Mark Hewitson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198787457
- eISBN:
- 9780191829468
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198787457.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
Wars have played a fundamental part in modern German history. Although infrequent, conflicts involving German states have usually been extensive and often catastrophic, constituting turning points ...
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Wars have played a fundamental part in modern German history. Although infrequent, conflicts involving German states have usually been extensive and often catastrophic, constituting turning points for Europe as a whole. This volume is the first in a series of studies that explore how such conflicts were experienced by soldiers and civilians during wartime, and how they were subsequently imagined and understood during peacetime. Without such an understanding, it is difficult to make sense of the dramatic shifts characterizing the politics of Germany and Europe over the past two centuries. The studies argue that the ease—or reluctance—with which Germans went to war, and the far-reaching consequences of such wars on domestic politics, were related to soldiers’ and civilians’ attitudes to violence and death, as well as to long-term transformations in contemporaries’ conceptualization of conflict. Absolute War reassesses the meaning of military conflict for the millions of German subjects who were directly implicated in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Based on a re-reading of contemporary diaries, letters, memoirs, official correspondence, press reports, pamphlets, treatises, poems, and plays, it refocuses attention on combat and conscription as the central components of new forms of mass warfare. It concentrates, in particular, on the impact of violence, killing, and death on soldiers’ and civilians’ experiences and subsequent memories of conflict. War has often been conceived of as ‘an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds’, as Clausewitz put it, but the relationship between military conflicts and violent acts remains a problematic one.Less
Wars have played a fundamental part in modern German history. Although infrequent, conflicts involving German states have usually been extensive and often catastrophic, constituting turning points for Europe as a whole. This volume is the first in a series of studies that explore how such conflicts were experienced by soldiers and civilians during wartime, and how they were subsequently imagined and understood during peacetime. Without such an understanding, it is difficult to make sense of the dramatic shifts characterizing the politics of Germany and Europe over the past two centuries. The studies argue that the ease—or reluctance—with which Germans went to war, and the far-reaching consequences of such wars on domestic politics, were related to soldiers’ and civilians’ attitudes to violence and death, as well as to long-term transformations in contemporaries’ conceptualization of conflict. Absolute War reassesses the meaning of military conflict for the millions of German subjects who were directly implicated in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Based on a re-reading of contemporary diaries, letters, memoirs, official correspondence, press reports, pamphlets, treatises, poems, and plays, it refocuses attention on combat and conscription as the central components of new forms of mass warfare. It concentrates, in particular, on the impact of violence, killing, and death on soldiers’ and civilians’ experiences and subsequent memories of conflict. War has often been conceived of as ‘an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds’, as Clausewitz put it, but the relationship between military conflicts and violent acts remains a problematic one.
Gwynne Lewis
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198228950
- eISBN:
- 9780191678844
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198228950.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Economic History
This story in this is book is about one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs in modern French history. The book examines Pierre-François Tubeuf's contribution to the development of industry in France. ...
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This story in this is book is about one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs in modern French history. The book examines Pierre-François Tubeuf's contribution to the development of industry in France. The book explores the relationship between seigneurial, proto-industrial, and modern forms of capitalism in the Cévennes region of south-eastern France in the 18th century, and demonstrates the international scope of proto-industrialization. It unravels the complex problems associated with the impact of the French Revolution on the processes of modern French capitalism, and traces the responses of a wide variety of individuals, including Tubeuf and his greatest rival, the Maréchal de Castries. The book examines the epic struggle of these two powerful men for control of the rich coal mines of the region, and their legacy to succeeding generations.Less
This story in this is book is about one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs in modern French history. The book examines Pierre-François Tubeuf's contribution to the development of industry in France. The book explores the relationship between seigneurial, proto-industrial, and modern forms of capitalism in the Cévennes region of south-eastern France in the 18th century, and demonstrates the international scope of proto-industrialization. It unravels the complex problems associated with the impact of the French Revolution on the processes of modern French capitalism, and traces the responses of a wide variety of individuals, including Tubeuf and his greatest rival, the Maréchal de Castries. The book examines the epic struggle of these two powerful men for control of the rich coal mines of the region, and their legacy to succeeding generations.
Claudia Siebrecht
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199656684
- eISBN:
- 9780191744563
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199656684.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
The Aesthetics of Loss is a cultural history of German women’s art of the First World War that locates their rich visual testimony in the context of the civilian experience of war and ...
