German Soldiers Research Articles

On Masculinity and Male Sexuality in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Soldiers' Bath

This essay examines Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's painting Soldiers' Bath, the largest picture that Kirchner produced on the subject of military life after his brief experience as a recruit during the First World War. Through close visual analysis, iconographic comparison, consideration of the artist's social circle, and discussion of the widespread public interest in, and explosive scandals about, the sexuality of German soldiers, the essay questions the almost unanimous art‐historical understanding of the painting. Linking the principles of the social history of art with fundamental insights from queer theory, it argues that the painting is not only an expression of anti‐war criticism. While differing significantly from Kirchner's many other depictions of bathers, this ambitious and ambivalent painting, which is beautifully composed but not without traces of anxiety, is also seen as a symptom of a crisis of gender and sexuality that the painter seems to have experienced at that time.

Analyzing of a historical textbook exemplary Turkish for special purpose

Türkler ve Almanlar arasında 18. yüzyılda başlayan askerî ilişkiler I. Dünya Savaşı’yla doruk noktasına ulaşmıştır. Bu süreçte birçok Alman askerî ülkemiz topraklarında bulunmuştur. Türkçenin konuşulduğu topraklar üzerinde bulunan Alman askerlerinin hem Türk halkı ile iletişim kurabilmelerini hem de meslekleriyle ilgili konuşmaları yürütebilmelerini sağlamak gereklilik haline gelmiştir. Bu amaçla Almanlar için yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenimi ve öğretimine yönelik birçok ders kitabı yazılmıştır. Bu ders kitaplarından birisi olan Wely Bey Bolland’ın yazdığı ve 1917 yılında Almanya’da Wilhelm Violett yayınevi tarafından basılan “Türkisch für Offiziere und Mannschaften” başlıklı eser, bu çalışmanın inceleme konusudur. Nitel araştırma yaklaşımının benimsendiği bu çalışmada veriler doküman incelemesi yoluyla toplanmıştır. Elde edilen veriler içerik analizine tabi tutularak eserin genel yapısı ortaya çıkarılmış ve temalar oluşturulmuştur. Temalar; hedef kitle, eserin amacı, eserin genel yapısı, dil öğretim metodu, konular ve sözlük olmak üzere altı başlıktan oluşmaktadır. Temalar öncelikle betimlenmiş daha sonra örneklendirilmiş ve yorumlanmıştır. Araştırma sonuçları eserin, askerler için özel amaçlı Türkçe öğrenimi için hazırlanan bir konuşma kılavuzu olduğunu, içeriğinin askerlerin hem mesleki hem de sosyal yaşamlarında karşılaşabilecekleri iletişim durumlarına uygun olarak seçildiğini ve günlük konuşma dilini öğretmeyi hedeflediğini ortaya koymaktadır.

The Erkennungsmarke: the humanitarian duty to identify fallen German soldiers 1866-1918

ABSTRACT Germany was the first Western nation to formally implement an object designed to assist with the identification of wounded and dead soldiers, introducing the Rekognitionmarke in 1869 following the trial of an identity disc system in 1866. A new design, the Erkennungsmarke, was introduced in 1878, shaping the systems utilized in later wars. The German experience of wearing identifying objects would later influence the identification systems of other European armies, including France and Britain; ultimately resulting in the addition of new articles within the 1906 Geneva Convention to reflect changing attitudes and expectations towards those who died fighting for their country. The Erkennungsmarke presented the possibility of identification, even where immediate burial was not possible, thus facilitating the development of German military burial cultures. This paper explores the development and use of Erkennungsmarken between 1866–1918, information which can assist with the identification of German soldiers recovered during archaeological works.

Spaces of encounter: relations between the occupier and the occupied in Norway during the Second World War

ABSTRACT With Nazi Germany’s aggressive expansion, millions of Europeans were forced under German rule. Although the worlds of the occupier and the occupied overlapped in multiple ways, the everyday interactions between members of opposing sides of the conflict have received little scholarly attention. Using German-occupied Norway as a case study, this article explores the manifold relations between German soldiers and civilians during the Second World War. It argues that the asymmetry of power was not stable but constantly shifting as a result of these encounters. Based on an analysis of German military court records, the article identifies crimes and spaces as nodes where these worlds converged. First, using crimes as a lens, it explores how people on both sides responded to the constraints and opportunities the occupation produced. Secondly, it illustrates how space became the real and symbolic battleground in the struggle for power, and how the spatial norms inscribed in public, private and work spaces shaped these interactions. Since concepts of ‘resistance’ and ‘collaboration’ are inadequate to make sense of the complex reality of occupation, the article proposes the categories of conflict, cooperation and solidarity to analyse the diverse social relations between the occupier and the occupied.

