Constructing the Prussia-Myth in East Germany, 1945–61

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-550
Author(s):  
Marcus Colla

In postwar East Germany, dealing with the history of Prussia was problematic. While ‘Prussianism’ or the ‘Spirit of Prussia’ was widely perceived as a central cause of Nazism, it also could not be ignored when developing ‘progressive’ narratives of German history. This article investigates the political, intellectual and symbolic construction of a ‘Prussia-myth’ in the early postwar years. In particular, it investigates how the ‘Prussia-myth’ was adapted to changing political conditions, the theoretical contradictions this engendered, and the manner in which historians and cultural figures dealt with these problems when educating the East German population at large.

Water Policy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Doukkali

Using a teleological perspective and an analytical categorization of the history of water institutions in Morocco, this paper aims to review and evaluate the institutional reforms in the country in the light of the results and hypotheses presented in some recent literature on the subject. The review suggests that considering their overall thrust and direction, the institutional reforms undertaken in Morocco are truly remarkable. While these reforms have paved a solid institutional foundation for promoting an economically responsive water sector, there are still serious reform gaps, especially in areas such as groundwater regulation and supportive institutions for irrigated agriculture. The evaluation of the reform process suggests that Morocco has exploited well the political contexts of resource limit and economic crisis, path dependent opportunities provided by existing institutions and earlier reforms, and the synergetic influences of the countrywide economic reforms and changing political conditions. Clearly, the reform experience of Morocco indicates that although undertaking initial reform can be difficult, subsequent reforms are relatively easier when the political opportunities for reforms provided by both endogenous and exogenous factors are well exploited.


2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Zatlin

The demise of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) came as a surprise to most western observers. For historians of modern Europe, its disappearance remains remarkable for at least two reasons. First, East Germany has ceased to exist in an era when new states are constantly being born. Since the French Revolution unleashed the power of national self-determination as an ordering principle more than 200 years ago, new sovereign states have continued to emerge across the globe, whether through the breakup of multiethnic and colonial empires or the dissolution of pan-Slavic states in eastern Europe. Illiberal governments have been swept aside, often with the result that new states have been cast out of imperial entities by the centrifugal force of cultural attachment. In the history of European political sovereignty during the twentieth century, the particular has triumphed over the universal. Except in the case of the GDR. Against the tide of European history, the GDR has gone from sovereign state (East Germany) to regional designation (eastern Germany). In this sense, the story of the GDR's absorption by a larger polity is a tale of modern state-building told in reverse.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ilham Wahyudi

Sunan Giri was the Islamic priest in Java who had enough enormous influence especially in 15-17 th AD century. The name of “Sunan Giri” is not limited referring to Raden Paku (Sunan Giri I) who started the political entity of Giri Kedhaton, but also refers to almost all of the sunans from Giri who are also descendants of Sunan Giri I. The Babad Tanah Jawi (BTJ) as a historical literature book of the Mataram palace in addition to telling the history of Java from the pre-Demak era to Mataram, on the other hand also mentions a lot about the existence of Sunan Giri. This research seeks to reveal the legitimacy narratives of the Islamic Mataram Kingdom in BTJ involving Sunan Giri as a religious figure who can exert political influence on them. By using a qualitative-descriptive method, the writer analyzes the text data of BTJ's narratives that contain elements of legitimacy involving Sunan Giri. From the philological data, it is then balanced with historical data from several historical works to find out how the socio-political conditions occurred in the 15th-17th century AD, especially in Java. The mention of legitimacy related to Sunan Giri in BTJ occurred in the early of Demak, early of Pajang, early until the mid of Mataram. Those stories are closely related to the existence of Sunan Giri as a priest with enormous influence both in Java and outside Java. Therefore, BTJ, which contains such information, has become one of the media for the legitimacy of power by the kings of Mataram.


2021 ◽  

The political scientist and former Bavarian Minister of Culture Hans Maier has created a historically profound, theologically educated, literarily and musically highly sensitive, politically mature body of work, with which he has inscribed himself in the (intellectual) history of the Federal Republic. This book is the first to contain contributions by renowned scholars and politicians on the rich work and impact of the Catholic scholar and politician Hans Maier. It thematises and appreciates in detail his view of German history and the traditions of political thought, his critique of political language, political theology, totalitarianism and political religions, but also his contributions on Catholicism and modernity, his writings on literature and music, and finally his influence as an academic teacher, public intellectual and politician.


