German Archives Research Articles

Biografie nauczycieli śląskich. Źródła i stan badań

The work of teachers from the 19th century until contemporary times, significant for Upper Silesia as it is, has not found a broader reflection in biographical elaborations to date. Historiography has devoted much attention mainly to Polish-German antagonisms, showing the role of “heaven-sent” individuals: cultural and political activists of the day, who were, in many cases, teachers by profession, that form of their activity being merely mentioned. A similar situation occurred after the end of the Second World War – the work of teachers was not the subject of deepened scholarly analyses either. Resource materials – both relating to the didactic work of Silesian teachers in the 19th and the 20th centuries are fairly rich, although they are dispersed and must be looked for in different Polish and German archives. This void in the Silesian historiography needs to be filled with historians’ of education undertaking to develop biographical studies on teachers of elementary, vocational and secondary schools.

СУСПІЛЬСТВО РАДЯНСЬКОЇ УКРАЇНИ НА ПОЧАТКУ ВЕЛИКОЇ ВІТЧИЗНЯНОЇ ВІЙНИ: СТАН РОЗРОБКИ НАУКОВОЇ ПРОБЛЕМИ

The article deals with the formation of historiographical knowledge of Soviet society in the early period of Great Patriotic War. The historiographical researches on this subject are analyzed. The periodizations of historiography of Soviet society in 1941–1942 are defined and explanations of criteria of such periodization are examined. The essential characteristics of each historiographical period and mistakes of some historiographical schools are defined. The priorities of research in the field of study of the history and historiography of Soviet society of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War are defined. The first period in the development of historiography of the initial level of the Great Patriotic War concerning Ukraine falls on 1940–1950s. The characteristics of historiography features of this period are the following: dogmatic views on the events, submission of major conclusions about the war to ideological and political determinants; ignoring negative aspects inherent to Soviet society. The second period covers the events of 1950–1980s. The characteristic features of this period are the following: the creation of a new historical myth of hypertrophied role of parties in the War; the priority development of macro-historical studies; bias of memoir literature; absolutisation of spiritual unity of Soviet society. At the same time, this period characterizes first attempts of critical reflection of the tragic outbreak of war, the role of the Stalinist repressions of the army high command. The third period of Soviet historiography falls on 1980–1990s. This period characterizes a number of contradictory traits. The weakening of ideological censorship and restrictions on open announcements of tragic military confrontation led to the emergence of revisionist historiography direction; empowering access to documentary base of limited access archives created conditions for both objective historical research, and overtly speculative publications. Excessive politicization of historical science has caused the appearance of two vectors — traditional and revisionist. Post-Soviet historiography is based on the recognition of the many achievements of Soviet historiography, on the critics of separate provisions (dogmatism, the principle of partisanship, omission of certain negative aspects of the CPSU (b), government security forces). The Ukrainian state of the development of historiography problems covers a timeframe from 1991 to nowadays. This process is marked by a wide range of pluralistic views on our recent past and a number of features, at first, an attempt to create its own national historical narrative by a fundamental reassessment of the past. Thus, the study of Soviet society in the beginning of the Great Patriotic War was carried out within the conventional scheme: social and professional substructure, society and government, USSR armed forces, which can be explained by errors of Soviet sociology, which actually denied the existence of antagonistic groups in the USSR society. From the present point f view, the study of historiography of Soviet society allows the consideration of this phenomenon in two interrelated dimensions. Firstly, it is an argued comprehensive analysis of Soviet historiography,the rejection of nihilistic attitude to its heritage. Secondly, the widespread involvement of foreign historiography, especially the one, which uses German archives and oral sources of the European origin, that will be useful in the verification of certain interpretations of the life of Soviet society of 1941–1942.