Crimes of the Wehrmacht: A Re-evaluation

Of the up to eighteen million men who served in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, ten million were deployed at one time or another between 1941 and 1944 in the conflict against the Soviet Union, a theatre of widespread and sustained mass violence. In order to determine how extensive complicity in Nazi crimes was among the mass of the regular German soldiers, it is necessary first of all to define what constitutes a criminal undertaking. The sheer brutality of the German conduct of war and occupation in the Soviet Union has overshadowed many activities that would otherwise be rightly held up as criminal acts.

Western Prisoners of War Tried by Court Martial for Insults to the Führer and Criticism of Nazi Germany

The fact that the Geneva Convention of 1929 placed prisoners of war (POWs) under the laws in effect in the army of the detaining state meant that western POWs in Nazi Germany were exposed to the extremely repressive Nazi wartime legislation. Hundreds of western POWs had to appear in front of German court martials as a result of a joke on Hitler, a critical comment on the conditions of captivity or the behavior of German soldiers. They were judged under the Nazi anti-subversion laws, which led to thousands of death sentences for civilians and German soldiers (although none for a western POW). Even private remarks in a letter to family could lead to several years in military prison. German judicial practice against POWs became more repressive as cases multiplied and as the judges and civilian witnesses became more nervous toward the end of the war, leading to rapid and harsh judgments based on dubious evidence and frivolous denunciations. The court martials sometimes reflected the attitudes and subversive thoughts of German witnesses. The fact that the sentences were legal according to the Geneva Convention of 1929 prompted the drafters of the 1949 Geneva Convention to revise the provisions for trials of POWs.

Review of The War in Their Minds: German Soldiers and Their Violent Pasts in West Germany by Svenja Goltermann

No abstract available.

Why they fought: the initial motivations of German American soldiers who fought for the Union in the American Civil War

ABSTRACTGerman immigrants who came to the American North prior to 1861 volunteered en masse once the Civil War began, and they became the largest group of foreign fighters in the Union Army during the war. The initial motivations of German immigrant soldiers in the Union Army have been misunderstood by many historians who look at Germans as Hessian mercenaries in the Union ranks – who fought purely for money –and historians who focus too heavily on the failed 1848 German Revolution as the basis of German immigrant involvement in the war. Both answers are correct to some degree, but neither fully explains the initial motivations of 190,000 German immigrants and 56,000 German Americans who volunteered to fight for the Union. This paper asks the question: what were the initial motivations of German immigrants who fought for the Union? The answer is much more complex than any one historian has presented prior, and only by exploring the full range of their initial motivations can we understand their sustained motivations for remaining in the Union Army.To demonstrate its argument, the paper utilizes sources ranging from English- and translated German to English-language newspapers, personal letters, soldiers’ memoir s and manuscripts in American archives. The paper traces German soldiers in the army from 1861 through the entirety of the war, and it explores the significance of their reenlistment in 1864. It concludes that German immigrant soldiers’ commitment to the Union was rooted in numerous intertwined situations that existed in the years prior to and during the American Civil War, especially their desire for liberty and a new home.

‘So many brutes and…So many decent guys’: nunnally johnson and the making of the moon is down (1943)

This article offers a study of writer-producer Nunnally Johnson’s film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel and play The Moon is Down. It recounts how Steinbeck’s original works had met with a large amount of critical disapproval on account of his sympathetic portrayal of Nazi-like forces of occupation, and examines the steps that Johnson took to ensure the film avoided the same fate. It shows how Johnson turned Steinbeck’s original non-specific European setting into a real-world Norwegian setting, and reveals the ways in which he toughened up the portrayal of the German soldiers in the film while at the same time retaining considerable vestiges of Steinbeck’s original conception. The article also looks at the extent to which the Production Code Administration and the Office of War Information had a bearing on the final cut of the film, and considers the impact of the film upon its release in 1943, and the place it holds within the war-film genre.

