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Shifting Memories explores the contours and genealogies of non-Jewish Germans' public memories of the Nazi past in the Federal Republic of Germany, asking how the crimes committed by Nazi Germany are reflected in the present. The study illuminates particular aspects of public remembering by focusing on case studies, telling a number of stories which at times appear parallel and at times intersect.
The case studies address, for example, the legacy of the so-called Celler Hasenjagd (the hunting down of concentration camp prisoners who survived an Allied air raid in April 1945 in a town in Lower Saxony); efforts by the City of Hildesheim to memorialize the Kristallnacht pogrom; attempts by Italian, Jewish, and Sinti survivors to commemorate their suffering in two West German towns; the posthumous reputation of a German communist imprisoned in Buchenwald and credited with having saved the lives of 159 Jewish children; and the public memories of the Ravensbrück and Buchenwald concentration camps in East Germany.
Directed at an audience curious about contemporary Germany, this book will appeal to those interested in issues of public and social memory, and in the legacy of Auschwitz.
Klaus Neumann is a historian who has taught in universities in Germany and Australia and written about social memories in the Pacific Islands, Australia, and Germany. Previous books include Not the Way It Really Was and Rabaul Yu Swit Moa Yet. He lives in Richmond, Australia.
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Once celebrated as the author of the bestselling antifascist novel The Seventh Cross, Anna Seghers was largely forgotten within Anglo-American letters during the Cold War era. The release of archival materials since 1990 has made possible Helen Fehervary's critical reassessment of Seghers's life and work, one that challenges formerly held assumptions about the Cold War.
Fehervary presents a fascinating portrait of Seghers, a German Jewish writer whose inherently political prose is imbued with traditions of fairy tale, biblical legend, and myth. Seeking to uncover the intellectual and artistic sources of this "mythic world," Fehervary situates Seghers's legacy within the larger context of Central European intellectual history. This is no journey into the obscure, for the people with whom Anna Seghers shared her artistic and intellectual life were truly extraordinary. Seghers was a member of the Budapest Sunday Circle (along with Georg Lukács, Karl Mannheim, and her husband, László Radványi); a lifelong friend of Bertolt Brecht; and a mentor to Heiner Müller and Christa Wolf. She also had close ties to Walter Benjamin in exile.
In order to do justice to the complexities inherent in Seghers's life and to the multilayered texture of her work--neither of which can be reduced to a definitive chronological or teleological schema--Fehervary eschews the more familiar conventions of biography and instead presents a series of thematically conceived chapters. Fehervary's prodigious research relies on the over nine thousand volumes in Seghers's library; on interviews with contemporaries, family, and friends; and on heretofore unknown Hungarian texts and manuscripts.
This engaging and accessible book raises large questions--about German history, modernism, Central and East European Jewry, Stalinism, the Holocaust--that go far beyond the life and work of an individual writer, questions so crucial to the twentieth century that they continue to preoccupy writers and readers today.
Helen Fehervary teaches German literature at The Ohio State University.
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Study of women's struggle for reproductive self-determination during the Weimar Republic.
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Describes the integral role of humor in the sociopolitical climate of nineteenth-century Prussia.
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How was it possible that a new and sizeable Jewish community developed after the Holocaust in Germany of all places? Jews, Germans, Memory undertakes to assess the past, present, and future of German-Jewish relations in the light of recent political changes and the opening up of historical resources. This welcome new volume investigates how the groundwork was laid for the new Jewish community in the post-war period, with different objectives by Jewish leaders and German politicians. Its contributors touch upon history, literature, the media, ethnicity, politics, and social movements, and attempt to answer the question of how Jews are sociallyconstructed and how the glorious German Jewish past and the Holocaust have been remembered in the course of recent decades.
In recent years, German Jewry has seen fundamental transformations with the influx from Eastern Europe and a new leadership in the community. A new self-definition, even self-assurance and reappraisal in Israel and elsewhere, has evolved. Historians, scholars of cultural studies, and those interested in debates on memory and ethnicity will all find something of interest in this diverse volume.
Jews, Germans, Memory joins in debate Michael Brenner, Micha Brumlik, Dan Diner, Cilly Kugelmann, and Martin Löw-Beer, among the most prominent younger Jewish intellectuals in Germany today, with others who have long observed Germany from both inside and outside: Y. Michal Bodemann, John Borneman, Andrei Markovits, Robin Ostrow, Moishe Postone, Frank Stern, and Jack Zipes.
Y. Michal Bodemann is Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto.
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A textbook introducing the land, history, government, culture, and industry of East and West Germany. ... Read more

