War and the Objector

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-60
Author(s):  
Alex Belsey

This chapter considers how the statement of conscientious objection with which Keith Vaughan opens his first ever journal entry in August 1939 develops from a political stance into a declaration of personal crisis centred around his homosexuality and feelings of being an outcast. Following the thread of Vaughan’s anti-war writing, it explores how Vaughan constructed his identity as an objector not only to war but to conventional expectations of masculinity and to the political establishment that upheld them. The first section of this chapter considers why the imminence of the Second World War was the catalyst for Vaughan’s journal-writing – a practice that would become a life-long project. The second section reveals how Vaughan’s anti-war writing developed his unwavering belief in the sanctity of the human body and his resistance to its distortion or destruction for the sake of warring ideologies. The third section argues that the uncompromising stance taken by Vaughan in his journal allowed him to position himself as an outsider through identification with neo-classicism and its ideals, conflating beauty with morality to advocate for an alternative vision of a peaceful and (homo)sexually permissive society.

Author(s):  
Harold James

This chapter debunks the myth that Krupp had been a driving force behind the high-level making of Nazi policy, rather than a participant in a massive web of ideologically driven immorality. It examines the Nuremberg trial of the Krupp directors, considering the issue of the extent to which businessmen had choices or a freedom to maneuver in the Nazi era. Furthermore, though the prospect of rearmament was an issue within the company, the chapter argues that the rise and fall of profitability did not correspond directly to the political stance of the company, its owners, and its management. Financial incentives alone did not determine the political orientation of the Krupp business, particularly as the company soon found itself embroiled in the Nazis' politics and the Second World War loomed over the horizon.


Author(s):  
Й. Шнелле

В данной статье рассматриваются отношения "Мусават", бывшей правящей партии Азербайджанской Республики и наиболее активной партии азербайджанских эмигрантов, с Третьим Рейхом в довоенный период. В 1933–1939 гг. Германия сыграла большую роль для партии «Мусават» в поисках союзников в борьбе против СССР. Мусаватисты некоторое время сотрудничали с Антикоминтерном в области антикоммунистической пропаганды и в 1939 г. были под покровительством Внешнеполитического управления НСДАП. Тем не менее положение «Мусават» в Германии оставалось неустойчивым вплоть до начала Второй мировой войны, надежды этой партии на эффективную поддержку со стороны Берлина не оправдались. The article examines relations between «Musavat», the former leading party of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the most active party of Azerbaijan immigrants, and the Third Reich during the pre-war period. In 1933–1939 Germany helped the party in search for anti-Soviet allies. Members of «Musavat» collaborated with the Anti-Comintern in Anti-Bolshevik Propaganda activities in 1939, they were under the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs protection. Never the less «Musavat» party haven’t gained a steady position till the beginning of the Second World War, it’s hopes for effective help and support from Berlin were not realized.


Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-281
Author(s):  
Dubravka Stojanović

AbstractThe author comments on the political and economic options in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that started at the beginning of 2020. She revisits responses to the crises of the First World War, the Great Crash of 1929, and the Second World War, sorting them into ‘pessimistic’ and ‘optimistic’ responses, and outlining their respective consequences.


Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Cinnamon

ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in the mid-1950s, the present article traces the contours of converging political and religious imaginations in that country in the years preceding independence. Fang speakers in the region make explicit connections between the arrival of post-Second World War electoral politics, the anti-fetish movements, and perceptions of political weakening and marginalization of their region on the eve of independence. Rival politicians and the colonial administration played key roles in the movement, which brought in a Congolese ritual expert, Emane Boncoeur, and his two powerful spirits, Mademoiselle and Mimbare. These spirits, later recuperated in a wide range of healing practices, continue to operate today throughout northern Gabon and Rio Muni. In local imaginaries, these spirits played central roles in the birth of both regional and national politics, paradoxically strengthening the colonial administration and Gabonese auxiliaries in an era of pre-independence liberalization. Thus, regional political events in the 1950s rehearsed later configurations of power, including presidential politics, on the national stage.


2020 ◽  

The historical consciousness of the peoples of Europe is still being shaped by their own national histories. The question of the political order that prevailed during the interwar years has remained a perennial issue among historians. The dominant hallmark of this prelude to the Second World War was the rise of dictatorships and the question of whether we can characterise this period as one of uninterrupted crisis. This collection of studies examines the quest for a new European order and the interconnections between domestic and foreign policy during the 1920s and 1930s. It collates different national perspectives in a single volume and asks searching questions about the consequences of the decisions made during the period under examination. With contributions by Dragan Bakić, Maciej Górny, Kurt Hager, János Hóvári, Georg Kastner, Miklos Lojko, Markus Meckel, Ulrich Schlie, Christian Schmidt, Thomas Weber and Werner Weidenfeld.


Author(s):  
Gaj Trifković ◽  
Klaus Schmider

The Second World War in Yugoslavia is notorious for the brutal struggle between the armed forces of the Third Reich and the communist-led Partisans. Less known is the fact that the two sides negotiated prisoner exchanges virtually since the beginning of the war. Under extraordinary circumstances, these early contacts evolved into a formal exchange agreement, centered on the creation of a neutral zone—quite possibly the only such area in occupied Europe—where prisoners were regularly exchanged until late April 1945, saving thousands of lives. The leadership of both sides used the contacts for secret political talks, for which they were nearly branded as traitors by their superiors in Berlin and Moscow. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of prisoner exchanges and the accompanying contacts between the German occupation authorities and the Yugoslav Partisans. Specifically, the book will argue that prisoner exchange had a decisive influence on the POW policies of both sides and helped reduce the levels of violence for which this theater of war became infamous. It will also show that the contacts, contrary to some claims, did not lead to collusion between these two parties against either other Yugoslav factions or the Western Allies.


War Tourism ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 213-226
Author(s):  
Bertram M. Gordon

The study of memory tourism to war sites should not exclude the study of tourism during wartime. Both are components of war tourism, imparting meaning to war for both victors and vanquished. Both reflect their eras, whether through the gazes of the curious individual or the political and economic configurations sustaining the tourism industry. Germans who described a newfound appreciation of their homeland after touring occupied France show how tourism worked in two directions, impacting not only on the sites visited but also the self-image of the visitor. Local governments in France now reach a larger tourism public with new technology. A powerful hold of Second World War imagery in France continues to face ethical issues of sustainability and trivialization.


2019 ◽  
pp. 95-119
Author(s):  
John Ravenhill ◽  
Jefferson Huebner

Economic integration among Anglosphere economies peaked during the period from 1870 to 1960. Maintenance of Imperial Preferences and the Sterling Area ensured that Britain remained the dominant market for most colonies and Dominions in the early post-Second World War period. Britain’s entry into the EEC, the ending of Commonwealth preferences, and the rapid growth of Asian economies caused the UK’s share in Anglosphere economies’ exports to decline rapidly. Growth in the US market share offset some of this decline until the financial crisis of 2007–8 reversed this trend. The significance of intra-Anglosphere trade has declined substantially – from approximately two-thirds of countries’ total trade in 1913 and in 1947 to just over one-third in 2016. Contemporary trade patterns are shaped more by geography than history. The world economy remains substantially regionalised, especially for manufacturing. Many preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are regional in scope: Anglosphere economies have been prominent participants in these arrangements but their partners are typically neighbouring countries rather than other Anglosphere economies. The EU has been the most active negotiator of PTAs: the challenge for a post-Brexit UK will be to negotiate access to markets equivalent to that currently enjoyed through membership of EU PTAs.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document