Mass shootings in Kragujevac during and after World War II (1941-1945). Testimonies and memorization

From the beginning of World War II, mass and continuous shootings were carried out in Kragujevac, a city in central Serbia. First, German soldiers executed over 2,790 civilians in Šumarice on October 1941. Later, in November of the same year, the German authorities formed the Metino Brdo camp, where partisan fighters and civilians were tortured, killed, and deported until June of 1942. Then, the German soldiers murdered hundreds of civilians in retaliation near the Military Technical Institute in Kapislana, from the autumn of 1942 until the autumn of 1943. After the liberation of Serbia in the autumn of 1944, the Communist authorities started with executions of ideological and political enemies on Metino Brdo and Kapislana. In this article, we will attempt to perceive this issue from a new angle, by analyzing archival materials, testimonies and memories of survivors, recent relevant literature, and relying on other disciplines close to historiography.

Fond Recollections of Captivity: An Austrian POW in Wales by Horst Jarka

Reviewed by: Fond Recollections of Captivity: An Austrian POW in Wales by Horst Jarka Günter Bischof Horst Jarka, Fond Recollections of Captivity: An Austrian POW in Wales. Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture, and Language. Riverside: Ariadne Press & Missoula: University of Montana Press, 2017. 206 pp. It is rare that an autobiographical account of one's years as a German prisoner of war (POW) after World War II would feature "fond" in the title. POW memoirs usually reflect on the extremity of the human condition, say wasting one's life away for years in a Soviet POW camp (the last POWs returned [End Page 128] from the Soviet Union in 1956!), working as a slave laborer in dangerous mines and being fed minimal diets, suffering from various diseases. It differed a lot where and when a German soldier fell into captivity during World War II. Given the nature of Nazi warfare in the East, not surprisingly being a POW in Soviet or Yugoslav camps happened to be the worst fate that could befall a Wehrmacht soldier; knowing that the Russians were not abiding by the Geneva Convention, they dreaded the prospect of falling into "Russian hands" (10). Chances for surviving captivity in the West were much better. To be a POW in American camps in the United States was every German soldier's dream (my father was a POW for one year in Camp Carson, Colorado, and also had some fond memories of "America"). Treatment was fair in Canada and England. POWs in France and Belgium were exploited as a form of "slave labor" reparation; some were kept until 1948. So what was Jarka so "fond of" as a POW in Great Britain? Drafted in the fall of 1943 after graduation from Gymnasium and trained in the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia," he was lucky to be sent to the Western front. He saw his first action and experienced the chaos of war in Northern France. Taken prisoner by the British in the Aachen area in October 1944 ("Vee Vant to Surrender," 16), he was transferred through Belgian holding camps to England in November 1944. His first encounter with the English was positive—a good meal, a warm bath, disinfection, and interrogation (25). Shipped through English camps in Sheffield and Denham Park, he ended up with a cushy job in Wales at Ruperra Castle in a mobile field bakery in July 1945, serving as an interpreter and clerk. Supervision was loose as he went out on walks enjoying nature and meeting local people. He chanced into meeting "Fiona," who became a quasi-girlfriend. Then he met the Rees ("Uncle William" and his sister and his niece Vivian). The Rees took him "to their hearts" (83) and showed him warm hospitality at their house during regular visits. Reading literature (Faust, Eichendorff) and poetry (Hölderlin) constituted Jarka's mental survival strategy (reading poetry "give[s] me strength," 30). He discussed poetry with the Reeses, who introduced Jarka to poets from Wales—he ended up writing a dissertation on Alun Lewis as a student of English and German at the University of Vienna after his return. Transferred to a series of other English POW camps in the summer of 1946 in Stratford-on-Avon, Sudbury, Colchester, and Aylsham, Jarka experienced the ennui of prisoner "behind barbed wire." What kept him going were letters to and from his mother and former [End Page 129] girlfriend in Austria and a lively correspondence with the Reeses (Uncle William addressed him as "Our Dear John," 163), a correspondence that continued after Jarka's return to Austria late in 1946. "Uncle William" had written letters to local authorities and MPs, asking them why the German POWs were not being repatriated. English public opinion was divided on quick repatriation. Some felt the POWs' only "crime was being loyal to their own country" (116). What was Jarka's "own country"? He does take a lively interest in following the news from Austria—the liberation of Vienna, and the formation of the Provisional Renner Government (34). Forced to watch a film on Nazi KZs "with piles of skeletons, corpses," he does not believe it: "German soldiers don't do that...

