scholarly journals Usage of Human Labour in the History of Serbian Archaeology: Three Examples

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Bandović

Although archaeology is not the only research discipline where fieldwork is one of the tools in the process of acquiring knowledge, rare are the disciplines that harness and organize physical labour of non-professionals in the ways done by archaeologists during excavations. Throughout the history of archaeology the usage of physical labour has implied a firm hierarchical order in accordance to which archaeologists have bought or exploited human work during excavations. The physical effort to uncover the layers of earth covering archaeological sites is a tacitly implied part of the archaeological practice. The dichotomy and the relationship between an archaeologist/director of excavations/decision-maker, who considers, analyses and interprets the archaeological record, and the workers who undertake the more physically demanding tasks, has remained largely unchanged, conditioned by the traditional and commonsensical attitude towards archaeological practice. It is paradoxical that the research discipline, publicly mainly recognized through excavations, rarely investigates the conditions under which the human labour is organized and exploited during field campaigns. The paper treats some characteristic examples dating into the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, starting with the excavations at Viminacium, the works at Stobi between the two world wars, and finally the forced labour during the World War II harnessed during the works at Kalemegdan. By discussing the ways and conditions under which human labour was used during these archaeological excavations, the paper raises the issue of the intention of archaeology and who is it aimed for. The cited examples point to the conclusion that the conditions of an archaeological excavation reflect the society, and the way in which the human labour was organized here speaks of the ways of valorising work. The examples of Viminacium and Stobi indicate that the idea of cultural heritage as a common good was shared by a small number of representatives of middle and higher social statuses, while physical labourers possessed no right over it. The excavations at Kalemegdan quite explicitly speak of the many ways in which the Third Reich exploited forced labour.

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (0) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Karol Szymański

Karol Szymański depicts the history of the Warsaw cinemas and analyzes the cinema repertoire in the particular time from September to December 1939 (that is from the outbreak of World War II, through the defense and the siege of Warsaw, until the first months of the German occupation) taking into account a wider context of living conditions in the capital as well as a changing front and political situation. The author draws attention, among other things, to the rapid decrease in the cinema audience in the first week of September. As a consequence cinemas ceased to work, which made them unable to fulfill their informational or propaganda role and provide the inhabitants of the fighting city with the escapist or uplifting entertainment. During the siege of Warsaw some cinemas changed their functions and became a shelter for several thousand fire victims and refugees, while others were irretrievably destroyed in bombings and fires. In turn, after the capitulation and takeover of the city by the Germans, some of the most representative cinemas which survived (they were entirely expropriated by the administration of the General Government) began to gradually resume their activity from the beginning of November. By the end of 1939 there were already eight reactivated cinemas in Warsaw, including one (Helgoland, former Palladium) intended only for the Germans. These cinemas showed only German films – they were entertaining productions which were well-executed, devoid of explicit propaganda or ideological elements, with the greatest stars of the Third Reich cinema. However, December 1939 brought also the first action of the Polish resistance against German cinemas and cinema audience in Warsaw, which in the years to come developed and became an important element of the civilian fight against the occupant.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Michał Marcinkiewicz

The article presents the post-war history of Evangelical population: Germans and Masurians in Ełk county.  For this purpose, archival sources and biographical interviews were used. Interviews with the inhabitants of the county were collected as part of two oral history projects carried out by the "Museum for Ełk" Association in 2013-2015.The historical context is complemented by the available literature. One third of post-war Poland consisted of the territories being the part the Third Reich before the World War II, where a considerable part of population were Germans. Masurians formed a borderland group that became the reason of conflict between the Polish and the German. In the first half of the 20th century, both as a result of the nationalistic discourse and the assimilation pressure, most of them declared to maintain German identity. After the war, Masurians were present  in the public space of Ełk county as a minority group. There was the inflow of  population of the eastern territories of the Second Republic of Poland and people from central Poland. The small Evangelical church in Ełk in Słowackiego street was often filled with the faithful.  Numerous processes and phenomena of  social marginalization, exclusion and displacements resulted in nearly entire disintegration of Masurian and Evangelical community.  The number of the faithful in Evangelical community proves it- there are nearly 150 people and only few of them feel Masurian origin. In the post-war vision of future Poland nationally and religiously homogenous state was believed to be an ideal solution.