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The Aesthetics of Loss is a cultural history of German women’s art of the First World War that locates their rich visual testimony in the context of the civilian experience of war and wartime loss. Drawing on a fascinating body of visual sources produced throughout the war years, the book examines the thematic evolution of women’s art from expressions of support for the war effort to more nuanced and ambivalent testimonies of loss and grief. Many of the images are stark woodcuts, linocuts, and lithographs of great iconographical power that acted as narrative tools to deal with the novel, unsettling, and often traumatic experience of war. German female artists developed a unique aesthetic response to the conflict that both expressed emotional distress and allowed them to re-imagine the place of mourning women in wartime society. Historical codes of wartime behaviour and traditional rites of public mourning led female artists to redefine cultural practices of bereavement, question existing notions of heroic death and proud bereavement through art, and place grief at the centre of women’s war experiences. As a cultural, aesthetic, and thematic point of reference, German women’s art of the First World War has had a fundamental influence on the European memory and understanding of modern war.Less
The Aesthetics of Loss is a cultural history of German women’s art of the First World War that locates their rich visual testimony in the context of the civilian experience of war and wartime loss. Drawing on a fascinating body of visual sources produced throughout the war years, the book examines the thematic evolution of women’s art from expressions of support for the war effort to more nuanced and ambivalent testimonies of loss and grief. Many of the images are stark woodcuts, linocuts, and lithographs of great iconographical power that acted as narrative tools to deal with the novel, unsettling, and often traumatic experience of war. German female artists developed a unique aesthetic response to the conflict that both expressed emotional distress and allowed them to re-imagine the place of mourning women in wartime society. Historical codes of wartime behaviour and traditional rites of public mourning led female artists to redefine cultural practices of bereavement, question existing notions of heroic death and proud bereavement through art, and place grief at the centre of women’s war experiences. As a cultural, aesthetic, and thematic point of reference, German women’s art of the First World War has had a fundamental influence on the European memory and understanding of modern war.
Konrad H. Jarausch
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195127799
- eISBN:
- 9780199869503
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195127799.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book deals with the transformation of Germany after the Second World War and the Holocaust into a Western, democratic, and therefore civilized country. It proceeds in three stages, beginning ...
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This book deals with the transformation of Germany after the Second World War and the Holocaust into a Western, democratic, and therefore civilized country. It proceeds in three stages, beginning with the Allied post-war policies of demilitarization, denazification, and decartelization. In the second part, it concentrates on the Westernization, inner democratization and generational rebellion of the 1960s, concluding with a section on the repudiation of Communism, the return to normalcy, and the issue of immigration during the 1990s.Less
This book deals with the transformation of Germany after the Second World War and the Holocaust into a Western, democratic, and therefore civilized country. It proceeds in three stages, beginning with the Allied post-war policies of demilitarization, denazification, and decartelization. In the second part, it concentrates on the Westernization, inner democratization and generational rebellion of the 1960s, concluding with a section on the repudiation of Communism, the return to normalcy, and the issue of immigration during the 1990s.
Pertti Ahonen
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199259892
- eISBN:
- 9780191717451
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259892.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book connects two central problems encountered by the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification in 1990, both of them rooted in the Second World War. Domestically, the country had to ...
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This book connects two central problems encountered by the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification in 1990, both of them rooted in the Second World War. Domestically, the country had to integrate eight million expellees forced out of their homes in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of the lost war. Externally, it had to reestablish relations with Eastern Europe, despite the burdens of the Nazi past, the expulsions, and the ongoing East–West struggle during the Cold War. This book shows how the long-term consequences of the expellee problem significantly hindered West German efforts to develop normal ties with the East European states. In particular, it emphasizes a point largely overlooked in the existing literature: the way in which the political integration of the expellees into the Federal Republic had unanticipated negative consequences for the country's Ostpolitik.Less
This book connects two central problems encountered by the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification in 1990, both of them rooted in the Second World War. Domestically, the country had to integrate eight million expellees forced out of their homes in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of the lost war. Externally, it had to reestablish relations with Eastern Europe, despite the burdens of the Nazi past, the expulsions, and the ongoing East–West struggle during the Cold War. This book shows how the long-term consequences of the expellee problem significantly hindered West German efforts to develop normal ties with the East European states. In particular, it emphasizes a point largely overlooked in the existing literature: the way in which the political integration of the expellees into the Federal Republic had unanticipated negative consequences for the country's Ostpolitik.
