German Officials Research Articles

Healthy, healthier, hybrid work: the burnout-reducing potential of remote work and the mediating effect of work autonomy

PurposeWith the continuing transition to hybrid working models, companies are confronted with new challenges. Location- and time-flexible working offers employees considerable advantages regarding work success and, in particular, personal well-being and health. The separate effects of remote work and work autonomy on the degree of perceived burnout have already been sufficiently investigated. The influence of hybrid work, the combination of remote and in-office work together with work autonomy, on perceived burnout has yet to be investigated. Against this background, the present study examines the impact of hybrid work on perceived burnout.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical study uses data from N = 779 German office employees. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, the data is evaluated using regression and mediation analysis.FindingsThe results indicate a negative impact of remote work and work autonomy on perceived burnout. In addition, the effect of remote work on perceived burnout is partially mediated by work autonomy. This shows that hybrid work overall has a burnout-reducing effect.Practical implicationsConsidering the workforce’s health, the results suggest that organisations should focus on hybrid working. Thus, employees should continuously be allowed to work remotely. In addition, workflows and processes should be designed to provide employees work autonomy. If organisational constraints require office presence, then the results underline the need for stress-reducing adaptation of offices.Originality/valueThe study offers first empirical results on the combined impact of remote work and work autonomy on perceived burnout. Furthermore, it provides implications for designing hybrid working environments and orientation in the ongoing return to office debate.

The Problems of National Identity in Contemporary Germany in an International Context

The article analyzes the influence of the current international situation on the concept of German identity. The main elements that form the basis of contemporary German self-consciousness are identified. The author explores the relationship between the regional, national, and supranational components of German self-identification, examining the persistent mental “divide” between the new (former GDR) and the old lands (West Germany). Special attention is paid to the challenges posed for the Federal Republic of Germany in terms of historical discourse and memorial practices by the influx of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. The role of the 2023 Palestine-Israel escalation in the transformation of the national narrative is separately examined. The article also evaluated the conflict around Ukraine as a factor in strengthening the European dimension of German identity.Among the key methods used by the author are content analysis of speeches by German officials, analysis of legislation and media. In addition, logical, chronological, and comparative-historical methods were applied. All this in aggregate led to the following conclusions. The Federal Republic of Germany is undergoing a systemic and multidimensional identity crisis. The main challenge is finding a balance between historical responsibility, transatlantic commitments, and national interests. The goal of the German establishment is to formulate a new national idea, which includes defining the role and place of Germany in the world, forming a value consensus regarding migrants, and overcoming the alienation between the east and west of the country. However, in the post-1990 world order, such a large-scale task remains rather impossible for the current elites.

Commodities of Conflict: Rubber between the Blockades, 1914-1945

The British blockade of 1914 cut Germany off from its global value chains. While German planners had to develop new concepts to replace various imported goods, the embargo revealed the dependence of modern economic production on some strategic commodities. In particular, the supply of rubber, a vital raw material for many military and civilian products, posed serious problems for planners. However, conflicts over dependence on strategic commodities did not end with the lifting of the blockade. Instead, they dominated the interwar period on a global scale. This article will examine these interwar conflicts of commodities in the case of rubber. It will therefore examine the immediate response of German officials and businessmen to the blockade in the rubber sector. The second part focuses on the long-term consequences of the blockade from a global perspective. In addition to Germany, the United States experienced similar problems of dependence in the rubber market. From the perspective of global value chains, the article shows the enormous impact of the blockade on states and business and their efforts to control global markets. While substitutes such as synthetic rubber played an important role, international cooperation was another factor in securing the global supply of goods.

‘Sharp like cut iron’: Albrecht von Stosch and the beginning of naval wargaming in the German navy

The Seekriegsspiel, a naval version of the Prussian Kriegsspiel, was officially introduced to the German navy in 1876 by the then chief of the German admiralty, Albrecht von Stosch. Intended as an instrument to professionalize the navy’s officers’ corps, it was used not only as an educational but also an analytical instrument; right up to the outbreak of First World War Kriegsspiele were used to evaluate war plans. The 1876 Seekriegsspiel included both a strategic and a tactical element, with the former being considered at the time to be of more value than the latter. In 1879, Philip Colomb RN published a tactical naval wargame that soon found an interested audience among German officers, and by 1880 a German translation produced by a somewhat colourful Austro-Hungarian officer was in wide circulation. The paper provides a brief overview over the developmental history of the Seekriegsspiel and discusses its differences to the Kriegsspiel used by the army.

