National Socialist Policies Research Articles

Colonial Business in Postcolonial Germany: The Imperial Afterlives of C. Woermann, 1919–1945

Situating itself at the intersection of colonial history, global history and business history, this article highlights the overlooked history of German colonial companies post-First World War. It argues for an ‘imperial afterlife’ through continued German corporate interests in African markets, emphasising the economic dimension of imperialism. Using C. Woermann as an example, it shows how the company adapted to the post-First World War global order, underwent organisational changes, and merged with National Socialist policies in Eastern Europe after 1939, revealing the adaptability of imperial enterprises.

Großraum versus Lebensraum. Die Interdependenzen geographischer, juristischer und rassenbiologischer Ordnungsvorstellungen

Abstract. Between 1940 and 1943, Nazi jurists such as Reinhard Höhn and Werner Best worked on a political theory of racial-biological rule, which they contoured in a controversy with Carl Schmitt over the basic principles of international law and of a European Großraum. The focus of the contribution is on the entanglement and transformation of geographical, international legal and racial-biological relations between the „peoples“ living in a Großraum. On the one hand, the multiple change in discourse raises the fundamental question of the relevance of geographical knowledge (such as Ratzel's Lebensraumtheorie) for the National Socialist policy of conquest and extermination. At the same time, the focus is on the significant shift from a description of human community and state formation based on supposed natural laws to an action-oriented agenda of racial-biological homogenisation of Europe, which with brutal openness legitimised genocide as an option regarding the „Umvolkung“ that had already been practised in occupied Poland since 1939.

Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg? Legal, Political, and Moral Aspects of the Resettlement of German Population

Germany had started the Second World War in an intentional and conscious manner, obviously being aware that every action can have unpredictable and unwanted consequences. The Potsdam decisions were taken by the Great Powers after assuming supreme authority in Germany. They constituted a manifestation of the Allies’ rights and responsibilities. The territorial changes of Germany and the transfer of population were part of the general regulation of the effects of the Second World War. These decisions were not a simple matter of revenge. They must be perceived in a wider political perspective of European policy. The resettlement by Germany of ethnic Germans to the Reich or to the territories it occupied constituted an instrument of National Socialist policy. This German policy turned out in 1945 to be a tragic irony of fate. The resettlement decided in Potsdam must be perceived in the context of German legal responsibility for the war’s outbreak. The individual perception of the resettlement and individual guilt are different from the international responsibility of the state and from the political-historical responsibility of the nation. In our discussion we made the distinction between the individual and the collective aspect as well as between the legal and historical/political aspect. We deal with the guilt of individuals (criminal, political, moral), the international legal responsibility of states, and the political and historical responsibility of nations (societies). For the difficult process of understanding and reconciliation between Poles and Germans, the initiatives undertaken by some social circles, and especially the church, were of vital importance. The question of the resettlement became a theme of numerous publications in Poland after 1989. In the mid 1990s there was a vast debate in the media with the main question of: should we apologize for the resettlement? Tracing a line from wrongdoing/harm to unlawfulness is not easy. In 1945 the forcible transfer of the German population was an act that was not prohibited by international law. What is significant is that this transfer was not a means of war conduct. It did not apply to the time of a belligerent occupation, in terms of humanitarian law, but to a temporary, specific, international post-conflict administration. Maybe for some people Potsdam decisions will always be seen as an illegal action, for others as an expression of strict international legal responsibility, for some as a kind of imperfect justice, and still for others as an opening of a new opportunity for Europe.