Burzliwe posiedzenie sądu pokoju w Sztabinie na tle okupacji Suwalszczyzny przez Niemców w latach 1915–1919

The occupation of the Suwałki Region by the Germans in years 1915-1919 is an often forgotten period in the history of this region. It is all the more amazing that the activities of the occupation forces were aimed at plunder and repression of the local population. In those years, the Polish-Lithuanian conflict also intensified, which resulted in the outbreak of the Sejny Uprising, which was victorious for Poles. When Warsaw, Kraków, or Poznań exulted with regaining their independence - terror was still going on in the Suwałki region. That is why I wrote this article, to revive the memory of those events. The impulse to write the text was that I became acquainted with the minutes of the session of the Peace Court in Sztabin, which was held on 11th June 1919. On that day, German soldiers entered the building where the court was sitting. They started beating the people who were there and they almost took Judge Leopold Zatryb's life. The angry soldiers first wanted to stab him with a bayonet and then smash the judge's head with a metal crucifix. Only the reaction of the German officer prevented more bloodshed. The mentioned minutes is the most important source that I have used. It is in the collection of the State Archives in Suwałki, along with the rest of the documents relating to the activities of German soldiers. Moreover, the memories of Jakób Rółkowski - the parish priest in Sztabin, who was persecuted by the Occupant, were also very helpful. I also used the works of, among others, G. Ryżewski and S. Buchowski.

Gambling under the Swastika: Casinos, Horse Racing, Lotteries, and Other Forms of Betting in Nazi Germany by Robert M. Jarvis

Reviewed by: Gambling under the Swastika: Casinos, Horse Racing, Lotteries, and Other Forms of Betting in Nazi Germany by Robert M. Jarvis William Greer Gambling under the Swastika: Casinos, Horse Racing, Lotteries, and Other Forms of Betting in Nazi Germany. By Robert M. Jarvis. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2019. Pp. 208. Cloth $49.00. ISBN 978-1531012526. Robert M. Jarvis, a law professor from Nova Southeastern University, asserts in this brief monograph that "a comprehensive treatment of gambling in Nazi Germany does not appear to exist" (3). Gambling under the Swastika is a first step in this direction. With no explicit thesis or engagement with historiography, Jarvis sets out to describe the betting laws and practices of the Third Reich. His findings are as diverse as they are intriguing. In sum, the Nazis did not have a coherent policy toward gambling, and often seemed to tailor the practice to the specific needs of other policies of the regime. Jarvis begins with an overview of German gambling practices before the Nazi seizure of power. Both the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic frowned on gambling, though the latter allowed betting at horse tracks and on riverboats. With the 1933 Spielbankengesetz, the Nazis lifted previous bans on casinos, with an eye toward generating tax revenue for social programs. The largest and most successful casino under the Nazis was located in Baden-Baden, and it attracted clientele from around the world before the start of the war. This was a boon for the regime, which eventually made it illegal to take winnings out of the country. Jarvis also points out that Jews were banned from casinos in 1937. Baden-Baden remained open until August of 1944, following the regime's second declaration of "total war." As for other forms of betting, Nazi policy was not consistent. Dog racing, for instance, was never allowed, though the reasoning for this measure is not made clear. Horse racing, on the other hand, was permitted. Yet, sports betting was also [End Page 193] illegal. Lotteries comprised the largest and most common gambling venture in the Third Reich, because they were directly tied to generating revenue for social welfare programs such as Winterhilfswerk. Nonetheless, the regime had concerns about compulsive gambling, which was addressed in two ways. Compulsive gambling was possibly grounds for forced sterilization, though Jarvis is only tentative on this point. There was also the possibility that compulsive gamblers could be branded as "asocial," and possibly placed in a concentration camp. More inconsistencies in Nazi policy appear as Jarvis investigates gambling in occupied territories. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, authorities forbade the operation of casinos in both places. Again, the reasons for this are unclear, and Jarvis would have helped readers had he at least speculated on this matter. Gambling in Poland, however, was promoted for specific reasons. Authorities permitted a casino to operate in Danzig from the same financial motives as prevailed in Baden-Baden. Casinos were allowed to operate in the General Government because Nazi authorities hoped it would weaken Poles' will to fight. Consequently, casinos in the General Government became fertile grounds for informants for the Polish Home Army. In the Netherlands, the Nazis initiated a lottery similar to the one that promoted Winterhilfswerk but it was not very popular among Dutch civilians. The remainder of the book covers gambling among German soldiers, which Jarvis briefly acknowledges, but also within the vast system of Nazi camps. Though there is little evidence, Jarvis claims that wagering did occur inside concentration camps. Prisoners were strictly prohibited from gambling, but a ghoulish practice of guards betting on inmates also persisted. On the other hand, the Nazis promoted gambling inside the Warsaw ghetto because they hoped that such activities would "present Jews in an unfavorable light" (110). In one of the more questionable sections of the book, Jarvis gives a lengthy description of an episode of the popular American sitcom of the 1960s, Hogan's Heroes, as evidence of gambling in Allied POW camps. In the final chapter, Jarvis offers a brief history of German gambling in the immediate postwar period. Succinctly put, the Allied Control Council did not forbid gambling and the practice flourished...

