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In 1945, when the Red Army marched in, eastern Germany was not "occupied" but "liberated." This, until the recent collapse of the Soviet Bloc, is what passed for history in the German Democratic Republic. Now, making use of newly opened archives in Russia and Germany, Norman Naimark reveals what happened during the Soviet occupation of eastern Germany from 1945 through 1949. His book offers a comprehensive look at Soviet policies in the occupied zone and their practical consequences for Germans and Russians alike--and, ultimately, for postwar Europe. In rich and lucid detail, Naimark captures the mood and the daily reality of the occupation, the chaos and contradictions of a period marked by...
This book traces transformations in German views of Russia in the first half of the twentieth century, leading up to the disastrous German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Casteel shows how Russia figured in the imperial visions and utopian desires of a variety of Germans, including scholars, journalists, travel writers, government and military officials, as well as nationalist activists. He illuminates the ambiguous position that Russia occupied in Germans’ global imaginary as both an imperial rival and an object of German power. During the interwar years in particular, Russia, now under Soviet rule, became a site onto which Germans projected their imperial ambitions and expectations for the future, as well as their worst anxieties about modernity. Casteel shows how the Nazis drew on this cultural repertoire to construct their own devastating vision of racial imperialism.
The history of Russian Germans (Russlanddeutsche) is one of intensive mobility across space and time. Today, the descendants of eighteenth-century German-speaking settlers in the Russian Empire live on four continents: Europe, Asia, and North and South America. In this volume, authors from the fields of history, sociology, cultural studies, and sociolinguistics analyze key issues of the history and present of this globally connected diaspora group from an interdisciplinary angle. Contributions address the institutional regimes and networks that shaped—and continue to shape—the mobility of Russian Germans on a global scale, the impact of war and violence on the history of this group durin...
The classic account of the war on the Eastern Front between the Russians and the Germans - the greatest clash of arms the world has ever seen. Carefully researched and beautifully written, this book is a classic of military history. Alan Clark vividly narrates the course of the dramatic and brutal war between the German and Russians on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. From the invasion of Russia mounted on Midsummer's Day 1941 and the German Army's advance to the outskirts of Moscow, to the terrible turning point of Stalingrad and the eventual defeat of the Nazis at the Fall of Berlin after the hard years of fighting and advance by the Red Army, this is epic history narrated by a master.
Russia and Germany have had a long history of significant cultural, political, and economic exchange. Despite these beneficial interactions, stereotypes of the alien Other persisted. Germans perceived Russia as a vast frontier with unlimited potential, yet infused with an "Asianness" that explained its backwardness and despotic leadership. Russians admired German advances in science, government, and philosophy, but saw their people as lifeless and obsessed with order. Fascination and Enmity presents an original transnational history of the two nations during the critical era of the world wars. By examining the mutual perceptions and misperceptions within each country, the contributors reveal...
This monograph provides a detailed yet concise narrative of the history of the ethnic Germans in the Russian Empire and USSR. It starts with the settlement in the Russian Empire by German colonists in the Volga, Black Sea, and other regions in 1764, tracing their development and Tsarist state policies towards them up until 1917. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet policy towards its ethnic Germans varied. It shifted from a generally favorable policy in the 1920s to a much more oppressive one in the 1930s, i.e. already before the Soviet-German war. J. Otto Pohl traces the development of Soviet repression of ethnic Germans. In particular, he focuses on the years 1941 to 1955 during which this oppression reached its peak. These years became known as “the Years of Great Silence” (“die Jahre des grossen Schweigens”). In fact, until the era of glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (rebuilding) in the late 1980s, the events that defined these years for the Soviet Germans could not be legally researched, written about, or even publicly spoken about, within the USSR.
Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Shortlisted for the Prix Femina 2022 Shortlisted for the Prix Médicis 2022 'An impressively realistic novel of German soldiers on the Eastern Front' Antony Beevor 'Starritt's daring work challenges us to lay bare our histories, to seek answers from the past, and to be open to perspectives starkly different from our own' New York Times When a young British man asks his German grandfather what it was like to fight on the wrong side of the war, the question is initially met with irritation and silence. But after the old man's death, a long letter to his grandson is found among his things. That letter is this book. In it, he relates the experiences of a...
"Join me in this book as I stumble my way across das Mutterland to learn all I can about my maternal and paternal surnames, Karle & Kaiser, and my other forty-five ancestral surnames (Adolf, Andreas, Arp, Arnst, Becker, Bopp, Burbach, Dagenheim, Foht, Freund, Geringer, Grun, Hart, Heiland, Hermann, Hess, Heylmann, Hieronymus, Horn, Ikstadt, Kohler, Kramer, Lieders, Maurer, Michel, Neumann, Nicolausen, Nillmayer, Popp, Roth, Rudolph, Schaeffer, Scherer, Schiller, Schmiedt, Schneider, Schutz, Simon, Steitz, Trieber, Trippel, Vogt, Werner, Will, Zeichmann). Read how the Black Death, and the 30 Years and 7 Years Wars plagued them. Learn of the Catherine the Great "Scam" and its effect on the Volga Germans. Share their fear as the Russians close in. Travel with them to their new homeland in the Americas." Traces the origins of Karle & Kaiser from about 50,000BC. Covers DNA tracking, pre-German history, religion, the Volga life and villages, and escape to the Americas. Over 560 pages,200 pictures,80 maps.
The relationship between Germany and Russia is Europe's most important link with the largest country on the continent. This book analyses how successive German governments from 1991 to 2014 have misread Russian intentions, until Angela Merkel sharply recalibrated German and EU policy towards Moscow.
This first-ever encyclopedia of the Midwest seeks to embrace this large and diverse area, to give it voice, and help define its distinctive character. Organized by topic, it encourages readers to reflect upon the region as a whole. Each section moves from the general to the specific, covering broad themes in longer introductory essays, filling in the details in the shorter entries that follow. There are portraits of each of the region's twelve states, followed by entries on society and culture, community and social life, economy and technology, and public life. The book offers a wealth of information about the region's surprising ethnic diversity -- a vast array of foods, languages, styles, religions, and customs -- plus well-informed essays on the region's history, culture and values, and conflicts. A site of ideas and innovations, reforms and revivals, and social and physical extremes, the Midwest emerges as a place of great complexity, signal importance, and continual fascination.