Author(s):  
Jens Richard Giersdorf

Nearly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany was subsumed into the West German national structure. As a result, the distinct political systems, institutions, and cultures that characterized East Germany have nearly completely vanished. In some instances, this history was actively—and physically—eradicated by the unified Germany. This chapter works against the disappearance of East German culture by reconstructing the physicality of the walk across the border on the day of the opening of the Berlin Wall and two choreographic works depicting East German identities on stage. The initial re-creation of the choreography of a pedestrian movement provides a social, political, and methodological context that relates the two dance productions to the social movement of East German citizens. Both works take stances on the political situation in East Germany during and after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, although one is by a West German artist, Sasha Waltz, and the other by East German choreographer Jo Fabian.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3-2018) ◽  
pp. 247-268
Author(s):  
Michaela Kreyenfeld ◽  
Anja Vatterrott

This paper uses rich administrative data from the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (German Pension Fund) to describe changes in the timing and the spacing of births that occurred in the period following German reunification. We examine differences in the birth dynamics of East Germans, West Germans, and women who migrated between the two parts of Germany in these years. As the pension registers provide monthly records on whether a person is living in East or West Germany, they also allow us to examine the role of regional mobility in birth behaviour. In particular, we test the “salmon hypothesis”, which suggests that migrants are likely to postpone having a child until after or around the time they return to their region of origin. Our investigation shows that a large fraction of the cohorts born in 1965-74 migrated to West Germany after reunification, but that around 50% of these migrants returned to East Germany before reaching age 40. The first birth risks of those who returned were elevated, which suggests that the salmon hypothesis explains the behaviour of a significant fraction of the East German population in the period following German reunification.


Author(s):  
Andrew Levine

Much as what we now call ‘the Marxism of the Second International’ long ago passed from the scene, the Age of ‘Western Marxism’ has apparently come to an end. Internal theoretical developments, changes in intellectual culture and, above all, political circumstances have joined together to hasten the demise of this episode in the history of radical theory. It would be instructive to trace the trajectory of Western Marxism, and to reflect on the political conditions for its decline. In both Western and Eastern Europe, Marxian politics has been in crisis at least since the watershed year of 1968, and in disarray for more than a decade. Western Marxism has always been joined programatically to currents within these political movements and has suffered grave, indeed fatal, damage in consequence. But it is not my intention to reflect on the vicissitudes of Western Marxism here. What follows will consider instead a style of theorizing that has effectively superceded Western Marxism, just as Western Marxism earlier replaced the Marxism of the Second International. This new kind of radical theory is widely designated—approvingly by some, disparagingly by others—‘analytical Marxism.’


Author(s):  
Beatriz Bissio

The paper traces the history of the Third World journal since its ascension until the closure, analyzing the historical period, the Non-Aligned Movement, including its New International Economic Order and New World Information and Communication Order proposes, and the political conditions that caused the journal’s extinction.


Author(s):  
Jens Gieseke

This chapter outlines ideological, official, and bottom-up trust regimes within East Germany, examining the attitude of the East German population toward its own government and that of the Federal Republic. It unearths, for example, how a noticeable sympathy and trustworthiness emerged among East Germans toward West German parties and politicians in the wake of Ostpolitik. However, the departure of West German chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974, the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and the renewed nuclear arms race and NATO's decision to position nuclear weapons in Western Europe helped to offset this asymmetry of trust relations by partially alienating East Germans from Western policies. In the first half of the 1980s, this decline of vertical trust relationships and emotional bonds in East Germany opened the space for the rise of horizontal trust regimes.


1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Lohmann

This article analyzes the dynamics of turnout and the political impact of five cycles of protest, consisting of forty-two mass demonstrations that occurred on Mondays in Leipzig over the period 1989–91. These demonstrations are interpreted as an informational cascade that publicly revealed some of the previously hidden information about the malign nature of the East German communist regime. Once this information became publicly available, the viability of the regime was undermined. The Monday demonstrations subsequently died a slow death as their informational role declined.


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