Nazi Exhibition Design and Modernism

Exhibition histories of Germany’s National Socialist period (1933–1945) have been dominated by the notorious 1937 Degenerate Art propaganda show, ironically one of the greatest presentations of early twentieth-century European modernism ever mounted. Rightly well studied, Degenerate Art defamed the work of the avant-garde only to weaponize it as an indicator of society’s moral decay and an argument for the eradication of the regime’s constructed Others. Yet, as Michael Tymkiw demonstrates in Nazi Exhibition Design and Modernism, Degenerate Art was but one in a crowded and diverse field of exhibitions mounted throughout the duration of the regime. Exhibitions were a powerful propaganda medium of the state, akin to the better-studied media of film and print. Analysing a wide range of exhibitions that displayed art, industrial products and propaganda, Tymkiw demonstrates strong continuities with the very modernist movements that the regime purported to reject, even as these ‘artists, architects, and others made formal decisions that contributed to legitimizing and advancing National Socialist policies and ideas—at times indirectly or even unintentionally, but usually quite explicitly, and often by working with government organizations’ (p. 13). Based on extensive archival research and written in an accessible style, Nazi Exhibition Design and Modernism should be read by anyone interested in the history of exhibition design, as well as those seeking a more nuanced approach to fascist culture that moves beyond past paradigms that tend to assume a complete break with the freewheeling aesthetic experiments of the Weimar Republic. Indeed, one of the most troubling but important elements of this study is its revelation of just how much continuity existed between the years preceding 1933 and those that would follow.

Der Faustische Pakt: Goethe und die Goethe-Gesellschaft im Dritten Reich by W. Daniel Wilson

 Reviews chapter, on science fiction from the s into the twenty-first century, Esselborn continues to hold on to his artificial distinction. His selection, based on winners of the Kurd Lasswitz Prize, is limited to serious mind experiments written by serious men. e analysis of the works of Herbert Franke is thorough and sympathetic, while the discussion of recent novels by Dietmar Dath offers little more than short vignettes. German science fiction texts written by women (e.g. Juli Zeh, Karen Duve, or eresa Hannig) are conspicuous by their absence. Esselborn leaves us with tantalizing but underexplored observations about the nature of German science fiction: the Faustian myth of overreaching oneself in the pursuit of knowledge, and the repeated messages of warning against a belief in our ability to solve human problems through technology. Instead, and somewhat despondently, Esselborn concludes: ‘das spannende und phantasievolle Erzählen [hat] den Sieg über den technischen, wissenschalichen und utopischen Diskurs davongetragen’ (p. ). Esselborn has needlessly limited the scope of his enquiry. For where is it written that the German ‘novel of the future’ has to focus exclusively on technology and the ‘hard’ sciences? Just because Germans are known for their scientific and technological prowess, an internalized ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ marketing slogan that is as dubious as the Romantic image of ‘das Land der Dichter und Denker’? Why can we not include texts that are less concerned about technology yet still imagine possible futures, be they explorations of the ‘inner spaces’ of human psychology or the ‘so’ social fictions that envision alternative timelines and different ways of organizing society? Such caveats should not detract from what has been achieved here: a catalogue of German literature of oen outstanding quality that is routinely omitted in standard literary histories, and a valiant attempt to break down the still existent divide between the ‘two cultures’. U  L I C Der Faustische Pakt: Goethe und die Goethe-Gesellscha im Dritten Reich. By W. D W. Munich: dtv. .  pp. €. ISBN ––––. is book documents the career of the Goethe-Gesellscha, the scholarly society founded aer the death of Goethe’s last direct descendant in , during the period of National Socialist rule. Its broad aim is to challenge existing research, which, even where it has not been actively ‘apologetic’, has not, Daniel Wilson contends, been sufficiently comprehensive or robust to dispatch the myth, introduced by Hans Wahl in , that the Goethe-Gesellscha received no support from the NSDAP and was not subject to Gleichschaltung. Drawing on extensive archival research, Wilson debunks this myth with energy and determination. e study repeatedly refuses to understand the decision by senior figures in the Goethe-Gesellscha to conform with National Socialist policies as inevitable or necessary compromises. By this account, the line between capitulation in the face of pressure on the one MLR, .,   hand, and the active pursuit of favour on the other, was hazy, to say the least. Indeed, the former soon tipped into the latter, as the recurring motif of ‘over-hasty obedience’, used to describe the attitude of senior figures in the Society, makes plain. With the assertion that, by the mid-s, the Goethe-Gesellscha was moving ‘immer mehr und freiwillig auf das Regime zu’ (p. ), the central notion of the ‘Faustian pact’ comes into its own. e image of a collaboration which, though initially ambivalent, becomes increasingly tight, is very apt. Wilson exposes the role of the Goethe-Gesellscha in helping, for example, to create the ‘Trugbild eines weltoffenen Deutschlands’ on the occasion of the Berlin Olympics, so that foreign observers might be reassured that ‘normality’ still prevailed (p. ). Particularly egregious was the telephone conversation in November  between Anton Kippenberg and a representative at the National Socialist headquarters, during which strategies were discussed for covering up (above all from foreign members) the fact that Jewish members of the Society were to be actively excluded from then on (p. ). At the end of the study, Wilson acknowledges that those at the helm of the Goethe-Gesellscha were in a difficult position; but he is also clear in his judgement that the morally preferable course of action would have been for the Society...