Author(s):  
Panikos Panayi

In Germany, World War II does not usually form a distinct and compact period, as it does in other states, such as Great Britain, the United States, or Russia. The most recognized phases in the history of 20th-century Germany are the Kaiserreich (1890–1919), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), the Third Reich (1933–1945), divided Germany (1945–1989), and reunified Germany (after 1989). World War II usually receives attention as part of the history of the Third Reich. On the other hand, historians of the war often approach the conflict from a German-centered perspective. Some differences exist between German and Anglo-American historians, with the former, especially those who work on local history, more likely to examine World War II as a distinct period, although some recent major works have begun to buck this trend in Anglo-American scholarship. In recent years, the multivolume Clarendon history Germany and the Second World War, translated from the German Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, has helped to unify the Anglo-American and German perspectives. Some of the publications included in this article, however, view the war in Germany as part of the wider history of the Third Reich. From the outset, Nazi Germany, and World War II within it, has given rise to a vast literature, which began as the Nazis rose to power and has continued unabated until the present. This article can therefore only provide the briefest of introductions to this enormous historiography by outlining the key publications in these areas: General Overviews; Push to War; Invasion of Eastern Europe; Bombing of German Cities; Economic Mobilization; Genocide; Foreign Workers and Prisoners of War; Local History; Women; Children; Repression and Resistance; Religion; Propaganda; and Defeat.


1982 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valdis O. Lumans

Considered in isolation, the experiences of the ethnic German minority of Slovakia hardly warrant more than a footnote in the history of East-Central Europe during the years of World War II. The wartime experiences of this numerically small German minority, known as the Carpathian Germans, do, however, stand out in vivid contrast to those of the other German minority group of Czechoslovakia, the much-publicized Sudeten Germans of Bohemia and Moravia. And it is this glaring contrast that lends significance to a study of the Slovakian German experiences, both with the Third Reich and with the ephemerally independent Slovak state. The juxtaposition of the estimated 130,000 Carpathian Germans of Slovakia and the more than 3,000,000 Sudeten Germans of central and western Czechoslovakia suggests a natural and dramatic comparison, which reveals that no blanket generalization can be offered regarding the wartime experiences of any of the German minorities of Europe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlena Bodo

Purpose of the study: The article contains information on the forced labor performed by Jews for the benefit of Germans during the Second World War. The research area was narrowed down to the area of the Szydłowiec ghetto and its vicinity (the Radom district in the General Government. The text presents the types of work performed by Jews, forms of forcing them to take up forced labor, and their attempts to bypass German restrictions. Methodology: This article is based on a comparative-historical method, the aim of which is to enable the researcher to identify Jews as a separate social group that was used by the Germans for forced labor. The use of this method is aimed at learning about the historical processes and mechanisms of functioning of selected Nazi restrictions in Poland. In addition, prosopographic and inductive methods as well as a method based on the grounded theory will be used. Moreover, due to the nature of the subject of the work, the research conducted in this field also requires the use of oral history. Main Findings: Extremely burdensome, in many aspects, compulsion for Jews was the almost slave labor they performed for the benefit of the Germans. Every Jew had to work at least one day a week for the Third Reich. Jews were used for various types of work, including snow removal from roads. Slave labor for the benefit of the Nazis was one of the causes of the increasing poverty of Jews. Application: The results of the research make a significant contribution to the knowledge of the history of Jews from Szydłowiec. This research not only broadens the knowledge about the history of the functioning of the Jewish community in Szydłowiec during World War II, but also broadens the knowledge about the history of the Holocaust and the mechanisms of crimes. These studies can be used to further analyze the situation of Jews during the German occupation in the territory of the Radom district, or more broadly, in the territory of the General Government. Novelty/Originality of the study: For the first time in this study, many fragments of Jewish diaries from the Memorial Book of Szydłowiec were used (some of the memoirs were published only in Yiddish). The article is the basis for further research on the history of Jews during World War II in the area of the Radom district.


Author(s):  
Harold James

The history of Krupp is the history of modern Germany. No company symbolized the best and worst of that history more than the famous steel and arms maker. This book tells the story of the Krupp family and its industrial empire between the early nineteenth century and the present, and analyzes its transition from a family business to one owned by a nonprofit foundation. Krupp founded a small steel mill in 1811, which established the basis for one of the largest and most important companies in the world by the end of the century. Famously loyal to its highly paid workers, it rejected an exclusive focus on profit, but the company also played a central role in the armament of Nazi Germany and the firm's head was convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg. Yet after the war Krupp managed to rebuild itself and become a symbol of Germany once again—this time open, economically successful, and socially responsible. This book presents a balanced account, showing that the owners felt ambivalent about the company's military connection even while becoming more and more entangled in Germany's aggressive politics during the imperial era and the Third Reich. By placing the story of Krupp and its owners in a wide context, this book also provides new insights into the political, social, and economic history of modern Germany.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-137
Author(s):  
Sabine von Mering ◽  
Luke B. Wood ◽  
J. Nicholas Ziegler ◽  
John Bendix ◽  
Marcus Colla ◽  
...  

