Die Abteilungen für Luftfahrt an deutschen Universitäten unter dem NS-Regime

STADION ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-85
Author(s):  
Alexander Priebe

On 17 November 1934, the Reich Education Ministry (REM) issued a decree on the “cultivation of aviation in schools and universities”. It aimed at “ensuring the next generation of aviation professionals in the practical, aeronautical, technical, and scientific fields”, the importance of which, according to the REM, “had even increased with the resurgence of the German Luftwaffe”. Hence, universities and colleges of physical education were deemed responsible for further civil and - increasingly - military training and research in aviation, whereas research in aeronautical engineering was carried out at technical universities, under the enforced auspices of the Reich Ministry of Aviation. From 1934 onwards, aviation training would be coordinated by departments of aviation, which were also responsible for the gliding training of students and, above all, sports instructors. The recast decree of 30 December 1939 would expand and enforce training and research defined as “essential for the war effort”. This crucial development, which essentially bolstered the military strategy of the Nazis before and during World War II, i.e., the so-called “Blitzkrieg”, is presented in a detailed overview, based on recently discovered archival sources.

Author(s):  
Robert F. Jefferson

The history of the African American military experience in World War II tends to revolve around two central questions: How did World War II and American racism shape the black experience in the American military? And how did black GIs reshape the parameters of their wartime experiences? From the mid-1920s through the Great Depression years of the 1930s, military planners evaluated the performance of black soldiers in World War I while trying to ascertain their presence in future wars. However, quite often their discussions about African American servicemen in the military establishment were deeply moored in the traditions, customs, and practices of American racism, racist stereotypes, and innuendo. Simultaneously, African American leaders and their allies waged a relentless battle to secure the future presence of the uniformed men and women who would serve in the nation’s military. Through their exercise of voting rights, threats of protest demonstration, litigation, and White House lobbying from 1939 through 1942, civil rights advocates and their affiliates managed to obtain some minor concessions from the military establishment. But the military’s stubborn adherence to a policy barring black and white soldiers from serving in the same units continued through the rest of the war. Between 1943 and 1945, black GIs faced white officer hostility, civilian antagonism, and military police brutality while undergoing military training throughout the country. Similarly, African American servicewomen faced systemic racism and sexism in the military during the period. Throughout various stages of the American war effort, black civil rights groups, the press, and their allies mounted the opening salvoes in the battle to protect and defend the wellbeing of black soldiers in uniform. While serving on the battlefields of World War II, fighting African American GIs became foot soldiers in the wider struggles against tyranny abroad. After returning home in 1945, black World War II-era activists such as Daisy Lampkin and Ruby Hurley, and ex-servicemen and women, laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Patricia Chappine

The participation of NJ women during World War II encompassed a wide array of new challenges and responsibilities. Not only were women moving into newly opened employment opportunities, but they also joined military branches, worked for the defense industry, and even played professional baseball. However, paid positions were only part of the story. Volunteerism was a significant, even integral part of the war effort, both on the home front and abroad. For women who volunteered as hostesses, the USO upheld feminine ideals of emotional labor and caregiving, emphasizing the activities that prepared young women to be wives and mothers.  The ideological safety of USO work during WWII has served as a barrier to comprehensive academic consideration of their contributions on a national, regional, and local level. Demographic variations of USO clubs have yet to be analyzed comprehensively on a state-by-state basis. Research on NJ’s USO groups forms a unique narrative of women’s volunteerism and civic engagement, which upheld social constructs of femininity while impacting the war effort, especially the morale of the military, significantly.


2021 ◽  
pp. 370-388
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Guglielmo

The conclusion traces the ways that racist boundaries waxed and waned in the final stages of World War II military service and addresses the larger impact that these boundaries had on American troops, the American military, and the nation. In the end, black-white lines, if blurred some, still defined many troops’ last days in uniform. White-nonwhite lines also appeared here and there, but still lacked the same institutionalization, reach, and force. And this broader complex of lines fundamentally shaped postwar America in numerous, complicated, and too often forgotten ways. They politicized a varied and substantial group of veterans, who returned home prepared and determined to democratize the military and the nation. But the cost of these lines was enormous. They impeded America’s war effort, undermined the nation’s Four Freedoms rhetoric, traumatized, even killed, an unknowable number of nonwhite troops, further naturalized the very concept of race, deepened many whites’ investments in white supremacy, especially anti-black racism, and further fractured the American people and their politics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-98
Author(s):  
Jonathan van Harmelen

During World War II, Japanese American scientists and engineers imprisoned at the Manzanar War Relocation camp were engaged in an experimental project to grow guayule and process it into latex, a needed war materiel. In this way, they contributed to the American war effort, despite their race-based incarceration. The guayule research project undermines the rationale for the wartime confinement of West Coast Japanese Americans. The laboratory at Manzanar partnered with universities, private industry, and government bureaucracy as an early instance of the military-industrial complex.