<i>Wollt Ihr Den Totalen Krieg?</i> Political, Moral and Legal Aspects of the Resettlement of German Population After World War II

Germany had started the Second World War in an intentional and conscious manner, obviously being aware that every action can have unpredictable and unwanted consequences. The Potsdam decisions were taken by the Great Powers after assuming supreme authority in Germany. They constituted a manifestation of the Allies’ rights and responsibilities. The territorial changes of Germany and the transfer of population were part of the general regulation of the effects of the Second World War. These decisions were not a simple matter of revenge. They must be perceived in a wider political perspective of European policy. The resettlement by Germany of ethnic Germans to the Reich or to the territories it occupied constituted an instrument of National Socialist policy. This German policy turned out in 1945 to be a tragic irony of fate. The resettlement decided in Potsdam must be perceived in the context of German legal responsibility for the war’s outbreak. The individual perception of the resettlement and individual guilt are different from the international responsibility of the state and from the political-historical responsibility of the nation. In our discussion we made the distinction between the individual and the collective aspect as well as between the legal and historical/political aspect. We deal with the guilt of individuals (criminal, political, moral), the international legal responsibility of states, and the political and historical responsibility of nations (societies). For the difficult process of understanding and reconciliation between Poles and Germans, the initiatives undertaken by some social circles, and especially the church, were of vital importance. The question of the resettlement became a theme of numerous publications in Poland after 1989. In the mid 1990s there was a vast debate in the media with the main question of: should we apologize for the resettlement? Tracing a line from wrongdoing/harm to unlawfulness is not easy. In 1945 the forcible transfer of the German population was an act that was not prohibited by international law. What is significant is that this transfer was not a means of war conduct. It did not apply to the time of a belligerent occupation, in terms of humanitarian law, but to a temporary, specific, international post-conflict administration. Maybe for some people Potsdam decisions will always be seen as an illegal action, for others as an expression of strict international legal responsibility, for some as a kind of imperfect justice, and still for others as an opening of a new opportunity for Europe.

Niemiecka polityka okupacyjna na Litwie w latach 1941–1944. Podsumowanie

The article regards German Occupation Policy in Lithuania 1941–1944. The author integrates the context of war and warfare – with their needs for mobilization, stability, food and labor – into the picture. He clearly shows how each of these fields of politics was coined by antisemitism, which was central for all Nazi policies. The author integrates multiple perspectives of perpetrators, bystanders and victims as well, emphasizing specific Lithuanian political programs, which enabled certain Lithuanian political groups to join partly national-socialist policy.

The Munich Re: an internationally-oriented reinsurer in the Nazi era

This paper analyzes the National Socialist policy towards insurance companies. The puropse of this paper is to examine the impact of Nazi economic policies on the scope and the scale of the world biggest reinsurance company Munich Re. Contrary to prior assumptions, the substantial foreign business of Munich Re was not seriously affected by the Nazi policy of autarchy and the strict regulation of currency transfers.

From “Degenerate Art” To “Looted Art”: Developments and Consequences of National Socialist Cultural Policy

This article aims to explain the genesis, the dynamics, and some contradictions of National Socialist policy on art around 1937, the year of the notorious exhibition Degenerate Art. Adolf Hitler and his supporters did not invent the phrase degenerate art, but they adopted it, intensified it, and derived from it their destructive policies on art. “Looted art” was a last step and parallel consequence of developments that included the expulsion of the Jews from German society. Degenerate art and looted art should not be conflated, but they are to some degree interwoven. The article focuses on the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich and the extremes of a state-run campaign against modern art that was part of a broader attempt to impose the National Socialist conception of art by force.

