War Germany Research Articles

Entangled Emancipation: Women’s Rights in Cold War Germany. By Alexandria N. Ruble

<i>Entangled Emancipation: Women’s Rights in Cold War Germany</i>. By Alexandria N. Ruble

Entangled Emancipation: Women's Rights in Cold War Germany by Alexandria N. Ruble (review)

Entangled Emancipation: Women's Rights in Cold War Germany by Alexandria N. Ruble (review)

Lithuanian laborers in Nazi-occupied Austria 1942–1945

The theme of forced and voluntary labor of Lithuanians in Nazi Germany has been nearly forgotten and not studied by Lithuanian historians in recent decades. Even less examined has been the forced labor and imprisonment of Lithuanians in Nazi-annexed Austria. Up to 70,000 Lithuanians could have been deported to Germany during World War II. This is a fairly significant part of the Lithuanian population, which has affected Lithuanian Poles, Roma and minority Lithuanians most severely. When assessing the types and scale of Nazi violence, apart from the genocide of the Jews, the conclusion is that it affected people in Lithuania most who suffered from forced labor and forced removal from residential areas. At the current stage of research, we can predict that at least a thousand Lithuanians, forcibly or voluntarily, ended up in Nazi-annexed Austria during World War II. The national composition was made up predominantly of Lithuanians, Poles and Russians. Lithuanians were transported to Austria en masse from 1942 to almost until the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The vast majority of Lithuanians brought to Austria worked in industrial and transport companies. The overview of the workplaces shows that the majority of the Lithuanians was concentrated in Vienna, Kapfenberg and Marktle. A smaller number of Lithuanians were employed by farmers in the villages. Part of the Lithuanian population came to Austria as political prisoners or for racial reasons (Jews). Another part was imprisoned while staying in Austria for disciplinary violations or attempts to flee to Lithuania. The imprisoned residents of Lithuania were mainly held in the Mauthauzen concentration camp and its branches (Guzen, etc.). At the current stage of research, it can be predicted that at least one hundred inhabitants of Lithuania of different nationalities were imprisoned in the Mauthauzen concentration camp. The revised List of 68 Lithuanians who died in Mauthauzen concentration camp (some persons may be Latvian residents) listed below in appendix 1 (list clarified by LGGRTC employee Stanislovas Buchaveckas).

Operation STARVATION, 1945: A Transnational History of Blockades and the Defeat of Japan

Going beyond the conventional focus on the British blockade of Germany in the First World War, this essay situates blockades in a broader transnational history of waging war on civil populations. From the early twentieth century through the Second World War, blockade strategies evolved as part of a global circulation of ideas and practices on how wars might be won by starving, bombing, and demoralizing the enemy’s urban masses. The Allied blockade and German U-boat campaigns were connected, as each side learned from the other’s attacks on the civilian food supply. Moreover, the ‘lessons’ of 1914–18 shaped blockade strategies for the next war not only among Europeans, but also among the Japanese and Americans in the Pacific. For Japanese planners, who investigated European home fronts in the First World War, the transnational lessons were largely defensive. The island nation adopted dynamic programs of imperial food self-sufficiency. Yet in the Second World War, Japan experienced a devastating collapse in food supply, precipitated by perhaps the most successful blockade in history—the Allied blockades of Japan’s food and raw material supplies from Asia that culminated in Operation STARVATION. The prospect of mass starvation, I argue, helped persuade Japanese leaders to surrender.

To the 100th anniversary of professor Viktor Pavlovich Baskakov

The article describes the main milestones in the labor, scientific and pedagogical activities of Professor Viktor Pavlovich Baskakov, born on November 28, 1923. After graduating from the Military Medical Academy and defending his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Medical Sciences in 1950, he was hired as a teacher in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, in 1958 he was appointed to the position of associate professor, in 1970 he received the title of professor, after which in 1974 he became head of department, where he worked until 1984. Viktor P. Baskakov was the first in the country to begin studying endometrioid disease. Three of his monographs are devoted to this complex pathology: “Endometriosis” (1966), “Clinic and treatment of endometriosis” (1979, 1990) and “Endometrioid disease” (2002). In 1968, based on the published monograph “Endometriosis” by V.P. Baskakov was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences without defending a dissertation. For many years, Viktor Pavlovich was a member of the presidium of the Leningrad Obstetrics and Gynecology Society, a member of dissertation councils, and the editorial board of the Journal of Obstetrics and Women’s Diseases. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and medals, including the medal “For Military Merit” and the medal “For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.” Professor Viktor Pavlovich Baskakov remained in the memory of his contemporaries as a talented scientist, teacher, and surgeon. It was difficult to find a person more concerned about the problems of others. Students remember him with a smile and great warmth.

