German history

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/30/2020
  

  1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

  German editorialist Jochen Bittner warns that Trump's insistence that the election has been stolen from him echoes the Dolchstosslegende rhetoric which sustained the ascendant National Socialists for years after the end of World War I.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  11/16/2020
  

  Can We Hold Trump And His Allies Accountable Without Further Splitting America?

  by Samuel Huneke

  A process of accountability must target official decisionmakers who broke the law, avoid imposing collective guilt on Trump supporters, and above all, not expect quick or complete success. 

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• SOURCE: Voice of America
  11/17/2020
  

  German Historians on Frontlines of Politics

  German historians have faced lawsuits for writing about World War II-era crimes by the Wehrmacht, part of a growing culture war in which right-wing Germans seek to deny or diminish the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes.

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• SOURCE: TIME
  11/12/2020
  

  What We Can Learn About Nazi Psychology From the Wives of Hitler’s Top Officials

  A new book, excerpted here, assess everyday life under Nazism by attention to the lives of the wives of leading Nazis. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  10/8/2020
  

  Holocaust Survivor's Daughter in Legal Battle With Historian over Claim of Lesbian Liaison with Nazi Guard

  Hájková, who is researching the queer history of the Holocaust, said testimonies by survivors of the camps and legal documents from the guard’s trial led her to conclude that the two women might have had a lesbian relationship, either coercive or consensual. However, she acknowledged that there was no definite proof of this.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/6/2020
  

  ‘Weimar America’? The Trump Show Is No Cabaret

  by Niall Ferguson

  Popular culture and lazy historical comparisons have elevated Weimar Germany as an analogue for contemporary America. Ferguson suggests reasons to dial back the comparisons; while current events are troubling, US democracy is more stable and stronger than the Weimar Republic.

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• 8/2/2020
  

  Conventional Culture in the Third Reich

  by Moritz Föllmer

  Although Nazi aesthetics are generally associated with the monumental architecture of Albert Speer and the propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl, Germans generally encountered conventionality in art, music and cinema. This helped to normalize the acts of the Third Reich and to allow ordinary Germans to dissociate themselves from Nazism after 1945.

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• SOURCE: Champaign (IL) News-Gazette
  6/21/2020
  

  UI Historian Takes Close Look At Nazis’ First Days In Power

  University of Illinois professor Peter Fritzche has written a recent book on the first 100 days of the Third Reich which considers the balance of Hitler's influence and prevailing currents of antisemitism and authoritarianism in the German public. 

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• 12/22/19
  

  Divisions Mark 30th Anniversary of the Opening of the Brandenburg Gate—Symbol of German Reunification

  by Jennifer Redmann

  Through its historic association with the surrounding region of Brandenburg, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate serves as a reminder that in 2019, the German population remains politically and economically divided, even as Germany celebrates three decades as a united entity. 

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• SOURCE: Tom Dispatch
  10/27/19
  

  What the Dismantling of the Berlin Wall Means 30 Years Later

  by James Carroll

  As the 30th anniversary of the end of the Cold War approaches, it should be obvious that there’s been a refusal in the United States to reckon with a decades-long set of conflagrations in the Greater Middle East as the inevitable consequence of that first American invasion in 1990.

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• SOURCE: The German Times
  Accessed 8/22/19
  

  The history of “German Angst” could serve as a lesson for today’s democratic societies

  by Frank Biess

  The Federal Republic is a remarkable democratic success story and the only such story in German history. 

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• SOURCE: Time
  7/19/19
  

  A Group of German Leaders Tried to Kill Hitler in 1944. Here’s Why They Failed

  by Albinko Hasic

  For a brief moment in history, Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators thought they had succeeded in turning the tide of World War II and potentially saving thousands of additional lives. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  6/6/19
  

  Hitler told the world the Third Reich was invincible. My German grandfather knew better

  by Robert Scott Kellner

  As a political organizer for the Social Democrats, Kellner had opposed the Nazis from the beginning, campaigning against them throughout the duration of the ill-fated Weimar Republic. 

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• 5/23/19
  

  The Fall of Communism in TV’s The Weissensee Saga

  by Walter G. Moss

  The most impressive educational aspect of The Weissensee Saga is that it presents a realistic and convincing portrait of the differing lives and reactions of East German individuals in the final decade of the GDR’s existence.

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• 5/2/19
  

  The Template for the Holocaust- Germany's African Genocide

  by David Carlin

  In the 20th Century’s first genocide, Imperial Germany’s campaign of annihilation provided precedents for the racial ideologies and exterminatory tactics of the Holocaust. 

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/1/19
  

  A German Bratwurst Museum Unwittingly Starts a Holocaust Controversy

  The Bratwurst Museum had unwittingly stepped into a long-running debate about what to do with the thousands of places that were once part of the Nazis’ extensive machinery of death.

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• SOURCE: The Paris Review
  1/15/19
  

  A Lost Piece of Trans History

  The recent republication of The Third Sex by the Bibliothek rosa Winkel revives lost voices from Germany’s queer past and recovers a remarkable piece of trans history.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/14/19
  

  Beyond Rosa Luxemburg: five more women of the German revolution you need to know about

  by Ingrid Sharp and Corinne Painter

  There were other women who played an active role in the German revolution in cities across the country. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/14/19
  

  How one German city developed – and then lost – generations of math geniuses

  by David Gunderman

  Anti-Semitism brought down one of the world's greatest centers for mathematical research.