The Nature of Christianity in Northern Tanzania: Environmental and Social Change 1890–1916 by Robert B. Munson

Reviewed by: The Nature of Christianity in Northern Tanzania: Environmental and Social Change 1890–1916 by Robert B. Munson Stephen Volz The Nature of Christianity in Northern Tanzania: Environmental and Social Change 1890–1916. By Robert B. Munson. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013. 379 pp. This work is a detailed chronicle of environmental and social changes that accompanied the introduction of Christianity and establishment of German colonial rule on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru. Considering how important congregations and cash crops each became in northern Tanzania, contributing to the success of a national Lutheran church that now counts more than six million members, Munson’s book provides a valuable exploration of their intertwined historical roots. The book is organized both chronologically and thematically, providing a narrative of colonization and its impact on the landscape [End Page 236] and communities of northern German East Africa. It begins with a general description of the area’s geography and primary inhabitants, the Chagga, Meru and Arusha peoples, including a perceptive contrast between the African “vertical view” and European “horizontal view” of the terrain. Two chapters then detail the goals and activities of German colonial officials, missionaries, and merchants as they asserted control over the area’s resources and people. The next three chapters consider, in turn, the specific roles of places, plants, and people in the social changes that accompanied colonization, followed by a concluding chapter on the enduring legacy of those changes. Munson’s main argument is that the growth of Christianity and environmental changes were an interconnected process in which “the spread of religion assisted and was supported by the new order upon the landscape and the introduction of new plants” (2). Of particular importance were Africans’ adoption of coffee and other cash crops and of certain coniferous trees for a variety of uses as they also embraced Christianity. Although much of the first half of the book provides helpful context for that process, describing European efforts to manage the land and its people, the second half offers more persuasive analysis, culminating in chapter six, which is subtitled “Christianity and Botanical Proselytization” and arguably can serve as a stand-alone summary of the book’s central ideas. Munson conducted an impressive amount of research, making particularly effective use of German archives, but his ambitious attempt to combine environmental, colonial and mission histories in a single work left some gaps in his scholarship. For example, while illustrating European transformation of the landscape with many useful maps and charts drawn from his own research, Munson engages with the work of other scholars in only limited ways, leaving readers to make their own comparisons with studies somewhat more critical of European influence, such as Roland Oliver’s classic The Missionary Factor in East Africa (1965), or with those focused more on historical African perspectives, such as Thomas Spear’s Mountain Farmers (1997). Perhaps the most significant challenge faced by Munson, as by any scholar of early mission history, is to find enough evidence authored by Africans to give them well-rounded, central roles in the narrative. [End Page 237] Munson sought to overcome that difficulty partly by holding “discussions” with various African informants in northern Tanzania, but one apparent result is a projection into the past of eventual widespread acceptance of Christianity in the region, minimizing more contentious aspects of that history. For example, there is little consideration of African customary land tenure or opposition to European ownership. More African proverbs, stories and interpretations of Scripture might better substantiate the inductive claim that new beliefs and plants must have grown together because Africans viewed religion and nature as “a single, integrated world” (253). Nevertheless, this is a meticulously researched and accessibly written examination of a relatively understudied dimension of how northern Tanzania became a thriving center of Lutheranism. It would be a valuable addition to college and seminary libraries. Stephen Volz Kenyon College Gambier, Ohio Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

Falangismo, nacionalsocialismo y el mito de Hitler en España (1931-1945)

Fascism has been defined as a transnational phenomenon. However, the exchanges among different Fascist movements still remain a mostly unexplored topic. This article focuses on the influence of German National-Socialism on Spanish Fascist organisations, particularly on Falange, as well as on the diffusion of an image of Nazi Germany among Spanish Catholic and pro-Falangist public opinion until 1945. Sources include the Spanish press and German diplomatic records, as well as the several Spanish monographs on Nazi Germany, and the dozens of letters written by ordinary Francoists to Hitler kept at the German archives. Although «Nationalist» Spain was profoundly and increasingly pro-German, the ideological contents of National-Socialism were hardly assimilated, the mirror of Nazism being used as a projection of the main tenets of both radical Falangism and Catholic Traditionalism.

