Nazi Germany Research Articles

Ambivalent meanings of the past: state critique and memory politics in 1980s (pro-)Refugee struggles in the Federal Republic of Germany

ABSTRACT Focusing on the largely forgotten early period of (pro-)Refugee activism in the 1980s West-Germany and the role of memory politics therein, this article explores the ambiguity in critiquing the nation-state. Drawing on original data collected in seven social movement archives in Germany, different ways in which German Nazism and the Holocaust are invoked to frame and critique the present (West-)German nation-state and its migration and asylum regime are scrutinised. Three ways in which Nazism and the Holocaust were invoked and discussed by Refugee activists and their supporters are differentiated: the past as ‘reminder and warning for the present’, the past as ‘discrediting and incriminating the present’, and explicit attempts not to draw analogies between the past and the present. Overall, the article makes two key contributions. First, the article makes a historical and empirical contribution as the focus on the 1980s sheds light on a period that has so far been largely ignored when it comes to the study of (pro-)Refugee activism. By tracing different ways in which memory politics has informed and been integral to Refugee activism and support, the article makes, second, an innovative contribution to studying the nexus of (forced) migration, national identity, and memory politics.

Dietrich Bonhoeffers „religionslose“ Evangelisation: Formate seiner ökumenischen Spiritualität und die Oxfordgruppenbewegung

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), made a martyr by the Nazi German regime in 1945, is still widely read because of his ideas: the proclamation of Christian faith in a non-religious comprehen-sive worldly way, a Bible oriented spirituality of silence, confession with a political horizon. In Norwegian sources the profile of the US based Oxford Group Movement, founded by the Lutheran pastor Frank Buchman (1878–1961; later: Moral Rearmament, today: Initiatives of Change) has been identified as an influential revival movement appe-aling to political elites in Europe in the 1930’s. The article tries to show to which extent Bonhoeffer may have shaped his ideas on preaching and spirituality in confrontation with Buchman’s movement. The Nor-wegian author Ronald Fangen (1895–1946) plays a substantial role for the profile of the Oxford Group Movement in Norway.

THE REPRESENTATION OF JEWISH-AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN THE MILITARY DOCUMENTARY “CAMP CONFIDENTIAL: AMERICA’S SECRET NAZIS”: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS

This paper aims to explore the linguistic representation of Jewish-American soldiers in the military documentary named Camp Confidential: America's Secret Nazis. The theoretical framework used in this paper is Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics. All clause simplexes produced by two Jewish-American veterans - Arno Mayer and Peter Weiss - were analyzed. The results showed that Material process was the dominant one, followed by Relational, Verbal, and Mental processes. As participants were inherent in the types of processes, Actor and Goal of Material process were the two most prevalent participants detected. While circumstances of Location were the most common, circumstances of Contingency occurred the least. These components of the transitivity system contributed to the representation of Jewish-American soldiers as typical Jews harboring hatred against Nazi Germany, disciplined people placing the mission first, and people who were rich in emotions and able to control them. This study also found that the difference in the language used by the two veterans could be ascribed to two factors: the nature of their job positions and the content they contributed to the storyline. The findings of this study have contributed to constructing a more familiar and relatable representation of soldiers compared to some previous studies. This study hopes to contribute to the existing body of literature on SFL by demonstrating SFL application in analyzing different types of texts, especially research into the representational meaning and the representation of soldiers in documentaries.

Propaganda Content and Strategies of Nazi Germany from the Perspective of Emotional Communication