Exploring the Legacy of Paul Althaus

Lutheran theologian Paul Althaus (1888–1966) was controversial in his own time and has proven controversial since. This is especially the case in some strands of anglophone scholarship, where he has been called “the most evil German theologian of the National Socialist era” due to his initial support for the regime. Yet as early as 1935 Althaus cautioned colleagues not to “believe the appearance” surrounding his political associations. This essay undertakes the historical-theological work necessary to investigate Althaus’ plea and to clear space for a fresh exploration of his legacy. Specifically, it aims to complicate a one-sided scholarly narrative by clarifying his relationship to the infamous Ansbacher Ratschlag , detailing his rejection of the pro-Nazi Deutsche Christen movement, and uncovering instances of his subversion of National Socialist policy. In light of these factors, strategic equivocation—rather than static complicity—should be the controlling motif for understanding Althaus’ relationship to National Socialism.

Die Auslegung des Wesens der deutschen Universität in der Rektoratsrede Martin Heideggers

Martin Heidegger solemnly assumed the rectorate of the University of Freiburg on 27 May 1933, delivering the famous inaugural address Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität. In the speech, he presented his programme for the revival of the University, which included the active involvement of students from whom he expected a threefold type of service – Wehrdienst, armed service, Arbeitsdienst, labour service, and Wissenschaftsdienst, knowledge service. Even though such concepts were not congruent with the main objectives of the NS-Bildungsprogramm, it reflected his involvement in the National Socialist policy of shaping the German University.

The Sexual Policies and Sexual Realities of the German Occupiers in Poland in the Second World War

AbstractSexual policies were a core component of the National Socialist racial policies, both in the Altreich (territories considered part of Nazi Germany before 1938), as well as in the occupied territories. In occupied Poland the Germans imposed a ‘prohibition of contact’ (Umgangsverbot) with the local Polish population, a restriction that covered both social as well as sexual encounters. But this model of absolute racial segregation was never truly implemented. This paper attempts to show that there existed a wide range of sexual contacts between the occupiers and the local inhabitants, with the focus here being on consensual and forced contacts (sexual violence) as seen against the backdrop of National Socialist policies. This article positions itself at the intersection of the history of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte), the history of sexuality and the gender history of the German occupation of Poland – perspectives that have rarely been used with regard to this region.

Anatomy in the Third Reich: Careers disrupted by National Socialist Policies

The history of anatomy in the Third Reich is still insufficiently explored, especially concerning its victims. These include not only the victims of the NS regime whose bodies were used in anatomical dissection, but also the Scholars of Anatomy whose careers were disrupted by NS policies. The spectrum of career disruption spanned from short-term suspension from work to death in concentration camps. In this study, the biographies of 462 Scholars of Anatomy were examined. 414 were members of the Anatomische Gesellschaft (Anatomical Society). Eighty-six persons (80 men, 6 women) were identified whose anatomical careers were disrupted by National Socialist policies. Sixty-two of them were members of the Anatomical Society. Their subsequent fate was dependent on the stage of the scholars' careers, their field of expertise, reason for dismissal (i.e. so-called Jewish descent or political dissent), nationality, country of residence or exile. Forty-three scholars emigrated, of whom 6 returned to positions in Germany and Austria after the war. Twenty-one remained in their home countries, of whom 17 were later reinstated in their positions. Twelve scholars were imprisoned, and 5 died in concentration camps. Five fates remain unresolved. As diverse as this group of scholars was, all of them had in common that a criminal regime forced them, being innocent of any crime, out of their position and work. Further work including the exploration of potential archival sources is necessary before a detailed and complete recounting of each individual life is possible.

