German History - current issue

Communal Transformations of Church Space in Lutheran Lubeck

Lee, B. B. — 2008-05-13

Though Johannes Bugenhagen instituted the structures for Lutheran reform in 1530, the impetus for reform in Lübeck came foremost from a specific stratum of ‘unofficial’ culture. Lübeck, a powerful trading city in modern-day Germany on the Baltic Sea, and head of the transnational Hanseatic League, was controlled by a wealthy and influential merchant class. The participation of this merchant class in the reconfiguration of the city's churches attests to its enthusiasm for the Lutheran cause and also belies the rigidity of the social hierarchy that organized Lübeck's society. As a result of this enthusiasm, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the addition of candleholders, pews, and tombstones to the architecture of Lübeck's churches. A further look at the key features of a Lutheran service, particularly where the Word figured prominently in the sermon and in the music, leads to the discovery of the elaboration of the pulpit and organs. Lutheran art in sacred spaces primarily testified to the faith of a pious and wealthy burgher community in Lübeck.

Threatened Protestants: Confessional Conflict in the Rhine Province and Westphalia during the Nineteenth Century

Bennette, R. A. — 2008-05-13

Hostilities between Catholics and Protestants abounded in Germany during the nineteenth century, and historical scholarship on religion has provided numerous examples. Likewise, the unequal distribution of power and status between German Catholics and Protestants that commonly factored into these conflicts has long been recognized and researched by historians. Catholics faced disadvantages in the German lands, and this situation only worsened with the foundation of the empire in 1871 under the leadership of Protestant Prussia. At the same time, several scholars have pointed out that Protestants, like Catholics, also experienced varying degrees of anxiety over confessional relations. Yet, compared to the Catholic case, historians have given far less attention to this topic. Looking at cases from the Rhine Province and Westphalia, this article attempts to flesh out the picture of Protestant anxiety by examining fears expressed in communal conflicts that were quite legitimate given the threatening confessional circumstances that existed in certain regions and locales. Examples are drawn from both rural and urban settings. The conflicts range from burial disputes to disagreements about access to adequate health care. The emphasis on the particular contexts of these cases allows for a better understanding of the multiplicity of factors that fuelled confessional conflicts.

A Day to Remember: East Germany's Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Fascism

Monteath, P. — 2008-05-13

This article examines the initiation and development of the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Fascism (Gedenktag für die Opfer des Faschismus) in the Soviet Zone of Occupation and then the GDR. In doing so it is interested in the way in which the annual event, held on the second Sunday of September, was politicized, especially during the onset of the Cold War, which meant that it became a regular feature of official memory in the GDR but was abandoned in the Federal Republic. The theoretical framework is drawn from John Bodnar's distinction between official and vernacular expressions of public memory. The initial observance of the Day of Remembrance is notable for the presence of vernacular elements—the day was initiated by people who had suffered Nazi persecution, it was supported by a broad range of victims, and it contained elements of mourning and contrition. However, a process of political appropriation commenced as early as 1945 and reached a culminating point with the divided rallies of West and East Berlin in 1948. Communist forces—both German and Soviet—played a major role in this, but the hand of other occupying forces is also evident in efforts to restrict the impact of what was conceived as a national event. Over the course of the GDR's history the day became increasingly ritualized, so that its capacity to perform its initial functions was severely compromised. Only with German unification and a modest reinvention of the event has a vernacular form of remembrance been given some scope to re-emerge.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Revisited: Combat Cinema, American Culture and the German Past

Scholz, A.-M. — 2008-05-13

This article discusses the ways critical debates in West Germany—about the increased production of war films and whether such films were ‘pro-war’ or ‘anti-war’—raised central issues about the relationship between US popular culture and the politics of German cultural memory in two significant war films of the late fifties: David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai (USA/GB 1957) and Bernhard Wicki's Die Brücke (The Bridge, FRG 1959). Whereas Kwai was heralded as an ‘anti-war’ epic in Columbia Pictures’ publicity campaign for the film in West Germany, many German commentators saw things differently. They made Kwai the centre of a critical discussion about the ways ostensibly anti-war US productions were ambiguously pro-war in the West German context, focusing attention upon the ways the film's music, its characters, and the symbolic function of the bridge ultimately encouraged a glorification of militarism as German commentators understood it, based upon their own past experiences. In contrast, Wicki's Die Brücke offered a filmic ‘response’ to Kwai’s ultimately ‘Cold War anti-war’ formula through an implicit visual contrast to and critique of the bridge, men and music in Kwai. Overall, an analysis of these two films in terms of the pro-war versus anti-war film debates of the time reveals cross-cultural and transnational dynamics at work in the heretofore exclusively German discussion of the politics of cultural memory in West Germany. Ultimately, this essay argues, these debates encouraged an expansion of West German memory culture rather than a denial of the past.

