German Question Research Articles

German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Normalization

Reviewed by: German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Normalization Michelle Mattson German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Normalization. Edited by Stuart Taberner and Paul Cooke. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2006. viii + 256 pages + 3 b/w illustrations. $75.00. The editors of this volume describe it as the "culmination of a three-year project [. . .] funded by the British Academy and based at the University of Leeds" (11) that revolves around the continued German quest to achieve "normal nation" status in the eyes of its international community. Many of the articles in the volume reference the others and—unlike many other edited collections—the overall structure of the book reflects a cohesive and shared thematic focus. The contributions all generally examine their specific topics from the post-unification period, stepping back occasionally to consider issues related to public reflection on the topic of German history just prior to unification. The articles cover topics from a number of disciplines such as political science, media studies, strategic studies, literature, and cinema; although the list of contributors suggests that the majority of the volume's authors come from some broadly defined area of German Studies. Since it is a collection of fifteen articles, it will be impossible in this review to comment on them all. Thus, what follows is a general assessment of the book and comments on a few of the chapters. The articles are all largely well written and quite accessible. They assume a bit too much background information to work really well as a textbook for courses dealing with the issues facing post-unification Germany. With adequate preparation on the part of the instructor, this reviewer believes, however, that this is probably the best use of the volume. Students will appreciate the clarity of the writing and the information on quite recent developments in Germany—or at least recent as of the time this review is published. The texts all competently analyze their specific topics, but they do not generate any truly novel approaches or innovative insights. Relatively well-informed readers will find much that is familiar to them and probably little with which to quibble. For German Studies scholars, the volume has, of course, two other potentially very useful roles. Each chapter deals with a cluster of texts/films/data that could easily form coherent sub-sections of an undergraduate course. The authors make available [End Page 430] cogent readings of their topics and good background and/or relevant literature. Scholars interested in specific topics covered here will also wish to consult the articles as part of their own research efforts. Three of the articles caused this reviewer to think further about certain questions. In "'(un)sägliche Vergleiche': What Germans Remembered (and Forgot) in Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s," Karoline von Oppen lays out the connections between Germany's involvement in the conflict that tore up the territories of former Yugoslavia and its past history in the region as well as Germany's own conflicted discourse about the increasingly multi-ethnic character of its own population. Von Oppen argues that Germany's condemnation of Serbian violence allowed it not only to distance itself from Nazi barbarism and in this distance to feel superior to its culturally underdeveloped neighbors, but also to avoid the questions of ethnic and racial identities that generally arose in the wake of unification. We know, of course, a great deal about the problems with xenophobic and racially-motivated violence in the nineties. Most German Studies scholars will also be familiar with the debates that surrounded Germany's participation in the Balkan military conflicts of the same decade. It was helpful, however, to think about these two issues together, particularly in terms of how Germany's own identity struggles at this time might have played a role in its foreign policy. Günter Grass has once again entered the spotlight of public discourse—first with the publication of Im Krebsgang and then with the controversy surrounding his autobiography. Kathrin Schödel's article "'Narrative Normalization' and Günter Grass's Im Krebsgang" offers a nuanced reading of the author's 2002 novel which explores the topics...

The Challenges of Culture in Global Online Learning

Many universities and colleges have online programs in which registration is not restricted to students located in the United States and may have students and indeed target students outside of the U.S. The impact of the different languages and cultures of these students, however, needs to be studied and understood if these courses are going to have the intended educational impact on these students as they have on native speakers of English whose cultural background is similar to students who grow up in the United States. A positive side-effect of an understanding of the role of language in education could be a better understanding of foreign and non-native speakers of English who are educated in the United States as well as more culturally knowledgeable graduates of U.S. higher education. Research which compares the economic literacy of U.S. students of higher education will be compared with German students and questions where a statistically significant difference exists will be explored, concentrating on the cultural differences which could lead to different answers on these questions from these two groups. Finally, an interpretation of this research will be done and conclusions drawn.