The stigma of surrender: German prisoners, British captors, and manhood in the Great War and beyond

Recent scholarship on the history of masculinity has struggled with a difficult question: how did men form ideals of manhood in the traumatic context of total war? While scholars like George Mosse have studied how medical and political authorities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries defined images of manhood, the more complex, often contradictory self-conceptions of ordinary soldiers coping with the physical and psychological stresses of combat have remained more elusive. Hegemonic images of manhood in the age of total war featured the “martial masculinity” of steel-nerved, emotionally controlled heroes willing to die for the nation. But this ideal was challenged as many men had to incorporate a “softer side” of nurturing and compassion to survive the destructive effects of modern industrialized war. In The Stigma of Surrender, Brian Feltman (Georgia Southern Univ.) investigates the understudied experiences of German POWs from 1914 to 1920. He analyzes the psychological and emotional universe of men enduring the emasculating conditions of capture and imprisonment. In a military culture prizing the glory of heroic death as the ultimate expression of manhood, they suffered the stigma of falling short of prescribed gender roles. Feltman argues that these POWs underwent a crisis of identity and had to re-establish themselves as “real men” who served their country even while imprisoned. To this end, they cultivated a camp culture of resistance and redemption in a new kind of battle against their captors. This gave them a much needed higher purpose beyond the crushing routine of daily life in British prisoner camps. The author seeks to expand our understanding of manhood in war by revealing how men negotiated and changed prevailing images of masculinity in a specific context of trauma and defeat. Inspired by new perspectives on the history of emotions, Feltman uses POW voices to clarify the effects of their humiliation, depression, and separation. Drawing on over a thousand letters in various German archives and samples from camp newspapers, capture reports, and unpublished memoirs, he offers fascinating glimpses into the everyday lives and emotions of men who were made to feel like failures and even traitors to their families and their nation. Chapter 1, “Between Victory and Death,” concerns the immediate effects of surrender on a German soldier’s sense of self: “If going to war confirmed an individual’s manhood, the act of battlefield surrender challenged a soldier’s masculine identity and cast doubt upon his commitment to Germany’s national struggle” (13). Of the more than 997,000 German soldiers captured during the Great War, about 325,000 fell into British captivity. German military authorities often portrayed surrendering sol-

The War of Legs

This article describes the little-known history of military labor and transport during the East African campaign of World War I. Based on sources from German, Belgian, and British archives and publications, it considers the issue of military transport and supply in the thick of war. Traditional histories of World War I tend to be those of battles, but what follows is a history of roads and footpaths. More than a million Africans served as porters for the troops. Many paid with their lives. The organization of military labor was a huge task for the colonial and military bureaucracies for which they were hardly prepared. However, the need to organize military transport eventually initiated a process of modernization of the colonial state in the Belgian Congo and British East Africa. This process was not without backlash or failure. The Germans lost their well-developed military transport infrastructure during the Allied offensive of 1916. The British and Belgians went to war with the question of transport unresolved. They were unable to recruit enough Africans for military labor, a situation made worse by failures in the supplies by porters of food and medical care. One of the main factors that contributed to the success of German forces was the Allies' failure in the “war of legs.”

AS BASES INSTITUCIONAIS DAS COMUNIDADES (PICADAS) TEUTO-BRASILEIRAS: OS COMMONS E O CAPITAL SOCIAL

The historiography of German immigration to Brazil knows just a little about the structures that animated social life in Germany before the process of immigration. Therefore, the americanizacao of the German-Brazilian settlers is considered solely from the perspective of the host society, creating a gap that needs to be filled in order to understand another dimension of German immigration, the European side and influence over it. In this sense, it is possible to perceive that generally the social origins of German-Brazilian settlers is linked to a village context experience, especially those who came from Western and Southwestern Germany. Historically these villages were social organizations able to control natural and economic resources under their jurisdictions with a great political and economic autonomy. The so called commons were a feature of the German agrarian history, and its institutions of participatory, mutual, protectionist, communal management had the effect to generate social capital, one social attribute that supported the formation of the German-Brazilian communities in Southern Brazil. Thus, the German-Brazilian communities were forged under a solid institutional tradition and under a substrate of social capital, facilitating the emergence of autonomous and cooperative behaviors that resulted on the communitarian structures and on the associativism phenomenon. The method was the analytical descriptive based on research in primary sources in Brazilian and German Archives.