This paper, based on the theory of emotional communication, examines how Nazi Germany utilized and controlled public emotions in their propaganda content and strategies. Emotions play a crucial role in shaping audience attitudes and behaviors in the field of journalism and communication. Emotionally charged content can capture audience attention and resonance, and more importantly, emotions can induce specific behaviors during the process of communication. In terms of propaganda content, Nazi Germany extensively employed emotional rhetoric in their internal and external propaganda materials, frequently utilizing emotive language to incite the public, manipulate their value orientation, and cater to their emotional demands. They tightly linked the people's desire for national resurgence with an anti-Semitic ideology. In terms of propaganda strategies, Nazi Germany facilitated the spread of emotions through the "repetition-memory" effect, creating specific symbols and establishing an emotional space by constructing a simulated environment. Simultaneously, the Nazi regime attempted to mobilize emotions and induce people to participate in specific actions to enhance the efficacy of emotional communication. From the perspective of emotional communication efficacy, this propaganda approach undoubtedly garnered support and consolidated the power of the Third Reich to a certain extent. However, on the other hand, excessive stimulation and exploitation of public emotions also triggered a backlash and accelerated the downfall of the empire. The propaganda strategies of Nazi Germany serve as a reminder to contemporary media practitioners to make good use of emotional communication and strike a balance between emotional manipulation and truthful reporting. It also advises the general public to maintain calmness and objectivity when consuming news reports, so as not to be swayed by excessive emotional values.

Newspaper ‘Gazavat’ and Issue of North Caucasus in Nazi Germany’s Propaganda in 1943-1944

The newspaper ‘Gazavat’ is considered in the article as a source of printed propaganda by Nazi Germany among the mountain peoples of the North Caucasus in the national formations of the Wehrmacht. In Russian and foreign historiography, the materials of ‘Gazavat’ have been poorly studied and insufficiently introduced into scientific circulation. The aim of the article is to analyze the articles of ‘Gazavat’ for 1943–1944 in order to identify the content of Germany’s specialized propaganda aimed at the peoples of the North Caucasus. Based on content analysis and thematic analysis methods, the author identifies four thematic blocks: national history, political future, fighting spirit, and religion. The conducted research showed that Germany used well-thought-out political technologies to manipulate the real costs of integrating the North Caucasus into the Russian Empire and the USSR. The release of the newspaper ‘Gazavat’ for North Caucasus units of the Wehrmacht was significantly delayed. The specialized propaganda was aimed at converting traditional institutions, national hopes, and historical traumas of the mountain peoples into a call for retribution against the Soviet regime. At the same time, a combination of the potential and expert knowledge of mountain emigrants, German political and military actors was implemented.

The Hegemony of a Ruling Party as a Common Element in the Armenian Genocide, the Holodomor and the Holocaust

With the development of comparative genocide as the second generation of genocide studies over the last decades it became important to examine the Holodomor as a crime of genocide committed by the Communist party of the Soviet Union in comparative perspective with other genocides. In this article, the author offers a comparative analysis of the Holodomor with cases of genocide in the first half of the 20th century – namely, the Armenian genocide of the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust of Nazi Germany – from the perspective of perpetrators (organizers). The author compares the three genocides as crimes under international law in terms of one of the mental elements of genocide that characterizes each of them, noting the similarities in ruling political parties as organizers of those crimes who exercised the collective intent in each of the case of genocide under analyses. The author argues that hegemony of a ruling party: the Ittihadists, the Communists, and the Nazis which substituted the state organization was a common element in the genocides perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Third Reich. Moreover, in the ongoing Russian genocide against the Ukrainian nation with culmination since 24 February 2022, it is again the ruling party – Yedinaya Rosiya (Single Russia) which is the foundation of Russian totalitarian regime that organized this crime of genocide.

The failures of political prophecy: Ernst Kantorowicz’s wartime lectures

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a series of lectures Ernst Kantorowicz offered to the Army Specialized Training Program in 1943 in order to reconsider the development of his intellectual biography. These “wartime lectures” constitute Kantorowicz’s only sustained discussion of modern German history and his only intellectual engagement with Nazism. Introducing these lectures thus presents an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between Kantorowicz’s early and mature works through his assessment of Nazi Germany. For Kantorowicz, Nazism was the violent result of a German commitment to political prophecy. At the core of Kantorowicz’s lectures was a criticism of political theology and its role in modern history. In making this criticism, Kantorowicz simultaneously distanced himself from the prophetic register of his earlier writings. Moreover, recovering Kantorowicz’s concern with modern political theology is also important in foregrounding the intellectual genealogy of The King’s Two Bodies, a work often separated from its more telling subtitle: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Together, this paper argues that the most significant changes in Kantorowicz’s writings can be traced to the intellectual circumstances of the Second World War.