Distrust, Dependency and Détente: Norway, the Two Germanys and ‘the German Question’, 1945–1973

This article highlights the extent to which Norway's policies towards the two Germanys and ‘the German question’ were anchored in its perception of ‘the German problem’. While the Cold War overshadowed Norway's relations with the GDR, ‘the German problem’ prevailed in its relations with the FRG well into the 1960s. Norwegian dependence nevertheless forced it to support West German reconstruction, rearmament and sovereignty. Relations with Bonn were a perennial political minefield. While Norway loyally followed NATO's restrictive policy towards the GDR, from the early 1960s politicians saw that this stood in the way of détente. Bonn's new Ostpolitik in the late 1960s allowed for political rapprochement between Oslo and Bonn and held out the hope of achieving the long-awaited rapprochement with East Berlin.

Headed towards the West: Swedish Neutrality and the German Question, 1949–1972

This article is based on Swedish and West and East German archive material, and provides corroboration for the idea that Sweden was not truly neutral during the Cold War. Unlike Finland, which treated both German states with scrupulous equality below the threshold of diplomatic recognition, the Swedish government sent a diplomatic representative to Bonn within a few months of the constitution of the Federal Republic while refusing recognition to the GDR until the end of 1972. The article analyses the reasons behind Sweden’s decision largely to adopt the Western attitude to the ‘German question’.

Introduction: The Nordic Countries and the German Question after 1945

This article introduces Scandinavia (or the Norden, as the region is sometimes called) and describes the position of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, during the Cold War. The Cold War created a new political situation in the Nordic region, and to some degree divided the Nordic countries between East and West and also on the German question. The introduction analyses how the Nordic countries dealt with Germany – that is with the two German states, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and also describes the role of the Soviet Union and how it tried to influence the Nordic stance on the German question.

Maintaining Neutrality between the Two German States: Finland and Divided Germany until 1973

After the end of the Second World War, when Finland sought to redefine its position vis-à-vis Germany, negotiations were dogged by the fact that Finland had been a close ally of Hitler's Germany in 1941–4 in the war against the USSR. In April 1948 Finland signed a Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (FCMA) with the USSR, in which the military articles were based on the need to counter a potential German attack on the Soviets via Finland's territory. Finland's international position was so difficult that it became the only country in the world that did not establish full diplomatic relations with either of the German states. It was also the only country in the world to pursue a policy of absolute neutrality vis-à-vis both Germanys. When the Finnish government offered to host the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in May 1969, its main preoccupation was the German question, and it succeeded in fending off Soviet pressure to recognise the GDR. In 1973, with West German Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik easing tensions with regard to the German question, Finland was able to establish full diplomatic relations with both German states simultaneously.

RECOVERING THE FULL PALETTE OF POSSIBILITIES FOR WILHELMINE GERMANY 1890–1914: A NEW GERMAN SPECIAL WAY?

Kevin Repp, Reformers, Critics, and the Paths of German Modernity: Anti-politics and the Search for Alternatives, 1890–1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000)Suzanne Marchand and David Lindenfeld, eds., Germany at the Fin de Siecle: Culture, Politics, and Ideas (Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 2004)As in the colorization of old black-and-white films, large swaths of modern German history have been undergoing a major makeover through full-spectrum, high-definition re-colorization. Stark black and white—and in between steely gray-on-gray—hardly suffice any longer for representing the full spectrum of the German past in its manifold formations and transformations. As compellingly set forth in the two works reviewed here, this changing retrospective view of change itself is revamping the history of the Wilhelmine Reich of 1890–1914. And just as in the colorization of old films, this shift has the uncanny parallax effect of making a bygone period-piece seem somehow closer to our sensibly “more modern” present-day world—even while the earlier period is also plainly lodged in a distant timeframe. The new history has some very interesting and unsettling special effects and nowhere do they come into play more palpably than in treating the special “German question” in relation to the larger question of Western mainstream modernity.

Multimodal biometrics for identity documents ( )

The MBioID initiative has been set up to address the following germane question: What and how biometric technologies could be deployed in identity documents in the foreseeable future? This research effort proposes to look at current and future practices and systems of establishing and using biometric identity documents (IDs) and evaluate their effectiveness in large-scale developments. The first objective of the MBioID project is to present a review document establishing the current state-of-the-art related to the use of multimodal biometrics in an IDs application. This research report gives the main definitions, properties and the framework of use related to biometrics, an overview of the main standards developed in the biometric industry and standardisation organisations to ensure interoperability, as well as some of the legal framework and the issues associated to biometrics such as privacy and personal data protection. The state-of-the-art in terms of technological development is also summarised for a range of single biometric modalities (2D and 3D face, fingerprint, iris, on-line signature and speech), chosen according to ICAO recommendations and availabilities, and for various multimodal approaches. This paper gives a summary of the main elements of that report. The second objective of the MBioID project is to propose relevant acquisition and evaluation protocols for a large-scale deployment of biometric IDs. Combined with the protocols, a multimodal database will be acquired in a realistic way, in order to be as close as possible to a real biometric IDs deployment. In this paper, the issues and solutions related to the acquisition setup are briefly presented.

