{"title":"Correction to: A West German Civil Movement in the 1970s: Opposition to the kooperative Schule in Nordrhein-Westfalen","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"572 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136097218","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}
Studies of forced labour in Nazi camps tend to stress the exceptionality of inmates’ experiences and their profound difference from common views of work. Yet examination of the wartime and postwar accounts of inmates and survivors reveals that they often combine features of the camp reality itself with phenomena from other times, places and situations. In this way, written, oral and visual depictions articulate a reality in which concepts and ideologies of work familiar from various cultural settings mix with those of the Nazi camp system, as well as with later experiences and current debates. This article traces three cultural frameworks that inmates and survivors utilized to make sense of forced labour in Nazi camps: war and the military, industrial concepts of productive destruction and destructive production, and Jewish religious culture. In exploring the relationship between the continuity and discontinuity of meaning between these cultural frameworks and the Nazi camps, we analyse a wide range of interviews, artworks, songs, memoirs and written reports from the 1930s to the early 2000s. We argue that in order not to make their suffering and work appear senseless, inmates and survivors understood forced labour within well-established frameworks of meaning. Their accounts, we suggest, use symbolic elements as creative acts that address inmates’ experiences by expanding the camp reality or going beyond it, thereby making them more comprehensible and communicable.
{"title":"Meaningful Work: Cultural Frameworks of Forced Labour in Accounts of Nazi Concentration Camp Inmates","authors":"Ella Falldorf, Kobi Kabalek","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghac084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghac084","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Studies of forced labour in Nazi camps tend to stress the exceptionality of inmates’ experiences and their profound difference from common views of work. Yet examination of the wartime and postwar accounts of inmates and survivors reveals that they often combine features of the camp reality itself with phenomena from other times, places and situations. In this way, written, oral and visual depictions articulate a reality in which concepts and ideologies of work familiar from various cultural settings mix with those of the Nazi camp system, as well as with later experiences and current debates. This article traces three cultural frameworks that inmates and survivors utilized to make sense of forced labour in Nazi camps: war and the military, industrial concepts of productive destruction and destructive production, and Jewish religious culture. In exploring the relationship between the continuity and discontinuity of meaning between these cultural frameworks and the Nazi camps, we analyse a wide range of interviews, artworks, songs, memoirs and written reports from the 1930s to the early 2000s. We argue that in order not to make their suffering and work appear senseless, inmates and survivors understood forced labour within well-established frameworks of meaning. Their accounts, we suggest, use symbolic elements as creative acts that address inmates’ experiences by expanding the camp reality or going beyond it, thereby making them more comprehensible and communicable.","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47173825","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":"Johan Pyre: ein Kaufmann und sein Handelsbuch im spätmittelalterlichen Danzig. Darstellung und Edition","authors":"M. Whelan","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44517643","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":"The Third Reich and Yugoslavia: An Economy of Fear, 1933–1941","authors":"Stephen Gross","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43995306","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":"The Perversion of Holocaust Memory: Writing and Rewriting the Past after 1989","authors":"Larissa Allwork","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135491086","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}
At its height, the continental European possessions of Napoleonic France consisted of 130 departments. Among the last additions to the collection were the thirteen carved out of the Netherlands and north-west Germany and integrated, at least on paper, in 1810/11. Rule from Paris was short-lived: most of these departments were overrun by coalition troops in the course of 1813, though French forces clung on to Hamburg into the spring of 1814, when they finally surrendered after a devastating siege. Martijn van der Burg’s new book examines these departments, and thereby adds to a growing corpus of regional studies of Napoleon’s empire in recent decades. The territorial frame adopted by this book is its greatest strength. It allows for a comparison of integration policies in areas of vastly diverse histories and traditions. A similar methodology of cutting across multiple borders is adopted by Pierre Horn, in his book Le défi de l’enracinement napoléonien entre Rhin et Meuse, 1810–1814: L’opinion publique dans les départements de la Roër, de l’Ourthe, des Forêts et de la Moselle (published by Oldenbourg in 2016). With the Dutch departments examined by Van der Burg, the French confronted inhabitants already used to living together under a substantial territorial administration. The preceding phases under the Batavian Republic (1795–1806) and Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810) provided introductions to French-style governance. In contrast, the jumble of polities from which the north-west German departments were cobbled together were denied passage through any intervening decompression chamber. What made the whole area, Dutch and German, worth annexing from Napoleon’s perspective was his conflict with Britain. This was fought out economically, and the strategy of blockade and counter-blockade demanded direct control of the North Sea coast. The issue was how to best manage the annexation process.