Motiv osiguranja u nemačkom političkom diskursu o evropskim integracijama

Since the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in 2013, there have been repeated statements by officials and politicians of the Federal Republic of Germany highlighting cooperation within the structures of the European Union as a kind of "insurance policy" for each member state. This paper examines the use of this term as a metaphor within political rhetoric to illustrate the perceived benefits of EU membership in the context of foreign policy and security challenges. In this sense, the European Union is portrayed as a safety net for its members amidst strained relations with Russia, given that country's role in triggering and shaping the dynamics of the Ukrainian crisis (and beyond). Additionally, the analysis explores the changing perception regarding EU enlargement policy, specifically how it is increasingly viewed as a tool for advancing European security and other political interests. Following a brief overview of the geopolitical nature of the war risk in Ukraine, the paper analyzes statements by German officials, seeking to clarify them through theoretical approaches in international relations (e.g., constructivism, liberal intergovernmentalism, realism) on the one hand, and through technical-conceptual definitions of the term "insurance" and related elements on the other hand.

A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of a Modernist Work Composed in Captivity: Olivier Messiaen, "Quartet for the End of Time"

French composer Olivier Messiaen, who joined the French army as a medic in the Second World War, was imprisoned by the Germans as a prisoner of war in Görlitz's Stalag VIII A camp in June 1940. Because he did not actively fight in the war as a medic, a German officer sympathized with Messiaen, secretly delivering him paper, pencils and erasers and even having a room in the rectory cleared for him to compose. Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) was composed in such an environment. The fact that the piece includes a non-standard instrumental combination consisting of piano, cello, violin, and clarinet as a quartet is a result of the existing instruments in the camp and the presence of competent musicians playing them. The structural design of the work includes both musical and mystical qualities on the axis of Messiaen's personal belief. The work, which consists of eight parts in total, symbolizes timelessness, that is, eternity, by depicting the seven days of creation and the eighth day when God rests, as represented in the Bible. The premiere of the work took place on January 15, 1941, in front of an audience of four thousand prisoners and guards. In this article, the non-musical motivations and the composition techniques used in the work titled Quatuor pour la fin du temps are examined in relation to each other. The main purpose of the research is to discover the determining effects of the non-musical motivation, which guides the compositional process of the work, on the musical elements of the work. In addition to some technical aspects such as Indian rhythms/Indian modes, Greek rhythms, medieval classical rhythmic principles, French organ music tradition, synthetic modes/synthetic rhythms, and total serialism, Quatuor pour la fin du temps is also analyzed in terms of phenomena and concepts such as Catholicism, ornithology, and synesthesia. In the Introduction chapter, Messiaen's life is summarized on the basis of his personality as a composer, the compositional process of the Quartet is reviewed in the historical framework, and the research purpose, including the research methods used in this article are explained. In the following chapters, all movements of the Quartet are analyzed one by one. The compositional techniques used by the composer are examined in detail through the written out (text) analysis of the musical passages detailing them with footnotes whenever necessary, and these prose analyses are supported by musical examples of the relevant musical passages quoted from the Quartet’s score. The Conclusion chapter consists of the inferences and evaluations made from the findings.

A new dataset to study a century of innovation in Europe and in the US

Innovation is an important driver of potential growth but quantitative evidence on the dynamics of innovative activities in the long-run are hardly documented due to the lack of data, especially in Europe. In this paper, we introduce PatentCity, a novel dataset on the location and nature of patentees from the 19th century using information derived from an automated extraction of relevant information from patent documents published by the German, French, British and US Intellectual Property offices. This dataset has been constructed with the view of facilitating the exploration of the geography of innovation and includes additional information on citizenship and occupation of inventors.