Small steps towards new frontiers? Ideas, concepts and the emergence of a detente strategy in the thinking of Willy Brandt and John F. Kennedy

Willy Brandt was deeply impressed by John F. Kennedy and his administration and often cited him as an important influence. This article focuses on Brandt's and Kennedy's thinking about detente in the early nineteen-sixties. An examination of the similarities in their policies of engagement, of the disparities in their attitudes towards the status quo and of the resulting differences in their policies towards the German question shows how Brandt anticipated much of Kennedy's general detente thinking, while Kennedy in turn anticipated much of Brandt's later Ostpolitik.

Play by Play: Theater Essays & Reviews, 1993-2002 (review)

Reviewed by: Play by Play: Theater Essays & Reviews, 1993–2002 Tom Smith Play by Play: Theater Essays & Reviews, 1993–2002. By Jonathan Kalb. New York: Limelight Editions, 2003; pp. vii + 274. $30.00 cloth, $17.95 paper. Jonathan Kalb's excellent collection of essays illuminates the one area of theatre often relegated to mean-spirited punchlines or dismissed entirely: theatre criticism. With this compilation, Kalb—former drama critic for The Village Voice and New York Press as well as a regular contributor to American Theatre and The New York Times—has proven himself an important documentarian of American [End Page 163] theatre production history and deserves to be regarded as an important theatre practitioner. Kalb's first section, "Critical Mess," begins with a transcript of a lecture given to students at Barnard College and New York University in fall 2002. "The Death (and Life) of American Theatre Criticism: Advice to the Young Critic" is a fascinating and charming discussion of both the author's own journey and "words of practical advice, offered with all the recklessness of love" (14). Kalb offers valuable insights such as "Write journalism—Read beyond it" and "Ground your work in knowledge, not style." The author is passionate about the need for and development of critics rather than stylists, and encourages open and public discourse that allows give-and-take between critics and readers to avoid the too-common megalomania of many critics. This essay is followed by "The Critic In Extremis," a rather short piece that tackles the decline of criticism while lionizing Gordon Rogoff, critic and author of Vanishing Acts: Theater Since the Sixties. Rogoff, challenges Kalb, is the type of critic whose work is overlooked primarily because of America's inclination towards anti-intellectualism and embrace of recycled culture. Including witty gems such as Rogoff's reaction to David Mamet's work: "short-winded plays keep playing into the hands of the monsters he's putting down" (26), Kalb makes a valid point about our current obsession with entertainment over analysis. Part 1 ends with the direct and insightful "The Critic as Humanist," which scrutinizes the struggle of the critic to respond to the work not only as a universal audience member but also an elite one. Kalb's next section, "Something the Dust Said," focuses specifically on the work and legacy of Samuel Beckett. The five essays within explore everything from Beckett's work on film to the recently published Eleuthéria, the play that Beckett wanted never to be published. A critical look at Deirdre Bair's biography on Beckett, a performance review of a revival of Waiting for Godot, and a look at Bill Irwin's performance in Texts for Nothing complete the section. In all five essays, Kalb proves himself an informed and opinionated defender of Beckett's intent while providing the reader with a strong sense of the range of approach to dramatic criticism. "American Dreams" sheds light on solo performance pieces. In his essay "Documentary Solo Performance: The Politics of the Mirrored Self," Kalb makes the case that the rise of solo pieces isn't merely a matter of economics, but, rather, the reaction to the lack of political theatre that thrived in early periods of American history. Solo artists such as Anna Deavere Smith, Marc Wolf, Danny Hoch, and Sarah Jones, claims Kalb, represent a modern version of Brecht's expounding of topical narratives and documentary style. It is a fascinating and insightful discourse; by representing the role of the critic as respondent not only to the work but also the historical context in which the work fits, Kalb proves himself a remarkably authoritative and discerning voice. Four essays compose part 4, "German Questions." Beginning with a review of Peter Stein's twenty-one-hour production of Faust I and Faust II in July 2000 and progressing to a discussion on the Berliner Ensemble's decline as Germany's "official" theatre, Kalb's work takes a sharp turn in "You Can Go Home Again." In this personal essay on being an American Jew living in West Berlin for a few years, Kalb offers a refreshingly personal reaction in his critiques of German plays. While never crossing...