Samuel Clowes Huneke. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany.

Samuel Clowes Huneke. <i>States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany</i>.

“Presence and Preparedness”: The U.S. Military, Humanitarian Assistance, and Entangled Histories in Cold War Germany

During the night of January 17–18, 1955, the rain-swollen Rhine and Neckar rivers crested. At their confluence, inhabitants of the German city of Mannheim scrambled to protect their homes and property. Residents of the small islands on the outskirts of the city faced imminent disaster.

Soviet Diplomatic Efforts to Prevent Hungary’s Alignment with Germany in World War II (1939– 1941)

The history of Soviet-Hungarian interactions from the establishment of diplomatic relations until Hungary joined World War II alongside the Axis powers offers valuable insights into the dynamics between small and great powers, as well as the efforts of small European states, particularly Hungary, to navigate their national interests in foreign policy amidst Nazi Germany's encroachments. This period was defined by two primary factors: the Hungarian political elite, led by Miklós Horthy, sought to join a quasi-"crusade" against Comintern Soviet Russia, while simultaneously striving to avoid deep involvement in major conflicts between the great powers. This dual approach aligned with the policies of Hitler's Western appeasers, who aimed to redirect German expansion eastward. In this geopolitical scenario, American and Western European actors (including Great Britain and France) were relegated to the role of observers, anticipating a prolonged conflict between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that would drain both. Hungary, as strategized by Budapest, hoped to secure a position among these observers, avoiding direct conflict participation, and to later engage in territorial reconfiguration post-World War II. However, the reality in Europe by the early 1940s diverged significantly, with Western powers (the USA and Great Britain) unable to redirect Hitler's global domination ambitions eastward. Facing an existential threat, these powers were compelled to enter the war. Against this backdrop, Soviet diplomacy endeavored to deter Hungary's alliance with Nazi Germany. Although ultimately unsuccessful, examining these diplomatic efforts offers valuable lessons in the context of the current evolution towards a multipolar world.

Samuel Clowes Huneke. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. xviii, 357 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. Tables. Maps. $38.95, paper.

Samuel Clowes Huneke. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. xviii, 357 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. Tables. Maps. $38.95, paper.

Competing Narratives on Economic Warfare: The Unlikely Origin of Archibald Bell’s Unwanted History of the Blockade of Germany

This article examines the controversies surrounding the waging of economic warfare against Germany in the First World War. It argues that two competing narratives emerged to explain the decisions taken by the British Government in regard to the enforcement of the so-called ‘blockade’ against Germany. The one favoured by the Foreign Office praised the diplomatic skill by which economic pressure was applied to Britain’s enemies, noting that increasing stringency was enforced without provoking retaliation from neutrals; the one favoured by the Admiralty chafed at the restrictions that prevented a fuller exercise of maritime power. The existence of these two competing narratives, it is argued, made it impossible even a decade after the fighting was over to agree a text on blockade suitable for the published official history of the war at sea. As a result, the chapters on blockade, although written, were excluded from the published official history; instead, in the aftermath of a bitter intra-departmental dispute, a separate stand-alone volume that was produced and classed as secret until after the Second World War.

Comparing the Reconstruction of State Images of Germany and Japan in the Post-World War II Era in the Perspective of Political Symbolism Theory

National image has become an important factor in the competition for soft power among countries. Germany and Japan, as defeated countries in World War II, have both formulated a series of strategies and carried out actions on image reconstruction. This paper adopts the method of documentary analysis to disaggregate the strategic deployment and practices of image building in the two countries into different dimensions and place them under the theoretical framework of political symbols for systematic analyses. From this, it is concluded that there are significant differences between the two countries in terms of their strategic priorities, with Germany focuses methodologically on the cultural diplomacy and geographically on the Europe; and Japan prioritizes economic initiatives and the western community. This prioritization can be a reflection of the underlying attitude divergence between the two nations. In this way, the policies of the two countries in the field of foreign relations can be examined in an ontological and globalized perspective.

Why the French Army Was So Vulnerable During World War II?

