On August 13, 1961, under the cover of darkness, East German authorities sealed the border between East and West Berlin using a hastily constructed barbed wire fence. Over the next twenty-eight years ...of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall grew to become an ever-present physical and psychological divider in this capital city and a powerful symbol of Cold War tensions. Similarly, stark polarities arose in nearly every aspect of public and private life, including the built environment.InArchitecture, Politics, and Identity in Divided BerlinEmily Pugh provides an original comparative analysis of selected works of architecture and urban planning in both halves of Berlin during the Wall era, revealing the importance of these structures to the formation of political, cultural, and social identities. Pugh uncovers the roles played by organizations such as the Foundation for Prussian Cultural Heritage and the Building Academy in conveying the political narrative of their respective states through constructed spaces. She also provides an overview of earlier notable architectural works, to show the precursors for design aesthetics in Berlin at large, and considers projects in the post-Wall period, to demonstrate the ongoing effects of the Cold War.Overall, Pugh offers a compelling case study of a divided city poised between powerful contending political and ideological forces, and she highlights the effort expended by each side to influence public opinion in Europe and around the World through the manipulation of the built environment.
1945 to 1980 marks an extensive period of mass migration of students, refugees, ex-soldiers, and workers from an extraordinarily wide range of countries to West Germany. Turkish, Kurdish, and Italian ...groups have been studied extensively, and while this book uses these groups as points of comparison, it focuses on ethnic communities of varying social structures-from Spain, Iran, Ukraine, Greece, Croatia, and Algeria-and examines the interaction between immigrant networks and West German state institutions as well as the ways in which patterns of cooperation and conflict differ. This study demonstrates how the social consequences of mass immigration became intertwined with the ideological battles of Cold War Germany and how the political life and popular movements within these immigrant communities played a crucial role in shaping West German society.
Politically adrift, alienated from Weimar society, and fearful of competition from industrial elites and the working class alike, the independent artisans of interwar Germany were a particularly ...receptive audience for National Socialist ideology. As Hitler consolidated power, they emerged as an important Nazi constituency, drawn by the party's rejection of both capitalism and Bolshevism. Yet, in the years after 1945, the artisan class became one of the pillars of postwar stability, thoroughly integrated into German society.From Craftsmen to Capitalists gives the first account of this astonishing transformation, exploring how skilled tradesmen recast their historical traditions and forged alliances with former antagonists to help realize German democratization and recovery.
Munich is one of Europe's most enchanting cities. Exploring its narrow cobbled streets or wide sunlight boulevards with views of the Bavarian Alps is a delight. Each autumn, millions of revellers ...from around the world join locals in their legendary Octoberfest, one of the world's biggest festivals.Yet many visitors also know that Munich has a past so dark that it cast a looming shadow over the twentieth century: this was the city which played a unique role in the ascent of Nazism, the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. It was in Munich that Hitler first entered the murky world of beer Keller politics after the First World War. It was here that he established the fanatical base of his NSDAP party so that the city was, in his words, 'the capital of the movement'.This illustrative new book explains how Munich and its surrounds became inextricably linked with the rise and fall of Nazism. It provides the modern reader with a detailed guide to what happened where in the city, why those events were important in the unfolding history of the Third Reich - and why they remain a timely warning today.
Over the last few years, there has been a noticeable increase in studies on the postwar period of Germany, reflecting the crucial importance of these years for an understanding of the developments in ...the two Germanys. With her study of U.S. occupation policy and its effects on German social and political developments in Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart, Rebecca Boehling offers a most valuable contribution to this debate. She examines the decisions made by the U.S. Military Government regarding German municipal personnel from the first year of the occupation, when all city officials were appointed directly by Military Government of with its explicit approval, through the first postwar municipal elections in 1946 and 1948, when democratic self-government was gradually restored. Boehling explores the far-reaching effects of personnel decisions on German political life within the framework of U.S. policies intended to denazify and democratize Germany. The conclusion she draws is that the early local-level German developments under U.S. occupation facilitated economic recovery in a manner that restricted the implementation of political and social goals of democratization.
From 1933 onward, Nazi Germany undertook massive and unprecedented industrial integration, submitting an entire economic sector to direct state oversight. This innovative study explores how German ...professionals navigated this complex landscape through the divergent careers of business managers in two of the era's most important trade organizations. While Jakob Reichert of the iron and steel industry unexpectedly resisted state control and was eventually driven to suicide, Karl Lange of the machine builders' association achieved security for himself and his industry by submitting to the Nazi regime. Both men's stories illuminate the options available to industrialists under the Third Reich, as well as the real priorities set by the industries they served.
The histories of East and West Germany traditionally emphasize the Cold War rivalries between the communist and capitalist nations. Yet, even as the countries diverged in their political directions, ...they had to create new ways of working together economically. This book examines the material culture of increasing economic contacts in divided Germany from the 1940s until the 1990s. Trade events, such as fairs and product shows, became one of the few venues for sustained links and knowledge between the two countries after the building of the Berlin Wall. The book uses industrial design, epitomized by the furniture industry, to show how a network of politicians, entrepreneurs, and cultural brokers attempted to nationally re-inscribe their production cultures, define a postwar German identity, and regain economic stability and political influence in postwar Europe. What started as a competition for ideological superiority between East and West Germany quickly turned into a shared, politically legitimizing quest for an untainted post-fascist modernity. This work follows products from the drawing board into the homes of ordinary Germans to offer insights into how converging visions of German industrial modernity created shared expectations about economic progress and living standards. The book reveals how intra-German and European trade policies drove the creation of products and generated a certain convergence of East and West German taste by the 1980s.
This book examines competition and collaboration among Western powers, the socialist bloc, and the Third World for control over humanitarian aid programs during the Cold War. Young-sun Hong's ...analysis reevaluates the established parameters of German history. On the one hand, global humanitarian efforts functioned as an arena for a three-way political power struggle. On the other, they gave rise to transnational spaces that allowed for multidimensional social and cultural encounters. Hong paints an unexpected view of the global humanitarian regime: Algerian insurgents flown to East Germany for medical care, barefoot Chinese doctors in Tanzania, and West and East German doctors working together in the Congo. She also provides a rich analysis of the experiences of African trainees and Asian nurses in the two Germanys. This book brings an urgently needed historical perspective to contemporary debates on global governance, which largely concern humanitarianism, global health, south-north relationships, and global migration.
Black Germany Aitken, Robbie; Rosenhaft, Eve
09/2013
eBook
This groundbreaking history traces the development of Germany's black community, from its origins in colonial Africa to its decimation by the Nazis during World War II. Robbie Aitken and Eve ...Rosenhaft follow the careers of Africans arriving from the colonies, examining why and where they settled, their working lives and their political activities, and giving unprecedented attention to gender, sexuality and the challenges of 'mixed marriage'. Addressing the networks through which individuals constituted community, Aitken and Rosenhaft explore the ways in which these relationships spread beyond ties of kinship and birthplace to constitute communities as 'black'. The study also follows a number of its protagonists to France and back to Africa, providing new insights into the roots of Francophone black consciousness and postcolonial memory. Including an in-depth account of the impact of Nazism and its aftermath, this book offers a fresh critical perspective on narratives of 'race' in German history.