Historicizing the German Question: Toward an International History of the Cold War

Book reviewed: William Glenn Gray. Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949–1969. Chapel Hill, NC and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. xii + 351 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 (cloth).

Canada, Transatlantic Relations, and the Challenges of Crisis Intervention

As Canada is engaged in a process of reflection about its place in world and how best it can play a useful role on world stage, I am grateful for opportunity to offer a German and a European perspective on debate over intervention, particularly against backdrop of transatlantic relations. In this article, I argue that Europe and North America face common challenges when it comes to determining proper course of action in response to civil conflicts and humanitarian crises around world, and they share burden of responsibility to create and maintain proper conditions for reconstruction. To rise to this challenge, however, partners on both sides of Atlantic will need to adjust to each other's security priorities and understand their respective security cultures. I conclude with a few words on emerging international consensus, for which Canada has played and ought to continue playing a leading role.TO INTERVENE OR NOT TO INTERVENE?In aftermath of such chilling horrors witnessed in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan, and amid divisions over preemptive strike on Iraq, this has been most passionately debated and thus far unresolved issue we face today. I hope to shed some light on this debate in context of transatlantic relations. Let me first begin by responding to claims of a rift in transatlantic relations due to divisions over Iraq. In order to counter symptoms of alienation in parts of US and in larger parts of Europe, I think it is important to take a step back in history and examine how Germany's, and with it Europe's, geostrategic position has evolved.Before 1989, Germany had been at heart of a global conflict for 50 years. It was therefore only logical for President Kennedy, as representative of a global power that was also a local protecting power in Berlin, to say that he was proud to be a citizen of Berlin. Now that Cold War is over, Germany is fortunately longer at center of a global conflict. The legendary German angst-a term that has also entered contemporary English-of waking up one day and hearing on radio that Russian tanks have crossed border is a thing of past. The expression the Fulda Gap, which described geographical gap in east in plains around Fulda and supposed point of attack for Warsaw Pact troops, was part of standard vocabulary of strategic training of NATO recruits. The centuries-old German question has been resolved by united Germany's membership in EU and NATO and consequently in a stable and peaceful European order. Both sides of Atlantic can and should rejoice that Germany is longer a source and cause of crisis. We must bear in mind, however, that these developments occur in a context in which strategic orientation of United States is moving away from a global conflict with Europe at its epicentre-which we perceived as a European or local German crisis-towards other regions (notably Middle East) and other issues (for example, fight against international terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction).Germany is now surrounded by neighbours that are friends, want to become friends, or at least give impression that they want to become friends. The fact that Germany longer faces an imminent threat has meant a greater independence in security and defence decision-making. History influences collective memory of every nation. Given profound impact of our past on German national consciousness and identity, slogan no more wars will be started on German soil has been etched into collective subconscious of everyone who grew up in postwar period, explaining dominant culture of military restraint in Germany, and explaining why our parliament must approve participation in every single mission. This is not always understood from a North American vantage point but is very logical from a German perspective. …

Germany's quest for a New EU industrial policy: Why it is failing

German Chancellor Schroeder has expressed publicly the desire for a fundamental revision of European Union industrial policy to conform more closely with the changing needs of the German political economy. What is the nature of this challenge? To what extent has the German government been able to alter EU industrial policy? And to the extent it has not been able to do so, why not, given the scope of Germany's power in Europe? Using the process of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) as a paradigm for assessing German power in Europe, I argue that the German quest to remake EU industrial policy is likely to fail for three reasons: (1) emulation: Germany has not been a model for EU industrial policy; (2) timing and sequencing: EU industrial policy became institutionally embedded from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when the influence of the German industrial model was waning; and (3) path dependence: for nearly two decades, the overriding goal of the European integration project has been to advance the single market. As this has taken place, policies toward industry have been constructed on the premise of ‘competitiveness through competition’, a notion at odds with the prevailing German conception of an industrial policy that differentiates between sectors according to conditions in global markets.