Acetylcholine – From Vagusstoff to Cerebral Neurotransmitter

This paper is concerned with some of the events in physiology that followed Otto Loewi's description of a substance that he named “Vagusstoff”; events that led eventually to the establishment of acetylcholine as a transmitter substance in the nervous system. Much of the work achieving this recognition of acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter took place in the middle third of the twentieth century; a period that witnessed the dislocation of many people as a result of National Socialist policies in Germany, that country's expansionist conquests, and the Second World War. A few of the people who were obliged to emigrate from Europe played prominent roles in these discoveries. This paper describes some of their achievements and, in a way, pays tribute to them.

The Berlin Memorial for the murdered Sinti and Roma: Problems and points for discussion

In 2005, a Memorial was dedicated in Berlin for the Jews of Europe murdered under the National Socialist regime. Since the non-Jewish victims of National Socialism were excluded in the setting of such an emblem of memory, there were various calls for additional central memorials for other groups of those persecuted under Nazism—especially homosexuals (Berliner Morgenpost 2006) and the populations stigmatized as Gypsies. At the present time, a memorial for the murdered Gypsies would seem to have the best prospects for future success. Politicians have given their explicit consent, there is a site and artistic draft of a design. But the realization of the memorial was postponed year after year because no agreement could be reached on the wording of an inscription. The discussion hinged on several central points of dispute, which form the focus of the present essay: (1) Is the specific designation of the victims as Sinti and Roma appropriate for the National Socialist policy of annihilation, when a substantia...

"Wir beherrschen den pflanzlichen Organismus besser. . . ": Wissenschaftliche Pflanzenzüchtung in Deutschland 1889-1945 (review)

Reviewed by: “Wir beherrschen den pflanzlichen Organismus besser, . . .”: Wissenschaftliche Pflanzenzüchtung in Deutschland, 1889–1945 Staffan Müller-Wille (bio) “Wir beherrschen den pflanzlichen Organismus besser,...”: Wissenschaftliche Pflanzenzüchtung in Deutschland, 1889–1945. By Thomas Wieland . Munich: Deutsches Museum, 2004. Pp. 271. €29.80. Innovations in agricultural technology have had the most immediate consequences for modern societies. And yet the history of the agricultural sciences, if compared with the history of eugenics and medical genetics, is under-researched. The only exception is a small number of studies on the close relationship between the rise of Mendelism and its application in agricultural plant breeding in the United States and the United Kingdom. Thomas Wieland's book comprehensively covers the changing relationship among plant breeding, agricultural science, and genetics in Germany from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Third Reich. It draws on an impressive amount of rare published and archival sources. Following German academic customs, the book is a slightly edited version of Wieland's doctoral dissertation, approved in 2000 by the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. It thus misses some more recent German publications on the agricultural sciences during the Nazi period, notably the collective volume Autarkie und Ostexpansion (2002) edited by Susanne Heim. Wieland worked in parallel with Jonathan Harwood, whose Technology's Dilemma: Agricultural Colleges between Science and Practice in Germany, 1860–1934 (2005) explores the social history of German agricultural education. Both books complement each other, and in the case of Wieland's it is its epistemological focus—admirably substantiated by a [End Page 188] detailed reconstruction of the institutional, social, and political-economical history of German agricultural science—that makes it an indispensable contribution to the field. The author's central thesis is that plant breeding was characterized by two interrelated trends: an increasing scientification, and an increasing politicization. Scientification began in private-sector plant breeding. Members of a new class of "agrarian entrepreneurs" in Prussia, possessing large estates and some academic training, began to experiment with new methods, like pedigree selection, and successfully marketed new strains of cereals. Although some of them published extensively during the 1880s and 1890s, their concerns remained practical and their methods empirical. As an academic specialty, plant breeding was instituted by agricultural scientists, who succeeded in securing support from agricultural associations and state administrations, the latter especially in Württemberg and Bavaria where the dominance of small-scale farming precluded private initiatives. Establishing plant breeding as an object of scientific expertise had several consequences, which inadvertently prepared it for the reception of Mendelism. Plant breeding came to be seen as independent of plant cultivation, breeding methods as well as their products were subjected to centralized control and testing, and the plant organism was broken down into quantifiable traits. Wieland's fourth chapter explores how these developments fed into the reception of Mendelian theory. It provides fascinating reading, especially because Wieland resists the temptation either to conflate or to oppose science and technology. He emphasizes instead that the agricultural plant, turned into an object of scientific inquiry, functioned as a "boundary object" by separating academic from commercial plant breeding on the one hand, but establishing a connection between these two spheres as well (p. 136). It is within this tension that Wieland then explores the politicization of plant breeding. Academic plant breeders had always argued for the national rather than local importance of their subject. The short-lived epoch of German colonialism before World War I, the striving for national autarchy after the war, and the National Socialist policies of "Erzeugungsschlacht" and "Lebensraum" provided political agendas that were readily taken up by academic plant breeders to promote their science. In a detailed comparison of Theodor Roemer, professor for agricultural sciences in Halle, and Erwin Baur, the first director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research, Wieland shows that it was not a closeness to practical concerns, exemplified by Roemer, that resulted in the politicization of the subject. Quite the contrary, it was Baur and his school—which tried to emulate the successes of Thomas H. Morgan's Drosophila genetics by turning the snapdragon (Antirrhinum) into a model organism and experimenting with mutagens—that was most successful in...

