The Third Reich between vision and reality: new perspectives on German history, 1918-1945

2002 ◽  
Vol 39 (05) ◽  
pp. 39-3028-39-3028
Gesnerus ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 194-218
Author(s):  
Cay-Rüdiger Prüll

Textbooks on German medical history are a valuable source when analyzing the discipline's view on the foundation of scientific medicine. This paper deals with descriptions of the history of pathology found in textbooks between 1858 and 1945: In particular, pathological anatomy and Rudolf Virchow's "cellular pathology" were the cornerstones of the foundation of modern medicine in the 19"* century. The way textbooks deal with the history of pathology mirrors the development of German history of medicine: Since the turn of the century the latter felt devoted to an ahistoric teleological approach which did not change in the "Third Reich". This situation hampered a critical histonography which would show relations of the history of pathology to cultural, social and political history.


2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Jan Konst

This article discusses five historical novels by Louis Ferron: Gekkenschemer (1974), Het stierenoffer (1975), De keisnijder van Fichtenwald (1976) De gallische ziekte (1979) and Plicht! (1981). They deal with German history, particularly that of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. This article shows that the characters in these novels can be viewed in the light of Theodor Adorno's theory on the Authoritarian Personality.


1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perry Biddiscombe

One of the difficulties in thinking about postwar German history comes in trying to explain the apparent absence of a paramilitary effervescence accompanying the collapse of the Third Reich. Independent military formations—Freikorps—had played a role during the 1806–1813 period, and such units had appeared again during the stormy years from 1918 to 1923, so the seeming absence of such formations in 1944/45 is quite noticeable. Charles Maier called it one of the major surprises of postwar European politics. To some extent, this perception is illusory; in truth, there were a number of Freikorps launched in 1944/45, although they failed to make a military or political impact and were therefore quickly forgotten. Considering the integral connection between previous Freikorps and the development of modern German nationalism, their relative absence in 1944/45 warrants the historian’s attention.


1997 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld

Given the turbulent nature of recent German history, studies of postwar German memory understandably have focused upon the issue of Vergangenheitsbewältigung—the difficult process of “coming to terms” with the historical experience of the Third Reich and the Second World War. This topic's magnitude has rightly inspired considerable scholarly attention but, at the same time, it has also had the unintended effect of overshadowing other German struggles with memory. In recent years, however, this state of affairs has begun to change. As the epochal events of 1989–90 have forced Germans to confront still another burdensome historical legacy—that of communism—the increasing calls for a “second” Vergangenheitsbewältigung have, for better or worse, broken the monopolistic hold of the Third Reich on the nation's historical consciousness. course of this new Vergangenheitsbewältigung by comparing it to the experience of coming to terms with the legacy of Nazism.


Author(s):  
Vincent P. Pecora

Otto Brunner was a follower of Carl Schmitt’s notions of political theology. He became a supporter of Hitler and a proponent of the Anschluss. His major work, Land and Lordship, is perhaps one of the most remarkable German embodiments of my argument’s contours. Brunner re-writes German history, so that the emergence of the Third Reich can be understood as a return to the pre-monarchy, pre-nation-state relationship of early medieval Germans to German land. Like other Blut und Boden writers, such as Knut Hamsun and Friedrich Griese, Brunner embodies populist nativism on a decentralized model of right and law, one that is compatible with a multi-territorial Reich, but not with the centralized state that arose with Bismarck.


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