在其鼎盛时期,拿破仑统治下的法国在欧洲大陆拥有130个省。最后增加的藏品中有13个是从荷兰和德国西北部雕刻出来的,至少在纸上是在1810/11年整合的。巴黎的统治是短暂的:在1813年期间,这些省中的大多数都被联军占领,尽管法军一直守在汉堡直到1814年春天,在遭受毁灭性的围攻后,他们最终投降。马丁·范德伯格的新书考察了这些部门,从而为近几十年来不断增长的拿破仑帝国地区研究的语料库增添了新的内容。这本书所采用的地域框架是它最大的优点。它允许在历史和传统极为不同的地区对一体化政策进行比较。皮埃尔·霍恩(Pierre Horn)在他的著作《莱茵和默兹岛,1810-1814》中采用了类似的跨越多个边界的方法:《公共意见》(Oldenbourg于2016年出版),其中包括les dsamutements de la Roër, de l 'Ourthe, des Forêts et de la Moselle。随着范德伯格对荷兰各省的考察,法国人面对的是已经习惯在一个实质性的领土管理下共同生活的居民。在巴达维亚共和国(1795-1806)和荷兰王国(1806-1810)统治下的前两个阶段提供了法国式治理的介绍。相比之下,由德国西北部各部门拼凑而成的杂乱无章的政治体系,却被拒绝通过任何干预减压室。从拿破仑的角度来看,整个荷兰和德国地区值得吞并的原因是他与英国的冲突。这是经济上的斗争,封锁和反封锁的战略要求直接控制北海海岸。问题是如何最好地管理兼并过程。
{"title":"Napoleonic Governance in the Netherlands and Northwest Germany: Conquest, Incorporation, and Integration","authors":"Michael Rowe","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad005","url":null,"abstract":"At its height, the continental European possessions of Napoleonic France consisted of 130 departments. Among the last additions to the collection were the thirteen carved out of the Netherlands and north-west Germany and integrated, at least on paper, in 1810/11. Rule from Paris was short-lived: most of these departments were overrun by coalition troops in the course of 1813, though French forces clung on to Hamburg into the spring of 1814, when they finally surrendered after a devastating siege. Martijn van der Burg’s new book examines these departments, and thereby adds to a growing corpus of regional studies of Napoleon’s empire in recent decades. The territorial frame adopted by this book is its greatest strength. It allows for a comparison of integration policies in areas of vastly diverse histories and traditions. A similar methodology of cutting across multiple borders is adopted by Pierre Horn, in his book Le défi de l’enracinement napoléonien entre Rhin et Meuse, 1810–1814: L’opinion publique dans les départements de la Roër, de l’Ourthe, des Forêts et de la Moselle (published by Oldenbourg in 2016). With the Dutch departments examined by Van der Burg, the French confronted inhabitants already used to living together under a substantial territorial administration. The preceding phases under the Batavian Republic (1795–1806) and Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810) provided introductions to French-style governance. In contrast, the jumble of polities from which the north-west German departments were cobbled together were denied passage through any intervening decompression chamber. What made the whole area, Dutch and German, worth annexing from Napoleon’s perspective was his conflict with Britain. This was fought out economically, and the strategy of blockade and counter-blockade demanded direct control of the North Sea coast. The issue was how to best manage the annexation process.","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135490801","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}
Joachim Häberlen’s Citizens and Refugees is a critique of Germany’s immigration regime and of its highly touted welcoming culture (Willkommenskultur). Häberlen, writing both as a professional historian and as a volunteer working with refugees since 2015, has produced an eminently readable book that utilizes an eclectic array of sources: interviews, text messaging and social media posts. A major problem that motivated the author is the pervasive humanitarian gaze of German officials and volunteers, which reduces refugees to mere objects of compassion. By recounting their lives before becoming refugees, their journeys and their struggles and successes in Germany, Häberlen demonstrates that refugees are subjects with agency. This book is a highly original and important contribution to the rapidly expanding field of German migration studies, and to the critical scholarship on human rights and humanitarianism. The book is organized in four parts, with an introduction and a brief epilogue. The first two parts, ‘Where Stories Begin’ and ‘Becoming Refugees’, are primarily a work of recovery. The road to becoming refugees for Sabrina, Zaki, Reza or Mariana did not start with their arrival in Europe. Häberlen takes the reader back to Afghanistan and Syria. He relates stories of persecution and privation, but also of self-empowerment: the young woman who became the head of a UN-sponsored women’s centre in Afghanistan or the young man who joined demonstrations to replace the Assad regime with a democratic alternative in Syria. They were citizens before becoming refugees. Their exile was the result of advocating for women’s rights, debating the prevalent legal system, or speaking up about government abuses. In short, acts of citizenship that most Germans take for granted turned Afghan and Syrian citizens into social pariahs and/or enemies of the state. At the same time, Häberlen is careful to explain that not everyone has political reasons for fleeing. Motivations ranging from self-realization, career opportunities and material well-being matter just as much. Dismantling the objectified ‘needy refugee’ entails paying attention to the kaleidoscopic and contingent path towards exile.
