Hofjudentum und Martyrium

Aschkenas ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Otto Horch

AbstractThis contribution dwells on Jewish aspects in Alfred Döblin’s novel »Wallenstein«, which was written between 1916 and 1920. It refers, on the one hand, to the close financial connection between the Prague merchant and »court Jew« Jacob Bassevi and Wallenstein and the novel’s real protagonist, Emperor Ferdinand II, and, on the other hand, to a scene that stretches over several pages, depicting in a hyper-naturalistic manner the torture and burning of a Jewish couple. Similar to the witch trials, the scene documents the total cultural decline at the time of the Thirty Years’ War. Döblin’s historical novel is also a plea against the barbarism of World War I and against wars in general.

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-164
Author(s):  
Georg Plasger

Abstract The German Reformed tradition between 1900 and 1930 has received little interest. Much more attention has been given to the Reformed churches during the National Socialist era and on acknowledging the massive influence of Karl Barth. The article gives an overview of the minority denomination of the Reformed confession in Germany. On the one hand we see that the Reformierte Bund, founded in 1884, breaks up during the Calvin jubilee of 1909. On the other hand, the crisis after World War I brought further difficulties. In the nineteen-twenties, a discussion grew about the function of the Reformed Confessions—are they to be kept intact and normative (so the Young Reformed line) or should they function to sift and sort out what is needed in each era and location (so Karl Barth)?


Author(s):  
Frank C. Zagare

This chapter focuses on the outbreak of World War I, which remains one of the most perplexing events of international history. It should be no surprise that rationalist interpretations of the July Crisis are a diverse lot, ranging from the sinister to the benign. This chapter constructs a theoretically rigorous rationalist explanation of World War I, the 1914 European war that involved Austria–Hungary, Germany, Russia, and France. On the one hand, this chapter confirms the view that one does not have to take a particularly dark view of German intentions to explain the onset of war in 1914; on the other hand, it also calls into question the “accidental war” thesis. A number of related questions about the Great War are addressed in the context of a generic game-theoretic escalation model with incomplete information.


2021 ◽  
pp. 260-294
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Guglielmo

Chapter 7 follows nonblack minorities through their training and service in the United States. America’s World War II military, from its top leaders to its enlisted personnel, simultaneously built and blurred a white-nonwhite divide alongside its black-white one. On the one hand, the blurring stemmed from a host of factors, including the day-to-day intermingling of troops, the activism of nonblack minorities, and, paradoxically, the unifying power of the black-white divide among nonblacks. On the other hand, this blurring had its limits. White-nonwhite lines cropped up in some of the same places black-white ones did and in some different ones, too, especially those related to national security and Japanese Americans. In the end, these lines remained in place throughout the war years, despite continuous blurring. They did so in part because of these racialized national security concerns and because of the power of civilian racist practices and investments.


Author(s):  
Ralf Ahrens

AbstractImmediately following World War II, the allied occupational powers started a process of denazifying West German business in more or less the same way as the political and administrative apparatus. Initial approaches to solve the task by a radical purge of highly incriminated company managers soon gave way to more extensive investigations of party members and Nazi sympathizers also on lower ranks. Denazification escalated into bureaucratic mass procedures and finally ended up in various forms of amnesty and pardon in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A key feature in this process was the successively growing participation of German actors like various commissions, chambers of commerce and the companies themselves. On the one hand, comprehensive investigation and punishment under a re-installed rule of law had to rely upon cooperation of German actors and their expertise on the reality of the Nazi past; on the other hand, the integration of business itself into denazification procedures allowed company managers to benefit from informational advantages. Focussing the interaction between denazification authorities and business in the three West German zones of occupation, the article argues that under the general conditions of economic reconstruction and democratization the degeneration from purge to pardon was hardly avoidable, but that nevertheless the effects of temporary punishments should not be underestimated.


