The Germans and the East

The Germans and the East PDF

Author: Charles W. Ingrao

Publisher: Purdue University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 9781557534439

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The editors present a collection of 23 historical papers exploring relationships between "the Germans" (necessarily adopting different senses of the term for different periods or different topics) and their immediate neighbors to the East. The eras discussed range from the Middle Ages to European integration. Examples of specific topics addressed include the Teutonic order in the development of the political culture of Northeastern Europe during the Middle ages, Teutonic-Balt relations in the chronicles of the Baltic Crusades, the emergence of Polenliteratur in 18th century Germany, German colonization in the Banat and Transylvania in the 18th century, changing meanings of "German" in Habsburg Central Europe, German military occupation and culture on the Eastern Front in Word War I, interwar Poland and the problem of Polish-speaking Germans, the implementation of Nazi racial policy in occupied Poland, Austro-Czechoslovak relations and the post-war expulsion of the Germans, and narratives of the lost German East in Cold War West Germany.

The German Myth of the East

The German Myth of the East PDF

Author: Vejas G. Liulevicius

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-12-09

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0199605165

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An examination of the various different expressions of the distinctive German 'myth of the East' that has been such a marked feature of German culture over the last two centuries, influencing German attitudes both to Eastern Europe itself and also to Germans' own sense of identity.

The German Lands and Eastern Europe

The German Lands and Eastern Europe PDF

Author: Karen Schönwälder

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-07-27

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1349270946

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The relationship between Germans and their non-German counterparts in Central and East Europe has been a fundamental feature of European History. The twelve essays in this volume address key aspects of this complex and multifaceted relationship which has been marked by friendship and cooperation as well as enmity and strife. The topics range from medieval peasant settlement to present-day relations between Germans and Poles. Central themes are national identity, the emergence and development of mixed communities and inter-cultural communication.

Coming Home to Germany?

Coming Home to Germany? PDF

Author: David Rock

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781571817181

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The end of World War II led to one of the most significant forced population transfers in history: the expulsion of over 12 million ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1950 and the subsequent emigration of another four million in the second half of the twentieth century. Although unprecedented in its magnitude, conventional wisdom has it that the integration of refugees, expellees, and Aussiedler was a largely successful process in postwar Germany. While the achievements of the integration process are acknowledged, the volume also examines the difficulties encountered by ethnic Germans in the Federal Republic and analyses the shortcomings of dealing with this particular phenomenon of mass migration and its consequences.

Comrades of Color

Comrades of Color PDF

Author: Quinn Slobodian

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1782387064

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In keeping with the tenets of socialist internationalism, the political culture of the German Democratic Republic strongly emphasized solidarity with the non-white world: children sent telegrams to Angela Davis in prison, workers made contributions from their wages to relief efforts in Vietnam and Angola, and the deaths of Patrice Lumumba, Ho Chi Minh, and Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired public memorials. Despite their prominence, however, scholars have rarely examined such displays in detail. Through a series of illuminating historical investigations, this volume deploys archival research, ethnography, and a variety of other interdisciplinary tools to explore the rhetoric and reality of East German internationalism.

Orderly and Humane

Orderly and Humane PDF

Author: R. M. Douglas

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2012-06-26

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 0300183763

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The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic). Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless. In this authoritative and objective account, historian R.M. Douglas examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the forced migrations were conceived, planned, and executed, and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The first comprehensive history of this immense manmade catastrophe, Orderly and Humane is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing." It may also be the most significant untold story of the World War II.

Becoming East German

Becoming East German PDF

Author: Mary Fulbrook

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2013-09-30

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0857459759

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For roughly the first decade after the demise of the GDR, professional and popular interpretations of East German history concentrated primarily on forms of power and repression, as well as on dissent and resistance to communist rule. Socio-cultural approaches have increasingly shown that a single-minded emphasis on repression and coercion fails to address a number of important historical issues, including those related to the subjective experiences of those who lived under communist regimes. With that in mind, the essays in this volume explore significant physical and psychological aspects of life in the GDR, such as health and diet, leisure and dining, memories of the Nazi past, as well as identity, sports, and experiences of everyday humiliation. Situating the GDR within a broader historical context, they open up new ways of interpreting life behind the Iron Curtain – while providing a devastating critique of misleading mainstream scholarship, which continues to portray the GDR in the restrictive terms of totalitarian theory.

The German Myth of the East

The German Myth of the East PDF

Author: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-12-09

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0191610461

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Over the last two centuries and indeed up to the present day, Eastern Europe's lands and peoples have conjured up a complex mixture of fascination, anxiety, promise, and peril for Germans looking eastwards. Across the generations, a varied cast of German writers, artists, philosophers, diplomats, political leaders, generals, and Nazi racial fanatics have imagined (often in very different ways) a special German mission in the East, forging a frontier myth that paralleled the American myths of the 'Wild West' and 'Manifest Destiny'. Through close analysis of German views of the East from 1800 to our own times, The German Myth of the East reveals that this crucial international relationship has in fact been integral to how Germans have defined (and repeatedly redefined) themselves and their own national identity. In particular, what was ultimately at stake for Germans was their own uncertain position in Europe, between East and West. Paradoxically, the East came to be viewed as both an attractive land of unlimited potential for the future and as a place undeveloped, dangerous, wild, dirty, and uncultured. Running the gamut from the messages of international understanding announced by generations of German scholars and sympathetic writers, to the violent racial utopia envisaged by the Nazis, German imaginings of the East represent a crucial, yet unfamiliar, part of modern European history, and one that remains fundamentally important today in the context of an expanded European Union.

Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe

Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe PDF

Author: Tobias Grill

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-09-24

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 3110492482

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For many centuries Jews and Germans were economically and culturally of significant importance in East-Central and Eastern Europe. Since both groups had a very similar background of origin (Central Europe) and spoke languages which are related to each other (German/Yiddish), the question arises to what extent Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe share common historical developments and experiences. This volume aims to explore not only entanglements and interdependences of Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe from the late middle ages to the 20th century, but also comparative aspects of these two communities. Moreover, the perception of Jews as Germans in this region is also discussed in detail.

The Lost German East

The Lost German East PDF

Author: Andrew Demshuk

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-04-30

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1107020735

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After 1945, Germany was inundated with ethnic German refugees expelled from Eastern Europe. Andrew Demshuk explores why they integrated into West German society.