The Ethics of Seeing: Photography and Twentieth-Century German History ed. by Jennifer Evans, Paul Betts, and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann

Reviewed by: The Ethics of Seeing: Photography and Twentieth-Century German History ed. by Jennifer Evans, Paul Betts, and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann Teresa Walch The Ethics of Seeing: Photography and Twentieth-Century German History. Edited by Jennifer Evans, Paul Betts, and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann. New York: Berghahn, 2018. Pp. 306. Cloth $149.00. ISBN 978-1785337284. Practitioners of visual history have shown that photographs can do much more than illustrate previously formulated arguments. An outpouring of recent monographs, collected volumes, and public exhibitions have begun exploring photography's agency in modern history, particularly during World War II and the Holocaust. The collection of essays in The Ethics of Seeing moves beyond war and dictatorship to probe not only how documentary photography recorded German history throughout the twentieth century, but also how it engendered new modes of seeing, thus actively shaping history as well. Introductory chapters by Jennifer Evans and Elizabeth Edwards provide critical historiographical, theoretical, and methodological anchors for the volume. When viewed not as mere evidence but as a multilayered medium, they argue, photography has the potential to illuminate multiple renderings of the past and radically reshape the discipline of history. The subsequent case studies investigate photography as an ethical practice in twentieth-century Germany. They reveal how the selective decisions [End Page 413] of photographers and publishers—from subject choice, to staging and composition, presentation (scale, cropping, montaging, omission), and contextualization (especially via captioning)—consciously or unconsciously fostered conventional or alternative "ways of seeing." These contributions underscore the inherent fluidity of photography and its amenability to myriad interpretations across time and space. Germany's authoritarian regimes often deliberately employed amateur and professional photography to bolster official narratives. Claudia Siebrecht examines how Else Sonnenberg's personal photographs reinforced imperial Germany's claims of a civilizing mission in South West Africa. Elizabeth Harvey illustrates how photos invoking themes of Heimat, community, and a shared racial lineage helped justify the resettlement of more than half a million ethnic Germans during World War II. Julia Torrie describes how photos taken by German soldiers stationed in France blended out the violent aspects of German occupation and helped the men view themselves as harmless guests or tourists rather than aggressors. The authors are careful to note that, despite their ostensible alignment with state policies, these photos were open to alternative readings that might have provoked critical, even humanitarian responses. At other times, photography advanced subversive agendas that challenged official visual practices. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) aimed to harness photography to train a new "socialist self," and yet Sarah E. James demonstrates how it accommodated Edmund Kesting's 1950s abstract portraits. Inconsistencies in the GDR's photographic policies endured into the 1970s and 1980s, as evidenced by Candice M. Hamelin's discussion of Gundula Schulze Eldowy's photos of buildings in disrepair and the elderly and infirm. The camera also became a weapon in the hands of oppressed GDR citizens. Analyzing photographs published in Wolfgang Schneider's Leipziger Demontagebuch, Paul Betts explains how photos taken by protestors in autumn 1989 documented police aggression in Leipzig and recorded the increasing confidence and growing strength of the mass demonstrations. West German citizens also used subversive photography for personal and political ends. Jennifer Evans examines the subjectivities of Herbert Tobias's erotic photographs of rent boys, noting that they constituted a bold act of self-expression in the morally normative postwar era. Anna Ross shows how photographs taken by residents and activists in Berlin-Kreuzberg helped strengthen a collective Kiez identity and forge a collective response to the municipality's disruptive practices of reurbanization in the 1970s and 1980s. Concerted efforts to harness photography for humanitarian purposes featured in each of Germany's postwar eras. Annelie Ramsbrock shows how Ernst Friedrich's 1924 book Krieg dem Kriege! successfully recontextualized portraits of "facially wounded" World War I veterans, initially published in scientific journals to showcase advancements in reconstructive surgery, to posit a searing, pacifist message that resonates even today. Photos played an equally important role in the post-1945 era, argues [End Page 414] Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann. Abandoning initial triumphalist and vengeful images, British and American photographers began capturing scenes of German suffering and resilience that helped cultivate...