{"title":"<i>Citizens and Refugees: Stories from Afghanistan and Syria to Germany</i>.","authors":"Felix A Jiménez Botta","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghad006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad006","url":null,"abstract":"Joachim Häberlen’s Citizens and Refugees is a critique of Germany’s immigration regime and of its highly touted welcoming culture (Willkommenskultur). Häberlen, writing both as a professional historian and as a volunteer working with refugees since 2015, has produced an eminently readable book that utilizes an eclectic array of sources: interviews, text messaging and social media posts. A major problem that motivated the author is the pervasive humanitarian gaze of German officials and volunteers, which reduces refugees to mere objects of compassion. By recounting their lives before becoming refugees, their journeys and their struggles and successes in Germany, Häberlen demonstrates that refugees are subjects with agency. This book is a highly original and important contribution to the rapidly expanding field of German migration studies, and to the critical scholarship on human rights and humanitarianism. The book is organized in four parts, with an introduction and a brief epilogue. The first two parts, ‘Where Stories Begin’ and ‘Becoming Refugees’, are primarily a work of recovery. The road to becoming refugees for Sabrina, Zaki, Reza or Mariana did not start with their arrival in Europe. Häberlen takes the reader back to Afghanistan and Syria. He relates stories of persecution and privation, but also of self-empowerment: the young woman who became the head of a UN-sponsored women’s centre in Afghanistan or the young man who joined demonstrations to replace the Assad regime with a democratic alternative in Syria. They were citizens before becoming refugees. Their exile was the result of advocating for women’s rights, debating the prevalent legal system, or speaking up about government abuses. In short, acts of citizenship that most Germans take for granted turned Afghan and Syrian citizens into social pariahs and/or enemies of the state. At the same time, Häberlen is careful to explain that not everyone has political reasons for fleeing. Motivations ranging from self-realization, career opportunities and material well-being matter just as much. Dismantling the objectified ‘needy refugee’ entails paying attention to the kaleidoscopic and contingent path towards exile.","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135491077","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}
Abstract Scholars agree that a core feature of the political style of the Holy Roman Empire was the focus on consensus, without which policy-making at the level of the Empire would have been impossible. This article demonstrates that the consensus on which decisions of the imperial estates was based tended to be superficial and was often in danger of breaking down. This vulnerability was a product of the diet’s open and sequential voting procedure, which allowed the bandwagon effect to distort outcomes. An analysis of the votes cast in the princes’ college at the diet of 1555 shows that low-status members of the college regularly imitated the decisions of high-status voters. Reforming the system would have required accepting that the members of the college were equals—an idea no one was prepared to countenance. Hence, superficial and transitory agreements remained a systematic feature of politics at the level of the Empire.
{"title":"Voting like Your Betters: The Bandwagon Effect in the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire","authors":"Oliver Volckart","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghac073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghac073","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholars agree that a core feature of the political style of the Holy Roman Empire was the focus on consensus, without which policy-making at the level of the Empire would have been impossible. This article demonstrates that the consensus on which decisions of the imperial estates was based tended to be superficial and was often in danger of breaking down. This vulnerability was a product of the diet’s open and sequential voting procedure, which allowed the bandwagon effect to distort outcomes. An analysis of the votes cast in the princes’ college at the diet of 1555 shows that low-status members of the college regularly imitated the decisions of high-status voters. Reforming the system would have required accepting that the members of the college were equals—an idea no one was prepared to countenance. Hence, superficial and transitory agreements remained a systematic feature of politics at the level of the Empire.","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135898056","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}
Abstract Historiography on the German Peasants’ War experienced a lively upswing in the wake of the 450th anniversary in 1975. The course set at that time has continued to shape historical research until today. Starting from this anniversary, the article examines the state of historical research and develops perspectives for further paths of investigation. It starts from the thesis that beyond supposed controversies between East and West and beyond the progress achieved, a common ground of interpretations can be recognized that hinders rather than promotes an unbiased view of the event ‘Peasants’ War’. The underlying heroic narrative is characterized by a programmatic overdetermination, a tradition of interpretation that focuses on the program of a supposed revolutionary collective subject and neglects the dynamics of the events, with all their contradictions and coincidences.
{"title":"Beyond the Heroic Narrative: Towards the Quincentenary of the German Peasants’ War, 1525","authors":"Gerd Schwerhoff","doi":"10.1093/gerhis/ghac085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghac085","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Historiography on the German Peasants’ War experienced a lively upswing in the wake of the 450th anniversary in 1975. The course set at that time has continued to shape historical research until today. Starting from this anniversary, the article examines the state of historical research and develops perspectives for further paths of investigation. It starts from the thesis that beyond supposed controversies between East and West and beyond the progress achieved, a common ground of interpretations can be recognized that hinders rather than promotes an unbiased view of the event ‘Peasants’ War’. The underlying heroic narrative is characterized by a programmatic overdetermination, a tradition of interpretation that focuses on the program of a supposed revolutionary collective subject and neglects the dynamics of the events, with all their contradictions and coincidences.","PeriodicalId":44471,"journal":{"name":"German History","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135997122","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}