Anglophone Russian Studies and the German Question

Anglophone Russian Studies and the German Question In a recent contribution to H-Russia, Andreas Umland decried "an unfortunate lack of attention to the relevant German-language literature" in English-language studies. In a carefully phrased formulation, he noted that "the quality of German historical research on modern and contemporary Russia is often comparable and sometimes superior to that of the eminent Anglophone and Russian scholars." Umland also made the following observation: "An odd disparity between the Anglo- and Germanophone communities is, moreover, that as a rule, the German authors are (often, fully) aware of the English-language literature while not all Anglophone scholars read, use, and quote the relevant German studies."1 This complaint, while perhaps unusually public and direct, is hardly new. For decades, our German colleagues have patiently observed that important German studies in the field do not get the attention they deserve, in part because the Anglophone (and perhaps particularly, American) scholarly world does not place sufficient emphasis on language study. In the past half-decade, in a related but different case, a constant refrain in Kritika reviews of Russian books has been that many Russian scholars have not read or assimilated the relevant English-language or Western literature. Such criticisms, of course, are driven by the reasonable expectation that greater familiarity can alter conceptual frameworks and affect empirical conclusions. One perhaps should not also exclude a certain element of wounded pride--how could they not recognize or even know how important our studies are? The "German question" turns the tables on English-speaking specialists who skewer Russians for their inability sufficiently to incorporate "Western" literature. While the contexts (American and Russian academic and intellectual life) are very different, underlying both situations is the issue of linguistic competence. Just as there are obvious historical reasons why some Russian historians, especially those of the older generation, cannot read these lines, [End Page 455] there are also certain mitigating circumstances behind the disparity Umland notes. For example, knowledge of English in German society and the lower rungs of the German educational system is far easier to acquire than a good knowledge of German in the English-speaking world. Anglophone scholars are increasingly faced with the challenges of mastering Russian and, given the direction of historical investigation, other "Eurasian" languages while also paying attention to the principal European languages in which scholarship is conducted in the field--German and French, not to mention Italian. This "double burden" on the language front must be shouldered even as pressure to reduce the length of doctoral studies increases. As Umland implicitly recognizes, the case for the necessity of such labor is at least partly related to judgments about the quality of the work produced. It is perhaps unnecessary to belabor the point that the quality and breadth of the German research effort in Russian and Eurasian studies makes a high level of proficiency (and not just an ability to barely pass a reading test in graduate school) a necessity and not merely a luxury for Anglophone scholars. Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that wider German historical thought has had a strong influence on our thinking about European history in general, which, of course, includes Russia. Partly this is because major German works in European and modern German history are not infrequently translated into English (even though Anglophone academics in German studies presumably read German well). By the same token, Russian-language books on Russian history are translated into English far more than German studies, although Anglophone scholars are on shakier linguistic ground in the latter case. Why more German books in Russian and Eurasian history do not get translated, however, has much to do with the very different styles (and sizes) in which academic research is packaged, and their accessibility and attractiveness as they are transferred from a state-supported to a highly market-driven academic system. What begins as a discussion of linguistic capabilities quickly broadens into the large and complicated problem of academic institutions and cultures. When we launched Kritika in 2000, one of our goals for the journal was to review works in Russian and other languages rarely if ever reviewed in North American journals. By now it...

The New Jewish and German Questions and the Transatlantic Alliance

IN UNDERSTANDING THE CURRENT STATE of international affairs, including transatlantic relations, one needs to look at the role the continued existence of the question plays in relations between Germany, Europe, the United States, and Israel. In the larger international debates on civilizational conflict, terrorism, and cultural/religious rifts, the question seemed once again to be on the forefront of international focus and analysis. In the context of inter-European, European-American relations, as well as Europe's anticipated role in international affairs, one must recognize that the question is intrinsically tied to the question. The two questions constantly interact, impose on, and feed each other because of the strong currency of the Holocaust for world affairs. The nuances of this larger context have indeed captured the attention of many commentaries. Yet many overlook the strong ties between the Jewish and German questions and their consequences for a number of issues: the European role in the Middle East; European internal relations with its minorities and, in particular, its Islamic communities; transatlantic relations; the tie between anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism; and, the critical role of diasporas in world affairs, especially in terms of American Jewry as a guardian of and voice for Jewish kinship. The symbolism and historical memory attached to the reality of the existence of the Jewish community inside Germany today constitutes both a sixth dimension and a common link between the issues. It is our contention that the importance, stature, and meaning assigned to Jewish life in Germany by a variety of international actors has consequences for the conduct of international politics exemplified by the five dimensions mentioned above.