Beyond politics? German Jewish refugees and racism in South Africa

ABSTRACT Between 1933 and the outbreak of the Second World War, around 6,000 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany landed on South Africa’s shores, becoming the largest group of Jewish refugees on the African continent. This article by Shirli Gilbert, which is part of a larger project, explores how German Jewish refugees’ historical experiences of antisemitism informed their engagement with South African racism before and during the early years of apartheid. While a limited body of research has documented the refugees’ contributions to South African social and cultural life, as well as the close-knit communities they established upon arrival, we know very little about how the Nazi past informed their engagement with the post-war world’s quintessential racial state. Their responses to the racist policies of their country of settlement are not easily generalizable, but do reveal some distinctive patterns. Of the minority who concerned themselves with racism, few chose the route of radical political activism. Instead, they challenged the racist underpinnings of apartheid in the social and cultural spheres, as journalists, educators, social workers and intellectuals, or via legal political routes, through parliamentary opposition. Multiple factors shaped these responses, including most obviously the traumatic circumstances of the refugees’ migration, as well as gender, class and generational belonging.

The Weimar/Russia Comparison Revisited

Abstract Just over a quarter-century ago, the authors published a widely read essay comparing Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet Russia in historical perspective. After Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, comparisons of Vladimir Putin’s regime with Nazi Germany are once again tragically relevant. Reexamining our arguments from 1997 shows the continuing relevance of the variables we emphasized in that essay: the burdensome legacies of the past imperial regime, intense international pressure to marketize post-Soviet Russia’s statist economy, and Russia’s weak party system. Three main issues in our earlier article, in retrospect, required greater development: pinpointing the time span needed to assess regime change, distinguishing mobilizational and patrimonial forms of ‘anti-liberal statism,’ and exploring more fully the foreign policy options for would-be defenders of the liberal global order facing powerful revanchist challenges. We conclude that this sort of ‘replication’ of earlier research should be encouraged more often among political scientists adopting the comparative-historical approach.

Content analysis of official Roman catholic church criticism towards Italian Fascism and German National Socialism in Pius XI’s encyclics

The present article analyses Pope Pius XI’s encyclics against Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, as well as encyclics on social issues in general that touch upon the said ideologies. Among them are, respectively, Non abbiamo bisogno and Mit brennender Sorge, and Quadragesimo anno and Divini illius Magistri. Analysing their contents reveals two major avenues of criticism levelled against Italian Fascism: one, that a state cannot supersede the family in matters of the raising of children and position itself as the source of morals and an object of unconditional obedience; and two, that a state constantly projecting its authority into the private life of an individual runs contrary to freedom of association and freedom of contract inherent to it. With regards to German National Socialism, this is complemented by a third avenue expounding on the unacceptability of racism.

Three Settings for German-Nordic Cultural Diplomacy: Nordic Writers, the Deutsch-Nordische Schriftstellerhaus, and National Socialist Internationalism

Abstract This article adds to the growing research literature on Fascist trans- and internationalism, not least in regard to the relationships between foreign intellectuals and National Socialist cultural policy. It revolves around three interlinked German cultural relations institutions featuring significant involvement from Nordic writers: the Nordic Society, the German-Nordic Writers’ House, and the European Writers’ Union. Covering a period from 1931 to 1942, the article explores institutional links between these institutions and the versions of Nordic-German cultural diplomacy practiced and developed within their auspices. It argues that National Socialist Germany’s northbound cultural diplomatic efforts contained continuities with pre-1933 practices and conceptions, yet also came with significant inner tensions that ultimately impeded them. Navigating institutional, state, and diplomatic interest, as well as differing visions for cultural relations and cultural internationalist legitimacy abroad proved a difficult balancing act for the German cultural diplomatic actors involved.

