The Holocaust and the West German Historians

2015-01-13 | Nicolas Berg | History
This landmark book, Nicholas Berg addresses the work of German and German-Jewish historians in the first three decades of post-World War II Germany. He examines how they perceived--and failed to perceive--the Holocaust and how they interpreted and misinterpreted that historical fact using an arsenal of terms and concepts, arguments, and explanations.

The Continuities of German History

2008-04-07 | Helmut Walser Smith | History
This book opens the debate about German history in the long term – about how ideas and political forms are traceable across what historians have taken to be the sharp breaks of German history. Smith argues that current historiography has become ever more focused on the twentieth century, and on twentieth-century explanations for the catastrophes at the center of German history. Against conventional wisdom, he considers continuities - nation and nationalism, religion and religious exclusion, racism and violence - that are the center of the German historical experience and that have long histories. Smith explores these deep continuities in novel ways, emphasizing their importance, while arguing that Germany was not on a special path to destruction. The result is a series of innovative reflections on the crystallization of nationalist ideology, on patterns of anti-Semitism, and on how the nineteenth-century vocabulary of race structured the twentieth-century genocidal imagination.

H. G. Adler

2019-02-12 | Peter Filkins | Biography & Autobiography
The biography of H.G. Adler (1910-88) is the story of a survivor of Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and two other concentration camps who not only lived through the greatest cataclysm of the 20th century, but someone who also devoted his literary and scholarly career to telling the story of those who perished in over two dozen books of fiction, poetry, history, sociology, and religion. And yet for much of his life he remained almost entirely unknown. A writer's writer, a scholar of seminal, pioneering works on the Holocaust, a renowned radio essayist in postwar Germany, a last representative of the Prague Circle of literature headed by Kafka, a key contributor to the prosecution in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Adler was a man of his time whose times lived through him. His is the story of many others, but also one that is singularly his own. And at its heart lies a profound story of love and perseverance amid the loss of his first wife, Gertrud Klepetar, who accompanied her mother to the gas chamber in Auschwitz, and the courtship and extended correspondence with Bettina Gross, a Prague artist who escaped to the Britain, only to later learn that her mother had also been in Theresienstadt with Adler before her eventual death in Auschwitz. His delivery of a lecture in Theresienstadt commemorating Kafka's sixtieth birthday, and with Kafka's favorite sister present; the nurturing of a younger generation of artists and intellectuals, including the Israeli artist Jehuda Bacon and the Serbian novelist Ivan Ivanji; the preservation of Viktor Ullmann's compositions and his opera The Emperor of Atlantis, only to see them premiered decades later to world acclaim; and the penury of postwar life while churning out the novels, poetry, and scholarship that would make his reputation - all of these are part of a life survived in the moment, but dedicated to the future, and that of a man committed to helping human dignity survive in his time and that to come.

The Holocaust, Fascism and Memory

2013-02-22 | Dan Stone | History
From interpretations of the Holocaust to fascist thought and anti-fascists' responses, and the problems of memorializing this difficult past, this essay collection tackles topics which are rarely studied in conjunction. As well as historical analyses of fascist and anti-fascist thinking, Stone analyses the challenges involved in writing history in general and Holocaust historiography in particular. Following an introductory essay on 'history and its discontents', the wide-ranging chapters deal with individual thinkers of very different sorts, such as Hannah Arendt, Rolf Gardiner, Jules Monnerot and Saul Friedländer, movements such as interwar rural revivalism, the contested translation of Mein Kampf, émigré anti-fascists' writings, and the relationship between memory and history, especially with respect to atrocities like genocide. This unique collection of essays on a wide variety of topics contributes to understanding the roots and consequences of mid-twentieth-century Europe's great catastrophe.

Curriculum and the Holocaust

2001-03-01 | Marla Morris | Education
In this book, Morris explores the intersection of curriculum studies, Holocaust studies, and psychoanalysis, using the Holocaust to raise issues of memory and representation. Arguing that memory is the larger category under which history is subsumed, she examines the ways in which the Holocaust is represented in texts written by historians and by novelists. For both, psychological transference, repression, denial, projection, and reversal contribute heavily to shaping personal memories, and may therefore determine the ways in which they construct the past. The way the Holocaust is represented in curricula is the way it is remembered. Interrogations of this memory are crucial to our understandings of who we are in today's world. The subject of this text--how this memory is represented and how the process of remembering it is taught--is thus central to education today.

German historians and the bombing of German cities

2015-05-20 | Bas von Benda-Beckmann | History
Today, strategic aerial bombardments of urban areas that harm civilians, at times intentionally, are becoming increasingly common in global conflicts. This book reveals the history of these tactics as employed by nations that initiated aerial bombardments of civilians after World War I and during World War II. As one of the major symbols of German suffering, the Allied bombing left a strong imprint on German society. Bas von Benda-Beckmann explores how German historical accounts reflected debates on postwar identity and looks at whether the history of the air war forms a counternarrative against the idea of German collective guilt. Provocative and unflinching, this study offers a valuable contribution to German historiography.