France, who bravely fought against Germany in World War I, only resisted for 42 days in World War II. It is a huge gap that is unimaginable. The paper aims to analyze why this happens. The gap is mainly reflected in the differences in military theories and the use of tanks during the war. After summarizing the experience of World War I, France believed that solid fortifications would bring victory. So they built the Maginot Line to defend Germans attack. In contrast, Germany believed developing tank forces that could attack quickly would be more advantageous. So they developed Blitzkrieg, a kind of tactic that utilize the defense, firepower, and mobility of armored forces for large-scale deep penetration. Therefore, the German army had the chance to quickly bypass the Maginot Line, cross the Aden Mountains, and penetrate the enemys rear, forcing the British French coalition to retreat from Dunkirk and then surrounded Paris.

Fear of war in Germany: An observational study

BackgroundGiven the very limited knowledge, the purpose of this study was to identify the current prevalence and correlates of fear of conventional and of nuclear war in the general adult population (Germany). MethodsData were taken from a representative survey (n = 3091 participants; mid-March 2022). Established items were used to quantify fear of conventional war and fear of nuclear war. Linear regressions were used to examine the correlates of fear of conventional war and fear of nuclear war, adjusting for several covariates. ResultsWhile 5.3 % of the respondents were not at all worried about a conventional war, 44.2 % of the respondents reported some fear and 50.5 % of the respondents reported severe fear of a conventional war. Similarly, 7.7 % of the respondents were not at all worried about a nuclear war, whereas 45.7 % of the respondents reported some fear and 46.6 % of the respondents reported severe fear of a nuclear war. The prevalence rates mainly slightly differed between sociodemographic groups (with the exception of gender and having children) and were thus consistently high. Regressions showed that both higher fear of a conventional war and higher fear of a nuclear war were associated with being female, having children in own household, being married and living together with spouse, having at least one chronic illness and poor self-rated health. ConclusionOur study showed high prevalence rates for fear of war (both, conventional war and nuclear war). Knowledge about the correlates may assist in tackling individuals at risk for severe fear. Against the background of the current events in Eastern Europe, future research in this area is urgently required.

The Role of the German Police in Maintaining Internal Security from the Defeat of Germany in World War I until the Fall of the Weimer Republic from the Perspective of German Researchers – An Analytical Study

This study examines the burden that Germany’s defeat in World War I had on the German police in two respects: first the police were directly affected by the Treaty of Versailles and second, the police suffered – indirectly – from the pressure of increased resistance to the peace treaty and they had to constantly suppress internal disturbances. Although this study did not describe in detail the very long and complex process of reorganizing the police force, it does show that the police force did not have enough time to build a tightly integrated police force, due to repeated reorganizations within short time frames. The German police apparatus failed not only as a guardian of internal order, but also failed to protect its interests as an institution. The most important studies of German researchers dealt with the construction of the German police force and the problems it faced in different aspects and periods of time, and did not address this subject in an integrated manner for the period between 1918 and 1933, and the opinions of German researchers varied in explaining many of the attitudes and events suffered by the German police in that period. The study relies on a historical analytical approach based on the investigating information from its primary sources, and analysing its content and classifying in relation to the subject matter of the study.

Christian F. Ostermann. Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany.

Journal Article Christian F. Ostermann. Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany. Get access Christian F. Ostermann. Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021. Pp. xix, 392. Cloth $45.00. Hermann Wentker Hermann Wentker Institut für Zeitgeschichte München – Berlin, Germany Email: wentker@ifz-muenchen.de Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 2, June 2023, Pages 1032–1034, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhad200 Published: 22 June 2023