2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-221
Author(s):  
Gertjan Willems

Dit artikel onderzoekt hoe Louis Paul Boons historische roman Pieter Daens (1971) en, in het bijzonder, Stijn Coninx’ biopic Daens zich verhouden tot hun historisch onderwerp, de Aalsterse priester en politicus Adolf Daens (1839-1907). Het artikel toont hoe deze Daensvertellingen bijdragen tot de Daensmythe, die twee dimensies kent. Enerzijds een persoonlijke dimensie met de heroïsering van Daens, anderzijds een politiek-historische dimensie waarbij Daens en het daensisme gelijkgesteld worden met de bredere daensistische beweging en het ontstaan van de christendemocratie in Vlaanderen. De Daensmythe en de filmische popularisering ervan zorgden er mee voor dat Daens kon uitgroeien tot een historisch symbool dat zich flexibel laat inzetten in hedendaagse politiek-ideologische discoursen.__________ Daens: the making of. On the movie Daens (1992) and the ‘Daens myth’ This article analyses how Louis Paul Boon’s historical novel Pieter Daens (1971), and more particularly, Stijn Coninx’ biopic Daens correspond to their historical subject, the priest-politician Adolf Daens (1839-1907) from the town of Aalst. The article illustrates how these narrations have contributed to the Daens myth, which is comprised of two dimensions. On the one hand, it entails a personal dimension, deifying Daens. On the other hand, the myth contains a political-historical dimension, in which the figure of Daens and ‘daensism’ are equated with the broader ‘Daensic’ movement and even the origins of Christian democracy in Flanders. The ‘Daens myth’ and its popularization via film have contributed to the emergence of Daens as a historical symbol that can be used versatilely in contemporary political-ideological discourses.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-19
Author(s):  
Philippe Descola

Claude Levi-Strauss mentioned several times in his work that the notion of transformation is the keystone of the structural analysis he pratices. By his own admission, this notion stems from his reading of D’Arcy Thomson’s book On Growth and Form during World War II in the United States. But Levi-Strauss makes use of two very different meanings of transformation, relating to two distinct morpho-genetic traditions. On the one hand, he is inspired by Goethe’s Morphology. All forms can be seen as transformation of a Urform, an original form, from which they grow out like a tree. But on the other hand, D’Arcy Thomson’s emphasis lies on the geometric simplicity of a transformation grid that allows the transition from one biological form to the other without considering any original from which other forms would be derivable. Levi-Strauss’ epistemological choice to study myths and masks can be better understood when his concept of transformation is clearly defined in relation to Goethe and D’Arcy Thomson. Thus, the originality of his own interpretation will become clear


Author(s):  
Eileen H. Tamura

This chapter focuses on the men with whom Kurihara clashed at Manzanar. These include Tokie Nishimura Slocum, Togo Tanaka, and Karl Yoneda. Like Kurihara, Slocum was a veteran of World War I and a member of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. As war between Japan and the United States grew imminent, Slocum gained the reputation of being an informer for the FBI and Naval Intelligence. As such, he was thoroughly despised by most Nikkei at Manzanar. Similarly, because of his role as a WRA documentary historian, Togo Tanaka was targeted by Nikkei dissidents as an informer and included him on their death list. On the other hand, Karl Yoneda refused to speak out against DeWitt's removal orders. Yoneda and other Nikkei Communists felt that they had no choice but to “accept the racist U.S. dictum” of incarceration “over Hitler's ovens and Japan's military rapists of Nanking.”