A Dance with Death: The Imperial War Graves Commission and Nazi Germany

Abstract In the mid-1930s, Fabian Ware and the other leading members of Britain’s Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) sought to strengthen relations with Nazi Germany. Their efforts are generally seen as another example of appeasement, misjudging Hitler in a search for international peace. This article, in contrast, places this relationship into a much longer history of wartime death and post-war remembrance. As was the case elsewhere, the IWGC, to the anger of some relatives of the deceased, chose not to repatriate the war dead buried in Germany, and instead concentrated them into four new British war cemeteries. This decision created a clear division between the treatment of the dead of the victors and those of the defeated. While the British and Empire dead in Germany were made more visible, Germany’s war dead buried in Britain remained in their original wartime graves and faded slowly from sight. When Hitler rose to power, the IWGC was suddenly forced to confront these disparities, particularly as Nazis in both Britain and Germany used the war graves to rally support. This article argues that the IWGC started to negotiate with the Nazi regime not to broker peace but purely to defend the cemeteries that it had placed on German soil. However, with Britain and Germany having competing narratives of war and defeat, these discussions were always doomed to fail.

A Criminological Study of the Meseritz-Obrawalde Nurses During the Second Euthanasia Phase

The euthanasia programme was established by the Nazi government in 1939 and lasted until the end of the Second World War in 1945. The programme took form as either killing centres or psychiatric institutions, situated all over Nazi Germany and its occupied territories. Nurses played an important role in the euthanasia programme as they intentionally and systematically took part in killing between 200,000 and 250,000 physically and mentally handicapped patients (Jewishvirtuallibrary.org,1998). The killing of the so-called “unfit” was reasoned as scientifically based, partly explaining why some nurses rationalised their action as necessary and even morally good. In the aftermath of the war, only a few nurses were charged with crimes against humanity. The majority were free of charges and able to continue their careers as nurses. This article aims contribute to increased knowledge about a group of perpetrators in the Holocaust literature that is understudied in the Holocaust literature and ignored by criminological studies.

“I Share Admiration of My People for Glorious Feats of Soviet Armed Forces”: Newspaper ‘British Ally’ on Battle of Stalingrad

Revealing the specific portrayal of information about the Battle of Stalingrad in the English press during the Great Patriotic War, this article analyzes publications in the newspaper ‘British Ally,’ which was published in Great Britain in the Russian language for Russian readers. The question arises about the necessity of applying a new direction in global science — imagology — for such research. The novelty of this study lies in being the first to examine material from a publication that has not attracted much attention from Russian scholars from the perspective of this field. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to uncover a new perspective in studying the British press during wartime. The contexts of mentions about the Battle of Stalingrad in the weekly ‘British Ally’ are presented. It is proven that although an admiring attitude towards the Soviet victories at Stalingrad slips through in some articles, the publication does not give special attention to the Battle of Volga. It is shown that the newspaper emphasizes the idea of the selfless resistance of the British army against Nazi Germany in Africa and Sicily, as well as their desire to open a second front. The authors conclude that the newspaper presents these events and desires as equivalent to the struggle of the Soviet people, which does not find approval or desired response among the newspaper’s readers (the Russian people).

‘Banned wherever truth is banned’: allied airborne propaganda, cultural information warfare, and targeting Nazi Germany with ‘news’ from the sky (1944-1945)

This article explores notions of ‘truth’ and ‘factuality’ in war news, transnational aerial propaganda campaigns, and the persuasive techniques used by U.S. military propaganda troops during World War II. By drawing on underutilized archival materials, this study shows how Allied propagandists used airborne leaflet propaganda as tools of cultural information warfare after D-Day to reach, influence, and lower people’s morale on the German home front, and to demoralize combatant soldiers by pressuring them to surrender. Analysis of propaganda leaflets and newspapers reveals iconographic and ideological representation of Allied perceptions of ‘truth’, overt sexist portrayals of women as a propaganda weapon, and how these materials crossed national borders and bypassed physical censorship. The findings rest on a historical analysis of primary records, including more than one thousand propaganda leaflets, airborne newspapers, unpublished correspondence from military officials, U.S. public opinion questionaries, and other materials disseminated over wartime Germany.

