Decision-making under duress: the treatment of churches in the City of London during and after World War II

Urban History ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER J. LARKHAM ◽  
JOE L. NASR

ABSTRACT:The process of making decisions about cities during the bombing of World War II, in its immediate aftermath and in the early post-war years remains a phenomenon that is only partly understood. The bombing left many church buildings damaged or destroyed across the UK. The Church of England's churches within the City of London, subject to a complex progression of deliberations, debates and decisions involving several committees and commissions set up by the bishop of London and others, are used to review the process and product of decision-making in the crisis of war. Church authorities are shown to have responded to the immediate problem of what to do with these sites in order most effectively to provide for the needs of the church as an organization, while simultaneously considering other factors including morale, culture and heritage. The beginnings of processes of consulting multiple experts, if not stakeholders, can be seen in this example of an institution making decisions under the pressures of a major crisis.

Author(s):  
Paul Stangl

The center of Berlin lay in ruins at the end of World War II. Cultural and political leaders faced decisions regarding what to restore, rebuild, or raze. Yet the future of Berlin would not be envisioned in a vacuum. They would wittingly and unwittingly draw from inherited traditions, ideologies, and theories to structure their understanding of the city and guide decision-making about its future. For Berliners, the rebuilding of their destroyed city would remain a central part of their lives for years. Communist political leaders sought to mobilize the population for the reconstruction effort and to use this effort in the political socialization of the citizenry.


2021 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Jacek Ziaja

The article is a very modest reason for the history of the religious house of the Congregation of the Grey Sisters of St. Elizabeth in Świebodzice during the years 1866-1945. The author briefly describes the origins of the order, as well as the circumstan-ces of the appearance of the sisters and the location of the religious institution in the city based on cartographic material (map) and iconographic (photos, old postcards). He goes on to mention the subject matter of Elizabethan activities. In addition, it reconstructs the personnel of the religious house during the 1930s in the light of the data contained in the pre-war address books (residents) of the city. Finally, he briefly discusses the history of the religious house during World War II (1939-1945), as well as the tragic post-war fate of individual sisters based on private arrangements.


Author(s):  
Sergey M. Zinchuk

The author describes in the article some important components and features of Church life in the period initiated by Nikita Khrushchev and known as the parish reform, which, among other things, was aimed at undermining the fi nancial base of the Russian Orthodox Church (hereinafter referred to as the Church) in the USSR. It is noted that Stalin's post-war system of state-Church relations had a serious defect in the form of ineffective legal consolidation: in addition, after the end of the World War II, the question if the Soviet power praised Orthodoxy and other religions stood no longer disappeared. All this allowed Stalin's successors carrying out a number of serious measures aimed at weakening the Church. Khrushchev's religious policy differed from the persecution of the 1920s-1930s, because it included measures aimed at indirect destruction of Orthodoxy, primarily through administrative pressure on the clergy and laity. The parish reform, aimed at depriving deans of fi nancial powers and handing them over to churchwardens, appointed, in fact, by local authorities, which allowed to ruin churches and monasteries with compliance with the formalities of the regime's toleration, can be considered to be a typical manifestation of that trend.


1980 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
Alistair Kee

Religion is widely practised in Poland. This fact is well known in the West, though it is always a matter of some amazement. What is less well known and perhaps more amazing is the extent to which religion is studied in Poland. Before World War II there were of course the well-established faculties of theology in Warsaw, Wilno (now in the U.S.S.R.) and the fourteenth-century foundation in the ancient capital of Krakow. The Catholic University of Lublin is a private institution set up by the Church in 1920. It has some very distinguished scholars and its degrees are recognised by the State. Some courses in theology are also taught there, mainly for the training of priests but also for lay people who may intend to work with, for example, K.I.K., the circle of Catholic intellectuals.


2018 ◽  
pp. 173-200
Author(s):  
Mary-Elizabeth B. Murphy

Chapter Six illustrates how, during World War II, black women in Washington, D.C. worked to steer the city on a path toward racial integration. Women’s activism became more militant in the 1940s as they built on the rich tradition of resistance from the previous decade in economic justice, civil rights, and campaigns for safety. During World War II, black women protested interstate transportation segregation, staged sit-ins at lunch counters throughout the city, and returned to their position as lobbyists in the federal government. As men departed to fight in World War II, black women crafted gendered arguments, contending that it was their duty to fight for racial equality in the city. At the conclusion of World War II, black women had laid the foundation for the post-war black freedom struggle across the nation.


2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-113
Author(s):  
K. Luisa Gandolfo

