Wartime Economies, 1939–1945

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Land ◽  
Jari Eloranta
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Small States ◽  
World War ◽  
Small State ◽  
Total War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
European Economies ◽  
Second World

This chapter provides an overview of European economies during the Second World War, showing that total war affected all economies, yet in different ways. Mobilization presented massive challenges, and often led to labour shortages in other sectors. Resources proved to be a decisive factor in determining the outcome of the war, since richer nations were able to get more out of their economies and populations for the war effort. This chapter first considers Great Britain and Germany as comparable great powers dealing with the exigencies of total war, and then puts the spotlight on Switzerland, as a case study of a neutral nation during wartime, and Finland, a small state that was forced into the war. The comparison of different states during this conflict highlights the connections between large and small states, a perspective that has not been emphasized in earlier literature.

scholarly journals Propaganda Music in Second World War Britain: John Ireland's Epic March

2014 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Art Music ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Total War ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
Music And Politics ◽  
Second World

ABSTRACTWhile biographical studies of British composers' experiences in the Second World War abound, little attention has been paid to how the demands of ‘total’ war impacted on music's ideological status. This article sheds new light on how composers and critics negotiated the problematic relationship between art music and politics in this period. John Ireland's Epic March – a BBC commission that caused the composer considerable anxiety – provides a case study. Drawing first on the correspondence charting the lengthy genesis of the work, and then on the work's critical reception, I consider how Ireland and his audiences sought to reconcile the conflicting political and aesthetic demands of this commission. With its conventional musical style, Epic March offers an example of a ‘middlebrow’ attempt to bridge the gap between art and politics.

Contribution to Britain’s War Efforts in Osun Division of Western Nigeria, 1939–1945

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-153
Author(s):  
Abiodun Ajayi
Keyword(s):  
Coping Strategy ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The People ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second World

Abstract Although no real battle was fought in Nigeria during the Second World War (1939–1945), the burden of the war was much felt by Nigerians. They made significant contributions to the war effort; a method through which the British shifted the burden of the war onto their colonial subjects. This strategy had caught the attentions of many scholars, and various discussions have centered on its origin, purpose and operation at provincial and Nigeria wide level. Thus, contributions at the Districts and Division levels have always been subsumed into colony-wide studies, and by that fact remained unresearched. This paper focuses the effects of the imperial coping strategy on the Yoruba society with Osun Division as a case study. The study adopts historical approach, which depends on written, oral, and archival sources. However, it is hoped that, with due attention being given to the efforts of the people at a local level, the impact of the Second World War on African social order will be better understood.

Africa or the East?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willeke Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
World War ◽  
Future Possibility ◽  
Total War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Race War ◽  
Second World

During the Second World War, the Nazi pursuit of race war and empire in Eastern Europe put colonialists under greater pressure to justify their African focus. While Africa remained a future possibility, Eastern Europe offered readily accessible territory for the fulfillment of colonial ambitions. In the euphoric early years of the war, colonialists presented the outbreak of war as finally providing the opportunity to fulfill their irredentist demands. Nazi officials, in particular within the Propaganda Ministry and the Nazi Party’s Reich Propaganda Office, objected to colonialists’ persistent propaganda efforts as distractions from the more urgent needs of the war effort. In the wake of the German defeat at Stalingrad and the declaration of total war, Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery, shut down the colonialist organizations in January 1943, ending sixty years of organized overseas colonialist agitation in Germany.

German Society at War, 1939–45

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-516
Author(s):  
THOMAS BRODIE
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
German Society ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Imperial Japan ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Second World