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

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

The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder by Paul Dobryden

Reviewed by: The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder by Paul Dobryden Christian Rogowski The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder. By Paul Dobryden. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2022. Pp viii + 208. Hardcover $120.00. ISBN 978-0810144972. The late nineteenth century saw concerted efforts in Germany to mitigate the destabilizing effects of unfettered industrial capitalism, such as environmental pollution and the unsanitary living conditions of an immiserated urban working class, by seeking to optimize efficiency in production (for instance, by reducing harmful waste) and by aiming to improve working and living conditions (primarily in order to maintain a productive workforce). In his introduction to this fascinating book, Paul Dobryden outlines how the medium of cinema that emerged during that same period can be viewed as an “apparatus of modernity” (10) that participated in this pursuit of “hygiene,” defined broadly as a conglomerate of practices that “strove to produce a kind of order, which in turn was meant to stabilize social life” (14). The multiple crises that followed the defeat of Germany in World War I confronted Weimar-era [End Page 320] cinema with the challenge of counteracting “environmental disorder” by contributing toward reestablishing psychological, social, and political stability—hence the book’s somewhat enigmatic title and subtitle. The author’s highly original, eclectic, and thought-provoking approach, combining sophisticated theoretical reflection with impressive archival research, enables him to address a dazzling multitude of fascinating topics in the book’s five chapters. In a brief review such as this, it is impossible to convey the full complexity of the book’s multi-layered and nuanced overarching argument. The first chapter is dedicated to the connection between the moralizing concerns of the Kinoreform movement and debates over the design of exhibition spaces during the transition from storefront movie theaters to large-scale picture palaces. The close proximity with other people in the insufficiently ventilated and poorly lit cramped spaces of early storefront cinemas exposed moviegoers to multiple “threats”—to their physical health, to their moral fortitude, and to their political reliability (as spaces of collective experience that potentially engendered politicized solidarity). The cinema thus became “a site where experts in design, architecture, traffic, and urban planning articulated a narrative of hygienic modernization and demonstrated hygienic ways of thinking about, perceiving, and acting in the spaces of everyday life” (38). The second chapter discusses the quasi-documentary genre of the Kulturfilme, educational films that sought to transform audiences into communities of self-regulating “hygienic subjects” functioning optimally within an existing social order. Such films, Dobryden rightly points out, largely adhered to patriarchal and ableist norms. For instance, women were generally relegated to the domestic sphere, with housewives instructed in using the ergonomically designed “Frankfurt Kitchen” to maintain order at home, while public spaces were primarily construed as arenas for the circulation of able-bodied working males, with the “unproductive” parts of the population (children, the elderly, the physically or mentally handicapped) sequestered in special spaces that purported to best meet their specific needs. Chapter three reads F. W. Murnau’s film Faust (1926) as a kind of double allegory—of the environmental pollution wrought by unregulated industrial capitalism and of the redemptive power of the cinematic imagination. Smoke and vapor fill the screen, visualizing disease and the devil’s shape-shifting magic in a manner that, through visual distraction, makes possible a distinctly modern cinematic magic. The fourth chapter applies ideas about disability and aging developed in chapter two to a discussion of two canonical Weimar-era feature films. In Dobryden’s readings of Karl Grune’s Die Straße (The Street, 1923) and Murnau’s Der letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, 1924), the modern urban environment emerges as the site that mercilessly excludes those who do not or cannot any longer conform to the “hygienic” logic of moral self-regulation or to discriminatory standards of workplace efficiency. The final chapter discusses key leftist films from the late Weimar period, such as Phil Jutzi’s [End Page 321] Hunger in Waldenburg (1929) and Slatan Dudow’s Kuhle Wampe (1932). Rather than participating in efforts to mitigate the detrimental effects of exploitative industrial capitalism, these films shift the focus to...

‘Nazi Agent’ and Development Pioneer: Johann Albrecht von Monroy, National Socialist Europe and Unknown Origins of FAO's Forest Related Development Activities

By exploring the career of the German forester Johann Albrecht v. Monroy from the 1920s to the 1950s, this article seeks to further differentiate and expand the historiography on development. It reveals that experts like Monroy who were deeply involved in the National Socialist quest for hegemony in Europe took an active part in shaping the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) forest-related development activities after the Second World War. The article provides two explanations why Monroy became a lauded development pioneer: Firstly, he was a widely acknowledged and well-connected member of a transatlantic expert community that he had helped to shape in the 1920s and 1930s. Secondly, he enormously benefitted from German expansionist policies. In the 1930s, Monroy became a senior official responsible for turning forestry and wood processing industries into a central branch of Germany's war economy. During the war, he was in charge to establish the most modern wood processing plant in Slovakia. Monroy based this project on a specific approach to development that he had elaborated since the mid-1930s and that adapted schemes shaped for colonial contexts to the very special international environment of German-controlled Europe. That Monroy could realize this project in Slovakia turned him into an expert wanted by the FAO due to an almost unrivalled experience.