개항 이후 독일 관료들의 눈에 비친 한국의 정치적 상황 1884/86년

개항 이후 독일 관료들의 눈에 비친 한국의 정치적 상황 1884/86년

Memoranda k otázce německých vysokých škol v Česko-Slovensku z listopadu 1938: Edice

This study outlines the position of German universities in the Czech Lands after the Munich Agreement on the secession of Czech border areas of 30 September 1938. A short introduction explains the situation in the autumn of 1938, when various German officials issued a number of proclamations and memorial volumes in which they expressed their views on the subject of German schools either remaining in their current locations or moving to the ceded areas (Liberec/Reichenberg), eventually even to occupied Austria (Linz). The core of this study consists of an edition of four documents from October and November 1938, in the original German version, which are presented to the public for the very first time in extenso.

Despondence, dependence and dignity: on the dilemmas of being an object of international charity in Western Europe – a Weimar German case study

ABSTRACT The history of international humanitarianism is usually told from the perspective of donors and aid providers. Throughout the twentieth century, large humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, national Red Cross societies and a range of United Nations agencies have been the main channels of international aid and, as a result, a major focus of historical attention. In contrast, we know little about the feelings and thoughts of the ‘recipients’ of aid, who are often portrayed, partly for lack of sources, as innocent, passive and grateful. This paper challenges this narrative, using post-First World War Germany as a case study. It shows how difficult it was for many Germans to accept and ask for ‘charity’ from the international community, especially from former enemies. As a defeated and humiliated nation, accepting foreign charity could be deeply embarrassing for Germany: a reminder of defeat, poverty and déclassement. As a result, German officials spent a great deal of time and effort restricting German fundraising abroad, seeking to allow only such international aid as they deemed compatible with German honour and Great Power status. In the emotional environment of the post-war years, being the object of international charity raised much larger questions for Germany about international dependence and national dignity. Like many recipients in the twentieth century, Germany was far from a passive recipient.

Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War by Friederike Baer (review)

Reviewed by: Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War by Friederike Baer Brady J. Crytzer (bio) Keywords Hessians, Germany, Revolutionary War, Prisoners of war Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. By Friederike Baer. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 528. Cloth, $74.00.) In Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War, Friederike Baer offers a thorough and critical analysis of the German experience in the American Revolution. Relying on a variety of international sources, Baer reveals how German soldiers perceived the conflict, and how their contributions affected the outcome of the war. Despite their being major players in the British war effort, the contributions of German auxiliary soldiers remain some of the most under-studied elements of the American Revolution. Baer's efforts to shed light on these often-overlooked sources has helped to fill a critical gap in modern Revolutionary scholarship, making Hessians an essential read. In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, the British Empire witnessed its overall military strength reduced to a skeleton crew of less than 60,000 troops. With the empire at its largest size yet seen, British administrators were faced with a crippling debt, and an emerging rebellion in its North American colonies. To address their lack of military might, British diplomats scoured the continent of Europe in search of reliable auxiliary soldiers to fill the king's ranks. What followed was months of negotiations with some of the most unscrupulous monarchs of the Old World. Both at home and abroad, these negotiations were met with consternation and scorn; in the colonies John Adams described the ruler of Hesse-Kassel as a "Soul selling Landgrave" (29). In the first chapter of Hessians, Baer [End Page 326] expertly navigates the political consequences in Britain, Germany, and America. As a result of their diplomatic efforts, Baer reveals how British officials brokered several different agreements with six separate German states. In the second and third chapters of Hessians, Baer analyzes the recruitment of these soldiers and their subsequent voyage to the New World. While the respective German states discussed in these chapters held a unique place in the greater politics of Europe, Baer shows how they each desired unique concessions from their British clients. Amongst the most contentious aspects of these agreements was the reputation of the German rulers for unscrupulous and bad-faith negotiations. Their citizens were commodified; many of these rulers issued conscript drafts to field large armies with little care for training and readiness. In Chapter 3 Baer discusses how these troops were deployed to the New World, bringing the story to life through her use of first-hand accounts. The German soldiers shuttled to North America were often highly literate and very opinionated, and the author amassed an impressive collection of their early experiences on their trans-Atlantic voyage. The first analysis of the German Auxiliary experience in the New World is presented upon their arrival in New York and New Jersey. While the book offers a balanced narrative of the events of the period, Baer takes special care to place the foreign troops at the center of her analysis. They were the consummate outsiders with very little investment in the outcome of the conflict; that fact was a stunning reality given that they were often the ones tasked with actual combat operations. As products of Germany's famed martial culture, German officers often provided scathing critiques of the American war effort. The entire Patriot cause was viewed as an affront to the German affinity for order and autocracy, and the Continental commanders were deemed illegitimate and unworthy of respect. As Baer notes, one German officer named Andreas Wiederhold very deliberately described George Washington as "Mister Washington," and not "General Washington" (88). Chapters 4 and 5 of Hessians offer pointed analysis from an alternative viewpoint of the New York and New Jersey campaigns, with special emphasis of the battles of Trenton and Princeton. The geographically diverse nature of the war highlights the remainder of Baer's manuscript. The various theaters of the American Revolution saw patriot motivations diverge, and the character of the war change as well. While issues like slavery, loyalism, and plantation-style agriculture typified...

