This ‘micro study’ on merchant families in Bremen sheds some light on German everyday life between Bismarck and the Great Depression.
Wiebke Hoffmann: Auswandern und Zurückkehren. Kaufmannsfamilien zwischen Bremen und Übersee. Eine Mikrostudie 1860–1930
Literature and History
Erhard Schütz, reknowned expert on Weimar literature, has written a review (in German) on two new volumes on the relationship between literature and the history of the 20th century:
van Laak, Dirk (ed.): Literatur, die Geschichte schrieb
Among others, these books include articles by historians on Jewgenij Samjatin’s Wir (1920) and Hans Fallada’s Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben (1931).
History of the Prussian Cultural Ministry
Prussia has always been portrayed as a military state, this new book finally sheds some light on her cultural administration and policies regarding education, health services, science, religion and the arts, with much hitherto unpublished primary material.
Recensio.net, a European history platform
Recensio.net is a ‘Europe-wide, multi-language platform for reviews of historical literature’, a joint project by the Bavarian State Library (BSB) Munich, the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP) and the Institute for European History (IEG) Mainz and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Journals or institutes who have only published in print so far will be able to publish their review sections on the site, but individual authors will also be able to publish abstracts of their work. The big new thing (compared to traditional journals) is the comment section: users can comment on all uploaded content, creating a continous discussion and ‘live reviews’:
‘On the one hand, we want to allow for the changing review patterns in the academic sector. Reviewers often lack the time to write an entire review of a text in its entirety. With a comment they get the chance to give their opinion quickly and easily on an aspect of the text, which at the same time facilitates reviews across various disciplines: A sociologist can review a chapter of an historical publication in reference to his own field without any difficulties.
On the other hand, recensio.net wants to do justice to the central position of articles published in journals or edited volumes in academic writing by giving the possibility to present them, too. So far, articles have only attracted attention within reviews of edited volumes, in which the individual articles have often been neglected. Here, recensio.net wants to offer an up-to-date alternative.’
Carl Schmitt’s diaries 1930-34
There has been renewed interest in Carl Schmitt over the last few years. Fittingly, his diaries from the turbulent time of 1930-1934 are now available for the first time.
Carl Schmitt: Tagebücher 1930 bis 1934, ed. by Wolfgang Schuller
Journal Review: Monatshefte (Spring 2011)
The current issue of Monatshefte features several interesting book reviews:
Theodore F. Rippey on Eric Weitz: Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy
Daniel Weidner on Andrew J. Webber: Berlin in the Twentieth Century: A Cultural Topography
Jochen Hung on Sebastian Marx: Betriebsamkeit als Literatur. Prosa der Weimarer Republik zwischen Massenpresse und Buch
PR in the Weimar Republic
The official history of German public relations generally starts after 1945, when major agencies were set up and most companys built up their own corporate pr departments following US standards. This new publication (based on an MA thesis handed in at the Freie Universtät Berlin) shows that the industry had been established much earlier and that corporate pr had been firmly established already in the 1920s and 30s.
August Thyssen correspondence
The industrialist August Thyssen (1842-1926) was one of the most important figures of German society and economy. The correspondence between him and his youngest son Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza sheds some light on private conflict of the Thyssen family and official company policies in the Weimar Republic.
New research on Joseph Goebbels
There has been a whole host of new studies on Joseph Goebbels in recent years, including:
Peter Longerich: Joseph Goebbels. Biographie (2010)
Karl-Günter Zelle: Hitlers zweifelnde Elite. Goebbels – Göring – Himmler – Speer (2010)
Jörg von Bilavsky: Joseph Goebbels (2009)
Peter Gathmann / Martina Paul: Narziss Goebbels. Eine psychohistorische Biografie (2009)
Conference on Weimar Colonialism
On 12 – 14 April 2011, the National University of Ireland in Maynooth hosts a conference on colonialism in the Weimar Republic.
German Conservatism 1912-1933
This new book deals with the history of the conservative parties in Germany, with a special focus on the German National People’s Party (DNVP).
New study on the ‘Volkstrauertag’
The ‘Volkstrauertag’ was established in 1926 to commemorate the fallen soldiers of WWI. This new book is the first in-depth history of the German ‘Remembrance Day’.
Alexandra Kaiser: Von Helden und Opfern.
Eine Geschichte des Volkstrauertags
New book on bourgeois culture in the Weimar Republic
The ‘end of the bourgeois age’ was a staple in the intellectual and the political discourse of the Weimar Republic. This new book charts the life of the German bourgeoisie from 1870 till 1930 and tries to shed more light on the dramatic upheavals it experiences in this era.
Journal Review: German History (Dec 2010)
In the December issue of German History, Benjamin Ziemann reviews the most important publications on Weimar politics and culture of the last few years, with a special focus on gender, the semantics of ‘crisis’, theatre and the performative turn, and the significance of ’emplotment’:
“The article suggests that the modernity of metropolitan culture in Berlin, and its significance for Weimar Germany more generally, have been overestimated, and hence concludes that—in cultural terms—Weimar was Weimar: it is best represented by the small town in Thuringia.”
Reviewed books include: Die ‘Krise’ der Weimarer Republik. Zur Kritik eines Deutungsmusters, edited by Moritz Föllmer and Rüdiger Graf, Weimar Germany, edited by Anthony McElligott and Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric Weitz.
Book on ‘völkische’ ideology
The ‘völki
sche’ ideology experienced a surge after the formation of the Reich in 1871 and exerted an important influence on Weimar politics.
The book Die Völkischen in Deutschland. Kaiserreich und Weimarer Republik by Stefan Breuer, published in 2008, is already in its second edition and gives a good overview over ‘völkische’ tought in Germany.