Germany In World War Research Articles

Scalpel or rays? Radiotherapy and the struggle for the cancer patient in pre-second world war Germany

Cet essai s'interesse a la maniere dont la radiotherapie pour le traitement du cancer prit forme, tout particulierement en Allemagne dans les premieres decennies du vingtieme siecle. La reflexion de l'auteur est divisee en deux parties distinctes, la premiere montrant la lutte entre les differents specialistes pour l'usage des technologies nouvelles et la deuxieme presente l'impact et le role de ces instruments couteux sur l'organisation de la therapie.

Strategy, Security, and Spies: Mexico and the U.S. as Allies in World War II.

Faced with the possibility of being drawn into a war on several fronts, the United States sought to win Mexican support for a new strategy of Hemispheric Security, based on defense collaboration by governments throughout the Americas. U.S. leaders were concerned that Mexico might become a base for enemy operations, a scenario that, given the presence of pro-Axis lobbies in Mexico and the rumored fraternization between Mexico and Germany in World War I, seemed far from implausible in 1939-41. Strategy, Security, and Spies tells the fascinating story of U.S. relations with Mexico during the war years, involving everything from spies and internal bureaucratic struggles in both countries to all sorts of diplomatic maneuverings. Although its focus is on the interactions of the two countries, relative to the threat posed by the Axis powers, a valuable feature of the study is to show how Mexico itself evolved politically in crucial ways during this period, always trying to maintain the delicate balance between the divisive force of Mexican nationalism and the countervailing force of economic dependency and security self-interest.

’When Men Are Weak‘: The Imperial Feminism of Frieda von Bülow

Frieda von Bülow was a colonialist woman author and activist who also engaged the bourgeois women's movement of pre‐First World War Germany. She is of interest to scholars of German colonialism, racial thought, feminism, and women's literature. This article interprets her life experiences, including travel to German East Africa (mainland Tanzania) and her affair with Carl Peters, together with her feminist non‐fiction and anti‐feminist fiction, to argue that she developed an imperial feminism in which German women's emancipation was predicated on the subordination of racialised ‘others’.

The area bombing of Germany in World War II: an operational research perspective

The area bombing of Germany in World War II: an operational research perspective

The Area Bombing of Germany in World War II: An Operational Research Perspective

The Area Bombing of Germany in World War II: An Operational Research Perspective

The area bombing of Germany in World War II: an operational research perspective

This paper analyses the origins and implementation of British bombing policy with regard to Nazi Germany from an operational research perspective. It demonstrates that the campaign of area attack on the German civilian population, inaugurated by Bomber Command in 1942, was validated in part by the misapplication of operational research, leading to a strategic air offensive, of limited value both in terms of its impact on the German war economy and on the morale of industrial workers. The article also emphasises that on the two occasions on which Bomber Command's resources were diverted from area attack in favour of precision targets (the anti-U Boat war and Operation Overlord), the views of civilian operational researchers had proved decisive. Finally, the article raises the issue of the effectiveness and independence of Bomber Command's Operational Research Section in the face of the entrenched views on bombing policy held by the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Arthur Harris.

Perfect Information with Potentially Negative Value: An Intriguing War Story and a Possible Explanation

When the Allies were bombing Germany in World War II, it is rumoured that before certain raids they would let the Germans know, without realizing the information was leaked on purpose, that one of the potential targets would not be attacked. While this information was correct and taken as such, the Germans have allegedly made additional erroneous inferences from it, rendering their overall defensive alignment less effective than before the information was leaked. This note attempts to ‘explain’ this scenario via a resource allocation model which minimizes expected damage. The key issue is whether the subjective probability of a particular site is significantly lower after receiving the information than the corresponding pre-information probability. This issue seems of interest in its own right, and could also be relevant in modern strategic business settings. Some related behavioural issues are discussed.

Perfect Information with Potentially Negative Value: An Intriguing War Story and a Possible Explanation

When the Allies were bombing Germany in World War II, it is rumoured that before certain raids they would let the Germans know, without realizing the information was leaked on purpose, that one of the potential targets would not be attacked. While this information was correct and taken as such, the Germans have allegedly made additional erroneous inferences from it, rendering their overall defensive alignment less effective than before the information was leaked. This note attempts to ‘explain’ this scenario via a resource allocation model which minimizes expected damage. The key issue is whether the subjective probability of a particular site is significantly lower after receiving the information than the corresponding pre-information probability. This issue seems of interest in its own right, and could also be relevant in modern strategic business settings. Some related behavioural issues are discussed.

The other prohibition: The cigarette crisis in post-war Germany

After the Second World War Germany experienced a severe shortage of cigarettes and, as a consequence, most of the evils we know from drug prohibitions: black markets, crime and corruption, and desperate addicts. Based on the analysis of newspapers from 1945 to 1949 and on interviews with witnesses, the paper describes this crisis as a peculiar form of prohibition, with economic forces playing the role of legal restraints. In a concluding discussion it shows that policy makers—as far as tobacco is concerned—have learned the lesson from history, shied away from prohibition and turned to attempts at demand reduction, substance control and restrictions of opportunities to use. The success of this policy might well be relevant for drug policy in general.