The Visual Side of Privacy: State-Incriminating, Coproduced Archives

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt illustrates the “lesser of two evils” principle by relating the peculiar story of a state archive of photographs of women in swimwear. During the Nazi period, she writes, to receive a marriage license Czech women applying to marry German soldiers were required to furnish a photograph of themselves dressed in swimwear. Taking its cue from this historic example, this study traces the evolution of a phenomenon the author describes as state-incriminating, coproduced archives, visual archives that are coproduced by representatives of the legal and political order in the name of law, and by the subjects who are obliged to participate in their creation: staging and documenting their own performance to become or remain lawful citizens. Examining this kind of visual surveillance and the “extraterritorial” quality of the produced images, a line is drawn to privacy infringement in today’s professed democracies.

Нямецкія салдаты ва ўспамінах беларускіх вяскоўцаў пра перыяд нацысцкай акупацыі (1941-1944 гг.)

W białoruskiej historiografii kwestia postaw ludności zamieszkującej tereny Białorusi wobec niemieckiej okupacji w czasie II wojny światowej nie została dotąd wystarczająco zbadana, co zadecydowało o wyborze tematu niniejszego artykułu. Celem publikacji był opis stosunku Białorusinów wobec żołnierzy hitlerowskich w latach 1941–1944 na podstawie relacji ustnych mieszkańców wybranych wsi północnej Białorusi. Badanie wykazało, że w analizowanym okresie indywidualne oceny autochtonów były zróżnicowane i – w zależności od sytuacji – obejmowały zarówno charakterystyki negatywne („nieludzki wróg”), jak i pozytywne („dobry nieznajomy”). Z kolei w świadomości zbiorowej utrwalił się negatywny wizerunek okupanta, wywołujący w miejscowej ludności poczucie niepewności, lęku i strachu. Wobec powszechnego terroru stosunek żołnierzy Wermachtu do lokalnej ludności jedynie sporadycznie oceniany był jako humanitarny.

German Military Invasion of Ukraine: Final Period of Phase Three (Late March — Early May 1918)

