Forging Germans under Germany

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-162
Author(s):  
Caroline Mezger
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Oral History ◽  
World War ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Minority Leadership ◽  
German Children ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
The Church ◽  
Wartime Experience

Chapter 3 is dedicated to the German occupation of the Western Banat during World War II. Employing archival and press sources from Germany and Serbia, as well as original oral history interviews, it explores the interplay between Reich-German and local Donauschwaben authorities in shaping institutions that would profoundly affect ethnic German children and young people’s wartime experience and conceptualizations of “Germanness”: the National Socialist Volksgruppenführung (minority leadership), the German-language school, and the Church. As the chapter shows, experiences of violence, the Nazi takeover of virtually all local ethnic German organizations, and the disappearance of any official religious alternatives caused an at least public equation of “German” with “National Socialist”—a definition which would be promoted, ignored, and resisted by individual youth.

Forging Germans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Mezger
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Children And Youth ◽  
World War ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
History Of Childhood ◽  
Ethnic Germans ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Children ◽  
Oral History Interviews

Forging Germans explores the nationalization and eventual National Socialist mobilization of ethnic German children and youth in interwar and World War II Yugoslavia, particularly in two of its multiethnic, post-Habsburg borderlands: the Western Banat and the Batschka. Drawing upon original oral history interviews, untapped archival materials from Germany, Hungary, and Serbia, and historical press sources, the book uncovers the multifarious ways in which political, ecclesiastical, cultural, and military agents from Germany colluded with local nationalist activists to inculcate Yugoslavia’s ethnic Germans with divergent notions of “Germanness.” As the book shows, even in the midst of Yugoslavia’s violent and shifting Axis occupation, children and youth not only remained the subjects, but became agents of nationalist activism, as they embraced, negotiated, redefined, proselytized, lived, and died for the “Germanness” ascribed to them. Forging Germans is conceptualized as a contribution to the study of National Socialism from a transnational and comparative perspective, to the mid-twentieth-century history of Southeastern Europe and its relation to Germany, to studies of borderland nationalism and experiences of World War II occupation, and to the history of childhood and youth.

scholarly journals Kościół na drodze ku „Nostra Aetate”.Zarys relacji chrześcijańsko-żydowskich w XX w. przed II wojną światową

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-153
Author(s):  
Andrzej Tulej
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
World War ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Church

A review of the chosen teachings of the Church concerning Jews and Judaism – both official and unofficial – showed that in the twentieth century, before the Second World War, the Church spoke especially in response to the errors of racism, statolatry and various forms of Antisemitism. The historical context were the Russian revolutions, World War I, the fascist movements. The Church's statements intensified when, at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, the National Socialist Party grew stronger, taking over power in Germany in 1933, leading to the tragedy of World War II and the drama of the Holocaust (Heb. Shoah). Although in its official teachings the Church has always been cautious in wording, in order to avoid direct involvement in political matters or become a party to any conflict, some statements of the popes referring to the broadly understood "Jewish question" can be considered as "milestones". This applies above all to the letter of Pope Benedict XV considered by some to be the most important act of opposition to Antisemitism, the encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge" by Pius XI, opposing the idolatrous relationship to race, nation, state or power and emphasizing the value of the religion of Israel and the Old Testament and the famous formula spoken during the meeting of Pope Pius XI with the Belgian pilgrims: "spiritually, we are all Semites".

One of Thousands

2016 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-320
Author(s):  
Lily Anne Y. Welty Tamai
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
World War ◽  
American Soldier ◽  
Combat Unit ◽  
Wartime Experience ◽  
Museum Exhibition

This article explores the lessons communicated by a museum exhibition of an oral history, artifacts, and photographs taken by Susumu “Sus” Ito, a Japanese American soldier of the 442nd combat unit in World War II: decentering whiteness, humanizing wartime experience, exploring inter-generational tensions, and resisting presentist assumptions.

scholarly journals ‘A Man’s Environment’? The Petone Workingmen’s Club and Masculinity in New Zealand after 1945

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicola Braid
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Oral History ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Changes ◽  
Thematic Approach ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Men's Experience ◽  
Work Class

<p>My thesis, in the broadest terms, looks at New Zealand men’s understanding of themselves and their work. My study is based on oral history interviews with male members of the Petone Workingmen’s Club in Lower Hutt, Wellington. This thesis has two purposes: to compare men’s experiences with wider understandings of class, work and masculinity in New Zealand during the post-World War II period, and to complicate the assumptions about masculinity that have gone somewhat unexplored in historiography.  This study takes a thematic approach to men’s experience, but weaves elements of oral history and historiography throughout. Chapter three looks at the Petone Workingmen’s Club as a masculine and working-class space; while Chapter four continues to examine men’s memories and masculinities, this time in the context of an interview. Finally, Chapter five observes the place of education, leisure, and particularly work, in men’s narratives to add greater depth to histories of work, class and masculinity in New Zealand.  My interviews found that studies of New Zealand men have neglected the role that class, gender and historical changes have had in affecting men’s understanding of themselves and their lives. This thesis hopes to complicate, as well as add value to, the limited scholarship that exists surrounding masculinity in New Zealand, particularly among working-class men.</p>

scholarly journals ‘A Man’s Environment’? The Petone Workingmen’s Club and Masculinity in New Zealand after 1945

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicola Braid
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Oral History ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Changes ◽  
Thematic Approach ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Men's Experience ◽  
Work Class

<p>My thesis, in the broadest terms, looks at New Zealand men’s understanding of themselves and their work. My study is based on oral history interviews with male members of the Petone Workingmen’s Club in Lower Hutt, Wellington. This thesis has two purposes: to compare men’s experiences with wider understandings of class, work and masculinity in New Zealand during the post-World War II period, and to complicate the assumptions about masculinity that have gone somewhat unexplored in historiography.  This study takes a thematic approach to men’s experience, but weaves elements of oral history and historiography throughout. Chapter three looks at the Petone Workingmen’s Club as a masculine and working-class space; while Chapter four continues to examine men’s memories and masculinities, this time in the context of an interview. Finally, Chapter five observes the place of education, leisure, and particularly work, in men’s narratives to add greater depth to histories of work, class and masculinity in New Zealand.  My interviews found that studies of New Zealand men have neglected the role that class, gender and historical changes have had in affecting men’s understanding of themselves and their lives. This thesis hopes to complicate, as well as add value to, the limited scholarship that exists surrounding masculinity in New Zealand, particularly among working-class men.</p>

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