The Germans and the East
Publication Year: 2008
Published by: Purdue University Press
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The Germans and the East
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Contents
Introduction
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pp. 1-8
"The title of this volume, 'The Germans and the East,' masks numerous analytical difficulties and requires some qualification, which even the addition of an elaborate subtitle would not solve. When we speak of 'Germans' do we speak of German-speakers or of the citizens of a state that calls itself 'Germany'? For that matter, even when.."
The Middle Ages
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pp. 9-16
"Ever since the Carolingian period people the locals called 'Niemcy' have migrated into the Slavic world, and during their thousand-year history in Eastern Europe they have not always met with rejection. On the contrary, they were mostly able to settle and assimilate in the East. What we call “German history” is therefore the result of a..."
Before Colonization
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pp. 17-26
"Relations between Germans and Slavs have mostly been made a subject of discussion related to the expansion of Germany in the high and late medieval periods, when Slavs were superseded by German colonists immigrating to the eastern parts of the European continent. In recent decades modern research in Germany has overcome..."
Medieval Colonizationin East Central Europe
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pp. 27-36
"The French historian Marc Ferro has stated that the phenomenon of colonization emerged in ancient Greece. He understood 'colonization' to be the occupation of foreign territories and their later settlement. Between the Roman period and the era of great transoceanic expansion of modern Europe there were not supposed to have..."
The Most Unique Crusader State
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pp. 37-48
"For the most part, the German presence in the region of East Central Europe in the Middle Ages and after was the product of expansion from established territories and of the rather more peaceful process of immigration in what has come to be known ..."
An Amicable Enmity
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pp. 49-58
"German expansion into the northeastern frontiers of Europe—the lands on the south and east shore of the Baltic Sea—occurred through the Baltic Crusades conducted by the Teutonic Order.1 This order of fighting monks, having conquered presentday Estonia, Latvia and Prussia after fierce resistance, met its match in a century of..."
The Early Modern Period
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pp. 59-63
"In recent years it has become fashionable to speak of 'Old' and 'New' Europe. To the extent that it is true, the conceit behind this dichotomy owes much more to Peter the Great and the early modern period than it does to the geopolitics of the post-Communist age. After all, it was the Russian tsar who first commissioned maps..."
Absolutism and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Central and Eastern Europe
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pp. 64-77
"A history of the Germans in Central and Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century would have to cover a wide, and in fact rapidly extending, range of phenomena. This seems to be true in particular when one conceptualizes the notion of 'German' in a way as to not merely refer to the history of German-speakers, groups..."
German Writers, Power and Collapse
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pp. 78-88
"Though they usually attract little notice, little pieces of Poland are scattered throughout European cultural history. For example, at one point in Goethe’s novel Elective Affinities a round of celebrations is described, and then a proposal is made by one partygoer to the others that they do things 'in the Polish style.'1 This meant that they should..."
German Colonization in the Banat and Transylvania in the Eighteenth Century
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pp. 89-104
"German colonization in the eighteenth-century Habsburg Monarchy focused on two areas, the Banat of Temesvar (Timoşoara) and Transylvania. In the case of the Banat, Habsburg policy did not focus exclusively on filling those lands with Germans because they were Germans. There the Habsburgs were eager primarily to provide a population..."
The Long Nineteenth Century
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pp. 105-108
"As befits a book organized under the auspices of the Austrian Center, the following essays about Germans in the East during the 'long nineteenth century' deal primarily with the Habsburg Monarchy. Yet, as we all know, the Habsburg Monarchy was famous for being a dual monarchy, after 1867 at least. There was one half where..."
Changing Meanings of “German” in Habsburg Central Europe
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pp. 109-128
"How might we usefully examine the relations between German and non-German communities in Eastern Europe during the nineteenth century without imposing a modern nation-centered perspective on those relations? How did German communities or individuals differentiate themselves from their non-German neighbors, if..."
Controversies on German Cultural Orientation in the “Croatian National Renewal”
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pp. 129-146
"Any investigation into German language and culture in Croatian everyday life during the 'Croatian national renewal' (1835–1848) presupposes a variety of distinctive scholarly, cultural and ideological assumptions. Whereas it is impossible to discuss such a broad subject comprehensively in an article, I have focused here on what..."
“Germans” in the Habsburg Empire
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pp. 147-190
"The peoples of the Habsburg Empire—beginning with the 'Germans'—experienced between 1770 and 1914 similar processes as many other western European peoples: a population explosion, enlightenment, an industrial boom, bureaucratization, urbanization, embourgeoisement, and the formation of mass society; mass..."
The Age of Total War
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pp. 191-200
"In the context of this volume, it is interesting how the time frame has been narrowing. The initial part of the book examines the Germans in the framework of a thousand years, as the relationship of the Germans with their eastern neighbors developed gradually in many contexts over many generations and with many permutations."
German Military Occupation and Culture on the Eastern Front in World War I
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pp. 201-208
"Kultur was a central slogan and one of the organizing principles of German occupation policies in Eastern Europe during the First World War. While fighting raged on the Eastern Front, an expansive German military administration was set up behind the lines, in the occupied territories wrested from the Russian Empire from 1915..."
