Vision and Reality: Central Europe after Hitler


Book Description

All Hitler’s political opponents in exile sought to devise plans for the post-war future of Germany, Austria or Czechoslovakia. This volume brings together the different, often divergent proposals of groups and individuals in British exile and evaluates their contribution to actual post-war developments. Different essays trace the activities of the Free German Movement and its Austrian counterpart in evolving plans for the future of their countries or deal with the response of individuals such as Kurt Hiller or Friedrich Stampfer. Others consider the return of Socialist exiles to Austria or the involvement of exiles in Britain in the re-education of German prisoners of war. Ultimately, all plans for post-war Europe were trumped by the emerging Cold War, as Germany became the stage for enacting the political ambitions of the rival powers which had conquered it. Against this background, few of the hopes nurtured in exile came to fruition.




Networks of Refugees from Nazi Germany


Book Description

This volume focuses on coalitions and collaborations formed by refugees from Nazi Germany in their host countries. Exile from Nazi Germany was a global phenomenon involving the expulsion and displacement of entire families, organizations, and communities. While forced emigration inevitable meant loss of familiar structures and surroundings, successful integration into often very foreign cultures was possible due to the exiles’ ability to access and/or establish networks. By focusing on such networks rather than on individual experiences, the contributions in this volume provide a complex and nuanced analysis of the multifaceted, interacting factors of the exile experience. This approach connects the NS-exile to other forms of displacement and persecution and locates it within the ruptures of civilization dominating the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Contributors are: Dieter Adolph, Jacob Boas, Margit Franz, Katherine Holland, Birgit Maier-Katkin Leonie Marx, Wolfgang Mieder, Thomas Schneider, Helga Schreckenberger, Swen Steinberg, Karina von Tippelskirch, Jörg Thunecke, Jacqueline Vansant, and Veronika Zwerger




Voices from Exile


Book Description

The sixteen essays in this volume are a tribute to Hamish Ritchie’s deep interest in exile as a literary and historical phenomenon. The first eight focus on the British and Irish context, including studies of Jürgen Kuczynski and his family, Martin Miller, Lilly Kann, Hermann Sinsheimer, Albin Stuebs, Ludwig Hopf and Paul Bondy, as well as contributions on the Association of Jewish Refugees and the exile experience as reflected in Klaus Mann’s Der Vulkan. The following four contributions widen the discussion to encompass Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Yugoslavia by focusing on the diaries of Anne Frank and Etty Hillesum, the early poetry of Bertolt Brecht, and works by Vladimir Vertlib, Aleksandar Ajzinberg, and David Albahari. The historical dimension is deepened with contributions on William Joyce, Joseph Jonas, the marginalisation of the mass emigration of the Jews within German memory, and the ‘exile’ of princesses for whom until recent times marriage often meant a life far from home.




Exile and Gender I


Book Description

This new volume in the series Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, entitled Exile and Gender: Literature and the Press, edited by Charmian Brinson and Andrea Hammel, focuses on the work of exiled women writers and journalists as well as on gendered representations in the writing of both male and female exiled writers. The contributions are in English or German. The seventeen contributions set out to both celebrate and critically examine the concepts of gender and sexuality in exile in a wide range of texts by well-known and lesser known authors, and throw light on many different aspects of gendered authorship and gendered relations. Our volume also looks at two bibliographic rarities: exile newspapers intended for and directed at a female readership. Dieser neue Band der Serie Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies mit dem Titel Exile and Gender I: Literature and the Press, herausgegeben von Charmian Brinson und Andrea Hammel, enthält Beiträge zu den Werken exilierter Schriftstellerinnen und Journalistinnen und zu geschlechtsspezifischen Darstellungen in den Texten von Exilschriftstellern und Exilschriftstellerinnen. Die Beiträge sind entweder in deutscher oder englischer Sprache. Die siebzehn Beiträge haben zum Ziel, die Erfolge dieser SchriftstellerInnen zu feiern und die Gender- und Sexualitätskonzepte in den Werken von bekannten und weniger bekannten Schreibenden kritisch zu untersuchen. Weitere Themen sind das weibliche Schreiben und die Beziehungen der Geschlechter im Exil. Der Band bespricht auch bibliografische Neuheiten: Exilzeitschriften, die von und für Exilantinnen publiziert wurden. Contributors are: Hiltrud Arens, Montserrat Bascoy Lamelas, Wiebke von Bernstorff, Charmian Brinson, Rosa Marta Gomez Pato, Andrea Hammel, Birgit Maier-Katkin, Trinidad Marin Villora, Aine McGillicuddy, Katharina Prager, Ester Saletta, Rose Sillars, Jörg Thunecke, Christine Ujma, Benedikt Wolf, Amira Zmiric, Veronika Zwerger.