Im Zeichen der Shoah: Aspekte der Dichtungs- und Sprachkrise bei Rose Ausländer und Nelly Sachs by Annette Jael Lehmann

518 Reviews Im Zeichen der Shoah: Aspekte der Dichtungs- und Sprachkrise bei Rose Ausldnder und Nelly Sachs. By Annette Jael Lehmann. (Stauffenburg Colloquium, 47) Tubingen: Stauffenburg. 1999. xxvi + 246pp. ?43.50. ISBN 3-86057-147-8 (pbk). This monograph, a Berlin doctoral thesis from the school of Eberhard Lammert with an input from California, sets out to compare and contrast two Jewish women poets in whose lives there are striking surface similarities and whose 'Jewishness' was thrust upon them by National Socialist policies and practices. A loss of roots and their reconstruction is a constant theme for the sheltered Berlin daughter saved by Sweden and also for the young sometime naturalized American, caught up, after her return 'home' to Romania in the 1930s, in the horrors ofthe Czernowitz ghetto ofthe 1940s. It is thereforenot surprising that this book starts by comparing the place of the Shoah in their writings and the legitimacy of the language of poetry: the crisis of the continuity of experience 'after Auschwitz' and the cultural potential of various 'holo? caust discourses' (pp. xxii-xxiii). The differingconflicts and contradictions for the two poets are dealt with under various topics, such as the destruction of meaning, the disintegration of reality, the loss of self, mysticism, and a loss of confidence in the power of language with the resulting struggle to (re-)establish a new tradition and to (re-)activate a language that could be adequate to cope with these concerns, which are primarily poetological in nature. This leads with Sachs to a retreat to quasireligious mystical roots for reorientation and with Auslander to the suppression and relinquishing of (a) tradition. The firstof the four major sections of the study, 'Lyrik nach Auschwitz und iiber die Shoah', is devoted to the poets' reaction to the traumatic events of the Shoah. The problems of silence and an inability to speak in the face of the horrors of eth? nic cleansing lead to the 'crisis of language'. The extensive second section, 'Krise von Transzendenz und Subjektivitat', presents the attempt to deal with this crisis. A search for a metaphysical Jewish identity on the way to coming to terms with death leads to an acceptance of philosophical theological elements adapted from Roman? ticism (notably Novalis) and the Kabbalah, although the theme of death produces echoes of many cultural and monotheistic religious traditions. In considering how far the medium of lyric poetry can itself produce a substitute for inadequate meta? physical structures, we are shown how Auslander is concerned with the making of a subjective self and the extent to which lyrical subjectivity, a poetic self, can be articulated at all in the face of the death camps. The poet wishes to exist despite the destruction and damage in history, but the fragilityand threat to the self exposes a crisis of subjectivity given the failure and loss of hitherto valid systems of meaning. Auslander achieves this through the, for her, important concept of metamorphosis, which can establish autonomous poetic spaces. Sachs tries to overcome the tensions of this situation through a transcendence rooted in a mythical and mystical framework of reference. Her key metaphor, 'Verwandlung', permits her to see her poetry as a kind of transcendence. In this context the use of images of light and stellar space, love and the absence of the loved ones, and topographical references is seen as an aid for establishing an, albeit ambivalent, poetic self-awareness. The third section, 'Poetik zwischen Mystik und Spiel. Nelly Sachs: Wortmystik und Sprachzweifel', highlights Sachs's deepening and radical ambivalence concern? ing the inadequacy of language, the limits and areas of silence, and the myriad ways this finds expression. This poetry lies within the boundaries of lamentation litera? ture, which italso stretches and extends (pp. 15,29). Evidence forsuch a fundamental questioning of language is not to be found so overtly in Auslander's ceuvre, nor does it reveal a recourse to a mystical or 'hieratic' tradition. Auslander attempts to root her poetry in her own existence, dreams, a linguistic playfulness, and self-referential MLRy 98.2, 2003 519 poetological roundedness, which often find expression in an aesthetically reduced form. The fourth section, 'Rose Auslander. Spiel- und Lebensversuche', deals par? ticularly...

