The Immediacy of a Remote Past

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
German History ◽  
The Third ◽  
German Identity ◽  
German Nation ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Remote Past

Early in the Third Reich, Nazi ideologues and propagandists proclaimed the rebirth of the German nation. But when was it first born, and when had it died? Nazis, including Rosenberg, Himmler and Darré, looked back to the late eighth and early ninth centuries, constructing an originary myth of a pristine Germanic and pagan Germany, championed by the Saxon war-lord ‘Duke’ Widukind, and its destruction at the hands of Charlemagne, Romanism and Christianity. But, even within the Nazi Party’s leadership, this proved a controversial view. As Nazism began to fulfil its totalitarian ambitions and impose ideological uniformity, a furious public debate broke out. It concerned the origins and meaning of German history, and ultimately German identity. No Nazi doubted that events from which modern Germans were separated by more than a millennium posed urgent questions for the present, and Charlemagne’s Saxon wars acquired other kinds of immediacy in Nazi historical imaginations.

scholarly journals Von «grossen Deutschen» und «stolzen Wipfeln» - Die Lehrbücher der deutschen Medizingeschichte und die Pathologie (1858 bis 1945)

Gesnerus ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 194-218
Author(s):  
Cay-Rüdiger Prüll
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
German History ◽  
Scientific Medicine ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of Pathology ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Cellular Pathology

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.

scholarly journals De heilige plicht van de gehoorzaamheid - De karaktertekening in de Duitslandromans van Louis Ferron tegen de achtergrond van het concept van de autoritaire persoonlijkheid

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Jan Konst
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
German History ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Authoritarian Personality ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

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.

The End of the Freebooter Tradition: The Forgotten Freikorps Movement of 1944/45

1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perry Biddiscombe
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
European Politics ◽  
German History ◽  
Apparent Absence ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
The Third Reich

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.

scholarly journals Monuments and the Politics of Memory: Commemorating Kurt Eisner and the Bavarian Revolutions of 1918–1919 in Postwar Munich

1997 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Third Reich ◽  
Second World War ◽  
German History ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
The Third ◽  
Unintended Effect ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Second World ◽  
With Memory

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.

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