Exile and Gender II: Politics, Education and the Arts


Book Description

Volume 18 in the series Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies is entitled Exile and Gender II: Politics, Education and the Arts. It is edited by Charmian Brinson, Jana Barbora Buresova and Andrea Hammel, and is intended as a companion volume to Volume 17, which focused on literature and the press. This new volume considers the life and work of exiled women politicians, academics and artists, among others, examining the ways – both positive and negative - in which their exile affected them. The sixteen contributions, which are in English or German, set out to throw new light on aspects of gendered relations and experiences of women in exile in Great Britain and Ireland. Contributors are: Jana Barbora Buresova, Rachel Dickson, Inge Hansen-Schaberg, Gisela Holfter, Hadwig Kraeutler, Ulrike Krippner, Dieter Krohn, Gertrud Lenz, Bea Lewkowicz, Sarah MacDougall, John March, Iris Meder, Irene Messenger, Merilyn Moos, Felicitas M. Starr-Egger, Jennifer Taylor, Gaby Weiner.




Hitler's Monsters


Book Description

“A dense and scholarly book about . . . the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult . . . reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Daily Telegraph The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. “[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—The Washington Post “Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—The Spectator “A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—The Times “A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews “Kurlander provides a careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits.”—National Review




Hitler's Empire


Book Description

The powerful, disturbing history of Nazi Europe by Mark Mazower, one of Britain's leading historians and bestselling author of Dark Continent and Governing the World Hitler's Empire charts the landscape of the Nazi imperial imagination - from those economists who dreamed of turning Europe into a huge market for German business, to Hitler's own plans for new transcontinental motorways passing over the ethnically cleansed Russian steppe, and earnest internal SS discussions of political theory, dictatorship and the rule of law. Above all, this chilling account shows what happened as these ideas met reality. After their early battlefield triumphs, the bankruptcy of the Nazis' political vision for Europe became all too clear: their allies bailed out, their New Order collapsed in military failure, and they left behind a continent corrupted by collaboration, impoverished by looting and exploitation, and grieving the victims of war and genocide. About the author: Mark Mazower is Ira D.Wallach Professor of World Order Studies and Professor of History Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century, The Balkans: A Short History (which won the Wolfson Prize for History), Salonica: City of Ghosts (which won both the Duff Cooper Prize and the Runciman Award) and Governing the World: The History of an Idea. He has also taught at Birkbeck College, University of London, Sussex University and Princeton. He lives in New York.




Transregional versus National Perspectives on Contemporary Central European History


Book Description

This volume compares different regional perspectives on the national and democracy-building aims of individual states. It confronts discourses about national states to regional perspectives on the past as well as the current political and social landscape. Why are we observing calls for national identity right now? What are the roots of this development? How can a Central European identity be shaped when national perspectives are prevalent? The book's first part analyzes social and political processes that shaped nation-states in the Central European region and shows divergent trends of individual states when it comes to defining a regional approach of the Visegrád Group (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary = V4). The second part focuses on key personalities of the 20th century history of individual V4 countries in the light of their perception in the neighbouring states and how they shaped national states as well as identities after the end of World War II. Similar aims and approaches implemented by individual countries often led to anything but raising regional understanding. The book's third part reflects upon activities of various initiatives aiming to approach this challenge from the perspective of civil society, and Central Europe's young generation. The collection brings together leading historians of Central Europe from the V4 countries. It also offers external perspectives on historical developments in Central Europe from the perspective of the 21st century and on political cooperation as well as its roots. Lastly, it includes practitioners of Central European cooperation from both academia and civil society and their reflection on their countries' political cooperation after 1989.




Magic Realist Cinema in East Central Europe


Book Description

Magic Realist Cinema is the first book-length critical analysis of magic realism in cinema.




The Encyclopedia of Political Revolutions


Book Description

The Encyclopedia of Political Revolutions is an important reference work that describes revolutionary events that have affected and often changed the course of history. Suitable for students and interested lay readers yet authoritative enough for scholars, its 200 articles by leading scholars from around the world provide quick answers to specific questions as well as in-depth treatment of events and trends accompanying revolutions. Includes descriptions of specific revolutions, important revolutionary figures, and major revolutionary themes such as communism and socialism, ideology, and nationalism. Illustrative material consists of photographs, detailed maps, and a timeline of revolutions.