THE BATTLE OF NATIONS IN THE OFFICIAL GERMAN DISCOURSE OF THE 20TH CENTURY: THE GERMANS AND THEIR ALLIES

The article deals with the problem of transforming the images of the Sixth Anti-French Coalition participants, who took part in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig. This main problem is based on the official German periodical press of the 20th century. The changes in the images’ interpretation of former allies, who became enemies, occurred in the numerous transformations, that took place in the sphere of ideology and in the German state structure in the short 20th century. German external relations in different historical periods, as well as the ideology supported in the country, played an equally important role in the process explored in the article. The author reveals the goals pursued by German officials when referring to the historical images of the former allies. The following characteristic features of the images of the participants of the anti-French coalition are highlighted: British, Austrians, Russians. The following conclusions are drawn about the influence of the country's foreign and domestic policy on changes in the official discourse around the contribution of the allies in the Sixth Coalition to the victory near Leipzig.

Production of German Picture Postcards at the Western Front 1915–1916 as Exemplified by the Imagery of the Church Bell of Marquillies (Département du Nord, France)

During World War I the soldiers’ life at and behind the frontline was captured by personal photography. While heavily regulated and censored on the allied side, conditions were more relaxed for German soldiers, and for German officers, in particular. Drawing on a large sample set of images of the same subject matter, a French church bell with a patriotic, anti-German inscription, this paper surveys the private production of picture postcards by German soldiers. Initially photographed by a range of individuals, some images were eventually produced as printed lithographed postcards by regional German publishers. The processes and limitations of the personal versus commercial production of picture postcards are discussed.

Citizens and Refugees: Stories from Afghanistan and Syria to Germany.

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.

Effects of Workplace Digitalisation on the Motivation of German Office Employees

Digitalisation allows more processes to be technologically supported and to increasingly implement remote work throughout all industries in order to enhance efficiency. However, new challenges arise. While employees can also profit from increased flexibility, communication with the management is changing and leaders need to tackle issues such as team and trust building, concerns around negative effects of remote electronic work and the management of engagement and performance via electronic means. Motivation is a key element thereof, and as part of a research lab on yirtual and remote leadership in digital ecosystems, we endeavoured to gain insight into whether digitalisation of the workplace influences employees' motivation to work and whether there are preferences for purely electronic or rather for hybrid models. The aim was to be able to come up with recommendations for virtual leaders. A qualitative analysis of the responses of 92 participants from different companies and age groups, all with experience of working remotely, was conducted. The average age of the group was about 10 years below the German average of employed people, but while this might lead to a bias towards the views of younger people, the results allowed some valuable initial results. Some motivational factors around digitalisation of the workplace were identified, such as technical equipment and autonomy, but this in itself will not suffice in order to manage employee motivation. Rather, is also important how digitalisation is introduced, and companies will have to manage introduction and support as a complex construct dependent on many factors

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Food Literacy and Dietary Intake in German Office Workers: A Longitudinal Intervention Study.