Introduction: The Ottoman Genocides of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks

One hundred years ago, the Ottoman regime, best known as that of the Young Turks, began a series of actions that led to the genocides of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks that only ended in 1923. The articles presented in this special issue of Genocide Studies International deal with the competing interpretations of why the Armenian Genocide occurred, with what the German archives reveal about it and any German responsibility for it, and with Turkish denial since the 1960s. They also make major contributions to understanding the lesser-known Ottoman genocides, those against the Assyrians and the Greeks. There are also questions raised about the concept of genocide and its relation to ethnic cleansing, massacres, deportation, and war. Overall, there is the theme of the complexity of genocide: modes, techniques, and motives. Careful consideration of the Ottoman genocides deepens our understanding of what genocide is and how it can be enacted. What must be averted is letting its complexity become a cover for denial.

The Fire of Revolution: A Counterfactual Analysis of the Polish-Bolshevik War, 1919 to 1920

In August, 1920, the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Bolshevik forces stood poised to take Warsaw, while Lenin contemplated the possibility of invading Germany. General von Seeckt in Germany considered renouncing the Treaty of Versailles, thus threatening a new world war. In France and Great Britain, senior leaders reluctantly and with great hesitation discussed military intervention in Eastern Europe. Using primary source material from American, British, German, and Polish archives, this study offers new conclusions about the landscape of post-war Europe through a counterfactual analysis of the Battle of Warsaw.

'A WONDERFULL MONSTER BORNE IN GERMANY': HAIRY GIRLS IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN GERMAN BOOK, COURT AND PERFORMANCE CULTURE.

Human hirsuteness, or pathological hair growth, can be symptomatic of various conditions, including genetic mutation or inheritance, and some cancers and hormonal disturbances. Modern investigations into hirsuteness were initiated by nineteenth-century German physicians. Most early modern European cases of hypertrichosis (genetically determined all-over body and facial hair) involve German-speaking parentage or patronage, and are documented in German print culture. Through the Wild Man tradition, modern historians routinely link early modern reception of historical hypertrichosis cases to issues of ethnicity without, however, recognising early modern awareness of links between temporary hirsuteness and the pathological nexus of starvation and anorexia. Here, four cases of hirsute females are reconsidered with reference to this medical perspective, and to texts and images uncovered by my current research at the Herzog August Library and German archives. One concerns an Italian girl taken to Prague in 1355 by the Holy Roman Empress, Anna von Schweidnitz. Another focuses on Madeleine and Antonietta Gonzalez, daughters of the ‘Wild Man’ of Tenerife, documented at German courts in the 1580s. The third and fourth cases consider the medieval bearded Sankt Kümmernis (also known as St Wilgefortis or St Uncumber), and the seventeenth-century Bavarian fairground performer Barbara Urslerin.Krankhafter menschlicher Hirsutismus kann aufgrund unterschiedlicher Ursachen auftreten, zu denen u.a. genetische Veränderungen und Vererbung, verschiedene Krebserkrankungen und hormonelle Störungen gehören. Die moderne Hirsutismus-Forschung ist im 19. Jh. von deutschen Forschern initiiert worden. Die meisten europäischen frühneuzeitlichen Erscheinungen von Hypertrichose (dem genetisch bedingten Haarwuchs am gesamten Körper und im Gesicht) gehen auf deutschsprachige Eltern oder Förderer zurück und sind in Deutschland in den Druck gelangt. Bei Untersuchungen des Motivs des Wilden Mannes zieht die aktuelle geschichtswissenschaftliche Forschung in der Regel Verbindungslinien zwischen der frühneuzeitlichen Wahrnehmung von Hypertrichose-Fällen und Fragen der Ethnizität, ohne jedoch zu beachten, dass in der Frühen Neuzeit die Verbindung zwischen temporärem Hirsutismus und der krankhaften Verknüpfung von Unterernährung und Anorexie bekannt war. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden vier Fälle von an Hirsutismus erkrankten Frauen neu analysiert, unter Einbezug dieser medizinischen Perspektive und unter Beachtung von Texten und Abbildungen, die meine jüngsten Forschungen in der Herzog August Bibliothek und an deutschen Archiven ans Licht gefördert haben. Die hier betrachteten Fälle betreffen ein italienisches Mädchen, das 1355 von Anna von Schweidnitz, Kaiserin des Hl. Römischen Reichs, nach Prag gebracht wurde; Madeleine und Antonietta Gonzalez, die Töchter des ‘Wilden Manns’ von Teneriffa, die in den 1580er Jahren an deutschen Höfen bezeugt sind; die bärtige Sankt Kümmernis (Wilgefortis), und die bayerische Jahrmarktkünstlerin Barbara Urslerin.

