Knut Langewand’s study on metaphors of bodies and sickness in Weimar’s political discourse shows how the discussion about the health of some of Weimar’s leading statesmen undermined the legitimacy of the new Republic itself. On the basis of the cases of Stresemann, Ebert, Braun, Müller, and Brüning, the book discusses the construction of terms such as “kranker Volkskörper” and their impact on the political culture of the time.
Category: Politics
Democracy after World War I
The volume Normalität und Fragilität: Demokratie nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, edited by Adam Tooze and Tim B. Müler, looks at the changes of Western democracy after 1918. During the interwar years, the authors argue, democracy “became normal”, but at the same time was characterized by a fundamental fragility: “Modern democracy is a recent invention. It was the new political phenomenon, dynamic and characteristic of the era that followed the end of World War I. In these decades, democracy became normal, a comprehensive form of governance and daily life. The notion that it might be replaced with some other model seemed unthinkable. This development occurred simultaneously in a various societies worldwide, especially in Europe. Continue reading “Democracy after World War I”
Journal Review: German History 4/2014
In the December issue of German History, Heidi Tworek writes about the cooperation between German journalists and diplomats to raise Germany’s international profile after WWI: ‘From August 2013, a new, controversial ancillary copyright law (Leistungsschutzrecht) permitted German publishers to charge online news aggregator, such as Google for displaying article snippets. Implementation remains contested, but this is not the first time that new technology has prompted Germans to seek intellectual property rights in news. In August 1927, a German delegation successfully pushed through its compromise resolution on the legal protection of news during a Conference of Press Experts at the League of Nations. Continue reading “Journal Review: German History 4/2014”
Conference: European Democracies after WWI
The conference Nach dem „Großen Krieg“. Vom Triumph zum Desaster der Demokratie 1918/19 – 1939 at the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden covered the development of European democracies after WWI– and their rapid disintegration from the end of the 1920s – in a comparative perspective. A conference report has just been published on H-Soz-Kult (in German).
PhD grants for research on leftist politics in Weimar
The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is funding PhD research on “the history of leftist politics in Germany beyond Social Democracy and Party Communism“. Eligible projects include:
- Syndicalism, soviet communism and Trotzkyism in interwar Germany
- Proletarian women’s movements and working-class youth movements in interwar Germany
Weimar’s Republican War Veterans
Benjamin Ziemann’s new study Contested Commemorations. Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture adds to the growing literature on the strength of republican cultures of commemoration in Weimar that challenge the traditional view of the dominance of nationalist and anti-democratic political culture: ‘This innovative study of remembrance in Weimar Germany analyses how experiences and memories of the Great War were transformed along political lines after 1918. Continue reading “Weimar’s Republican War Veterans”
CfP: Hidden Continuities: From Interwar to Postwar Integration in Europe
Hidden Continuities:
From Interwar to Postwar Forms of Cooperation and Integration in Europe
23-25 october 2014, Free University Berlin
Deadline: 5 March 2014
Historical research on European integration often treats 1945 as a ‘Zero Hour’, heralding a new period in history. This conference, in contrast, zooms in on the various connections between practices and proposals on inter- and supranational governance between the interwar, wartime, and postwar periods. Continue reading “CfP: Hidden Continuities: From Interwar to Postwar Integration in Europe”
Weimar Youth and the World War
The concept of ‘generation’ has made a comeback in historical research over the recent years. Ulrich Herbert’s Generation des Unbedingten is one well-received example, describing the ‘war youth generation’ (those born between 1900-1910) as one of the most vocal groups fighting against Weimar democracy and, later, serving as eager functionaries of the Nazi regime.
Arndt Weinrich’s new book Der Weltkrieg als Erzieher. Jugend zwischen Weimarer Republik und Nationalsozialismus adds to this research trend by analysing the role of the memory of the World War in the Hitler Youth and other youth groups during the Weimar Republic.
CfP: Fascism without Borders
Fascism without Borders.
Transnational Connections and Cooperation among Movements and Regimes in Europe between 1918 and 1945
Freie Universität Berlin
20 – 21 June 2014
Deadline for Abstracts: 30 September 2013
Journal Review: German Studies Review 2/13
Two articles in the current issue of the German Studies Review approach Weimar politics and culture:
Michael P. Ryan: Fritz Lang’s Radio Aesthetic: M. Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder.
Journal Review: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 01/13
In the current issue of Geschichte und Gesellschaft Philipp Nielsen writes about German Jews between ‘Heimat’ and German-ness:
Philipp Nielsen: „Blut und Boden“. Jüdische Deutsche zwischen Heimat und Deutschtum, 1892–1936
Individuality and Modernity in Berlin
Moritz Föllmer offers an innovative approach to 20th-century German history by reframing it via the quest for individuality:
‘Moritz Föllmer traces the history of individuality in Berlin from the late 1920s to the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. The demand to be recognised as an individual was central to metropolitan society, as were the spectres of risk, isolation and loss of agency. This was true under all five regimes of the period, through economic depression, war, occupation and reconstruction. The quest for individuality could put democracy under pressure, as in the Weimar years, and could be satisfied by a dictatorship, as was the case in the Third Reich. Continue reading “Individuality and Modernity in Berlin”
British obsession with German history
The financial crisis, and Germany’s subsequent role as a reluctant ‘saviour of the eurozone’, has given rise to a renewed discussion of the country’s historical role in Europe. In the UK, this debate has borne especially strange fruit. At the beginning of the crisis, the supposed ‘national trauma’ of the Weimar hyperinflation has been used to explain Germany’s alleged reluctance to enter a more active role. Now the tone has changed to a fear of a too powerful Germany: the Daily Mail recently predicted another war started by Germany, while the cover of the current edition of the New Statesman talks of a ‘German problem’, depicting Angela Merkel and Helmut Kohl alongside Bismarck and Hitler. In the accompanying article, historian Brendan Simms describes the long way towards German democracy, all the way from the 15th century, but goes on to argue that it only took the last five years to put it all in danger again.
Study about Federalism Debate
Anke John’s study Der Weimarer Bundesstaat. Perspektiven einer föderalen Ordnung (1918–1933) sheds some much-needed light on the significance of Germany’s federal structure in Weimar politics and the contemporary discussion about it.
Who was Hitler?
Eighty years ago today, on 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor by Reich President Hindenburg and for many, his appointment marks the end of the Weimar Republic. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has an interesting article on the remarkably vague historical image of Hitler in Germany: Continue reading “Who was Hitler?”