Thomas J. Laub
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199539321
- eISBN:
- 9780191715808
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199539321.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Military History, European Modern History
After signing an armistice agreement on 22 June 1940, Adolf Hitler placed the German army in charge of occupied France and ordered the military government to supervise the Vichy regime and maintain ...
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After signing an armistice agreement on 22 June 1940, Adolf Hitler placed the German army in charge of occupied France and ordered the military government to supervise the Vichy regime and maintain security. Viewing World War II as a struggle between nation‐states, the military commander in France, Otto von Stülpnagel, cultivated French support, placed industrial resources at the disposal of the German war effort, and maintained ‘security’ by capturing enemy soldiers and Allied spies. Initially barred from the Hexagon, Göring's Office of the Four Year Plan, Himmler's SS, and Ribbentrop's Foreign Office adopted an expanded definition of security, argued that the Reich had to combat the so‐called Jewish conspiracy to maintain order, and secured Hitler's favor. In conjunction with Alfred Rosenberg and the French government, they launched an anti‐Semitic campaign of defamation, discrimination, and despoliation. Hitler used assassinations as a pretext for genocide and ordered subordinates to answer resistance activity with deadly reprisals and massive deportations that focused on Jews. Stülpnagel condemned anti‐Semitic measures and disproportionate hostage executions as impolitic distractions and resigned his command. Astute political tactics helped the Himmler seize control of German security forces but alienated the military government and, later, the Vichy regime. With limited support from French and German colleagues, the SS could only deport 75,000 French Jews: Fritz Sauckel's labor organization impressed approximately 850,000 workers into the German war economy by cooperating with French and German colleagues. Accommodation explains divergent results of select German policies, clarifies the inner workings of the Nazi regime, and elucidates decisions made by Prime Ministers Pierre Laval and François Darlan.Less
After signing an armistice agreement on 22 June 1940, Adolf Hitler placed the German army in charge of occupied France and ordered the military government to supervise the Vichy regime and maintain security. Viewing World War II as a struggle between nation‐states, the military commander in France, Otto von Stülpnagel, cultivated French support, placed industrial resources at the disposal of the German war effort, and maintained ‘security’ by capturing enemy soldiers and Allied spies. Initially barred from the Hexagon, Göring's Office of the Four Year Plan, Himmler's SS, and Ribbentrop's Foreign Office adopted an expanded definition of security, argued that the Reich had to combat the so‐called Jewish conspiracy to maintain order, and secured Hitler's favor. In conjunction with Alfred Rosenberg and the French government, they launched an anti‐Semitic campaign of defamation, discrimination, and despoliation. Hitler used assassinations as a pretext for genocide and ordered subordinates to answer resistance activity with deadly reprisals and massive deportations that focused on Jews. Stülpnagel condemned anti‐Semitic measures and disproportionate hostage executions as impolitic distractions and resigned his command. Astute political tactics helped the Himmler seize control of German security forces but alienated the military government and, later, the Vichy regime. With limited support from French and German colleagues, the SS could only deport 75,000 French Jews: Fritz Sauckel's labor organization impressed approximately 850,000 workers into the German war economy by cooperating with French and German colleagues. Accommodation explains divergent results of select German policies, clarifies the inner workings of the Nazi regime, and elucidates decisions made by Prime Ministers Pierre Laval and François Darlan.
Anne E. Gorsuch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199609949
- eISBN:
- 9780191731853
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609949.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
In the Khrushchev era, Soviet citizens were newly encouraged to imagine themselves exploring the medieval towers of Tallinn’s Old Town, relaxing on the Romanian Black Sea coast, even climbing the ...