Tarnishing Tinseltown: Hollywood’s Responses to Nazi Germany

Tarnishing Tinseltown: Hollywood’s Responses to Nazi Germany Lawrence Baron Thomas Doherty, Hollywood and Hitler 1933–1939. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Pp. 448. Cloth $35.00. ISBN 978-0231163927. Ben Urwand, The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013. Pp. 336. Hardcover $26.95. ISBN 978-0674724747. Not since the publication of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners has a scholarly monograph generated so much controversy within and outside of academia as Ben Urwand’s The Collaboration. He indignantly indicts Hollywood for colluding with Nazi Germany’s censorship demands to purge Jewish characters and anti-Nazi themes from American movies during the 1930s. Urwand’s sweeping condemnation of Hollywood’s complicity contrasts sharply with Thomas Doherty’s more balanced assessment of how the American film industry responded to Hitler’s incremental escalation of anti-Semitic, expansionist, and repressive policies before the outbreak of World War II. The initial trigger for the debate over the conflicting interpretations proffered by the two authors was the publicity campaign for The Collaboration. Harvard University Press hired Goldberg McDuffie Communications to promote Urwand’s book, scheduled for release in October 2013, seven months after Doherty’s hit the shelves in April. In what appears to have been an attempt to counteract the positive reviews Hollywood and Hitler had begun to receive, the marketing firm provided advance copies of The Collaboration to prospective reviewers in June. The cover letter accompanying the review copies denigrated the depth of Doherty’s research and touted that of Urwand’s: “Whereas Doherty relied on flawed, superficial accounts in domestic trade papers, Urwand discovered a vast array of primary resource materials.”1 While Urwand does not specifically mention Hollywood and Hitler (which he presumably had not read when he was writing The Collaboration) in the text of his book, he curtly dismisses it in a footnote as “a lively account, but one [End Page 59] that is limited to reports that appeared in American trade papers.” (256) To be sure, Urwand delved into the German archives to unearth reports about the hectoring of the film industry by Georg Gyssling, Nazi Germany’s consul in Los Angeles, but Doherty also draws on a “rich repository of archival sources” beyond the trade press, including the files of the Production Code Administration (PCA), the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), and memos from federal officials. (375) Both books reveal how the major studios avoided direct criticism of Hitler and his anti-Semitic policies, abandoned or altered scripts that might antagonize Nazi Germany, and eliminated Jewish characters from their movies in the 1930s. They similarly attribute these concessions to the film industry’s commercial stakes in the German market. A main point of contention between the two scholars is whether this self-censorship constituted “collaboration,” exacted primarily by Germany’s threat to deny distribution licenses to the films of studios that did not abide by the content parameters it established, as Urwand claims, or a continuation of Hollywood’s standard practice of editing films and scripts to gain the approval of the PCA and local and state censorship boards in the United States and to placate domestic interest groups and foreign governments, as Doherty posits. The first reviewers of Urwand’s book seized upon the incendiary charge he leveled at the movie moguls by giving their pieces sensationalist titles such as, “Hollywood’s Creepy Love Affair with Adolf Hitler,” “Scholar Asserts That Hollywood Avidly Aided Nazis,” “When Hollywood Held Hands With Hitler,” and “Hollywood’s Deal with The Devil (Hitler).”2 Yet these titles only slightly exaggerated Urwand’s censure of Hollywood’s kowtowing to Nazi demands. In the prologue to his book, he unambiguously declares, “Over the course of the investigation, one word kept reappearing in both the German and American records: ‘collaboration’ (Zusammenarbeit). And gradually it became clear that this word accurately described the particular arrangement between the Hollywood studios and the German government in the 1930s.”(8) Amplifying his thesis, he argues, “The studio heads, who were mostly immigrant Jews, went to dramatic lengths to hold on to their investment in Germany. Although few remarked on it at the time, these men followed...