The New Jewish and German Questions and the Transatlantic Alliance

The New Jewish and German Questions and the Transatlantic Alliance Yossi Shain (bio) and Tanja Flanagan (bio) In understanding the current state of international affairs, including transatlantic relations, one needs to look at the role the continued existence of the "Jewish question" plays in relations between Germany, Europe, the United States, and Israel. In the larger international debates on civilizational conflict, terrorism, and cultural/religious rifts, the "Jewish question" seemed once again to be on the forefront of international focus and analysis. In the context of inter-European, European-American relations, as well as Europe's anticipated role in international affairs, one must recognize that the "Jewish question" is intrinsically tied to the "German question." The two questions constantly interact, impose on, and feed each other because of the strong currency of the Holocaust for world affairs. The nuances of this larger context have indeed captured the attention of many commentaries. Yet many overlook the strong ties between the Jewish and German questions and their consequences for a number of issues: the European role in the Middle East; European internal relations with its minorities and, in particular, its Islamic communities; transatlantic relations; the tie between anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism; and, the critical role of diasporas in world affairs, especially in terms of American Jewry as a guardian of and voice for Jewish kinship. The symbolism and historical memory attached to the reality of the existence of the Jewish community inside Germany today constitutes both a sixth dimension and a common link between the issues. It is our contention that the importance, stature, and meaning assigned to Jewish life in Germany by a variety of international actors has consequences for the conduct of international politics exemplified by the five dimensions mentioned above. [End Page 188] For all practical purposes the Jewish community in Germany is marginal to international affairs in numbers, political influence, and societal position; yet, through its continued existence in the "land of the perpetrators" alone, it has gained a symbolic worth that allows for its instrumentalization and involvement far beyond its actual relevance. Its symbolic value is not only limited to the German context, but extents to the European realm, relations between the West and the Islamic world, and the transatlantic alliance. Indeed, the Jewish community in Germany is important on a domestic (and, by extension, international) level precisely because of its vulnerability, because it is perceived as an abnormality attempting to normalize its place in German society and, by extension, impacting on Germany's and Europe's role in world affairs, in particular vis-à-vis the United States. I The last few years have thrown into sharp relief the fact that the "Jewish question" is still alive and relevant. Indeed, in many world conflicts and dilemmas, Israel and the Jews have been inserted and have become a focal point of controversy in civilizational issues and discord. The eruption of the "Jewish question" into the international arena is even more dramatic after a decade during which there was a growing sense that Jews had achieved a certain degree of normalization in both Israel and the Diaspora. In the 1990s, the years of the Oslo peace process and the concomitant Israeli drive for normalization, the premier question among Jews, inside and outside Israel, became the content of Jewish identity. Israeli Jews confronted mainly cleavages over growing trends of fundamentalist Jewish religious identity vs. the universal pressures of globalization. Internal debates over religious values and definitions, the challenges of peace, post-Zionism, relations between the homeland and the Diaspora, and so on, prevailed over traditional questions of security vis-à-vis the world at large. During the Oslo years, many Israelis and Diaspora Jews believed that comprehensive Middle East peace would alter fundamentally both Israel's Jewish character and the relations between the sovereign Jewish state and Jewish communities in the West. Peace would have enabled Israel to achieve a level of normalization that would have loosened the bonds of involvement with and responsibility for the Diaspora, while releasing the Diaspora from burdensome entanglements with Israeli security issues that had overshadowed their lives in their countries of domicile for over a generation. [End Page 189] Until very recently many observers...