1973 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-201
Author(s):  
Robert F. Wheeler

To better understand why Marxist Internationalism took on the forms that it did during the revolutionary epoch that followed World War I, it is useful to reconsider the “International Labor and Socialist Conference” that met at Berne from January 26 to February 10,1919. This gathering not only set its mark on the “reconstruction” of the Second International, it also influenced both the formation and the development of the Communist International. It is difficult, however, to comprehend fully what transpired at Berne unless the crucial role taken in the deliberations by Kurt Eisner, on the one hand, and the Zimmerwaldian Opposition, on the other, is recognized. To a much greater extent than has generally been realized, the immediate success and the ultimate failure of the Conference depended on the Bavarian Minister President and the loosely structured opposition group to his Left. Nevertheless every scholarly study of the Conference to date, including Arno Mayer's excellent treatment of the “Stillborn Berne Conference”, tends to underestimate Eisner's impact while largely ignoring the very existence of the Zimmerwaldian Opposition. Yet, if these two elements are neglected it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fathom the real significance of Berne. Consequently there is a need to reevaluate Eisner's role in the proceedings, particularly his behind the scenes activities, as well as to consider the attempt to resurrect the Zimmer-waldian movement during the Conference. In no small way the responsibility for the fateful decisions taken at Berne, decisions which ultimately proved detrimental to the cause of the International, lies with the hyperactive Kurt Eisner and the relatively passive Zimmer-waldian Opposition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 234
Author(s):  
Basil C. Gounaris ◽  
Marianna D. Christopoulos

The National Schism that erupted in Greece during World War I has already been thoroughly analysed in the bibliography as a crisis of national unification, defined by geographical, political and socio economic criteria. The aim of this article is to move a step forward, to support that the National Schism might also be considered as an act in the broader and much older Greek ideological drama, that of the tantalising and incomplete “return” to the East via the European West. It is argued that the Schism, far from being a bipolar confrontation between supporters and opponents of Europe, did select from the East–West debate whatever arguments were necessary to invest military and political choices with a “deeper” meaning. Our approach focuses mostly on the rhetoric produced by the two opposing camps, the Venizelists and the anti-Venizelist block, from 1914 to 1922. It is, however, complemented by a retrospective presentation of the nineteenth-century debateover the Enlightenment and liberalism, on the one hand, and German idealism, on the other.


2016 ◽  
pp. 79-103
Author(s):  
Izabela Olszewska ◽  
Aleksandra Twardowska

Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish as Determinants of Identity: As Illustrated in the Jewish Press of the First Half of the Twentieth CenturyThe paper shows an image and functions of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish languages among Jewish Diaspora groups – the Balkan Sephardim and the Ashkenazim (the Ostjuden group) – in the period from the beginning of the twentieth century until the outbreak of World War II. The study is based on the articles from Jewish weeklies, magazines and newspapers from pre-war Bosnia and Hercegovina and from Germany/Poland. It demonstrates a double-sided attitude towards the languages. On the one hand – an image of the languages as determinants of Jewish identity. Touching on this theme, the authors of the paper also try to highlight the images of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish and as determinants in a narrower sense – of the Sephardi/Ashkenazi identity in that period. On the other hand, the paper shows a tendency to treat the languages as “corrupted” and “dying” languages, and as factors slowing down the assimilation of Jewish groups and also as an obstacle for Zionist ideologies. Języki jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpański jako wskaźniki tożsamości – na przykładzie żydowskich tekstów prasowych pierwszej połowy XX wiekuArtykuł ukazuje obraz i funkcje języków jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpańskiego wśród żydowskich grup diasporowych – bałkańskich Sefardyjczyków oraz Aszkenazyjczyków (Ostjuden) – w okresie od początków wieku XX do wybuchu II wojny światowej. Opis oparty jest na artykułach z żydowskich magazynów, tygodników, prasy codziennej z przedwojennej Bośni i Hercegowiny oraz Niemiec/Polski. Ukazany jest ambiwalentny stosunek wobec języków. Z jednej strony – obraz języków jako wskaźników żydowskiej tożsamości, jak również obraz jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpańskiego jako wskaźników tożsamości w węższym ujęciu: tożsamości sefardyjskiej/aszkenazyjskiej w omawianym okresie. Z drugiej strony zaś – artykuł zwraca uwagę także na to, że oba języki były traktowane jako „zepsute”, „umierające” i stanowiące czynniki spowalniające asymilację grup żydowskich oraz przeszkodę dla idei syjonistycznych.


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