Local Lives, Parallel Histories: Villagers and Everyday Life in Divided Germany

In Local Lives, Parallel Histories: Villagers and Everyday Life in Modern Germany, Marcel Thomas aims to get past divided histories of postwar Germany that set up one (usually the West) as the “ideal” against which we should measure and understand the other's relative success. He finds many similarities between the perceptions and experiences of villagers east and west of the Berlin Wall.Thomas employs the German historical framework of Alltagsgeschichte (“the history of everyday life”) to better understand how two villages, in different regions of divided postwar Germany, negotiated changes in their communities in the years after World War II.He focuses on Ebersbach, in the Federal Republic of Germany, an erstwhile “market town” in Baden-Württemberg, and Neukirch, in the German Democratic Republic, a modernizing village in Saxony. Ebersbach and Neukirch are not mirror images of one another, divided only by their divergent experiences of national government between 1945 and 1989; they are, rather, similar but unique, embedded in the distinct local histories of their regions.Thomas draws on a variety of sources, including local historians and museums, in constructing his argument about the fundamentally similar nature of village life and politics in the two Germanys. One of his most interesting sources comes in the form of the oral history interviews he conducted with residents of Ebersbach and Neukirch over a three-year period.The text is composed of six thematic chapters, each of which deals with some aspect of the postwar development of the German village. Their common goal is to complicate the narrative of centrally directed change enacted at the local level and passively accepted by local communities. Instead, Thomas argues for a “give-and-take” (as he titles chapter 5) between national leadership in Bonn and Berlin, local government and bureaucracies, community activists, and ordinary citizens.In the first and sixth chapters, Thomas evaluates the twin processes of village modernization (chapter 1) and community engagement with the local, regional, and national past (chapter 6). Villagers in both Ebersbach and Neukirch looked to a modern future and understood that rural modernization represented a key component of national progress in Cold War Germany. Neither group posed an obstacle to modernization so much as they hoped to shape it to their benefit. Accordingly, while forging “Modern Villagers” entailed the development of a vision of the future by those within and outside the community, the final chapter shows how villagers marshaled their past to bolster that vision through the production of local histories.Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the shifting boundaries of the village community as it was reconceived in the postwar world and reconstituted from within by longtime residents and by newcomers. Thomas points to common contradictions in both Ebersbach and Neukirch, noting a tension between a growing desire for privacy, associated with modernity, and a nostalgia for the close-knit rural communities of the past. Both communities, too, struggled to fully integrate outsiders, including groups of ethnic German refugees, foreign workers, and urban commuters (chapter 3).Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the communities’ engagement with and perceptions of political developments in the village, region, Germany, and the world. Thomas challenges the idea that only border communities and Berlin were cognizant of their role in the broader dynamics of the Cold War and shows that Ebersbachers and Neukirchers engaged with the other Germany, often using it as a metric for the relative progress achieved by their own community. As might be imagined in a book that focuses on the village, Thomas emphasizes the effects of local, “bottom-up” efforts to negotiate political change, both as a response to “top-down” politics and as a catalyst for them.Thomas's Ebersbachers and Neukirchers are emphatically villagers, not peasants, and seldom farmers. Those who are interested in the modernization of farming techniques, the status of agriculture in postwar Germany, or the role of agribusiness in shifting the economic landscape of rural Germany might look elsewhere. Rural Germans, however, have long been linked to both food production and to an idealized past, and Thomas is attuned to how this symbolic baggage might affect the self-perceptions of rural communities in a postwar world in which nostalgia and autarky are no longer central concerns of the state.Thomas's monograph is especially useful as a model for linking local histories to national and transnational narratives. He resists simply projecting changes at the national level onto the local one, even as the national and the international are ever-present in the minds of the villagers.

Impact of Economic Currency Counterfeiting in Germany in World War II (1939-1945)

In World War II one of the German strategies was the counterfeiting of currency to be used to purchase goods or services. Therefore, it is important to understand the background and consequences of currency counterfeiting in World War II. As a strategy used to weaken a country's economy, as well as the consequences of counterfeiting the currency using several stages including the heuristic stage, namely the stage of collecting primary data sources in the form of archives, news, newspapers, and secondary data in the form of books, articles then verifying or historical criticism, efforts to assess compatibility with events during the period (1939-1945) then interpretation (interpretation) so that the writing is objective data taken from several countries involved in World War II, then writing is done as a whole and analyzing in time order. Some of the impacts arising from the counterfeiting of currency by Germany are as follows: Inflation and economic instability, Harm to civil society, Financial loss to other countries. Germany also received severe political and economic sanctions at the end of World War II for counterfeiting currency and engaging in economic practices that harmed other countries. Sanctions were imposed on Germany at that time. With historical research conducted by heuristics, verification of historical criticism, interpretation, and historiography, we can better understand the counterfeiting of currency in World War II and its relevance for the present.