The queering of monuments: Hauntological remembrance in Vienna

This article examines entanglements between past, present and futures of queerness visible in monuments as materialized forms of memory. We distinguish between queer monuments (i.e. positioning, and potentially imposing reified representations of queer history or memory) and the queering of monuments (i.e. challenging heteronormative or otherwise reductionist historical discourses, practices or memorial cultures of remembrance). By reflecting on oscillations between institutionalization, recognition, commodification and counter-memorial practice, we suggest the queering of monuments as an unfinished conceptual trope that embraces the non-conclusiveness of the past and future. Queering monuments nuances underlying tensions about the meaning and aesthetics of queer-themed heritage sites, objects and subjects, which emerge from multi-stakeholder arrangements of monument-making. Our approach chimes with critical heritage and monument studies that emphasize performative, affective-emotional and ghostly dimensions of heritage. By pulling hauntology into queer memorial discourse, we discuss queerness as an embodied and epistemological appearance that can challenge presentist, monolithic and thus potentially exclusive understandings of both heritage and monuments. Through queer temporality we situate our reflections in the public monument ARCUS – Shadow of a Rainbow – Memorial for Homosexuals Persecuted during the Nazi Era in Vienna, Austria (2023). We unpack the conflictual constellations of past and present voices, materialities and memories around the sculpture, using the rainbow motif (which became a symbol for queer people in the 1970s) to remember the persecution of queers during the Nazi Era. The monument begs the question how Vienna seeks to brand itself as a ‘rainbow city’, while continuously displacing queer practices from urban public space. Queering, in sum, embraces ghosts of past and present complex histories, trauma and joy instead of squeezing them into smooth or unambiguous narratives. Queering monuments thus outline a conflict-attuned approach to queer(ing) art, curation and collaboration.

A Mozart Library in National Socialist Germany

Abstract: This article examines the development of the library of the International Mozarteum Foundation after Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, 1938 to 1945. Although the Mozarteum Foundation was under direct government control, it nominally remained a non-governmental institution even during the Nazi era. Therefore, although it was not directly involved in the National Socialist system of cultural property theft, it made intensive efforts to expand its holdings from collections expropriated by the National Socialists. The driving force behind this was the musicologist Erich Valentin, who was also responsible for the library; he worked closely with the Viennese professor of musicology, Erich Schenk. Various, entirely unsuccessful attempts to profit from the expropriation of Jewish collectors (like Stefan zweig) are described. In contrast, the intensive efforts of the Mozarteum Foundation to take over expropriated libraries of ecclesiastical institutions, such as St Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg with its valuable historical holdings, were successful. The article also deals with the restitutions after World War II, which only began a decade after the end of the war and were not carried out systematically. Therefore, looted property could still be identified in recent years, the restitution of which is also addressed. An important concern of the article is also to point out the importance of a thorough documentation of the results of provenance research (not only in regard to the Nazi period). All the information ascertained about the provenance of the individual sources should be permanently documented in the catalogues, if possible, in standardised form. Abstract: Cet article examine le développement de la bibliothèque de la Fondation internationale Mozarteum après l’annexion de l’Autriche par l’Allemagne nazie, de 1938 à 1945. La Fondation Mozarteum était certes sous le contrôle direct de l’État, mais elle restait nominalement une institution non gouvernementale même pendant la période nazie. Elle n’a donc pas été directement impliquée dans le processus national-socialiste de spoliations de biens culturels, mais elle a déployé des efforts considérables pour accroître ses fonds à partir de collections spoliées par les nationaux-socialistes. Le musicologue Erich Valentin, également responsable de la bibliothèque, en étroite collaboration avec le professeur de musicologie viennois Erich Schenk, a joué un rôle moteur dans cette entreprise. Diverses tentatives, totalement infructueuses, de profiter de l’expropriation de collectionneurs juifs (tels que Stefan zweig) sont décrites. En revanche, les efforts intensifs de la Fondation Mozarteum pour récupérer les bibliothèques confisquées d’institutions ecclésiastiques, telles que l’abbaye Saint-Pierre de Salzbourg et ses précieux fonds historiques, ont été couronnés de succès. L’article aborde également les restitutions effectuées après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, qui n’ont commencé qu’une décennie après la fin de la guerre et n’ont pas été menées de manière systématique. C’est pourquoi des biens spoliés ont encore pu être identifiés ces dernières années, et leur restitution est également évoquée. L’un des principaux objectifs de cet article est de souligner à quel point il est important de documenter minutieusement les résultats des recherches sur la provenance (pas seulement en ce qui concerne la période nazie). Toutes les informations relatives à la provenance devraient être documentées de manière permanente dans les catalogues, si possible sous une forme standardisée. Abstract: Der Beitrag untersucht die Entwicklung der Bibliothek der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum nach dem Anschluss Österreichs an Nazi-Deutschland in der zeit zwischen 1938 und 1945. Die Stiftung Mozarteum stand zwar unter direkter staatlicher Kontrolle, blieb aber nominell auch während der NS-zeit eine nichtstaatliche Einrichtung. Daher war sie zwar nicht unmittelbar in das nationalsozialistische System des Kulturgüterraubes eingebunden, bemühte sich aber intensiv darum, ihren Bestand aus von den Nationalsozialisten enteigneten Sammlungen zu erweitern. Treibende Kraft war dabei der Musikwissenschaftler Erich Valentin, der auch für die Bibliothek zuständig war; er arbeitete eng mit dem Wiener Professor für Musikwissenschaft Erich Schenk zusammen. Beschrieben werde verschiedene, durchweg erfolglosen Versuche, von der Enteignung jüdischer Sammler (hier insbesondere Stefan zweig) zu profitieren. Erfolgreich waren im Gegensatz dazu die intensiven Bemühungen der Stiftung Mozarteum um die Übernahme von enteigneten Bibliotheken kirchlicher Institutionen wie dem Stift St. Peter in Salzburg mit seinen wertvollen historischen Beständen. Der Beitrag geht auch auf die Restitutionen nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg ein, die erst ein Jahrzehnt nach dem Ende des Krieges begannen und nicht systematisch durchgeführt wurden. Daher konnte auch in den letzten Jahren noch Raubgut identifiziert werden, dessen Restitution ebenfalls thematisiert wird. Ein wichtiges Anliegen des Beitrages ist es auch, auf die Bedeutung einer sorgfältigen Dokumentation der Ergebnisse der Provenienzforschung (nicht nur im Blick auf die NS-zeit) hinzuweisen. Alle ermittelten Informationen zur Provenienz der einzelnen Quellen sollten in den Katalogen, möglichst in standardisierter Form, dauerhaft dokumentiert werden.