Silkeborgkontorets sidste dage. Peder Herschends dagbog omkring den tyske kapitulation maj 1945

NB: Artiklen er på dansk, kun resuméet er på engelsk. In November 1943, the German Wehrmacht’s Commander-in-Chief in Denmark, Hermann von Hanneken, moved his headquarters from Copenhagen to Silkeborg. He demanded that a representative of Danish department heads be sent there to ensure efficient arrangement for, and implementation of, the Wehrmacht’s needs. The department heads unanimously appointed Chief County Administrator Peder Herschend to “provisionally carry out the central administration and administer its central institutions according to due process of law on their behalf for urgent decisions.” Herschend took on the task and established an office in Silkeborg (the Silkeborg Office) to this end. He was assisted by a small, experienced staff of civil servants, some of them from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Until May 1945, Herschend functioned as adviser to the Danish authorities in Jutland and on Funen and as intermediary with the German headquarters when necessary. The Silkeborg Office was closed on 16 May. An official log was kept at the Silkeborg Office from November 1943 to May 1945. Notes were kept on all the cases with which the Office had to deal. The log is in five volumes, consisting of a total of approximately 7,000 pages, in which some 3,036 cases were recorded. There is one copy of the log in the National Archives and one at the Royal Library (Herschend’s copy). The National Archive’s copy contains only the log cases while the Royal Library’s copy also has a volume with the telegrams exchanged between Herschend and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The log has by no means been ignored but has been used only rarely. It is a unique source of information on many aspects of German occupation policy in Denmark at the regional level, particularly indispensable given that nearly all of the corresponding German archives were destroyed. The log covering the period from 4 May to 16 May 1945 has now been published in its entirety. It bears witness not only to a role change during the days of capitulation in which it was no longer the occupying power that decreed and confiscated but also to the fact that liberation brought many new problems and other players onto the scene. The Silkeborg Office handled everything professionally. If there was a celebratory atmosphere in the Office on 4 and 5 May, this was not commented on in the log. Herschend and his co-workers sought throughout the entire process to maintain an official style that, in numerous cases, was the only means of satisfying the Germans.

