro-Habsburg and anti-Serbian position. Their magazines even called for a military invasion of Serbia. In comparison, their primary political competitors on Slovenian soil, the Slovenian liberals congregated in the National Progressive Party and condemned the act of assassination, yet they were critical of the Austrian anti-Serbian policy for having escalated the war. These two Slovenian political parties were also divided on the issue of the future envisioned for the Slovenian nation within South Slavic state formations. The clericals pressed for realization of the trialist idea, which forecast a Croatian–Slovenian state unit within the Habsburg Monarchy with its centre in Zagreb. The liberals, in contrast, dreamed of a larger South Slavic state that would bring all South Slavs together and have its centre in Serbia. The development of the war, chiefly the Entente's foreseeable victory, the threat of implementation of the London Pact, and the fact that Austrian Germans characterized all emancipatory Slovenian political movements as an anti-state element, all worked to force Slovenian clericals to cooperate with their pre-war enemies. The overriding aim was for them to retain their leading position among Slovenians by formally cooperating with the liberal stream, including taking over part of the liberal political strategy, in order to ensure that it was in the best possible position in the South Slavic state at end of the war.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"358 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138966702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-18DOI: 10.1177/16118944231202147
Christian K Melby
By the late nineteenth century, questions were raised about the efficacy of the British political system to manage and prosecute modern wars. At the centre of these questions was the issue of public opinion, seen as a potentially detrimental influence on planning and preparation for future wars. This article outlines the late-Victorian and Edwardian views on the role between Britain's constitution and war, and shows how public opinion was brought up in discussions on how Britain's armed forces could be better prepared for future conflicts. It argues that, by World War I, British officers as well as civilian experts proposed various solutions to the country's perceived political problems and argued that the public could potentially be mobilised to side-line a lethargic parliament and the political parties. The article thereby follows in the wake of an increased interest in the intellectual and political history of war and military planning, and offers a new perspective on political thought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
{"title":"War, Public Opinion and the British Constitution, c. 1867–1914","authors":"Christian K Melby","doi":"10.1177/16118944231202147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231202147","url":null,"abstract":"By the late nineteenth century, questions were raised about the efficacy of the British political system to manage and prosecute modern wars. At the centre of these questions was the issue of public opinion, seen as a potentially detrimental influence on planning and preparation for future wars. This article outlines the late-Victorian and Edwardian views on the role between Britain's constitution and war, and shows how public opinion was brought up in discussions on how Britain's armed forces could be better prepared for future conflicts. It argues that, by World War I, British officers as well as civilian experts proposed various solutions to the country's perceived political problems and argued that the public could potentially be mobilised to side-line a lethargic parliament and the political parties. The article thereby follows in the wake of an increased interest in the intellectual and political history of war and military planning, and offers a new perspective on political thought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"191 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135206718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-16DOI: 10.1177/16118944231202182
Marta Stachurska-Kounta
The popular perception concerning Norway's particular commitment to peace and impartiality in international politics has from time to time been bracketed by the fact that the country has no colonial past. Such an understanding fails to address Norway's rise to a major position in the global shipping system and maritime trade during the colonial era and that this economic expansion had only been possible due to Britain's liberal trade policy and imperial rule. The article shows that reliance on Britain's global leadership moulded Norway's vision of the emerging international order in the aftermath of World War I and was one of the most crucial arguments for the country to become a member of the League of Nations. It argues that Norway's advocacy of free trade as a key to international peace in the interwar period has to be seen in the light of the country's commercial interests and assumptions about Britain's civilizing mission.
人们对挪威在国际政治中对和平和公正所作的特殊承诺的普遍看法，不时与该国没有殖民历史这一事实联系在一起。这种理解无法解释挪威在殖民时代在全球航运系统和海上贸易中崛起的重要地位，而这种经济扩张只有在英国的自由贸易政策和帝国统治下才有可能。这篇文章表明，对英国全球领导地位的依赖塑造了挪威对第一次世界大战后新兴国际秩序的看法，也是该国成为国际联盟(League of Nations)成员的最重要理由之一。它认为，挪威在两次世界大战之间倡导自由贸易是国际和平的关键，必须结合该国的商业利益和对英国文明使命的假设来看待。
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Pub Date : 2023-06-20DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180427
D. Siemens
This article explores the Geschichts- and Vergangenheitspolitik, or politics of the past, of the United Restitution Office/Organisation (URO) in the post-war years and asks how it impacted on the early historiography of the Holocaust. I demonstrate that the URO leadership took a conscious decision to publicly downplay the role of its organisation in German reparations to maximise its legal and political clout behind closed doors. While this strategy was beneficial for many of URO's clients, above all in the 1950s and 1960s, this self-marginalisation prevented the organisation from becoming a significant voice in the public debates about German moral guilt and its consequences in the 1970s and 1980s. One reason for this development was generational. The URO was an enterprise driven by a particular cohort of German-Jewish lawyers for whom it provided an opportunity to personally ‘come to terms’ with the interruptions of their pre-1933 careers and the persecution during the Third Reich. In the post-war period, their legal expertise as well as their intimate knowledge of the German language and customs allowed them to act as transnational citizen diplomats, successfully mediating between the different parties and interest groups, governments and non-governmental lobby groups. For most of these Jewish jurists, their practical experience with their German peers, politicians and the administrators of the German Wiedergutmachung led to an increasing scepticism and ultimately disappointment – despite the undisputedly impressive results that they obtained for their clients.