Switzerland, National Socialist Policy and the Legacy of History

This article addresses, on the one hand, the relationship between National Socialism’s foreign and economic policies, and on the other, Swiss models of behaviour in dealing with Nazi Germany. It also examines post-war explanations of this period in Swiss memory and historiography. The first part of the article recapitulates some aspects of National Socialist policy and economic ideology, in particular the project of a ‘Germanised’ Europe and a racial ‘Greater Germany’. Antisemitism is an important factor in this context. The second part of the article then considers three features of the Swiss state of affairs in terms of how the National Socialist ideology of Lebensraum was perceived: military matters, economic issues and attitudes towards refugees. What emerges is that the state of knowledge concerning these three features varies greatly. Furthermore, after the war, the bearers of responsibility in Switzerland found themselves confronted by the Swiss relationship to National Socialist crimes, the nature...

Economic Relations between Nazi Germany and Franco's Spain, 1936-1945

During the course of the Spanish Civil War Nazi Germany's intervention on behalf of General Francisco Franco and his fellow insurgents became increasingly dominated by economic considerations. National Socialist policies vis-a-vis Nationalist Spain developed into a programme of large-scale economic exploitation. Under the command of Hermann Goring two companies were founded in Spain in late July 1936 (HISMA) and in Berlin in early October 1936 (ROWAK) to take control not only of National Socialist supply operations for Franco but also of the whole economic relationship between Nazi Germany and Nationalist Spain. During the course of the civil war HISMA/ROWAK managed to alter the trading pattern between Spain and Germany away from mainly fruit imports towards a substantial increase in raw material supplies. As British companies controlled most of the pyrite and iron ore mines of Spain and were therefore directly affected by Franco's redirection of ore exports to Germany, this development was challenged by the British government. The Nazi regime was only partly successful in reducing non-German economic influence in Spain. Aware of the temporary nature of Franco's dependence on German war materiel, Hermann Goring initiated the MONTANA project in 1937 to build up a German-owned mining empire in Spain. While the purchase of Spanish mines by HISMA/ROWAK was reluctantly accepted by Franco in late 1938, the Nazi regime was left with very little time to proceed even further with its economic colonization of Spain. The outbreak of war in September 1939 put an effective halt to German-Spanish economic relations until the defeat of France in summer 1940 led to a reopening of rail links to Spain. Subsequent - unsuccessful - negotiations on a Spanish entry into the war were dominated by economic considerations. From 1941 onwards an increasing trade and clearing imbalance developed in favour of Spain. Germany was desperate to import certain goods from Spain, particularly wolfram ore, a vital raw material for German armaments producers. Yet, the Allied economic warfare campaign in Spain led to huge price increases and during the period 1942 to 1944 the Nazi regime found itself forced to export growing amounts of war materiel to Spain. The Allied invasion of France in 1944 finally led to the effective end of German-Spanish trade relations, although both regimes tried to maintain them until Hitler's final defeat.

The Rise of the Nazis

The fall of Weimar the ideological basis of Nazism national socialist policy and propaganda the organization of the Nazi movement the formation of the Nazi constituency - the middle classes, the working classes.