The Search for the “Other Germany”: Refugee Historians from Nazi Germany and the Contested Historical Legacy of the Resistance to Hitler

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 402-429
Author(s):  
Marjorie Lamberti
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
German People ◽  
Sense Of Shame

During his visit to the Federal Republic of Germany in the summer of 1954, Fritz Stern, a young history professor at Columbia University, witnessed in Berlin the memorial service for the victims of the July 20, 1944, revolt against Hitler. His feelings were stirred at the sight of the sorrowful faces of the widows and children of the conspirators who were executed in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt, and by President Theodor Heuss's speech, recalling the anguish and courage of the Germans who made the decision to rebel in an act of atonement. Born in Germany in 1926 to Protestant parents of Jewish ancestry, Stern experienced racist antisemitism in the Third Reich firsthand before his family emigrated in 1938. He returned to Germany with conflicted emotions. During World War II, when the magnitude of the annihilation of European Jewry was uncovered, he felt intense hatred toward National Socialism. The distinction between German and Nazi became blurred. And yet, he could not bring himself to hold the German people collectively guilty for such crimes and to reject his native land. At the ceremony he struggled with his own feelings, saying to himself at first that “their purposes had not been ours.” Then a sense of shame for his indiscriminate hatred overwhelmed him. He left Germany in August “purged of hatred—though not disloyal to the feelings of the past, and full of forebodings about the future.”

The two lives of neurologist Helmut J. Bauer (1914–2008)

Neurology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Schmidt ◽  
Jens Westemeier ◽  
Dominik Gross
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
University Professor ◽  
Medical Career ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Second World

In 2008, the internationally renowned neurologist and university professor Helmut Johannes Bauer died at the age of 93 years. In the numerous obituaries and tributes to him, the years between 1933 and 1945 are either omitted or simplified; the Nazi past of Helmut Bauer has hardly been explored. Based on original documents dating from the Third Reich and the early Federal Republic of Germany as well as relevant secondary writings, Bauer's life before 1945 was traced to gain knowledge of his exact activities and tasks during the Second World War. Bauer was actively involved in Nazi crimes. He was a member of the so-called Künsberg special command of the SS and also worked in a prominent position at the Institute for Microbiology as well as for the Foreign Department of the Reich Physicians' Chamber. After World War II, Bauer underwent denazification and, like many others, was able to pursue his further medical career undisturbed, building on the contacts he had already made during the Nazi period.

Alcohol and the German Army

2021 ◽  
pp. 175-196
Author(s):  
Edward B. Westermann
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial Mentality ◽  
The Third ◽  
German Army ◽  
The Third Reich

This chapter examines the idea of a comradeship that was established by sharing in intoxicating acts of obliteration that encompassed the most atrocious manifestations of human behavior. It analyses the linkage between intoxication, fury, and destruction that existed in the German army prior to the rise of National Socialism. The Wehrmacht, like its SS and police counterparts, also had a distinct organizational culture, and this culture was defined by specific beliefs, norms, and rituals, including hard drinking, that reinforced group identity and established expectations of its members. For such distinguished organizational culture, the chapter presents how this military culture established a “cult of violence” and created a trajectory for the armies of the Third Reich leading to genocide in World War II. Ultimately, the chapter investigates the racial superiority and a colonial mentality created following the maelstrom of violence inflicted on the peoples of the occupied East.

scholarly journals PAKISTAN'S RELATIONS WITH GERMANY: A HISTORICAL STUDY

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Mansoor Mirza ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The Third Reich

Purpose-The study has been conducted with the core objective to overview and understand Pakistan's bilateral relations with Federal Republic of Germany and impacts of these cordial relations. The paper first focuses on the learned by Germans from mistakes of "The Third Reich" (NAZI Dictatorship) and strategies of reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation in post-world war II period that paved ways to German unification and led Germany to secure position as a leading economy, contrary to German case we have to figure out the mistakes and lapses that undermined all major institutions of Pakistan, derailed economy and took Pakistan to state of chaos. Methodology/Sample- A survey was conducted to analyze three relations. First "Can Pakistan learn lesson from Germany as they have moved from devastation to development?" Second "Is there any awareness about importance of our relations with Germany among youth?" Third "Is it right to say that Pakistan can benefit much more if serious efforts are made to further improve the ties with Germany especially in case of trade, energy crises and industrial infrastructure?" 100 students were selected as sample with 100% response rate. Findings-According to our survey overall rate of awareness among youth on Pakistan's relations with Germany resulted approximately 37%. Approximately 80% suggested acquiring German assistance to enhance trace and resolving energy crises. Approximately 60% suggested that Pakistan's relations with Germany should be highlighted in popular media equally as our relations with the U.S or Britain. Contrary to Germany in case of Pakistan alternating spells of military dictatorship, military dominant foreign policy, confrontation with neighbors and preference of security over education, healthcare and development along with corruption are resulted to be prominent factors that have undermined Pakistan's political, social and economic systems.

scholarly journals Obozy koncentracyjne jako nowoczesna forma zwalczania przestępczości w Republice Federalnej Niemiec?

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-69
Author(s):  
Sebastian Fikus
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
German Federal Republic ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Third Reich

CONCENTRATION CAMPS AS A MODERN FORM OF FIGHTING CRIME IN THE GERMAN FEDERAL REPUBLICThe problem of participation of the Nazi elites in the structures of the German Federal Republic is increasingly engaging for German historians. Popular, non-academic works also address the issue of joining the police force by former officials of the Third Reich. However, in the German texts it is consistently stressed that Nazi elites did not influence the social and political life of the German Federal Republic. Nevertheless, the debate on reintroducing concentration camps shows the high standing of national socialism ideology long after World War II.