本文探讨了战后时期联合归还办公室/组织(URO)的Geschichts- and Vergangenheitspolitik，或过去的政治，并探讨了它对大屠杀早期史学的影响。我证明，欧洲统一联盟领导层有意识地决定公开淡化其组织在德国赔款问题上的作用，以最大限度地发挥其关起门来的法律和政治影响力。虽然这种策略对URO的许多客户都是有益的，尤其是在20世纪50年代和60年代，但这种自我边缘化阻碍了该组织在20世纪70年代和80年代关于德国道德内疚及其后果的公共辩论中成为一个重要的声音。这种发展的一个原因是代际关系。URO是由一群特殊的德国犹太律师推动的企业，它为他们提供了一个亲自“接受”1933年之前职业中断和第三帝国迫害的机会。在战后时期，他们的法律专业知识以及他们对德语和习俗的深入了解使他们能够作为跨国公民外交官，成功地在不同党派和利益集团、政府和非政府游说团体之间进行调解。对这些犹太法学家中的大多数人来说，他们与德国同行、政治家和德国最高法院管理者的实际经历导致了越来越多的怀疑和最终的失望——尽管他们为客户取得了无可争议的令人印象深刻的结果。
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Pub Date : 2023-06-19DOI: 10.1177/16118944231181295
Regula Ludi, D. Siemens
Reparations and restitution have long been a marginal subject of historical research, even in the Federal Republic of Germany. Until the early 1990s, legal, diplomatic and institutional history dominated the field. Early studies provided important information on how the Federal Republic dealt with the legacies of Nazi crimes and the general awareness of the Holocaust in the post-war era. Not least because its authors had only limited access to the archives, they often reflected the official perspective of indemnification, most prominently documented in the multi-
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Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180432
Eva Balz
This article introduces the decisions of the Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin (Supreme Restitution Court for Berlin) as historical sources that contribute to a better understanding of how early interpretations of the Holocaust developed. The Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin was established in 1953 as the final court of appeals for restitution matters in West Berlin. Some of its decisions were published in a collection that would later be used by judges, lawyers and claimants. Legal experts and practitioners who dealt with restitution would also discuss these decisions extensively. As no other means of gathering insight into the Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin's work were available, its publications became the most important communicative channel for actors within the Court's jurisdiction. The decisions contained distinct narratives concerning the Third Reich that stressed the importance of authoritative political structures while also focussing on state agencies and the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei as main actors. The accounts given in the decisions were partly based on analyses of historical records that were performed either by the judges themselves or by historians at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich (Institute for Contemporary History). This article suggests that on a broader societal level, the decisions contributed to the dissemination of state-centred ideas about the Holocaust. At the same time, the text draws attention to their complicated genesis. Situating the emergence of the decisions alongside the concrete implementation of restitution laws, the Cold War in Berlin and Vergangenheitspolitik (politics of the past), I demonstrate that the perpetuation of state-focussed historical concepts, to a large extent, resulted from the judges’ desire to lessen their significant workloads and to work without the interference of political actors.
