Integrating Religion into the Historical Mainstream: Recent Literature on Religion in the Federal Republic of Germany

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edward Ruff

Those discovering the growing number of writings on the religious history of the Federal Republic of Germany might be forgiven for thinking that they had entered a parallel universe. To use the terminology popularized by M. Rainer Lepsius, Christian milieus have largely disintegrated and their members been integrated into the mainstream of political and economic life. Yet until recently, research on German Catholicism and Protestantism has remained confined to confessional ghettos that many members of these religious subcultures once sought to escape. The dozens of monographs that have appeared in the last five years have yet to be incorporated into the central narratives that dominate the secular histories of the postwar era. Many have still to be reviewed in non-religious journals. Edited volumes that purport to analyze the many facets of the Federal Republic include few if any chapters on religion.

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-65
Author(s):  
Ben Lieberman

The history of the Federal Republic of Germany is closely connected with economic achievement. Enjoying a striking economic recovery in the 1950s, the FRG became the home of the “economic miracle.” Maturing into one of the most powerful economies in the world, it became known as the “German model” by the 1970s. Now, however, the chief metaphor for the German economy is “Standort Deutschland,” and therein lies the tale of the new German problem.


1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 140-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavriel D. Roseneld

Few issues have possessed the centrality or sparked as much controversyin the postwar history of the Federal Republic of Germany(FRG) as the struggle to come to terms with the nation’s Nazi past.This struggle, commonly known by the disputed term Vergangenheitsbewältigung,has cast a long shadow upon nearly all dimensions ofGerman political, social, economic, and cultural life and has preventedthe nation from attaining a normalized state of existence inthe postwar period. Recent scholarly analyses of German memoryhave helped to broaden our understanding of how “successful” theGermans have been in mastering their Nazi past and have shed lighton the impact of the Nazi legacy on postwar German politics andculture. Even so, important gaps remain in our understanding ofhow the memory of the Third Reich has shaped the postwar life ofthe Federal Republic.


1998 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald G. Mathews

One of the most distinguishing marks of the American South is that religion is more important for the people who live there than for their fellow citizens in the restof the country. When this trait began to identify the region is surprisingly unclear, but it has begun to attract attention from scholars of religion and society who have hitherto been esteemed as students primarily of areas outside the South. The study of religion in Dixie cannot but benefit from this change. After centuries of obsession with thickly settled, college-proud, and printexpressive New England—an area not noted for excessive modesty in thinking about its place in the New World—students of American religion are turning to a region whose history has sustained a selfconsciousness that makes its place in American religious history unique. For studying the American South begins with a dilemma born of ambiguity: whether to treat it as a place or an idea. Sometimes, to be sure, the South appears to be both; but sometimes it is “place” presented as an idea; and sometimes it is a place whose historical experience should have, according to reflective writers, taught Americans historical and moral lessons they have failed to learn. Confusion results in part from the South's contested history not only between the region and the rest of the United States but also among various competing groups within its permeable and frequently indistinct borders. Differences between region and nation will, however, continue to dominate conversation even though the myth of southern distinctiveness may mislead students as much as the myth of its evangelical homogeneity. If inquiry about religion in the South should be sensitive to the many faith communities there, the history of the South will still by contrast provide insight into the broader “American” society.


1993 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert O. Hirschman

The revolutionary events of 1989 in Eastern Europe took a special shape in the German Democratic Republic: large-scale flights of citizens to the Federal Republic of Germany combined with increasingly powerful mass demonstrations in the major cities to bring down the communist regime. This conjunction of private emigration and public protest contrasts with the way these distinct responses to discontent had been previously experienced, primarily as alternatives. The forty-year history of the German Democratic Republic thus represents a particularly rich theater of operation for the concepts of “exit” and “voice,” which the author had introduced in his book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970). The events of 1989 are scrutinized in some detail as they trace a more complex pattern of interaction than had been found to prevail in most previous studies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Heumos

SummaryAfter the collapse of the communist system in eastern Europe, the development of the historiographies in the Czech and Slovak republics, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Federal Republic of Germany has been characterized by a broad spectrum of differences. This article offers an overview of the ways in which these differences have worked out for the history of the working class in the eastern European countries under communist rule, understood here as the social history of workers. It shows that cultural and political traditions and the “embedding” of historical research in the respective societies prior to 1989, the extent to which historiography after 1989 was able to connect to pre-1989 social-historical or sociological investigations, and the specific national political situation after 1989 make up for much of the differences in the ways that the history of the working class is dealt with in the countries concerned.


Author(s):  
Ron Holloway

BERLINALE 2000 AT FIFTY FOR the first time in the history of the festival, the 50th Berlinale (9-20 February 2000) was opened by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Johannes Rau. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder joined Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen at the grand inauguration of the new festival location cum headquarters on the Potsdamer Platz. Cultural Minister Michael Naumann presented Jeanne Moreau with an honorary Golden Bear and chatted with her about co-founding a new German-French Film Academy. L'Oréal sponsored the VIP lounge. The party for Danny "Trainspotting" Boyle's screen adaptation of Alex Garland's The Beach (UK-USA), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was voted the festival's most lavish and exotic. Kenneth Branagh enlivened the press conference for his Love Labour's Lost (UK) with a droll quote: "Shakespeare has been an excellent meal ticket!" MPAA's Marc Spiegel reminisced how the Berlinale became a major international festival event a half-century ago....


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document