Teaching and Studying the Holocaust

2009-11-01 | Samuel Totten | Education
(Originally Published in 2000 by Allyn & Bacon) Teaching and Studying the Holocaust is comprised of thirteen chapters by some of the most noted Holocaust educators in the United States. In addition to chapters on establishing clear rationales for teaching this history and Holocaust historiography, the book includes individual chapters on incorporating primary documents, first person accounts, film, literature, art, drama, music, and technology into a study of the Holocaust. It concludes with an extensive and valuable annotated bibliography especially designed for educators. Chapter Ten instructs how to make effective use of technology in teaching and learning about the Holocaust. The final section of the book includes a bibliography especially developed for teachers that lists invaluable resources. From the Back Cover: Holocaust scholars from around the world offer critical acclaim for Totten and Feinberg's Teaching and Studying the Holocaust: Michael Berenbaum; Ida E. King Distinguished Visitor Professor of Holocaust Studies, Richard Stockton College and Former Director of Research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: "There are many scholars who are wont to criticize the teaching of the Holocaust. Many journalists critique what they regard as kitsch or trendiness. All critics of contemporary Holocaust education would do well to read this book. One cannot fail to be impressed by the quality of its learning and the seriousness of its purpose. It is a wonderful place for teachers to turn as they contemplate teaching the Holocaust, an open invitation to learn more and teach more effectively." Barry van Driel; Coordinator International Teacher Education, Anne Frank House, Amsterdam: "Teaching and Studying the Holocaust is an invaluable resource for any teacher wanting to address the complex and sometimes overwhelming history of the Holocaust in the classroom. The book offers a multitude of sensitive and responsible ways of dealing with the issue of the Holocaust. It succeeds in showing teachers very clearly how the study of the Holocaust is not just a topic for history teachers, but for teachers across the curriculum." Dr. Nili Keren; Kibbutzim College of Education, Tel Aviv, Israel "Teaching about the Shoah is one of the most complicated tasks for educators. Indeed, teaching and studying this history raises unprecedented questions concerning modern civilization, and presents teachers and students with tremendous challenges. Samuel Totten and Stephen Feinberg have created a volume that provides educators with essential information and new insights regarding the teaching of this history, and, in doing so, they assist educators to face the aforementioned challenges head-on. Teaching and Studying the Holocaust does not make the task easier, but it does make it possible." Samuel Totten is currently professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Prior to entering academia, he was an English and social studies teacher in Australia, Israel, California, and at the U.S. House of Representatives Page School in Washington, D.C. Totten is also editor of Teaching Holocaust Literature published by Allyn & Bacon. Stephen Feinberg is currently the Special Assistant for Education Programs in the National Institute for Holocaust Education at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. With Samuel Totten, he was co-editor of a special issue (Teaching the Holocaust) of Social Education, the official journal of the National Council for the Social Studies. For eighteen years, he was a history and social studies teacher in the public schools of Wayland, MA.

German History in Modern Times

2012-02-13 | William W. Hagen | History
This history of German-speaking central Europe offers a very wide perspective, emphasizing a succession of many-layered communal identities. It highlights the interplay of individual, society, culture and political power, contrasting German with Western patterns. Rather than treating 'the Germans' as a collective whole whose national history amounts to a cumulative biography, the book presents the pre-modern era of the Holy Roman Empire; the nineteenth century; the 1914–45 era of war, dictatorship and genocide; and the Cold War and post-Cold War eras since 1945 as successive worlds of German life, thought and mentality. This book's 'Germany' is polycentric and multicultural, including the multinational Austrian Habsburg Empire and the German Jews. Its approach to National Socialism offers a conceptually new understanding of the Holocaust. The book's numerous illustrations reveal German self-presentations and styles of life, which often contrast with Western ideas of Germany.

Years of Persecution, Years of Extermination

2010-06-15 | Christian Wiese | History
This volume provides an in-depth discussion of Saul Friedlander's landmark two-volume history of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and the Jews. It brings together a range of internationally acclaimed historians to address the manifold conceptual and historiographical issues raised in Friedlander's monumental work. It includes a major essay by Friedlander himself on the challenges of producing an integrated history of the Holocaust. The aim of this book is not simply to evaluate Friedlander's work on its own merits, but rather to use his text as a means of exploring the contours and future of Holocaust historiography. The central concern is to situate his work within the broader terrain of Holocaust studies and European history, as well as to explore the ways in which his book opens up new directions in the knowledge, study and understanding of the Shoah in particular and twentieth century genocide in general.

History After Hitler

2018-07-03 | Philipp Stelzel | History
A comprehensive account of how German and American historians after World War II tackled the question of the roots of National Socialism, History After Hitler traces the development of a transatlantic scholarly community as a key part of the intellectual history of the Federal Republic and of Cold War German-American relations.