The German Colonial Imagination

2008-05-13

Generations, Emotion and Critical Enquiry: A British View of Changing Approaches to the Study of Nazi Germany

Stephenson, J. — 2008-05-13

The German History Society Essay Prize

2008-05-13

Globalizing German Colonialism

Ciarlo, D. — 2008-05-13

Despite exhortations to examine colonialism as a dynamic interplay between subjects and rulers, histories of German colonialism still largely tend to either study the structures of colonial rule in the colony or to map the politics and culture of colonialism in the metropole. This essay reviews recent books in the field of German colonialism that offer a diverse array of subject matter, chronologies, methodologies, and sources. Work reviewed includes Sebastian Conrad on the transnational construction of German nationalism; Sandra Maß on the gendered implications of colonial heroes and black savage warriors in Weimar-era propaganda; Andrea Schultze on the Berliner Mission's land ownership in South Africa; and Karin Schestokat on German women travel writers in Cameroon. By means of a detailed analysis of each book, the reviewer suggests that the effort to connect colony to metropole—and especially, to trace the impact of the colonies on German metropolitan society and culture—might ultimately be a futile one; for the larger metropolitan constructions of ‘race’ emerged in the first place to prevent just such an exchange.

Writing the Media into History: Recent Works on the History of Mass Communications in Germany

Ross, C. — 2008-05-13

This paper critiques several recent works on the history of the mass media in Germany by contextualizing them within the wider wave of interest in the subject since the 1990s. It highlights the limited extent to which the findings of this research on the history of mass communications have been integrated into broader structures of interpretation for the period since the middle of the nineteenth century. Although we have long had a reasonably detailed understanding of the technological, commercial and aesthetic development of the media, the works under review reflect the more recent trend towards investigating their immense social and political impact in the broadest sense. For the twentieth century in particular, the mass media played an absolutely central role in social, cultural and political life. They both reflected and helped to generate profound changes in all of these spheres, and approaching the media as an integral part of ‘mainstream’ history thus furnishes a powerful tool for analysing the multiple interconnections between them.

What's a History Handbook for? The Gebhardt German History Series and the Nineteenth Century: Discussion

Breuilly, J. — 2008-05-13

Das Ende des Siebenjahrigen Krieges 1760-1763

Wilson, P. H. — 2008-05-13

Women at the Beginning: Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary

Allen, A. T. — 2008-05-13

Bach in Berlin: Nation and Culture in Mendelssohn's Revival of the St. Matthew Passion

Jefferies, M. — 2008-05-13

Zwischen Religion und Staat: Die judischen Gemeinden in der preussischen Rheinprovinz 1815-1871

Roemer, N. — 2008-05-13

Das Kaiserreich transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914

Fahrmeir, A. — 2008-05-13

Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment, 1890-1933

Rossol, N. — 2008-05-13

The Women's Movement in Wartime: International Perspectives, 1914-19

Rupp, L. J. — 2008-05-13

Deutsche Olpolitik, 1928-1938

Frank, A. — 2008-05-13

From Nurturing the Nation to Purifying the Volk: Weimar and Nazi Family Policy, 1918-1945

Pine, L. — 2008-05-13

The Antifascist Classroom. Denazification in Soviet-occupied Germany, 1945-1949

Augustine, D. L. — 2008-05-13

Vertreibung der Vertriebenen? Der historische deutsche Osten in der Erinnerungskultur der Bundesrepublik (1961-1982)

Langenbacher, E. — 2008-05-13

Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War

Pendas, D. J. — 2008-05-13

After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1955

Biess, F. — 2008-05-13