scholarly journals Konrad Adenauer as a German Statesman and Politician of Integrating Europe

Author(s):  
Benon Gaziński

Abstract The article is a synthetic outlook at Konrad Adenauer’s life, activity and the legacy of that politician, described in a tendentious way in the past period, and nowadays – after a temporary increase in the interest during the first years of systemic transformation – deserving a closer examination. In the initial part of the article, some integration concepts of past centuries have been outlined. Then, in a biographical sketch, Adenauer’s private and public activities were characterized, falling into diverse political periods, ranging from imperial Germany, to the post-war formation of the foundations of a reborn democratic state. His participation in these events is outlined. The main achievements of Adenauer during almost 30 years of work in the Cologne municipality are pointed out and the repressions he suffered during the Nazi regime and his participation in the post-war reconstruction of Germany were discussed: long-term leadership in the CDU and the 14-year period of government as the first chancellor of democratic post-war Germany. It was pointed out that the political line he designated, the active presence of Germany in the uniting Europe, proved to be very stable and continued by his successive successors.

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-155
Author(s):  
Eleanor F. Moseman

Abstract The Surrealist artist Richard Oelze’s postwar enterprise was one of inner reflection and personal questioning linked to the broader project of coming to terms with the past. The essay takes a critical view of his artworks and his automatist Wortskizzen to assess the manner and extent to which Oelze utilizes his artistic practice as a mode of working through his, and Germany’s, complicity with the Nazi regime. Analysis of the Wortskizzen exposes how verbal probing informs Oelze’s visual expression of inner turmoil, while implied gaps and voids in paintings and drawings puncture space as well as time, illuminating memory and blending the past with the present. Oelze’s serious play with word and image in turn invites his viewers to release repressed memories through reflective contemplation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205316801877993
Author(s):  
Dino Hadzic

Can reminders of violence committed in the past influence citizens’ policy preferences in the present? Prior work has found that under the threat of violence individuals prioritize safety and adopt policy views aimed at reducing the threat. Elites can then strategically employ concerns over personal safety and security to shape the public’s preferences. I contribute to this literature by conducting an exploratory study of whether invocations of violence committed in the past shape preferences in the long-term, years after the actual violence has ended. To do so, I fielded an experiment on a large ( N = 1125) and nationally representative sample of respondents in Bosnia, the site of a major ethnic civil war in 1992–1995. I did not find evidence that reminders of wartime violence in and of themselves affect policy preferences. Ultimately, this study represents a first cut at a neglected question in the literature and has implications that could motivate future research on the relationship between violent conflict and policy preferences.


Lex Russica ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146-158
Author(s):  
A. P. Grakhotskiy

In the first post-war decades in Germany the problem of crimes of the Nazi regime was hushed up. Information about the flagrant crimes of the Nazis in the concentration camps was perceived by the Germans as “propaganda of the winners”. The Frankfurt process of 1963-1965 was an event that contributed to the understanding of the criminal past of its country by the German society. Before the court in Frankfurt there appeared 22 Nazi war criminals who were accused of murder and complicity in the killing of prisoners of concentration camps and death camps of Auschwitz. During the trial, horrific facts of mass destruction of people and unprecedented cases of humiliation of human dignity were revealed. The position of the prosecution was that the defendants voluntarily served in Auschwitz, realizing that the main purpose of the operation of the camp is the mass destruction of Jews, purposefully participating in the implementation of a common criminal plan. The defense adhered to the strategy that the defendants were only weak-willed executors of the orders of the highest Nazi leadership and were forced to commit crimes at the risk of their own lives. None of the accused pleaded guilty, and in their closing speeches they expressed neither regret nor remorse to the victims and their relatives. The verdict of the jury was soft: only 6 accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, the rest received various (from 3 to 14 years) terms of imprisonment, three were acquitted. However, the significance of the Frankfurt trial exceeds the purpose of the criminal punishment of the Nazi criminals. The process became a milestone in the course of overcoming by the Germans of their recent past, the awareness of the responsibility of German society for the crimes of national socialism.


Author(s):  
Andrew Smithers

TFP has been on a long-term declining trend and over the most recent thirty- and twenty-year periods has run at 0.9 per cent per annum and 0.8 per cent per annum. Since 1980 TFP has fluctuated around these levels without any clear trend. Compared with estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and other forms of the consensus model, the model described in this book shows large differences. The figures for TFP are significantly lower and on occasion show a different change in direction. The contribution of TFP to labour productivity fell from nearly 100 per cent in the early post-war years to 60 per cent in 2016. Favourable changes in NTV have thus contributed 40 per cent of the improvement in labour productivity over the past twenty years. We are therefore not solely at the mercy of changes in technology but can enhance growth by changes in policy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Sarah Hackett

Drawing upon a collection of oral history interviews, this paper offers an insight into entrepreneurial and residential patterns and behaviour amongst Turkish Muslims in the German city of Bremen. The academic literature has traditionally argued that Turkish migrants in Germany have been pushed into self-employment, low-quality housing and segregated neighbourhoods as a result of discrimination, and poor employment and housing opportunities. Yet the interviews reveal the extent to which Bremen’s Turkish Muslims’ performances and experiences have overwhelmingly been the consequences of personal choices and ambitions. For many of the city’s Turkish Muslim entrepreneurs, self-employment had been a long-term objective, and they have succeeded in establishing and running their businesses in the manner they choose with regards to location and clientele, for example. Similarly, interviewees stressed the way in which they were able to shape their housing experiences by opting which districts of the city to live in and by purchasing property. On the whole, they perceive their entrepreneurial and residential practices as both consequences and mediums of success, integration and a loyalty to the city of Bremen. The findings are contextualised within the wider debate regarding the long-term legacy of Germany’s post-war guest-worker system and its position as a “country of immigration”.