Germany, International Justice and the Twentieth Century

Germany, International Justice and the Twentieth Century Paul Betts (bio) The turning of the millennium has predictably spurred fresh interest in reinterpreting the twentieth century as a whole. Recent years have witnessed a bountiful crop of academic surveys, mass-market picture books and television programs devoted to recalling the deeds and misdeeds of the last one hundred years. It then comes as no surprise that Germany often figures prominently in these new accounts. If nothing else, its responsibility for World War I, World War II and the Holocaust assures its villainous presence in most every retrospective on offer. That Germany alone experienced all of the modern forms of government in one compressed century—from constitutional monarchy, democratic socialism, fascism, Western liberalism to Soviet-style communism—has also made it a favorite object lesson about the so-called Age of Extremes. Moreover, the enduring international influence of Weimar culture, feminism and the women's movement, social democracy, post-1945 economic recovery, West German liberalism, environmental politics and most recently pacifism have also occasioned serious reconsideration of the contemporary relevance of the twentieth-century German past. Little wonder that several commentators have gone so far as to christen the "short twentieth century" between 1914 and 1989 as really the "German century," to the extent that German history is commonly held as emblematic of Europe's twentieth century more generally.1 Acknowledging Germany's central role in twentieth-century life has hardly made things easy for historians, however. In large measure the challenge has been to devise clear and compelling storylines to explain [End Page 45] the country's dramatically changing political fortunes, its transformation from warfare to welfare state, as well as its complex historical legacy in remaking German identities, European politics and even global history. A good amount of the tension stems from the difficulty of conjoining the first half of the century with the second. For it is one thing to say that Germany rests at the center of a ravaged century, having unleashed imperial wars of aggression, untold suffering and history's worst crimes against humanity. But it is quite another to say that all of this was merely the bloody prehistory to a fundamentally different and comparatively benign story of post-Nazi development. What then is the relationship between the violence and will to power fueling Germany's first half of the century with the experience of peace and (relative) plenty after? Is it simply an international relations morality tale of (again, relative) good conquering evil? Particularly unsettling for many is the prospect that one would be hard-pressed not to write twentieth-century German history with a happy ending. Even if few would subscribe to a Whiggish interpretation of German history, scholars are beginning to focus less on how Germany found its way into Nazism and World War II and more on how Germans got themselves out of them.2 To what extent each fledgling republic learned to become peaceful powers at the heart of a divided Europe is a growing research field for historians of late. Not that the apparently felicitous resolution of the once-nettlesome German Question is always easy to countenance: Niall Ferguson's rather alarmist view of a Reunified Germany that despite having lost two world wars has still managed to return as Europe's dominant force (whereas Britain, having been on the winning side of both wars, has been unable to arrest political decline and waning international influence) is one recent instance pointing up the anxieties associated with suddenly releasing the German past from its long-familiar Cold War confines.3 All the same, some might counter that putting Germany at the center of the larger twentieth century is misleading and unjustified. On the one hand, the United States and the Soviet Union were clearly more influential overall both in terms of geopolitical reach and ideological appeal. On the other, war, revolution and mass death—what Lenin rightly predicted would earmark the century—were hardly the privileged monopoly of Germans, or even Europeans for that matter. Viewed from a broader global perspective, Germany may not even be all that pivotal to what has [End Page 46] recently been called the "moral history...

A history of modern Germany since 1815

Germany has fascinated its own people as well as onlookers in the twentieth century because, unlike the history of other European states, its very being has been posed as a question. Why was there no unified German state until late in the nineteenth century? How did Germany become an industrial power? What responsibility does Germany bear for the two world wars? This accessible but authoritative study attempts to answer these and other fundamental questions by looking at the economic, social, political and cultural forces that have created modern Germany. The 1848 revolutions ushered in an age of Realism that saw rapid economic development and the creation of the Bismarckian empire. However, by the early twentieth century Germany's economic expansion and position as a world power began to fracture and growing internal, economic, social, and political contradictions led it, with disastrous results, into the First World War and the subsequent Weimar Republic. Hitler and the Nazi movement proposed a 'revolution' and the creation of a 'German style' and the Second World War/Holocaust is, arguably, the defining event of the twentieth century. The Americanization of the German economy and society, the 'economic miracle' and euphoria of reunification have in recent years rapidly given way to disillusionment as the major political parties have failed to master outstanding social and environmental problems. The 'German question' - Germany's place within the European Union - continues to be unanswered even within an EU where it is the dominant economic power.

Does Empire have Memory?

Does Empire have Memory?

Uprising in East Germany 1953: The Cold War, the German Question, and the First Major Upheaval behind the Iron Curtain

Contents Preface Introduction and Acknowledgements Acronyms and Abbreviations Chronology of Events Part One The Origins of the Crisis: Introduction, Documents No. 1-2 Part Two The Uprising: Introduction, Documents No. 25-7 Part Three The Aftermath: Implications for U.S. Policy: Introduction, Documents No. 73-9 Epilogue Main Actors Bibliography Index