Recovering a collapsed medieval fresco by using 3D modeling techniques

Abstract. The paper presents the results of a reconstruction of the 3D model of a dome and of a medieval fresco, collapsed after an earthquake and now reconstructed in significant portions, to offer to the visitors a possible reconstruction of the lost masterpiece of medieval art. After the earthquake the collapsed dome was replaced by means of a concrete sphere connected with the survived portions of the old dome’s timber. The old dome shape and the fresco were virtually reconstructed thanks to a set of historical pictures obtained by Italian, USA and German archives; those images have been calibrated and oriented by using modern digital photogrammetric approach and a realistic 3D model of the old inner surface of the dome has been realised. By using a LiDAR survey the 3D model of the apse and of the dome, has been set up and the boundaries between original and new structures have been reconstructed by visual evidences.The new dome has been virtually erased and the old dome with the fresco 3D model inserted allowing the reconstruction of the apse as it was before the earthquake. This virtual 3D model has been used to realise a 1:1 scale model of the old dome where the restorers fit some parts of the old fresco fragments recovered just after the earthquake, cleaned and classified. The fresco images correctly oriented inside the reconstructed dome have been projected on plane surfaces by using azimuthal orthographic projections of small portions of the dome in order to reduce the geometric deformations and to allow the mosaicking of these small planes onto a spherical surface.

The Morale Maze: the German Army in Late 1918

The state of the German Army’s morale in 1918 is central to our understanding not only of the outcome of World War I, but also of the German Revolution and, indeed, through the pernicious ‘stab-in-the-back-myth’, on Weimar politics and the rise of the Nazis, too. This article presents new evidence from the German archives, blended with statistical analysis, to show that the morale of some units held up better than previously thought almost to the end, and thus to suggest three things. First, it proposes that some historians have placed too much reliance on English-language sources alone, such as British Army intelligence reports, which have various flaws as evidence. Second, it argues that, while historians have increasingly moved away from generalisations about German morale, this process has further to run. Third, it suggests that no single tipping point can be identified, and that morale alone does not provide a sufficient explanation for battlefield defeat. Indeed, much of the data can only be explained if the tactical realities of the war in late 1918 are clearly understood.

Writing the Lives of the Poor

The conference 'Writing the Lives of the Poor' arose out of a joint Anglo-German research project, “Pauper Letters and Petitions for Poor Relief in Germany and Great Britain,1770–1914”, funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council,and directed by Prof. Steven King (University of Leicester) and Prof.Dr. Andreas Gestrich (Director, German Historical Institute London. These narratives comprise letters and petitions written by paupers seeking some form of relief. In describing the circumstances which led them to appeal for help, the authors construct autobiographical vignettes. The project aims to construct an online, edited corpus of such texts, which survive in considerable numbers in British and German archives.

The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War. By Astrid M. Eckert. Translated by Dona Geyer. Publications of the German Historical Institute. Edited by Hartmut Berghoff and David Lazar.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi+427. $99.00.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War. By Astrid M. Eckert. Translated by Dona Geyer. Publications of the German Historical Institute. Edited by Hartmut Berghoff and David Lazar.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi+427. $99.00.Diethelm ProweDiethelm ProweCarleton College Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 86, Number 1March 2014 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/674258 Views: 40Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