A war hero or a Hitler soldier?

2019 ◽  
pp. 50-57
Author(s):  
Pavel Gotovetsky
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Committee ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Third Reich

The article is devoted to the biography of General Pavlo Shandruk, an Ukrainian officer who served as a Polish contract officer in the interwar period and at the beginning of the World War II, and in 1945 became the organizer and commander of the Ukrainian National Army fighting alongside the Third Reich in the last months of the war. The author focuses on the symbolic event of 1961, which was the decoration of General Shandruk with the highest Polish (émigré) military decoration – the Virtuti Militari order, for his heroic military service in 1939. By describing the controversy and emotions among Poles and Ukrainians, which accompanied the award of the former Hitler's soldier, the author tries to answer the question of how the General Shandruk’s activities should be assessed in the perspective of the uneasy Twentieth-Century Polish-Ukrainian relations. Keywords: Pavlo Shandruk, Władysław Anders, Virtuti Militari, Ukrainian National Army, Ukrainian National Committee, contract officer.

“The Chords of the German Soul are Tuned to Nature”: The Movement to Preserve the Natural Heimat from the Kaiserreich to the Third Reich

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Alexander Williams
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Conservation Law ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Natural Community ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
German People ◽  
State Protection

In the early 1930s, Dr. Konrad Guenther, a longtime advocate of nature conservation, was exhorting the German people to return to “the soil of the homeland.” In the past, according to Guenther, whenever the German people had been forced to respond vigorously to the pressure of hard times, they had returned to their “natural” roots. He called on the population to learn about the Heimat (homeland) and its natural environment, ‘not only through reason alone, but with the entire soul and personality; for the chords of the German soul are tuned to nature. Let us allow nature to speak, and let us be happy to be German!” The stakes were high, for if the German people failed in this way to unite into a strong, “natural” community, they would become “cultural fertilizer for other nations.” Following the fall of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Guenther became one of the most vocal exponents of the notion that conserving nature would aid in the cultural unification and “racial cleansing” of Germany. Indeed, Guenther and his fellow conservationists saw their longstanding dream of a nationwide conservation law at last fulfilled under the Third Reich. The 1935 Reich Conservation Law guaranteed state protection of “the nature of the Heimat in all its manifestations”—if necessary through police measures.

La Scuola di Francoforte in esilio: storia di un'inchiesta sull'antisemitismo nella classe operaia americana

2009 ◽  
pp. 121-140
Author(s):  
Catherine Collomp
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
American Working Class ◽  
Working World

- Between July and December 1944 the Institute for social research of Columbia University made known the results of a survey on anti-Semitism in the American working class carried out by the Jewish Labor Committee of New York. The results of the research confirmed the rooting of a few stereotypes and prejudices on Jews in some specific segments of the American working world: more widespread among "blue collars" rather than "white collars" and among the white population rather than the black. This form of anti-Semitism involved, paradoxically, also the workers of factories producing weapons to fight against the Third Reich. A form of anti-Semitism which did not stop with the end of World War II but turned, using the same mechanisms analyzed by migrant German sociologists, into a discrimination against communist militants.Parole chiave: Scuola di Francoforte, esilio, classe operaia, antisemitismo, razzismo, comunismo School of Frankfurt, exile, anti-Semitism, working class, racism, communism

In Search of a Father

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus J. Arnold ◽  
Eve M. Duffy
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
General Question ◽  
World War ◽  
Adolf Hitler ◽  
The Third ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
The Third Reich

In this introductory chapter, the author narrates how he searched for his missing father, Konrad Jarausch, who had died in the USSR in January 1942. After providing a background on Jarausch's nationalism and involvement in Protestant pedagogy, the chapter discusses his experiences during World War II. It then explains how Jarausch grew increasingly critical of the Nazis after witnessing the mass deaths of Russian prisoners of war. It also considers how the author, and his family, tried to keep the memory of his father alive. The author concludes by reflecting on his father's troubled legacy and how his search for his father poses the general question of complicity with Nazism and the Third Reich on a more personal level, asking why a decent and educated Protestant would follow Adolf Hitler and support the war until he himself, his family, and the country were swallowed up by it.

Edmund Burke: A Generation of Scholarship and Discovery

1962 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Bryant
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
World War ◽  
Present Survey ◽  
Work In Progress ◽  
The Past

In his essay on “The Reputation of Edmund Burke” Thomas W. Copeland offers a timely analysis of the context and climate of contemporary Burke studies. His remarks suggest also the acceleration in pace of those studies. Current publication relevant to Burke has been noticed for the past four years in the Burke Newsletter. Reporting and reviewing new publication on or near Burke, retailing schemes and dreams and work in progress, and purveying personal news and opinion of students of Burke, the Burke Newsletter resembles in scope the Johnsonian Newsletter, edited by James L. Clifford and John H. Middendorf at Columbia University, which, of course, has for some time kept its readers up to date on the bibliography of the age of Burke and Johnson.Copeland's essay, furthermore, is sufficient counterweight to another recent critical appraisal professedly directed to something of the same purpose – W. T. Laprade's impatient, hostile excursion through a century or more of writing on Burke. Without attempting the detail of the Newsletter, therefore, and without retreading Copeland's ground, the present survey undertakes to provide an account of significant trends and characteristic contributions in Burke studies for roughly the period since World War II. That span of years covers the time, or a little more, that the main body of Burke's papers has been generally open for study. It also includes the time when ideological and socio-political patterns have stimulated resort to the familiar past for spokesmen and scapegoats with whom to undergird and extenuate contemporary controversy.

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