This article analyses the political and scientific controversy surrounding a race science project undertaken by the anthropologist Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt under National Socialism. Beginning in 1934, Eickstedt and his team of assistants conducted a series of racial studies on the population of Upper Silesia, a contested borderland in East Prussia. Motivated by a nationalist desire to counter the work of Polish anthropologists in the region, Eickstedt argued that the population of Upper Silesia belonged predominantly to the so-called ‘Nordic race’ and that the territory was thus fundamentally German. Nazi officials, however, viewed the Silesian studies with alarm, since the results also appeared to show that people in the area were a racial mixture and that the ‘Nordic race’ made up less than 40 per cent of the population in some locales. They worried that Eickstedt’s studies could undermine Germany’s territorial claims in the region and threaten national unity. The ensuing controversy presents a case in which the anthropological concept of ‘race’, rather than serving its usual role in Nazi thinking as the biological underpinning of the Volk (or people), threatened to undermine its coherence. The reaction to Eickstedt’s Silesian studies demonstrates a lack of consensus on race within the Nazi system, suggesting that understandings of race in Nazi Germany were neither as coherent nor as uniform as the paradigm of the ‘racial state’ has assumed.
{"title":"‘Real National Work’: The Politics of Nazi Race Science in Upper Silesia, 1934–1942","authors":"Andrew D Evans","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad072","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article analyses the political and scientific controversy surrounding a race science project undertaken by the anthropologist Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt under National Socialism. Beginning in 1934, Eickstedt and his team of assistants conducted a series of racial studies on the population of Upper Silesia, a contested borderland in East Prussia. Motivated by a nationalist desire to counter the work of Polish anthropologists in the region, Eickstedt argued that the population of Upper Silesia belonged predominantly to the so-called ‘Nordic race’ and that the territory was thus fundamentally German. Nazi officials, however, viewed the Silesian studies with alarm, since the results also appeared to show that people in the area were a racial mixture and that the ‘Nordic race’ made up less than 40 per cent of the population in some locales. They worried that Eickstedt’s studies could undermine Germany’s territorial claims in the region and threaten national unity. The ensuing controversy presents a case in which the anthropological concept of ‘race’, rather than serving its usual role in Nazi thinking as the biological underpinning of the Volk (or people), threatened to undermine its coherence. The reaction to Eickstedt’s Silesian studies demonstrates a lack of consensus on race within the Nazi system, suggesting that understandings of race in Nazi Germany were neither as coherent nor as uniform as the paradigm of the ‘racial state’ has assumed.","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"1 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139451025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990","authors":"M. Fenemore","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad076","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"41 14","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138946606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Everyday Denazification in Postwar Germany: The Fragebogen and Political Screening during the Allied Occupation","authors":"Hannah Cogan","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad074","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"1 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138944244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines early modern suicide by proxy in terms of the experience of pain. ‘Suicide by proxy’ refers to committing a capital crime in order to bring about one’s own death by execution. Exploring the history of prolonged pain typically associated with suicide by proxy, the article argues that suicide by proxy is primarily a story about pain. The analysis here follows the story of Sara Stähelin and her attempt to use suicide by proxy as a way to liberate herself from her hurting body and mind, to receive comfort and compassion from her estranged community and—most importantly—to save her soul from eternal damnation. Understanding suicide by proxy as a story of how early modern pain could materialize offers a new and fruitful approach to the study of early modern pain and its mediation between culture and body.