Author(s):  
Robert Klinck ◽  
Ben Bradshaw ◽  
Ruby Sandy ◽  
Silas Nabinacaboo ◽  
Mannie Mameanskum ◽  
...  

The Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach is an Aboriginal community located in northern Quebec near the Labrador Border. Given the region’s rich iron deposits, the Naskapi Nation has considerable experience with major mineral development, first in the 1950s to the 1980s, and again in the past decade as companies implement plans for further extraction. This has raised concerns regarding a range of environmental and socio-economic impacts that may be caused by renewed development. These concerns have led to an interest among the Naskapi to develop a means to track community well-being over time using indicators of their own design. Exemplifying community-engaged research, this paper describes the beginning development of such a tool in fall 2012—the creation of a baseline of community well-being against which mining-induced change can be identified. Its development owes much to the remarkable and sustained contribution of many key members of the Naskapi Nation. If on-going surveying is completed based on the chosen indicators, the Nation will be better positioned to recognize shifts in its well-being and to communicate these shifts to its partners. In addition, long-term monitoring will allow the Naskapi Nation to contribute to more universal understanding of the impacts of mining for Indigenous peoples.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-34
Author(s):  
K. Korobkova ◽  
V. Patyka

Contemporary state of the distribution of mycoplasma diseases of cultivated crops in Ukraine was analyzed. The changes of the physiological state of plant cells under the impact of mollicutes were investigated. It was demonstrated that there is temporary increase in the activity of peroxidase, catalase, polyphenoloxidase, phenylalanine-ammonia-lyase at the early stages of interaction. The adhesive properties are changed in the mollicutes under the impact of plant lectin; there is synthesis of new polypeptides. It was determined that the phytopathogenic acholeplasma is capable of producing a complex of proteolytic enzymes into the culture me- dium. It was concluded that when plant cells are infected with acholeplasma, a number of signaling interactions and metabolic transformations condition the recognition of pathogenesis and ensure the aggregate response of a plant to stress in the form of defense reactions. It was assumed that some specifi cities of the biology of phy- topathogenic acholeplasma determine their avoiding the immune mechanisms of plants and promote long-term persistence of mollicutes.


Author(s):  
Lindsey C Bohl

This paper examines a few of the numerous factors that may have led to increased youth turnout in 2008 Election. First, theories of voter behavior and turnout are related to courting the youth vote. Several variables that are perceived to affect youth turnout such as party polarization, perceived candidate difference, voter registration, effective campaigning and mobilization, and use of the Internet, are examined. Over the past 40 years, presidential elections have failed to engage the majority of young citizens (ages 18-29) to the point that they became inclined to participate. This trend began to reverse starting in 2000 Election and the youth turnout reached its peak in 2008. While both short and long-term factors played a significant role in recent elections, high turnout among youth voters in 2008 can be largely attributed to the Obama candidacy and campaign, which mobilized young citizens in unprecedented ways.


Author(s):  
Omar Hashim Thanon

Since peaceful coexistence reflects in its various aspects the concept of harmony between the members of the same society with their different national, religious and sectarian affiliations, as well as their attitudes and ideas, what brings together these are the common bonds such as land, interests and common destiny. But this coexistence is exposing for crises and instability and the theft of rights and other that destroy the communities with their different religious, national, sectarian, ethnic aspects, especially if these led to a crisis of fighting or war, which produces only destruction and mass displacement, ttherefore, the process of bridging the gap between the different parts of society in the post-war phase through a set of requirements that serve as the basis for the promotion of peaceful coexistence within the same country to consolidate civil and community peace in order to create a general framework and a coherent basis to reconstruct the community again.      Hence the premise of the research by asking about the extent of the possibility and ability of the community of religious and ethnic diversity, which has been exposed to these crises, which aimed at this diversity, basically to be able to rise and re-integrate within the same country and thus achieve civil and community peace, and Mosul is an example for that, the negative effects of the war and the accomplices of many criminal acts have given rise to hatred and fear for all, leading to the loss of livelihoods, which in the long term may have devastating social and psychological consequences.        To clarify all of this, the title of the first topic was a review of the concept and origin of peaceful coexistence. While the second topic dealt with the requirements of peaceful coexistence and social integration in Mosul, the last topic has identified the most important challenges facing the processes of coexistence and integration in Mosul. All this in order to paint a better future for the conductor at all levels in the near term at the very least to achieve the values of this peaceful coexistence, especially in the post-war period.


Author(s):  
Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska

The article focuses on advertisements as visual and historical sources. The material comes from the German press that appeared immediately after the end of the Second World War. During this time, all kinds of products were scarce. In comparison to this, colorful advertisements of luxury products are more than noteworthy. What do these images tell us about the early post-war years in Germany? The author argues that advertisements are a medium that shapes social norms. Rather than reflecting the historical realities, advertisements construct them. From an aesthetical and cultural point of view, advertisements gave thus a sense of continuity between the pre- and post-war years. The author suggests, therefore, that the advertisements should not be treated as a source for economic history. They are, however, important for studying social developments that occurred in the past.


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