Gendering Modern German History

2008 | Karen Hagemann | History
Writing on the history of German women has - like women's history elsewhere - undergone remarkable expansion and change since it began in the late 1960s. Today Women's history still continues to flourish alongside gender history but the focus of research has increasingly shifted from women to gender. This shift has made it possible to make men and masculinity objects of historical research too. After more than thirty years of research, it is time for a critical stocktaking of the "gendering" of the historiography on nineteenth and twentieth century Germany. To provide a critical overview in a comparative German-American perspective is the main aim of this volume, which brings together leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic. They discuss in their essays the state of historiography and reflect on problems of theory and methodology. Through compelling case studies, focusing on the nation and nationalism, military and war, colonialism, politics and protest, class and citizenship, religion, Jewish and non-Jewish Germans, the Holocaust, the body and sexuality and the family, this volume demonstrates the extraordinary power of the gender perspective to challenge existing interpretations and rewrite mainstream arguments.

Remembrance, History, and Justice

2016-10-01 | Vladimir Tismaneanu | History
The twentieth century has left behind a painful and complicated legacy of massive trauma, monstrous crimes, radical social engineering, or collective/individual guilt syndromes that were often the premises for and the specters haunting the process of democratization in the various societies that emerged out of these profoundly de-structuring contexts. The present manuscript is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of how the interplay between memory, history, and justice generates insight that is multifariously relevant for comprehending the present and future of democracy without becoming limited to a Europe-centric framework of understanding. The manuscript is structured on three complementary and interconnected trajectories: the public use of history, politics of memory, and transitional justice. Key words 1. Europe, Eastern—Politics and government—1989– 2. Collective memory—Europe,Eastern. 3. Memory—Political aspects—Europe, Eastern. 4. Democratization—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern. 5. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Socialaspects. 6. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Political aspects. 7. Social justice—Europe, Eastern. 8. Post-communism—Europe, Eastern. 9. Fascism—Socialaspects—Europe, Eastern. 10. Dictatorship—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern.

The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection [4 volumes]

2017-09-15 | Paul R. Bartrop | History
This four-volume set provides reference entries, primary documents, and personal accounts from individuals who lived through the Holocaust that allow readers to better understand the cultural, political, and economic motivations that spurred the Final Solution. • Provides an easily readable encyclopedic collection of secondary source materials, such as reference entries, maps, and tables, that offer a breadth of content for understanding the Holocaust • Examines a broad range of themes relating to the Holocaust, enabling readers to consider important questions about the historical experience and its implications for today • Includes two volumes of primary source material that introduce users to the cultural, political, and economic motivations that spurred the Final Solution • Presents memoirs and personal narratives that showcase the experiences of survivors and resistors who lived through the chaos and horror of the Final Solution • Includes a comprehensive bibliography that serves as a gateway to further research

Writing the History of Memory

2014-02-13 | Stefan Berger | History
How objective are our history books? This addition to the Writing History series examines the critical role that memory plays in the writing of history. This book includes: - Essays from an international team of historians, bringing together analysis of forms of public history such as museums, exhibitions, memorials and speeches - Coverage of the ancient world to the present, on topics such as oral history and generational and collective memory - Two key case studies on Holocaust memorialisation and the memory of Communism

Resistance and Collaboration in Hitler's Empire

2017-08-21 | Vesna Drapac | History
This new study provides a concise, accessible introduction to occupied Europe. It gives a clear overview of the history and historiography of resistance and collaboration. It explores how these terms cannot be examined separately, but are always entangled. Covering Europe from east to west, this book aims to explore the evolution of scholarly approaches to resistance and collaboration. Not limiting itself to any one area, it looks at armed struggle, daily life, complicity and rescue, the Catholic Church and official and public memory since the end of the war. Vesna Drapac is Associate Professor of History at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Her publications include War and Religion: Catholics in the Churches of Occupied Paris and Constructing Yugoslavia: A Transnational History. Gareth Pritchard is Lecturer in History at the University of Adelaide. He is also the author of Niemandsland: A History of Unoccupied Germany and The Making of the GDR.

Postwar Germany and the Holocaust

2015-12-17 | Caroline Sharples | History
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2016 Focussing on German responses to the Holocaust since 1945, Postwar Germany and the Holocaust traces the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung ('overcoming the past'), the persistence of silences, evasions and popular mythologies with regards to the Nazi era, and cultural representations of the Holocaust up to the present day. It explores the complexities of German memory cultures, the construction of war and Holocaust memorials and the various political debates and scandals surrounding the darkest chapter in German history. The book comparatively maps out the legacy of the Holocaust in both East and West Germany, as well as the unified Germany that followed, to engender a consideration of the effects of division, Cold War politics and reunification on German understanding of the Holocaust. Synthesizing key historiographical debates and drawing upon a variety of primary source material, this volume is an important exploration of Germany's postwar relationship with the Holocaust. Complete with chapters on education, war crime trials, memorialization and Germany and the Holocaust today, as well as a number of illustrations, maps and a detailed bibliography, Postwar Germany and the Holocaust is a pivotal text for anyone interested in understanding the full impact of the Holocaust in Germany.