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In the Khrushchev era, Soviet citizens were newly encouraged to imagine themselves exploring the medieval towers of Tallinn’s Old Town, relaxing on the Romanian Black Sea coast, even climbing the Eiffel Tower. By the mid-1960s, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens each year crossed previously closed Soviet borders to travel abroad. This book explores the gradual integration of the Soviet Union into global processes of cultural exchange in which the Soviet Union after Stalin increasingly, if anxiously, participated in the transnational circulation of people, ideas, and items. The classic emblem of aggressive internationalism under Stalin was that of the hammer and sickle super-imposed on the world. Under Khrushchev, the new motif, as displayed on postal stamps, was of a Soviet jet touching down in Asia, Europe, and North America. The book begins with a domestic tour of the Soviet Union in late Stalinism, moving outwards in concentric circles to explore travel to the inner abroad of Estonia, to the near abroad of eastern Europe, and to the capitalist West. It returns home again with a discussion of Soviet films about foreign travel. All this is your World is situated at the intersection of a number of topics of current scholarly and popular interest: the history of tourism and mobility; the cultural history of international relations, specifically the Cold War; the history of the Soviet Union after Stalin. It also offers a new perspective on our view of the continent as a whole by exploring the Soviet Union’s relationship with both eastern and western Europe through, in this case, the experience of Soviet tourists.Less
In the Khrushchev era, Soviet citizens were newly encouraged to imagine themselves exploring the medieval towers of Tallinn’s Old Town, relaxing on the Romanian Black Sea coast, even climbing the Eiffel Tower. By the mid-1960s, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens each year crossed previously closed Soviet borders to travel abroad. This book explores the gradual integration of the Soviet Union into global processes of cultural exchange in which the Soviet Union after Stalin increasingly, if anxiously, participated in the transnational circulation of people, ideas, and items. The classic emblem of aggressive internationalism under Stalin was that of the hammer and sickle super-imposed on the world. Under Khrushchev, the new motif, as displayed on postal stamps, was of a Soviet jet touching down in Asia, Europe, and North America. The book begins with a domestic tour of the Soviet Union in late Stalinism, moving outwards in concentric circles to explore travel to the inner abroad of Estonia, to the near abroad of eastern Europe, and to the capitalist West. It returns home again with a discussion of Soviet films about foreign travel. All this is your World is situated at the intersection of a number of topics of current scholarly and popular interest: the history of tourism and mobility; the cultural history of international relations, specifically the Cold War; the history of the Soviet Union after Stalin. It also offers a new perspective on our view of the continent as a whole by exploring the Soviet Union’s relationship with both eastern and western Europe through, in this case, the experience of Soviet tourists.
Eli Rubin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198732266
- eISBN:
- 9780191796579
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732266.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
This book explores the construction of Marzahn, the largest prefabricated housing project in East Germany, built on the outskirts of East Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, and touted by the regime as ...
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This book explores the construction of Marzahn, the largest prefabricated housing project in East Germany, built on the outskirts of East Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, and touted by the regime as the future of socialism. It also focuses especially on the experience of East Germans who moved, often from crumbling slums left over as a legacy of the nineteenth century, into this radically new place, one defined by pure functionality and rationality—a material manifestation of the utopian promise of socialism. Employing methodologies from critical geography, urban, architectural, and environmental history, and everyday life, the book asks whether their experience was a radical break with their personal pasts and the German past. More directly: can a dramatic change in spatial and material surroundings also sever the links of memory that tie people to their old life narratives, and if so, does that help build a new socialist mentality in the minds of historical subjects? The answer is yes and no—as much as the East German state tried to create a completely new socialist settlement, divorced of any links to the pre-socialist past, the massive construction project uncovered the truth buried—literally—in the ground, which was that the urge to colonize the outskirts of Berlin was not new at all. Furthermore, the construction of a new city out of nothing, using repeating, identical buildings, created a “panopticon”-like effect, enabling the Stasi to undertake more complete surveillance than they had previously.Less
This book explores the construction of Marzahn, the largest prefabricated housing project in East Germany, built on the outskirts of East Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, and touted by the regime as the future of socialism. It also focuses especially on the experience of East Germans who moved, often from crumbling slums left over as a legacy of the nineteenth century, into this radically new place, one defined by pure functionality and rationality—a material manifestation of the utopian promise of socialism. Employing methodologies from critical geography, urban, architectural, and environmental history, and everyday life, the book asks whether their experience was a radical break with their personal pasts and the German past. More directly: can a dramatic change in spatial and material surroundings also sever the links of memory that tie people to their old life narratives, and if so, does that help build a new socialist mentality in the minds of historical subjects? The answer is yes and no—as much as the East German state tried to create a completely new socialist settlement, divorced of any links to the pre-socialist past, the massive construction project uncovered the truth buried—literally—in the ground, which was that the urge to colonize the outskirts of Berlin was not new at all. Furthermore, the construction of a new city out of nothing, using repeating, identical buildings, created a “panopticon”-like effect, enabling the Stasi to undertake more complete surveillance than they had previously.
