This paper examines the complex entanglement of national and international violence and control in Belgrade. In particular, the ways in which the identity of the city has been affected in the ...aftermath of NATO’s 1999 Operation Allied Force as manifest in the hollowness of the unreconstructed Generalstab complex. The notion of hollowness presents an oppportunity to reformulate and reconsider the identity of Belgrade and Serbia as well as proffer an opening towards reconceptualising post-war reconstruction.
Belgrade maintient, en 2015, la plupart des ruines du bombardement de l’OTAN de 1999. Ces anciens hauts lieux sont désormais symboles du démantèlement de la Yougoslavie. Dans un contexte où la ville ...tend à changer d’image, ils sont appelés à disparaître. Certains subsistent toutefois, pris entre un passé contradictoire et un avenir incertain. Ces lieux en perte de sens sont désormais marqués par une attente qui pourrait s’avérer aussi créatrice que stérile. Ce sont des lieux de l’en-attendant. Pour penser ces lieux importants de l’espace post-yougoslave, nous aborderons le cas du Generalštab, monument culturel et figure de proue du Belgrade bombardé
Belgrade still has ruins from its bombing by NATO in 1999. These high places symbolizing the breakup of Yugoslavia are expected to disappear as the city’s image evolves. But some of them remain, trapped between a contradictory past and an uncertain future. Marked by expectations, creative or sterile, these “places in awaiting” are slowly becoming placeless as they lose meaning. The case of the former headquarters of the Yugoslavian Army (Generalštab), a cultural monument and emblem of bombed Belgrade, is examined.
The General Board of the Navy was a uniquely American strategic planning organization with few analogs at the time of its establishment, except perhaps the various components of the Admiralty in ...Great Britain. It existed from 1900 to 1950. Then, as now, confusion reigned over what sort of fleet to design and how to build it. The General Board served as the “balance wheel,” or nexus, for bringing together coherent strategy and fleet design. As John T. Kuehn shows, this Board was the United States' first modern general staff in peacetime. It emerged from the trends and developments of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its creation was very much a reflection of the reformist spirit of the times that also gave birth to the Army War College, the Army General Staff, and the Chief of Naval Operations. As such it reflected a uniquely American attempt to reconcile the primacy of civilian control with the new requirements of the modern age that seemed to dictate a more formal military and naval planning establishment and associated processes and methods. Thus its name reflected corporate America as well as longstanding naval tradition to meet challenges and problems with special, temporary boards. The General Board, however, differed from these temporary boards due to its longevity. By the 1920s it had become a permanent feature of the Navy and was regarded as the premier strategic “think tank” for advice to the Secretary of the Navy. The author highlights how this small body wielded immense influence over its organizational life that was, on balance, innovative, progressive, and productive for the security of the United States in peace and its success in war via the mechanism of its Navy. The service of the men who comprised it is little-known, but their collaborative and creative ethos should still serve as a model for the modern analogs of today like strategic initiatives groups (SIGs). Kuehn's organizational history of this body reflects the turbulence of those times as well as provides a not too “distant mirror” to understand a complexities involved in building a Navy that saw the transition from coal and sail to the nuclear powered warships.
The Generals' War is a landmark exploration of the generalship that shaped the very framework of modern warfare as we know it today and provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis on the senior ...commanders of the Great War.
Hitler's Commanders Mitcham, Samuel W; Mueller, Gene; Mitcham, Samuel W., Jr
2012, 2012-08-24
eBook
Now in an expanded edition that includes biographies of the generals of Stalingrad and a new chapter on the panzer commanders, this book offers rare insight into the men who ran Nazi Germany's war ...machine. Going beyond common stereotypes, Samuel W. Mitcham and Gene Mueller recount the compelling lives of a varied group of army, navy, Luftwaffe, and SS men. Weaving in dramatic stories of tank commanders, fighter pilots in aerial combat, and U-Boat aces, the authors bring the battlefields of World War II to life.
Die Zeit nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg war reich an Legenden, mit denen die Kontinuität bestimmter Schichten und Institutionen in Deutschland gesichert oder der Geltungsanspruch einzelner Personen ...befriedigt werden sollte. Ein Teil der deutschen Generalität etwas suchte die These zu verbreiten, gerade auch aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wäre die deutsche Armee "im Felde unbesiegt" heimgekehrt, hätten nicht die dilettantischen Eingriffe Hitlers den Generalstab an der Entfaltung seiner militärischen Qualitäten gehindert. Erst vor kurzem ist die Behauptung aufgestellt worden, Hitler habe vor allem die meist zuverlässige Berichterstattung und die stets warnenden Prognosen der Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost im OKH ignoriert. Gestützt auf eine Fülle bislang unbekannter Dokumente, jener zuletzt von Reinhard Gehlen, dem späteren langjährigen Chef des BND, geleiteten Abteilung, konfrontiert aber Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm die Legende mit der Realität und weist überzeugend nach, dass das Urteil des Generalstabs in Wahrheit unter Selbstüberschätzung, ideologischem Konformismus wie professioneller Unzulänglichkeit litt und kaum als Korrektiv zum Urteil Hitlers tauglich war. Mit neuen Erkenntnissen zur deutschen Rüstungslage und zum Entscheidungsprozess der deutschen militärischen Führung leistet Wilhelms Studie zugleich einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Eine andere legende aus dem Dritten Reich zerstört Louis de Jong, Direktor des Amsterdamer Rijksinstituuts Oorlogsdocumentatie. Die Frage, ob der Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler während des Krieges tatsächlich, wie sein finnischer Masseur Felix Kersten nach 1945 mit Erfolg behauptet hat, Millionen Holländer nach dem Osten deportieren wollte und ob nur der Einfluss eben Kerstens die Verwirklichung dieser Absicht vereiteltet, beantwortete de Jong mit einem schlüssigen "Nein". Seine akribische
Untersuchung, inhaltlich fesselnd und methodisch reizvoll, zeigt in geradezu klassischer Weise, wie eine historische legende entsteht, Verbreitung findet und schließlich doch an den Quellen scheitert.
Ferdinand Foch ended the First World War as Marshal of France and supreme commander of the Allied armies on the Western Front. Foch in Command is a pioneering study of his contribution to the Allied ...victory. Elizabeth Greenhalgh uses contemporary notebooks, letters and documents from previously under-studied archives to chart how the artillery officer, who had never commanded troops in battle when the war began, learned to fight the enemy, to cope with difficult colleagues and allies, and to manoeuvre through the political minefield of civil-military relations. She offers valuable insights into neglected questions: the contribution of unified command to the Allied victory; the role of a commander's general staff; and the mechanisms of command at corps and army level. She demonstrates how an energetic Foch developed war-winning strategies for a modern industrial war and how political realities contributed to his losing the peace.
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