scholarly journals CONNECTING TRADE AND POLITICS: NEGOTIATIONS ON THE RELEASE OF THE GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA AND THE FIRST WEST GERMAN-YUGOSLAV TRADE AGREEMENT OF 1949/1950

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2/2021) ◽  
pp. 333-352
Author(s):  
Natalija Dimić
Keyword(s):  
Trade Agreement ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Economic Cooperation ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
German Government ◽  
Two Sides

After repatriations were officially over in January of 1949, around 1,400 German prisoners remained in Yugoslavia on charges of war crimes. Yugoslavia’s foreign political shift westward following the Cominform Resolution of 1948, paved the way for establishing productive economic, as well as political and cultural cooperation with West Germany. The first trade agreement between the two states was signed in December of 1949. In the next four months, the West German Government attempted to pressure the Yugoslav side to release the remaining German prisoners by not ratifying the agreement. Eventually, in April of 1950, the two sides reached an unofficial agreement, according to which the Yugoslav side would release its prisoners gradually and improve their living conditions, while the West Germans would ratify the trade agreement and agree to negotiate long-term economic cooperation. The last transport of German prisoners arrived from Yugoslavia in March of 1953.

scholarly journals Abstieg West durch Aufbau Ost?

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (135) ◽  
pp. 321-329
Author(s):  
Ulrich Busch
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German Unification ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
The Eu

14 years after the German unification East Germany is one of the largest European problem areas. Loss of population, economic stagnation and the dependence on transfers from the West determine the situation. With the expansion of the EU, East Germany can become the German mezzogiorno. In this situation a group of experts demands radical measures form the federal government. But these measures will worsen the living conditions in East Germany, which are already very different to those in West Germany.

‘Gentlemen, the Cheese Is All Gone!’ British POWs, the ‘Great Escape’ and the Anglo-German Agreement for Compensation to Victims of Nazism

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSANNA SCHRAFSTETTER
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
The West ◽  
German Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn 1964 the West German government agreed to provide £1 million in financial compensation to British victims of National Socialism. The distribution of the money, organised by the British foreign office, turned into a major public scandal, as a number of British POWs, among them survivors of the ‘great escape’, had their claims rejected. By examining the refusal of several British POWs to accept their exclusion from the scheme, the article addresses the interplay of political pressure and public opinion that led to a parliamentary inquiry into what became known as ‘the Sachsenhausen affair’ in 1967. Given that provisions of the agreement with West Germany had precluded indemnification to mistreated POWs, the distribution of the money almost inevitably led to bitterness and discontent. From this perspective, the article explores the impact of the Great Escape on British memory of the war, the public reception of the film The Great Escape (1963), and the way in which public memory influenced the debate on compensation.

West German-Moroccan Relations and Politics of Labour Migration, 1958–1972

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-133
Author(s):  
Brittany Lehman
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
West Germany ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Cultural Stereotypes ◽  
German Government ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

In 1962, the Federal Republic of Germany (frg) agreed to negotiate a guestworker agreement with Morocco in order to create guidelines for handling 4,000 so-called illegal Moroccan migrants, most of whom lived in North Rhine-Westphalia. Unlike other guestworker agreements, this one was not about recruitment, but rather it was designed to restrict migration from Morocco, legalise the stay of Moroccans already in the country, and establish guidelines for future deportations. Looking at the history of the West German-Moroccan Agreement from its start until its termination in 1973, this article provides a discussion of Moroccan labourers access to and legal status in West Germany, demonstrating how international and economic interests as well as cultural stereotypes of both Moroccans and Arabs shaped West German migration policies. In so doing, the article emphasises the West German federal and the North Rhine-Westphalian state governments’ different goals, revealing that the West German government was not a monolithic entity; it was in fact defined by multiple, sometimes contradictory, viewpoints and pressures.

Dancing along the Wall

2020 ◽  
pp. 265-286
Author(s):  
Victoria Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
German Government ◽  
White House ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Us ◽  
East German ◽  
Wire Fence

“You Are Leaving the American Sector,” signs read as Martha Graham and her company crossed from West Germany to celebrate Berlin’s 750th anniversary. The East German government sought reunification; for the communists, “reunification,” “peace,” and thus the promise of “human bonds” became political weapons. Although the “Stalin Note” in 1952 promised West Germans “the rights of man” and some freedoms, Stalin demanded military neutrality. The US and West German governments finally decided it was communist propaganda. “Peace” remained a contested term with the “peaceful Soviets,” positioned against a “warmongering America.” Graham’s East Berlin repertory featured Frontier, the same work of Americana that had she had presented at the White House in 1937 and then more recently under Gerald Ford. Unlike Graham’s pioneer woman, East Berliners stood in front of a wall, a barbed-wire fence; Graham’s dancer stood in front of a fence and envisioned an expansionist future—not a stopping point. “The girl is seeing a great landscape, untrammeled,” Graham said to an East German of her pioneer woman, performed by an African American dancer to emphasize racial inclusion as an American tenet: “It’s the appetite for space, which is one of the characteristics of America. It’s one of the things that has made us pioneers.” Five months later, Ronald Reagan stood in the West demanding, “Tear down this wall.” Reagan and Graham worked in tandem to bring East Germany into the Western fold.

US peace plan will disrupt Israel-Hamas truce push

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The West ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Gaza Strip ◽  
Two Sides

Significance That comes as Hamas yesterday called on Palestinians to step up their confrontations with Israel in response to the killing of a Palestinian teenager in clashes with Israeli security forces in the West Bank. In late 2019, Israel and Hamas began exploring the possibility of a long-term ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and some understandings between the two sides have already been implemented, albeit with little official fanfare. These are now coming under pressure amid Palestinian outrage at a plan to end the conflict unveiled by US President Donald Trump on January 28. Impacts Ahead of March’s election, Netanyahu will come under pressure to act more forcefully in response to escalations. The IDF will complete a 1-billion-dollar underground wall around Gaza to prevent tunnels towards the end of 2020. Prospects for a truce were always likely to be hindered by Hamas’s ongoing reluctance to hand over Israeli hostages and soldiers’ bodies. Hamas may revive Friday protests along the border as of late March. Israel will refrain from acting on its threat to annex parts of the West Bank until at least after the election, if not indefinitely.

Mafias on the Move

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Varese
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
At Will

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As this book explains, the truth is more complicated. The author has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. The book spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, the book charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. The book explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. A pioneering chapter on China examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. This book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.

Charlemagne’s Health in ‘Old Age’: Did It Affect Carolingian Military Strategy?

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-53
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Bachrach
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
The West ◽  
Long Time

During the first thirty-three years of his reign as king of the Franks, i.e., prior to his coronation as emperor on Christmas day 800, Charlemagne, scholars generally agree, pursued a successful long-term offensive and expansionist strategy. This strategy was aimed at conquering large swaths of erstwhile imperial territory in the west and bringing under Carolingian rule a wide variety of peoples, who either themselves or their regional predecessors previously had not been subject to Frankish regnum.1 For a very long time, scholars took the position that Charlemagne continued to pursue this expansionist strategy throughout the imperial years, i.e., from his coronation on Christmas Day 800 until his final illness in later January 814. For example, Louis Halphen observed: “comme empereur, Charles poursuit, sans plus, l’oeuvre entamée avant l’an 800.”2 F. L. Ganshof, who also wrote several studies treating Charlemagne’s army, was in lock step with Halphen and observed: “As emperor, Charlemagne pursued the political and military course he had been following before 25 December 800.”3

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