Jill Edwards
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198228714
- eISBN:
- 9780191678813
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198228714.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book examines the formulation of British and American policy between 1945 and 1955 towards one of the most hated regimes of the twentieth century. The Franco question, though apparently not of ...
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This book examines the formulation of British and American policy between 1945 and 1955 towards one of the most hated regimes of the twentieth century. The Franco question, though apparently not of the first importance in the evolution of Cold War policy, nevertheless haunted British and American governments during this period. It posed a problem which epitomizes the difficulty of dealing with pariah regimes. As such, it highlights for historians the attempts of these two governments to straddle the contradictions inherent in the emerging dual system of the United Nations, or internationalism, on the one hand, and the older system of balance of power, played out by the super powers as the Cold War. Set as it is in the domestic and international context, it also exemplifies the problems faced today by individual governments and by the United Nations in dealing with questions of intervention or non-intervention in distasteful regimes.Less
This book examines the formulation of British and American policy between 1945 and 1955 towards one of the most hated regimes of the twentieth century. The Franco question, though apparently not of the first importance in the evolution of Cold War policy, nevertheless haunted British and American governments during this period. It posed a problem which epitomizes the difficulty of dealing with pariah regimes. As such, it highlights for historians the attempts of these two governments to straddle the contradictions inherent in the emerging dual system of the United Nations, or internationalism, on the one hand, and the older system of balance of power, played out by the super powers as the Cold War. Set as it is in the domestic and international context, it also exemplifies the problems faced today by individual governments and by the United Nations in dealing with questions of intervention or non-intervention in distasteful regimes.
Jürgen Matthäus (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195389159
- eISBN:
- 9780199866694
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389159.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Historiography
Presenting a new departure on Holocaust testimony, this book combines analytical reflections by scholars from different backgrounds on the post-war memories of one survivor, Helen “Zippi” Tichauer. ...
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Presenting a new departure on Holocaust testimony, this book combines analytical reflections by scholars from different backgrounds on the post-war memories of one survivor, Helen “Zippi” Tichauer. Born in Bratislava in 1918, she came to Auschwitz in spring 1942 in the second transport of Jewish women from Slovakia, and was one of the few early arrivals who survived Auschwitz and its evacuation. Against the background of Zippi's early post-war and later memories, this book raises key questions on the meaning and usages of survivor testimony. What do we know and how much can we understand, sixty years after the end of the Nazi era, about the workings of a Nazi death camp and the life of its inmates? How willing are scholars, students and the public to listen to and learn from the fascinating, yet often unwieldy, confusing, and discomforting experiences of a Holocaust survivor? How can those experiences be communicated to teach and educate without undue simplification and glossing over of problematic aspects inherent in both, the life stories and their current rendering? Written by expert Holocaust scholars, this book presents a new, multi-faceted approach toward Zippi's unique story combined with the analysis of key aspects of Holocaust memory, its forms and functions.Less
Presenting a new departure on Holocaust testimony, this book combines analytical reflections by scholars from different backgrounds on the post-war memories of one survivor, Helen “Zippi” Tichauer. Born in Bratislava in 1918, she came to Auschwitz in spring 1942 in the second transport of Jewish women from Slovakia, and was one of the few early arrivals who survived Auschwitz and its evacuation. Against the background of Zippi's early post-war and later memories, this book raises key questions on the meaning and usages of survivor testimony. What do we know and how much can we understand, sixty years after the end of the Nazi era, about the workings of a Nazi death camp and the life of its inmates? How willing are scholars, students and the public to listen to and learn from the fascinating, yet often unwieldy, confusing, and discomforting experiences of a Holocaust survivor? How can those experiences be communicated to teach and educate without undue simplification and glossing over of problematic aspects inherent in both, the life stories and their current rendering? Written by expert Holocaust scholars, this book presents a new, multi-faceted approach toward Zippi's unique story combined with the analysis of key aspects of Holocaust memory, its forms and functions.