The actions, attitudes and experiences of German society between 1939 and 1945 played a crucial role in ensuring that the Second World War was not only ‘the most immense and costly ever fought’ but also a conflict which uniquely resembled the ideal type of a ‘total war’. The Nazi regime mobilised German society on an unprecedented scale: over 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, and compulsoryVolkssturmduty, initiated as Allied forces approached Germany's borders in September 1944, embraced further millions of the young and middle-aged. The German war effort, above all in occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, claimed the lives of millions of Jewish and gentile civilians and served explicitly genocidal ends. In this most ‘total’ of conflicts, the sheer scale of the Third Reich's ultimate defeat stands out, even in comparison with that of Imperial Japan, which surrendered to the Allies prior to an invasion of its Home Islands. When the war in Europe ended on 8 May 1945 Allied forces had occupied almost all of Germany, with its state and economic structures lying in ruins. Some 4.8 million German soldiers and 300,000 Waffen SS troops lost their lives during the Second World War, including 40 per cent of German men born in 1920. According to recent estimates Allied bombing claimed approximately 350,000 to 380,000 victims and inflicted untold damage on the urban fabric of towns and cities across the Reich. As Nicholas Stargardt notes, this was truly ‘a German war like no other’.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

Implications

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edele
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
World War ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Middle Position ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

This chapter turns to the present and explains the implications of the current study for the ongoing debate about the Soviet Union in the Second World War and in particular about the role of loyalty and disloyalty in the Soviet war effort. It argues that this study strengthens those who argue for a middle position: the majority of Soviet citizens were neither unquestioningly loyal to the Stalinist regime nor convinced resisters. The majority, instead, saw their interests as distinct from both the German and the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, ideology remains important if we want to understand why in the Soviet Union more resisted or collaborated than elsewhere in Europe and Asia.

scholarly journals Recalling Victory, Recounting Greatness: Second World War Remembrance in Xi Jinping's China

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Vincent K.L. Chang
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
World War ◽  
National Unity ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Second World ◽  
Critical Turning Point

Abstract The recent surge in public remembrance of the Second World War in China has been substantially undergirded by a centrally planned and systematically implemented discursive shift which has remained overlooked in the literature. This study examines the revised official narrative by drawing on three cases from China's school curriculum, museums and formal diplomacy. It finds that the once dominant trope of “national victimization” no longer represents the main thrust in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rhetoric on the Second World War. Under Xi Jinping, this has been replaced by a self-assertive and aspirational narrative of “national victory” and “national greatness,” designed to enhance Beijing's legitimacy and advance its domestic and foreign policy objectives. By emphasizing national unity and CCP–KMT cooperation, the new narrative offers an inclusive and unifying interpretation of China's war effort in which the victory in 1945 has come to rival the 1949 revolution as the critical turning point towards “national rejuvenation.” The increasingly Sino-centric and centrally controlled narrative holds implicit warnings to those challenging Beijing's claim to greatness.

A Quantitative Description of the Henan Famine of 1942

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 2007-2045 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY GARNAUT
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Description ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Control ◽  
World War ◽  
Food Markets ◽  
Famine Relief ◽  
Eyewitness Reports ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Bad Weather ◽  
Second World

AbstractThe Henan famine of 1942 occurred during the middle of the Sino-Japanese war, in a province that was divided between Japanese, Nationalist and Communist political control. Partly due to this wartime context, existing accounts of the famine rely almost exclusively on eyewitness reports. This paper presents a range of statistical sources on the famine, including weather records, contemporary economic surveys and population censuses. These statistical sources allow similarities to be drawn between the Henan famine and other famines that occurred during the Second World War, such as in Bengal, when the combination of bad weather, war-induced disruptions to food markets, and the relegation of famine relief to the war effort, brought great hardship to civilians living near the war front.

scholarly journals Vera Lynn on Screen: Popular Music and the ‘People's War’

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATE GUTHRIE
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
A Site ◽  
Second World

AbstractBy the outbreak of the Second World War in Britain, critics had spent several decades negotiating the supposed distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, as recent scholarship has shown. What has received comparatively little attention is how the demands of wartime living changed the stakes of the debate. This article addresses this lacuna, exploring how war invited a reassessment of the relative merits of art and popular music. Perhaps the most iconic British singer of the period, Vera Lynn provides a case study. Focusing on her first film vehicle,We'll Meet Again(1942), I explore how Lynn's character mediated the highbrow/lowbrow conflict – for example, by presenting popular music as a site of community, while disparaging art music for its minority appeal. In so doing, I argue, the film not only promoted Lynn's star persona, but also intervened in a broader debate about the value of entertainment for a nation at war.

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