1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-243
Author(s):  
Jonathan J. Bean

On the eve of America's entry into World War II, Senator Joseph O'Mahoney (D-Wyo.) warned that “if we let little business go down in a total effort to defend democracy we shall let the very foundation of democracy perish. The total effort will result in total government.” O'Mahoney was concerned that the growing concentration of defense contracts with large corporations would tie big business to big government and thereby leave small business out of the military buildup. This fear that big business might squeeze small manufacturers out of the war effort fueled demands for government assistance. With the antitrust laws suspended for the duration of the war, congressional small-business advocates took positive action, using crisis rhetoric and the ideological appeal of small business to secure the creation of the Smaller War Plants Corporation (SWPC), the first federal agency to represent small manufacturers.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (07) ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
Harry Hutchinson

This article reviews the military buildup of World War II that led to victory and, by an indirect route, to a richer world. The creation of the US armaments industry is breathtaking for the speed with which it developed. After the surprise attack at the close of 1941, it did not take much time for the country to respond. Shocked by a sneak attack, Americans were able to put their love affair with the car on hold to make war machines. The entire US automotive industry converted its plants to the war effort, and much of that industrial might was devoted to building airplanes. Technologies developed for the war were quickly given civilian uses. After years of rationing and the Great Depression before that, there was plenty of demand stored up. GPS today keeps watch on truck fleets, tracks stolen cars, and serves a multitude of other civilian uses that save lives, property, and money. The Predator and other unpiloted aerial vehicles are believed to represent the future of commercial air transportation.


Author(s):  
Colin R. Alexander

Japan was able to capture almost all of Burma by May 1942, after the Allied forces departed the capital, Rangoon, on 7th March in a ‘scorched earth’ retreat causing the first of several refugee crises into Assam. This chapter on Assam is split into several sections. The first covers the strategic importance of the Indian sub-continent to the Allied war effort, and, more specifically, Assam’s importance to the Empire. The chapter focuses on civilian activities and the civilian decision-making that occurred around these issues from the ICS and other organizations as well as discusses relations between the ICS and the military during the period. As such Clow’s contribution and actions as Governor of the province from May 1942 is understood within the perspective of the greater political and military aims of the time.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Herst

The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928 revolutionized the way infections were treated. In the context of World War II, the government of the United States politicized the production and use of penicillin as yet another weapon to win the war. It was carefully rationed on the home front, while being used with reckless abandon in the treatment battle wounds and venereal diseases on the battlefield. Penicillin was described as a miracle drug that would be able to cure everyone, when in reality it was only being used to benefit the military and the American war effort, at the expense of civilian lives.


Geografie ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 104 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-53
Author(s):  
Zbyněk Ryšlavý

The former military area Ralsko was created after the World War II on the territory formerly populated by Germans. The area was poor with negligible industry only. It was intended to serve as a training ground for cooperation between infantry troops and various armored vehicles in varied landscapes. Soviet Army used the area since 1968. As a result, the military use of Ralsko became more intensive and some areas were used beyond the possible limits. As there were great numbers of soldiers and hazardous materials were handled without care, serious environmental damages occurred. Much money has been spent by the Czechoslovak/Czech state in order to reduce contamination and to treat environmental impacts. The former military area should be revitalized carefully so that our descendants would find this area pleasant and enjoying.


Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex examines how the American military has used cinema and related visual, sonic, and mobile technologies to further its varied aims. The essays in this book address the way cinema was put to work for purposes of training, orientation, record keeping, internal and external communication, propaganda, research and development, tactical analysis, surveillance, physical and mental health, recreation, and morale. The contributors examine the technologies and types of films that were produced and used in collaboration among the military, film industry, and technology manufacturers. The essays also explore the goals of the American state, which deployed the military and its unique modes of filmmaking, film exhibition, and film viewing to various ends. Together, the essays reveal the military’s deep investment in cinema, which began around World War I, expanded during World War II, continued during the Cold War (including wars in Korea and Vietnam), and still continues in the ongoing War on Terror.


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