{"title":"Bodies in Pain: Early Modern Suicide by Proxy","authors":"Andreas Berger","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad073","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines early modern suicide by proxy in terms of the experience of pain. ‘Suicide by proxy’ refers to committing a capital crime in order to bring about one’s own death by execution. Exploring the history of prolonged pain typically associated with suicide by proxy, the article argues that suicide by proxy is primarily a story about pain. The analysis here follows the story of Sara Stähelin and her attempt to use suicide by proxy as a way to liberate herself from her hurting body and mind, to receive comfort and compassion from her estranged community and—most importantly—to save her soul from eternal damnation. Understanding suicide by proxy as a story of how early modern pain could materialize offers a new and fruitful approach to the study of early modern pain and its mediation between culture and body.","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"24 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139008632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"End Game: The 1989 Revolution in East Germany","authors":"Chris Law","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad067","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":" 32","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138612584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How to Write about the Holocaust: The Postmodern Theory of History in Praxis","authors":"Dan Stone","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad062","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":" 96","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138620271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal Article Legal Entanglements: Law, Rights and the Battle for Legitimacy in Divided Germany, 1945–1989 Get access Legal Entanglements: Law, Rights and the Battle for Legitimacy in Divided Germany, 1945–1989. By Sebastian Gehrig. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. 2021. 327 pp. £107.00 (hardback); £27.95 (e-book). Katrin Schreiter Katrin Schreiter King’s College London, UK katrin.schreiter@kcl.ac.uk Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad061, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad061 Published: 31 October 2023
{"title":"Legal Entanglements: Law, Rights and the Battle for Legitimacy in Divided Germany, 1945–1989","authors":"Katrin Schreiter","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad061","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article Legal Entanglements: Law, Rights and the Battle for Legitimacy in Divided Germany, 1945–1989 Get access Legal Entanglements: Law, Rights and the Battle for Legitimacy in Divided Germany, 1945–1989. By Sebastian Gehrig. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. 2021. 327 pp. £107.00 (hardback); £27.95 (e-book). Katrin Schreiter Katrin Schreiter King’s College London, UK katrin.schreiter@kcl.ac.uk Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad061, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad061 Published: 31 October 2023","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135976601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal Article The Queer Art of History: Queer Kinship After Fascism Get access The Queer Art of History: Queer Kinship After Fascism. By Jennifer V. Evans. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2023. 312 pp. $104.95 (hardback); $27.95 (paperback). Sébastien Tremblay Sébastien Tremblay Europa-Universität Flensburg, Germany s.tremblay@posteo.de https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6453-2212 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad060, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad060 Published: 11 October 2023
{"title":"The Queer Art of History: Queer Kinship After Fascism","authors":"Sébastien Tremblay","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad060","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article The Queer Art of History: Queer Kinship After Fascism Get access The Queer Art of History: Queer Kinship After Fascism. By Jennifer V. Evans. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2023. 312 pp. $104.95 (hardback); $27.95 (paperback). Sébastien Tremblay Sébastien Tremblay Europa-Universität Flensburg, Germany s.tremblay@posteo.de https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6453-2212 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad060, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad060 Published: 11 October 2023","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136062651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal Article 1848: Erfolgsgeschichte einer gescheiterten Revolution Get access 1848: Erfolgsgeschichte einer gescheiterten Revolution. By Alexandra Bleyer. Stuttgart: Reclam. 2022. 336 pp. €26.00 (hardback); €18.99 (e-book). Matthew Stibbe Matthew Stibbe Sheffield Hallam University, UK m.stibbe@shu.ac.uk Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad059, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad059 Published: 06 October 2023
{"title":"1848: Erfolgsgeschichte einer gescheiterten Revolution","authors":"Matthew Stibbe","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad059","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article 1848: Erfolgsgeschichte einer gescheiterten Revolution Get access 1848: Erfolgsgeschichte einer gescheiterten Revolution. By Alexandra Bleyer. Stuttgart: Reclam. 2022. 336 pp. €26.00 (hardback); €18.99 (e-book). Matthew Stibbe Matthew Stibbe Sheffield Hallam University, UK m.stibbe@shu.ac.uk Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad059, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad059 Published: 06 October 2023","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135345863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal Article Occupiers, Humanitarian Workers, and Polish Displaced Persons in British-Occupied Germany Get access Occupiers, Humanitarian Workers, and Polish Displaced Persons in British-Occupied Germany. By Samantha K. Knapton. London, New York and Dublin: Bloomsbury. 2023. xiv + 246pp.£85.00(hardback); £76.50 (e-book). Camilo Erlichman Camilo Erlichman Maastricht University, The Netherlands c.erlichman@maastrichtuniversity.nl Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad058, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad058 Published: 06 October 2023
{"title":"Occupiers, Humanitarian Workers, and Polish Displaced Persons in British-Occupied Germany","authors":"Camilo Erlichman","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad058","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article Occupiers, Humanitarian Workers, and Polish Displaced Persons in British-Occupied Germany Get access Occupiers, Humanitarian Workers, and Polish Displaced Persons in British-Occupied Germany. By Samantha K. Knapton. London, New York and Dublin: Bloomsbury. 2023. xiv + 246pp.£85.00(hardback); £76.50 (e-book). Camilo Erlichman Camilo Erlichman Maastricht University, The Netherlands c.erlichman@maastrichtuniversity.nl Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad058, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad058 Published: 06 October 2023","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135345869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}