Comrades, Enemies, Victims
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pp. 209-225
"Recent writing on Nazi Germany stresses public and institutional acceptance of the Reich’s racist ideology and involvement in even the worst of its genocidal crimes. The motivating power of Nazi principles in military contexts has been demonstrated comprehensively by Omer Bartov.1 So much, indeed, has been done to establish..."
From “verloren gehen” to “verloren bleiben”
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pp. 226-240
"On the eve of World War I, Poles and Germans in the Prussian province of Poznania1 had become firmly polarized into two opposing nationalist camps. Increasingly rigid notions of Germanness and Polishness as well as stereotypes about the 'national other' gradually crowded out any meaningful room for peaceful national..."
The National State and the Territorial Parish in Interwar Poland
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pp. 241-256
"The years immediately following the First World War witnessed a major escalation in the grim narrative of ethnic cleansing that unfolded in East-Central Europe between the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession in the 1990s. From the Baltic to the Aegean, hundreds of thousands of people whose national..."
Interwar Poland and the Problem of Polish-speaking Germans
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pp. 257-269
"The large Polish state that emerged after the First World War was at least one-third non-Polish, and included (to begin with, at least) more than two million Germans. They had not been consulted, of course, about this assignment, and would probably have been unhappy with it, even under the best of conditions. What made their situation..."
The Birth of a Sudeten German Nobility, 1918–1938
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pp. 270-276
"At the turn of the century, the Bohemian nobility held a towering position in Habsburg society and government. Great magnates such as the Schwarzenbergs, Thuns, and Lobkowiczs alternated between the glittering halls of the Hofburg in Vienna and their sprawling country estates in Bohemia. In all, barely 300 noble families owned over..."
Askaris in the “Wild East”
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pp. 277-309
"To conquer the 'living space' from the eastern borders of the Reich to the Ural Mountains that the National Socialist leadership perceived the very biological survival of the German race to require was a core goal of Hitler’s National Socialist ideology. Based on what Gerhard Weinberg has identified as prewar general..."
A Blind Eye and Dirty Hands
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pp. 310-327
"During and after the Second World War, German military and civilian leaders successfully propagated a number of myths concerning the role of the German armed forces in that conflict. The most insidious of those myths held that the Wehrmacht fought a 'clean' war, in accordance with international norms, while the SS and other..."
Nazi Foreign Policy towards Southeastern Europe, 1933–1945
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pp. 328-346
"Historians of Nazi Germany regularly complain of their difficulty in keeping up with new literature in their field. The number of books published on Nazi foreign policy alone indeed runs into the hundreds, nonetheless, the majority focus on a limited number of themes: continuity and discontinuity in German foreign policy..."
The Second World War and Its Aftermath
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pp. 347-361
"Does the expression 'German' refer to citizens of Germany or members of the larger German cultural sphere? The editors of this volume acknowledge that this is a fundamental question, especially since in 1910 nearly a quarter of Europe’s German speakers lived outside the German Reich. After World War I and the redistribution..."
The Era of European Integration
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pp. 362-369
"In an insightful essay published in the inaugural volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies, Charles Maier dissected the intellectual Mitteleuropa discourse so prevalent in the late 1980s early 1990s. He contrasted Austrian and German ideas of Mitteleuropa with those emanating from Central European intellectuals behind the iron curtain..."
Austrian and Czech Historical Memory of World War II, National Identity, and European Integration
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pp. 370-388
"The historical memory of and the Vergangenheitspolitik about World War are part and parcel of past and present European identity constructions. In his celebrated essay 'The Past is Another Country: Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe' Tony Judt defines the construction of false memory and myth-making about the World War..."
Austro-Czechoslovak Relations and the Expulsion of the Germans
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pp. 389-401
"Czechoslovakia was the first and until 1946 the only country in which the newly restored Austrian Republic mantained at least a de facto diplomatic mission. This relationship however could not conceal the considerable tension between the two partners that continues to influence bi-lateral relations to this day. Much of that tension..."
West Germany and the Lost German East
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pp. 402-420
"After 1945, the Deutscher Osten was no more. Not only did the victorious allied powers place the eastern quarter of the German Reich under Polish and Soviet administration; the 'German cultural space' in East Central Europe and the Balkans all but evaporated under the impact of the expulsions from points as distant as the..."
The “Germans and the East”
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pp. 421-438
"In his book on Anglomania in Europe, Ian Buruma tells a story about his visit to Walhalla, the large temple on the banks of Danube near Regensburg; it was built in 1807 in the classical Greek style, and inside, along the walls, as the author put it 'ranked like soldiers, are marble busts of great German personalities.' To his surprise,..."
Contributors
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pp. 439-442
Index
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pp. 443-458
E-ISBN-13: 9781612490625
E-ISBN-10: 161249062X
Print-ISBN-13: 9781557534439
Print-ISBN-10: 1557534438
Page Count: 465
Publication Year: 2008
Series Title: Central European Studies
Series Editor Byline: Charles W. Ingrao, Gary B. Cohen, Franz Szabo
