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The People's State
What was life really like for East Germans, effectively imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain? The headline stories of Cold War spies and surveillance by the secret police, of political repression and corruption, do not tell the whole story. After the unification of Germany in 1990 many East Germans remembered their lives as interesting, varied, and full of educational, career, and leisure opportunities: in many ways “perfectly ordinary lives.” Using the rich resources of the newly-opened GDR archives, Mary Fulbrook investigates these conflicting narratives. She explores the transformation of East German society from the ruins of Hitler's Third Reich to a modernizing industrial state. She examines changing conceptions of normality within an authoritarian political system, and provides extraordinary insights into the ways in which individuals perceived their rights and actively sought to shape their own lives. Replacing the simplistic black-and-white concept of “totalitarianism” by the notion of a “participatory dictatorship,” this book seeks to reinstate the East German people as actors in their own history.
Cold War Cultures
The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term "Cold War Culture" is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether -- or to what extent -- the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every European country had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the Cold War, individual development was affected by specific conditions as detailed in these chapters. This volume offers an important contribution to the international debate on this issue of the Cold War impact on everyday life by providing a better understanding of its history and legacy in Eastern and Western Europe.
Terror and Democracy in West Germany
Karrin Hanshew examines West German responses to 1970s terrorism to explain why the experience had lasting significance for German politics and society.
Facing the Nazi Past
Facing the Nazi Past examines how the communist East viewed the events of these years very differently from West Germany during the Cold War. Following the unification of Germany, these contrasting memories of the Third Reich have contributed to a new perspective on this period of German history. Facing the Nazi Past explores the developments and debates that were symptomatic of this shift towards a more open confrontation with the past, such as: * the image of resistance to Hitler in united Germany * changes at concentration camp memorial sites since 1990 * the commemoration of 8 May 1945 in 1995 * how the revelations in Goldhagen's startling book Hitler's Willing Executioners triggered new discussion * the plans for the construction of a Holocaust Memorial. Anyone; students, scholars or interested readers, who are involved in the study of European history, will find this an enthralling and informative read.
Writing the Revolution
Frontcover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1: Heroes and Martyrs -- 2: Chroniclers and Interpreters -- 3: Critics and Renegades -- 4: Tale Spinners and Poets -- 5: Women of the Revolution -- 6: "1968" and the Media -- 7: "1968" and the Arts -- 8: Zaungäste -- 9: Not Dark Yet: The 68ers at Seventy -- 10: Romantic Relapse or Modern Myth? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Mnemonic Ecologies
An exploration of the Green Belt conservation project between the former East and West Germanies and its relationship to emergent ecosystems, trauma, and memorialization. The first book-length scholarly treatment of Germany’s largest conservation project, the Green Belt, Mnemonic Ecologies by Sonja Pieck presents a new interdisciplinary approach: that effective restoration and conservation of wounded land must merge ecology with memory. Since the Cold War’s end in 1989, German conservationists have transformed the once-militarized border between East and West Germany into an extensive protected area. Yet as forests, meadows, and wetlands replace fences, minefields, and guard towers, ecol...
The Many Faces of Germany
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the shifting of American foreign policy away from "old" Europe, long-established patterns of interaction between Germany and the U.S. have come under review. Although seemingly disconnected from the cultural and intellectual world, political developments were not without their influence on the humanities and their curricula during the past century. In retrospect, we can speak of the many different roles Germany has played in American eyes. The Many Faces of Germany seeks to acknowledge the importance of those incarnations for the study of German culture and history on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the major questions raised by the contributors is whether the transformations in the transatlantic dynamics and in the importance of Germany for the U.S. have had a major influence on the study of things German in the U.S. internally. The volume gathers together leading voices of the older and younger generations of social historians, literary scholars, film critics, and cultural historians.
The Power of Emotions
Emotions make history, and emotions have a history. Through engaging analysis of twenty essential and powerful emotions - including anger, grief, hate, love, pride, shame and trust - Ute Frevert explores the emotional worlds of Germans to tell a very different story of the 20th century.
German Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democratic Renewal
This book examines how democracy was rethought in Germany in the wake of National Socialism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. Focusing on a loose network of public intellectuals in the immediate postwar years, Sean Forner traces their attempts to reckon with the experience of Nazism and scour Germany's ambivalent political and cultural traditions for materials with which to build a better future. In doing so, he reveals, they formulated an internally variegated but distinctly participatory vision of democratic renewal - a paradoxical counter-elitism of intellectual elites. Although their projects ran aground on internal tensions and on the Cold War, their commitments fueled critique and dissent in the two postwar Germanys during the 1950s and thereafter. The book uncovers a conception of political participation that went beyond the limited possibilities of the Cold War era and influenced the political struggles of later decades in both East and West.
Changing the World, Changing Oneself
A captivating time, the 60s and 70s now draw more attention than ever. The first substantial work by historians has appeared only in the last few years, and this volume offers an important contribution. These meticulously researched essays offer new perspectives on the Cold War and global relations in the 1960s and 70s through the perspective of the youth movements that shook the U.S., Western Europe, and beyond. These movements led to the transformation of diplomatic relations and domestic political cultures, as well as ideas about democracy and who best understood and promoted it. Bringing together scholars of several countries and many disciplines, this volume also uniquely features the reflections of former activists.