本文介绍柏林最高赔偿法院(Oberstes rckerstattungsgericht f r Berlin)的判决，作为有助于更好地理解早期对大屠杀的解释如何发展的历史来源。Oberstes rckerstattungsgericht fr Berlin成立于1953年，是西柏林赔偿事务的最终上诉法院。它的一些裁决被发表在一个文集中，后来被法官、律师和索赔人使用。处理赔偿问题的法律专家和从业人员也将广泛讨论这些决定。由于没有其他方法可以深入了解Oberstes r ckerstattungsgericht fbr Berlin的工作，因此其出版物成为法院管辖范围内行为者最重要的交流渠道。这些决定包含了关于第三帝国的独特叙述，强调了权威政治结构的重要性，同时也侧重于国家机构和国家民族主义党作为主要行动者。判决书中的叙述部分是基于对历史记录的分析，这些分析要么是由法官自己完成的，要么是由慕尼黑当代历史研究所(Institute for Contemporary History)的历史学家完成的。本文表明，在更广泛的社会层面上，这些决定促进了以国家为中心的大屠杀思想的传播。同时，本文还关注了它们复杂的起源。我将判决的出现与赔偿法律的具体实施、柏林冷战和Vergangenheitspolitik(过去的政治)放在一起，证明了以国家为中心的历史概念的延续，在很大程度上是由于法官希望减轻他们的重大工作量，并在没有政治行为者干预的情况下工作。
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Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180426
Bianca Gaudenzi
This article illustrates the role played by restitution in bringing about the first substantial changes in the political and public awareness of Italy's anti-Jewish persecutions after the end of the Cold War. More specifically, it analyses how political discourses changed between the years 1989 and 2003 vis-à-vis restitution campaigns on one side and historiographical advances on the other. This proves particularly relevant in the case of post-war Italy, which was exceptional in turning the restitution of national collections into a moment of cathartic rebirth while whitewashing - or all together forgetting - fascism's persecution of its Jewish and colonial subjects. As the article demonstrates, the conflation of international and domestic factors played a crucial role in pushing Italy (as well as several other countries) to start confronting – albeit partially – its antisemitic past. Restitution constituted only a piece of this puzzle, but a crucial one. It afforded the opportunity to document the involvement of many Italians in the persecution of their fellow citizens and to highlight the state's responsibility for the deportations. Furthermore, it provided an international platform for voicing some of the most explicit admissions of accountability, which had until that point found little if any space in the domestic realm. Restitution thereby represented one of the most visible ways for Jewish communities to exercise their newly found political weight to foster the long-awaited recognition of Italy's persecutory behaviour.
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Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180425
Ondřej Šmigol
Discussions of the Thatcherite foreign policy often centre exclusively on the Cold War and especially on the relationship with the USSR. Therefore, the British relationship with smaller communist states is often unexplored, even though it is where British influence was most prominent. The brand of political and economic thinking espoused by British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher found avid disciples in the newly democratic Czechoslovakia in the 1990s. A group of influential Czechoslovak politicians and officials led by Finance Minister, and later Czech Prime Minister, Václav Klaus sought to transform the Czechoslovak communist economy into a free market one that roughly followed Thatcherite lines. This was not only because they felt an ideological closeness to Thatcher but also because Britain was one of the few countries at the time that had experienced a large-scale privatisation of industries. Therefore, the reformers saw it as a model. The Prime Minister reciprocated these warm feelings. She authorised the sending of a team of British experts to Czechoslovakia, with the goal of aiding its economic reform programme. British advisers greatly contributed to privatisation and other schemes, especially on the practical side.
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Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180433
Iris Nachum
Only recently have historians studying the Holocaust recognised the unique value of German compensation files as historical source material. The Federal Republic of Germany created these files after World War II in the context of Wiedergutmachung, that is, compensation for damages inflicted by the Nazis on racial, religious and political grounds. This article draws attention to a different body of compensation records, one that has so far been ignored by historians of Nazi persecution: case files created under the Lastenausgleichsgesetz (Equalisation of Burdens Law [LAG]). This West German law was meant to compensate ethnic Germans for property they lost when they were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the war. The article demonstrates that LAG files can be especially illuminating of the interaction between Nazi profiteers and their Jewish victims in Central and Eastern Europe.
{"title":"‘Aryanisation’ in Central and Eastern Europe and the Equalisation of Burdens Files: The Case of the Sudetenland","authors":"Iris Nachum","doi":"10.1177/16118944231180433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231180433","url":null,"abstract":"Only recently have historians studying the Holocaust recognised the unique value of German compensation files as historical source material. The Federal Republic of Germany created these files after World War II in the context of Wiedergutmachung, that is, compensation for damages inflicted by the Nazis on racial, religious and political grounds. This article draws attention to a different body of compensation records, one that has so far been ignored by historians of Nazi persecution: case files created under the Lastenausgleichsgesetz (Equalisation of Burdens Law [LAG]). This West German law was meant to compensate ethnic Germans for property they lost when they were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the war. The article demonstrates that LAG files can be especially illuminating of the interaction between Nazi profiteers and their Jewish victims in Central and Eastern Europe.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"294 - 310"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41566269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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