Science, Race, and Scientific Truth, Past and Present

This article examines the violation of longstanding scientific norms, in particular universalism, objectivity, and truth orientation by new identity policies such as the principle of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI). The imposition of this principle by public opinion, administration, and mass media, particularly in the United States but also in other countries, contradicts the principle of equal opportunity regardless of race, gender, nationality, and class, by putting the emphasis of assessment on group identities. The implementation of this principle has begun to damage careers, threaten scientists and lower standards in academia. In order to provide a historical perspective, I review how the violation of scientific norms has impacted scientific success in past authoritarian countries, in particular the USSR under Stalin, and Nazi Germany. The comparison with past authoritarian countries does not aim at equating situations from then and now, but can help understand social and political mechanisms of current events. It also highlights in a drastic way consequences that a violation of scientific norms may have for science today.

Science and Survival: Exploring the Papers of Georg and Max Bredig

Abstract Following the death of his parents, George Bredig inherited a large steamer trunk inconspicuously tucked away in the basement of his boyhood home in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The trunk was old, and upon opening it, a strong musty smell emerged from within. As he reviewed the contents of the trunk, he discovered an assortment of unpublished letters, original photographs, rare pamphlets and small scientific artifacts. His father Max and grandfather Georg were both gifted physical chemists and it did not take long for George to realize that these papers documented their scientific careers in the years preceding their flight from Nazi Germany.

How Family History Helps Ukrainians Face the War

Ukrainians displaced by the current Russian invasion frequently turn to family memories of a previous war to understand and cope with their situation. In an oral history project, Ukrainian refugees often compared Russian actions to World War II–era war crimes perpetrated in Ukraine by Nazi Germany—and many assert that the Russians today are worse. These experiences have fueled an intense hatred of the Russians, even among Russian-speakers. For these Ukrainians, the idea of the Russkii mir, or “Russian world,” binding post-Soviet countries in a common civilization, has been discredited.