Widespread patterns of poor dietary behavior are a key factor causing the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases around the world. Research has provided initial insights into the potential of food literacy (FL) to empower individuals to improve their dietary behavior. However, studies on FL interventions in working adults are scarce. The intervention delivered in this study was a comprehensive 3-week full time education-based workplace health promotion program (WHPP) that provided the participants with in-depth knowledge and skills regarding nutrition and health. We aimed to investigate the short- and long-term effects of the WHPP on FL and dietary intake (DI) and to examine the association between FL and DI in a sample of 144 German office workers (30.0% female). Using two random intercept mixed linear regression models, we found significant strong improvements for both FL (β = 0.52, p < 0.0001) and DI (β = 0.63, p < 0.0001) after the WHPP when compared to baseline. Significant long-term improvements at 18 months were strong for FL (β = 0.55, p < 0.0001) and weak for DI (β = 0.10, p < 0.0001). FL showed a significant moderate effect on DI across all measurement time points (β = 0.24, p < 0.0001). We conclude that well-designed WHPPs can induce long-term improvements in FL and DI, and that FL can be viewed as an asset to further expand food-related knowledge and skills and to enhance dietary behavior. Our study fills a gap of long-term findings regarding the role of FL in WHPPs and supports the idea of implementing FL in the development of comprehensive WHPPs to improve DI.

Global rivalries, corporate interests and Germany’s ‘National Industrial Strategy 2030’

This article asks how Germany could have pursued a far-reaching ‘National Industrial Strategy 2030’ despite the fierce opposition of German industry. To resolve this puzzle—which realist-inspired and institutionalist analyses struggle with—it deploys a critical state theory attuned to the uneven and combined development of global capitalism. The twin challenge of China catching up and the US forging ahead has not only prompted German officials to develop a ‘defensive-mercantilist’ response; new qualitative and quantitative evidence indicates that it has also deepened conflicts within Germany’s export industry. Small and large firms are divided over how to respond to the growing lead of US capital in the digital economy, and its major sectors have experienced Chinese inroads into high-tech manufacturing differently. I argue that the German state was/is able to advance its industrial strategy insofar as it reconciles these divergent interests. First, it has offered laxer EU cartel rules to big business and enhanced protection from digital oligopolies to the Mittelstand, in exchange for tighter foreign direct investment controls. And second, I suggest that it could win over the chemical and electrical industry, through selective state subsidies, to its plans to re-shore transnational value chains in the name of ‘technological sovereignty’.

“Savage War” as “People’s War”: Nineteenth-Century African Wars, European Perceptions, and the Future of Warfare

This article first looks at how British, French, and German officers assessed the specifics of nineteenth-century colonial warfare and how they distinguished it from wars in Europe. Part 2 explores, on the basis of war reports from the nineteenth century and secondary literature, the significance of specifically African war traditions from precolonial times and how these came into play when, in the second half of the century, within a few decades the European colonial powers divided the continent among themselves with enormous brutality in their “scramble for Africa.” In their mental baggage Europeans brought ideas about war as having to “take a different form in Africa,” to quote a Prussian observer of the Franco-Moroccan War. What did this imply for their own style of warfare? Part 3 intervenes in the politically charged debate about how the European experience of nineteenth-century colonial warfare shaped war, and genocide, in twentieth-century Europe. The wars in nineteenth-century Africa, both precolonial and colonial, were not “contained” (gehegt) wars, to use Carl Schmitt’s term. Following 1815, in most of Europe the containment of warfare—that is, the separation of combatants and the civilian population—worked for a hundred years. After that, no more. Why? Does the experience of colonial warfare offer an explanation? This article tests an explanation that hinges on an unconventional comparison of what Europeans called “savage war” in Africa and “people’s war” (Volkskrieg) in Europe.

Office Property Pricing and Macroeconomic Shocks: European Regions through the Real Estate Cycle

We study the relation between European office prices and their fundamentals by using a panel dataset of 29 major European cities over 25 years. We control for the dotcom crisis, global financial crisis (GFC), and sovereign debt crisis to analyze the varying impact of our variables. We find real estate variables such as rent and vacancies to be the most important factors in explaining for office values. For the European Monetary Union, we find monetary policy measures played a considerable role only during the GFC. For Europe as a whole, monetary policy variables are less important. We document a strong negative linkage of the risk premium of investors to office prices during crisis times, but not in normal times. The dotcom crisis left European office prices almost unaffected. The German and Swiss office markets exhibit safe haven characteristics.