George II: King and Elector by Andrew C. Thompson

Reviewed by: George II: King and Elector by Andrew C. Thompson Michael Schaich Andrew C. Thompson . George II: King and Elector. New Haven and London : Yale , 2011 . Pp. xii + 315 . $40 . Writing a biography of George II (1727–1760) is not easy or, for that matter, particularly attractive. He has gone down in history as one of the duller figures on the British throne—personally boorish and petty, not known for the splendor of his court, and politically insignificant. More than either his predecessor or his successor, he has been victimized by clichés about eighteenth-century Britain and an unbalanced record of sources. The enduring image of the king was shaped by the acerbic memoirs of one of his courtiers, the vice-chamberlain Hervey (although covering only the first years of his reign, they indelibly marked George II’s reputation). Hervey portrayed the Hanoverian as loquacious, overbearing, moody, in constant need of the guiding hand of a cunning minister, Robert Walpole, and an intellectually superior wife, Caroline of Ansbach-Bayreuth. This depiction emphasized the rise of parliament and cabinet government, and decline of the court and monarch’s role. It did not help that George II conducted business mainly in face-to-face conversations with his ministers and left very few traces of his personal views and opinions to posterity. Recently the historiographical tide has shifted. A revival in court studies over the last decade has rescued the image policy of the early Hanoverians from oblivion. Biographical essays on George II by Mjindert Bertram (2003) and Jeremy Black (2007) are superseded, however, by Mr. Thompson’s judicious and extensively researched account based on sources in British as well as German archives. It is now difficult to see how a more rounded treatment can be achieved. Although it contains chapters on the dynastic background and George II’s early years, the relationship to his parents, wife, and mistresses and life at his two courts in London and Hanover, Mr. Thompson has written a political biography, for the most part, a book about the king’s dealings with factions and parties at court and in parliament, with ministers, diplomats, and foreign powers. He has done so with good reason: it is in the political realm that his study can best overturn received wisdoms. One of its main findings is the persisting power of the monarch in government. It is only in Mr. Thompson’s detailed analysis that the full extent of the involvement of the king in decisions about—primarily—foreign policy issues becomes apparent. For all the talk about the ascent of independent-minded ministers such as Walpole and Newcastle, no major political step was taken without the king’s approval. Most governments during George II’s long reign tried to be as accommodating to his wishes as possible. This does not mean that he always got his way. Ministers put pressure on him, tried to talk him round, and at least in one case gave him an ultimatum. This was not altogether different from other European monarchies. Even in absolutist regimes formulating policy was the result of negotiations and discussions between the king and his ministers. George II also had the good fortune of being British king and Hanoverian elector. This dual role gave him considerable maneuvering room. Whenever he went on one of his regular trips to his German dominions accompanied by only one secretary of state, fears in London about unexpected policy changes mounted, and not without justification. During the War of the Austrian Succession, for example, George II signed a neutrality agreement for the electorate with France that clearly affected Britain, but came as a shock to [End Page 164] Whitehall. The stays in the electorate, however, did not have merely disruptive effects. In an intriguing line of argument Mr. Thompson links the development of the cabinet to the repeated absences of the king from London. Concern about the loss of control over foreign policy fostered a sense of identity among the ministers left behind and enhanced the pressure to formulate policies as a collective body. In addition, the king’s travels gave British secretaries of state the chance to familiarize themselves with developments in Central...

Ks. Prof. Walerian Meysztowicz i Polski Instytut Historyczny w Rzymie

FATHER. PROF. WALERIAN MEYSZTOWICZ AND THE POLISHHISTORICAL INSTITUTE IN ROMEThe professors of the Polish University in Vilnius, which operated in 1919–1939, after 1945 played a major role in the Polish science during emigration. One of the professors from Vilnius was father Walerian Meysztowicz, theologian, and a publisher of primary sources. Even before the war he became a diplomatic counselor of the Polish Embassy in Vatican. During the war he resided in Vatican, and after it in Rome. In 1945 along with other Polish scholars he brought the Polish Historical Institute in Rome into existence. The Institute carried out research, organizedconferences and meetings, and, most importantly, published the magazines Antemurale and a series of sources Elementa ad fontium editiones—which published documents on the history of Poland and the catholic church in Middle Europe from Italian, Spanish, French and German Archives.

ASTRID M. ECKERT. The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War.

ASTRID M. ECKERT. The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War.

Astrid M. Eckert, The Struggle for the Files. The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War. Transl. by Dona Geyer. (Publications of the German Historical Institute.) Washington, D. C./Cambridge/New York, German Historical Institute/Cambridge University Press 2012

Article Astrid M. Eckert, The Struggle for the Files. The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War. Transl. by Dona Geyer. (Publications of the German Historical Institute.) Washington, D. C./Cambridge/New York, German Historical Institute/Cambridge University Press 2012 was published on November 4, 2013 in the journal Historische Zeitschrift (volume 297, issue 2).