This article is to complete a series of publications aimed to discuss German military operations in Ukraine (from March to early May 1918). This offensive was aimed to expel Bolsheviks from Ukraine and to restore Central Council to power in Kyiv in accordance with the provisions of Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty. At the same time, Germany desperately needed Ukrainian food and raw materials to continue war on the Western front. Modern Ukrainian historiography tends to consider these events using the data obtained either from Soviet publications, where reliable data were substituted by ideological dogmas, or from memoirs, which too often proved to be misleading. Therefore, operations of the German Army were considered as a process perfectly executed according to a single predesigned plan. However, there were several distinctive phases determined by German High Command as political and military goals. Thus, it is important to explore the order of battle of German and Austro-Hungarian forces in Ukraine, and to consider relevant aspects of military operations aimed to expel Bolsheviks from the territory of Ukrainian People’s Republic. Valuable archival data were provided by recent studies of the Austrian scholars V. Dornik and P. Lib, as well as the Polish researcher V. Mȩdrzecki. This article is discussing the final period of Phase Three of the German military operations in Ukraine. 19 German divisions were engaged into the offensive in Donbas, Crimea, and the Black Sea coast. They established control over the entire Ukraine (excluding Crimea, with Ukrainian units forced to abandon the peninsula). The offensive ended in Rostov-on-Don with Germans trying to help Don Cossacks in opposition to Bolsheviks. Finally, hostilities ended in late May. The author provides the analysis of the operation made by the German High Command, as well as evaluated losses of German soldiers, which proved to be considerably lower than those claimed by the Soviet historiography.At that time, German occupation provided the only real chance to preserve Ukrainian statehood, however by making Ukraine a vassal to Germany.

The Jew and the “Jerrybag”: The Lives of Hedwig Bercu and Dorothea Weber (née Le Brocq)

Abstract Locals of the Channel Islands have long perceived women who had relationships with soldiers during the German occupation as the lowest form of collaborator. The author challenges this perception through the life stories of two women: a Romanian Jew in hiding and the woman who sheltered her for the last eighteen months of the occupation. Both were in relationships with German soldiers. The families of these two women met for the first time at a recent commemoration in Jersey. The following examines the long-term impact of their “illicit” relationships on the lives of these women, and how they complicate narrow representations of the alleged “Jerrybag.”

Benjamin Ziemann. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War: Killing, Dying, Surviving.

Historians have only placed violence at the heart of the history of World War I in the last thirty years, especially as they have focused on ordinary soldiers. Benjamin Ziemann is a distinguished contributor to this field, with earlier books on soldiers from rural Bavaria and veterans who supported the Weimar Republic. He develops both these strands in Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War: Killing, Dying, Surviving, a study of what violence meant to German soldiers. Eschewing grand theory and single explanations, he discusses in depth particular diaries, letters, and fiction written by soldiers while engaging with key academic debates. In three parts, he looks first at how soldiers both talked about and engaged in the physical force inflicted on the enemy’s body, which, he rightly observes, constitutes the heart of violence in war. He then considers how soldiers escaped or refused such violence in ways ranging from surrender to desertion, and how this contributed to the collapse of the German Army in 1918. Finally, he looks at several texts by pacifist veterans in the 1920s in order to challenge received ideas that the war “brutalized” Weimar Germany, or that most veterans were nationalists.

Controlling Sex in Captivity: Pows and Sexual Desire in the United States during the Second World War

Controlling Sex in Captivity examines the sexual activities of Axis powers prisoners of war (Pows) during World War II and the efforts of the U.S. military to control them. Among an increasing number of works on the military and sex, this book is unique and important in three ways. First, because of its subject: unlike most other works that deal with victorious U.S. servicemen in conquered countries such as Germany and Japan, this book is about the sexual activities of defeated servicemen in the conqueror country of the United States. Second, the author explores homosexual activities as well as heterosexual. Third, the author makes full use of German and English primary and secondary sources. The bilingual sources enrich the book's content and perspective, illustrating the desirability of multilingual sources in today's increasing international and transnational historical research. The book starts by describing Americans' favorable reactions to receiving “good looking” Germans who “conformed to the widely publicized wartime ideal of Anglo-Saxon masculinity” and “docile” unthreatening Italians, which overcame hostile feelings there might be toward enemy soldiers (p. 38). Indeed, fraternization between American women and Axis Pows in camp towns was ubiquitous and impossible to control. The author points to race and the presence of immigrant communities as factors that facilitated fraternization of Americans with Pows. Both German and Italian soldiers were white, and many Americans shared common ancestry with them. There were few Japanese Pows, but fraternization did not occur because they were not white. Enemy German and Italian Pows were often treated better by local white citizens than were African American servicemen who were fighting for their country. The author maintains that this racism was keenly felt by African Americans and played a role in the subsequent rise of the civil rights movement.