For centuries, Jerusalem has been revered as the holy site of Judaism, Christianity,and Islam; strategically coveted as a means to consolidate territorialgains; and conquered thirty-seven times between its foundation and thesequestering of its ancient hub by Israeli forces during the Six-Day War. Asthe region underwent significant change after World War II, the Holy Cityincreasingly became contested. While the Palestinians nurtured concernsregarding land sales and the escalating influx of Jewish settlers, their apprehension became lost amidst the tussle for authority between Transjordan,which sought to affirm its role as custodian of the holy places, and the nascentstate of Israel, which strove to strengthen its presence in the city. Chartingthe endeavors of KingAbdullah and KingHussein to assert Transjordan’sauthority over Jerusalemdespite international and Israeli rivalry, Katz affordsa unique insight into the multifarious means used to court its residentsthrough events, banknotes, and stamps between 1948 and 1967.Over the course of seven chapters, the author imbues the text with illuminatingfigures and maps. Most notable is the 1946 “Palestinian Aid”stamp series initiated during the Bludan Conference in June 1946, duringwhich Abdullah directed member states of the Arab League “to issue aPalestinian stamp whose revenue would be earmarked for Palestine” (p. 56).Yet Abdullah’s pro-active stance – the Jordanian Parliament implementedthe Arab League resolution on 22 July 1946, followed by the “AdditionalStamps Law” Temporary Law 20 of the same year – was ultimately marredby his series of surreptitious meetings with the JewishAgency. Despite thisduplicity, the merit of stamps in preserving stable relations with thePalestinians is adeptly demonstrated throughout the chapter. Similarly, thepolitical nuances behind postcards depicting King Hussein and GamalAbdul Nasser affectionately united over the Dome of the Rock, as well as anadditional series of stamps celebrating Pope Paul VI’s pilgrimage to theHoly Land in 1964, serve as visual reminders of Jordan’s tentative grip onauthority during the post-war period and the ever-present desire to retainamicable relations with neighboring leaders ...


Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig

This chapter considers the United Kingdom’s rivalry with Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After nearly two centuries of ascendancy, the UK was challenged by an autocratic Germany growing in the heart of Europe. The two clashed in World War I, and the United Kingdom emerged victorious and with its largest-ever territorial expanse, expanding its empire into the Middle East. World War II took a harder toll on the UK, but, again, with the help of its navy, its financial power, and its democratic allies—and in no small part to the heedless decision-making of its autocratic rival—it once again prevailed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Sztop-Rutkowska ◽  
Maciej Białous

The article presents the results of empirical research concerning the collective memory in Białystok and Lublin – two largest cities in the Eastern Poland. Before World War II they were multi-ethnic cities with big and important communities of Poles, Jews, Germans, Ukrainians and Belarusians. Their contemporary ethnic structure was formed as a result of World War II, in particular the Holocaust, post-war border shifts and intense migration from the countryside to the city in the next decades. Both Białystok and Lublin are an example of the typical cities in Central and Eastern Europe, which after World War II the memory politics was built on in the completely new political and social circumstances. We aim to confront the contemporary official memory of the cities, transmitted by major public institutions and the vernacular memories of their present inhabitants. Straipsnyje pristatomi Balstogės ir Liublino – dviejų didžiausių Rytų Lenkijos miestų kolektyvinės atminties empirinio tyrimo rezultatai. Prieš Antrąjį pasaulinį karą tai buvo daugiaetniniai miestai, turintys dideles ir svarbias lenkų, žydų, vokiečių, ukrainiečių ir baltarusių bendruomenes. Šių miestų šiuolaikinė struktūra susiformavo kaip Antrojo pasaulinio karo, ypač holokausto, sienų persislinkimų pokario metu ir vėlesniais dešimtmečiais vykusios intensyvios migracijos iš kaimo į miestus, rezultatas. Tiek Balstogė, tiek Liublinas yra tipiški Vidurio ir Rytų Europos miestų pavyzdžiai, kurių atminties politika po Antrojo pasaulinio karo buvo kuriama visiškai naujomis politinėmis ir socialinėmis aplinkybėmis. Straipsnyje siekiama palyginti šiuolaikinę oficialią šių miestų atmintį, kurios reguliavimas perduotas pagrindinėms viešosioms institucijoms, ir dabartinių miestų gyventojų vietines atmintis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-176
Author(s):  
Ariella Azoulay

This article utilizes photographs taken in Berlin just after the end of World War II to reconstruct the history of mass rape that took place in the city during this period and to argue for this event as foundational to post-war democratic political regimes that inscribed imperialism’s ruling logic within a ‘new world order’. In arguing this point, the author refuses the positivist and evidentiary frameworks through which scholars typically work with photographic images, abjuring an over-emphasis on what is or is not seen within the photographic image, instead focusing on the photograph’s affective and sonic registers, as well as other types of inscriptions in the body of the camera and emissions that require another modality of re/coding. By rereading images historically interpreted as documenting Berlin’s destruction alongside and through textual evidence of the mass rape, this analysis challenges the imperial scopic regime that has classified these images as not being photographs of rape, and connects this act of photographic erasure to the Allies’ post-war efforts to present themselves as saviors, thus legitimizing their continued imperial dominance over the world’s populations.


Author(s):  
Zdeněk Radvanovský

When World War II broke out, Britain's Foreign Office set up a number of brains trusts which, in co-operation with the east European exile governments, proceeded to formulate plans for reordering central and south-eastern Europe. The planning intensified after the Soviet Union and the United States entered the war. Already the basic consensus was that those states to be reconstituted after Nazi Germany's defeat should have no national minorities — certainly no German minorities — and that this solution could be achieved through a massive transfer of inhabitants. Most political parties in Slovakia demanded autonomy for their country and the formation of an independent Slovak government. In Czechoslovakia's border regions in the early post-war months, there was something of a vacuum when it came to settling the fate of the Germans. Alongside the expulsion of the Germans, far less attention was paid in the Allied states to a concomitant development: the resettlement of the border region with a Czech or Slovak population.


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