Germany in the First World War: The Problem of Strategy

Germany in the First World War: The Problem of Strategy

Factors influencing the relative industrial performance of Japan, Germany, USA and UK. Part 1: Industrial structure, and capital and investment

The first of a series of three articles in which the author explores some of the underlying factors which continue to influence competitive industrial performance. In the post Second World War years Japan and Germany have built more prosperous economies than the UK and have seemingly threatened to overtake the USA. Social cohesion has provided their foundations for success, but in both countries it has been achieved too expensively. The author concludes that there is now enough evidence to guide the UK to emulate successful elements of their economies while avoiding their mistakes, but we need Government-led initiatives to improve vital industrial relationships.

The History of Economic Warfare: International Law, Effectiveness, Strategies

The article surveys the history of economic warfare from the Seven Years' War to the present. Three different aspects of economic warfare are studied: international law, effectiveness, and strategies. From the seventeenth century until World War I economic warfare scholarship was dominated by the perspective of international law. But as belligerents ignored jurists' rules of acceptable conduct in economic warfare, the international law approach receded into irrelevance. Practitioners and analysts alike have differed over the effectiveness of economic warfare. Its lack of success against Germany in World War II was a severe blow to the prestige of the blockade weapon. Economic warfare protagonists had underestimated the capability of a determined power elite, controlling the army, to retain power despite economic hardship. In general, economic warfare seems able to do little more than shorten conflicts. Strategies of economic warfare have two dimensions: the institution of blockades and other measures `at large', and the question of according to which principles one should draw up lists of prohibited items. Developments on the first dimension have gone full circle, from Napoleon's Continental self-blockade prohibiting imports from the United Kingdom while promoting exports, to the CoCom embargo of the USA and its allies restricting exports to the Warsaw Pact countries without attempting to prevent imports. On the second dimension, lists of contraband swelled until by World War II they became all-encompassing. In modern wars every good can have relevance to the war effort. Economists have even pointed out that the most strategic item is not the one having the greatest military use but the one relatively most expensive for the adversary to produce domestically and therefore bringing the greatest gains from trade.

Germany and Sports in World War II

Germany and Sports in World War II

The contradictions of modernization in the German welfare state: Gender and the politics of welfare reform in First World War Germany∗

(1992). The contradictions of modernization in the German welfare state: Gender and the politics of welfare reform in First World War Germany. Social History: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 251-270.

Wilhelm Ludwig and his contributions to population genetics

This article reviews the life and work of the German biologist Wilhelm Ludwig (1901–1959), whose contributions to population genetics have been largely ignored. Ludwig's work was a rich tapestry of population biology, spanning investigations into population growth, biological asymmetries, sex ratio, and paternity analysis. He was ahead of his time in explicitly combining the theory of population ecology and population genetics. His classic paper on annidation showed the possibility of population differentiation in the face of gene flow, and his early studies demonstrated the importance of selection in evolutionary change. Much of his work spanned the period of the Second World War in Germany, and interesting questions remain about his life during this turbulent period.

The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II: Costs and Accomplishments

As interest in World War II increases, it releases what seems to be a never-ending flood of literature. While the volume of this material is staggering, gaps and controversial areas remain. One especially troublesome subject is strategic bombing. Although much has been written about the bombing, few studies merit either the term analytical or the term scholarly. First-person and journalistic accounts of derring-do predominate. Perhaps in no other field of history do so many feel and believe so much, rely on so little analysis and proof, and yet write so much.' The following is a summary and assessment of the strategic bombing efforts in Europe during World War II. It focuses on the costs and accomplishments of the bombing, on what bombing did and did not do. Other aspects of the bombing, such as lessons, morality, and criticisms, are left to other studies.

India in Axis Strategy: Germany, Japan, and Indian Nationalists in the Second World War. Milan Hauner

<i>India in Axis Strategy: Germany, Japan, and Indian Nationalists in the Second World War</i>. Milan Hauner

VI. The Baltic Germans and German Policy towards Latvia after 1918

During the First World War Germany had aimed at the eventual annexation of the Baltic provinces of Russia, later to become the independent Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. After Germany had been defeated in November 1918, the young German Republic faced the task of building up relations with these small states. A new and difficult situation existed in Eastern Europe. Especially aggravating was the setting up of a large Polish state possessing areas of land which had formerly belonged to Germany. Beyond, Soviet Russia presented a great attraction to Germans who were anxious to exploit the potentially unlimited new markets and at the same time to offset some of the disadvantages created by the Treaty of Versailles. Under such circumstances the German government was anxious to obtain good relations with the Baltic states since, apart from a hostile Poland, they provided a means of indirect access to Russia. In the attempt to obtain the friendly co-operation of the Baltic states the German government was compelled to change its attitude towards the so-called ‘Baltic Germans’ who had been especially important in Latvia. This article attempts to show why such changes were considered necessary and what were the general aims behind the new German policy towards the Baltic Germans.

Germany and Japan in World War II. From Pearl Harbor to the German Capitulation

Germany and Japan in World War II. From Pearl Harbor to the German Capitulation

The activity of the International Tracing Service

The International Commission of the ITS (International Tracing Service), which consists of representatives of the Governments of Belgium, France, German Federal Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands and the United States, held its 25th meeting on October 30, under the presidency of the Italian delegate, Mr. Paolucci. This meeting took place at the Italian National Institute of Cologne, in the presence of the Directors of the ITS, Mr. Nicolas Burckhardt and of a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mr. Claude Pilloud, Assistant Director for General Affairs. It should be recalled that the International Tracing Service possesses immense archives and a great number of card-indexes concerning the fate of persons who had been deported, displaced or missing during the Second World War in Germany and in the countries then occupied by the German forces. Since 1955 the ICRC has been responsible for running this important information centre.