Dolores L. Augustine, Taking on Technocracy: Nuclear Power in Germany, 1945 to the Present (New York: Berghahn Books, 2018)Michael Meng and Adam R. Seipp, Modern Germany in Transatlantic Perspective (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017)Cynthia Miller-Idriss, The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017)Constantin Goschler, ed. Compensation in Practice: The Foundation ‘Remembrance, Responsibility and Future’ and the Legacy of Forced Labour during the Third Reich (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017)Albert Earle Gurganus, Kurt Eisner: A Modern Life (Rochester: Camden House, 2018)Claudia Sternberg, Kira Gartzou-Katsouyanni, and Kalypso Nicolaïdis, The Greco-German Affair in the Euro Crisis: Mutual Recognition Lost? (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018)


Author(s):  
Pavel Gotovetsky

The article is devoted to the biography of General Pavlo Shandruk, an Ukrainian officer who served as a Polish contract officer in the interwar period and at the beginning of the World War II, and in 1945 became the organizer and commander of the Ukrainian National Army fighting alongside the Third Reich in the last months of the war. The author focuses on the symbolic event of 1961, which was the decoration of General Shandruk with the highest Polish (émigré) military decoration – the Virtuti Militari order, for his heroic military service in 1939. By describing the controversy and emotions among Poles and Ukrainians, which accompanied the award of the former Hitler's soldier, the author tries to answer the question of how the General Shandruk’s activities should be assessed in the perspective of the uneasy Twentieth-Century Polish-Ukrainian relations. Keywords: Pavlo Shandruk, Władysław Anders, Virtuti Militari, Ukrainian National Army, Ukrainian National Committee, contract officer.


Author(s):  
Camilla Tenaglia

Abstract This essay addresses the relations between Pius XII and Germany at the beginning of his pontificate through the role of Vatican Media, especially Vatican Radio. During the interwar period, the Vatican media system (media ensemble) underwent major transformations, including the creation of a radio broadcasting station in 1931. Pacelli was one of the main agents of these improvements: as Secretary of State supporting Guglielmo Marconi’s project, as Pope through his extensive use of the mass media at his disposal, from radio to cinema. At the end of the 30s the difficult diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Third Reich also had an impact on mass media, as shown by the election of Pacelli in March 1939. The role of Vatican Radio in Vatican diplomacy towards Nazi Germany was already clear during the events surrounding the Anschluss in 1938 and it became a tool for unofficial communication to convey more explicit stances on the regime during World War II. The same strategy was employed during the Option in Südtirol in 1939, when Catholics were able to deliver anti-Nazi propaganda thanks in part to radio in the attempt to avoid the voluntary resettlement of German-speaking Italian citizens from the area. The Holy See maintained a neutral position throughout the events, but at the same time Vatican Radio broadcast programmes in German about the condition of the Catholic Church under the Nazi regime. These broadcasts supported the efforts especially of the Archbishop of Trento Celestino Endrici and his clergy, who opposed the resettlement. Once again Vatican Radio proved a crucial tool for conveying unofficial communications while maintaining the neutral stance typical of the Holy See‘s foreign policy.


2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-352
Author(s):  
Pamela M. Potter

The impetus among Germany's cultural elite to mark the end of World War II as a “zero hour” has been analyzed mainly as a German phenomenon, with considerably less attention to the role of the occupying forces in fostering that mentality. Settling Scores offers a long-awaited analysis of the American Military Government's precarious navigation in the music world, one of the most sensitive cultural areas for both the conquerors and the conquered. Most histories of twentieth-century German music and culture suffer from a basic misunderstanding of this tumultuous time and uncritically accept many of the prejudices it engendered. As this study demonstrates, the notion of a musical “zero hour” is one such misconception, for the imperfect projects of denazification and reeducation left the musical world of the post-war period largely indistinguishable from its pre-war existence. Based on thorough archival research, interviews with eyewitnesses, and a wide range of literature, this highly readable and engaging history reveals in detail the successes and failures of the Military Government's ambitious agenda to root out the musical “Führers” of the Third Reich and to transform music from a tool of nationalist aggression to one of democratic tolerance.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document