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In the long debate about the failure of German democracy in the early twentieth century, most comparisons have been made, implicitly or explicitly, with Great Britain. Madeleine Hurd's Public Spheres, Public Mores, and Democracy proposes a useful alternative--the comparison of prewar Germany with Sweden, which, like Germany, was characterized by a conservative monarchy, late industrialization, and a weak, fractured bourgeoisie.
Hurd's book offers the reader a close analysis of the political impact of nineteenth-century cultural and educational crusades, linking the process of democratization to left-wing parties' use of cultural, educational, and freethinking appeals. Both socialist and left-liberal leaders emphasized the politics of taste, sobriety, and self-respect, challenging realities and perceptions of who was acceptable in the public political sphere and who was to be excluded as immature, uncultured, and uncouth.
The two-city comparison suggests interesting conclusions. Moral and educational crusades could bring liberals and socialists together in common attacks on a drunken and irresponsible plutocracy. Cultural issues could also drive them apart, as the bourgeoisie and workers established rival claims to public respectability and autonomy. Public Spheres, Public Mores, and Democracy provides a compelling account of how the moral content of citizenship claims affected each city's and each country's long-term democratic stability. In the process, it indicates new ways of understanding the historical realities, and values, of the bourgeois public sphere.
Madeleine Hurd is Assistant Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh.
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Excellent background for travel
"Germany: A Primary Source Culture Guide" is an excellent overview of the German country, its economic foundation, and its culture. In advance of a recent vacation trip to Germany, I purchased this book to provide me with an understanding of Germany that went beyond the usual tourist books. This book met every expectation. The material is well organized and detailed to the right level for my purposes. The book may be targeted to middle/high school social studies but it can be highly recommended to any traveler to Germany. ... Read more

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Examines the land, people, and history of Germany and discusses its state of affairs and place in the world today. ... Read more

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Staging Philanthropy is a history of women's philanthropic associations during Germany's "long" nineteenth century. Challenged by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic occupation and war, dynastic groups in Germany made community welfare and its defense part of newly-gendered social obligations, sponsoring a network of state women's associations, philanthropic institutions, and nursing orders which were eventually coordinated by the German Red Cross. These patriotic groups helped fashion an official nationalism that defended conservative power and authority in the new nation-state.
An original and truly multi-disciplinary work, Staging Philanthropy uses archival research to reconstruct the neglected history of women's philanthropic organizations during the 'long' nineteenth century. Borrowing from cultural anthropologists, Jean Quataert explores how meaning is created in the theater of politics. Linking gender with nationalism and war with humanitarianism, Quataert weaves her analysis together with themes of German historiography and the wider context of European history.
Staging Philanthropy will interest readers in German history, women's history, politics and anthropology, as well as those whose interest is in medicalization and the German Red Cross. This book situates itself in the middle of a string of debates pertaining to modern German history and, thus, should also appeal to readers from the general educated public.
Jean Quataert is Professor of History and Women's Studies, Binghamton University. She has previously published a number of books, including Connecting Spheres: European Women in a Globalizing World, 1500 to the Present with Marilyn J. Boxer (Oxford, 1999).
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Cities, Sin, and Social Reform in Imperial Germany breaks new ground in the history of social thought and action in Imperial Germany, focusing on socially liberal efforts to counteract perceived problems in the area of moral behavior.
Thematically and methodologically wide-ranging and innovative, this volume considers a broad spectrum of responses not only to the supposed breakdown of social cohesion but also to specific forms of deviant behavior. It draws on large numbers of writings from the period by clergymen, jurists, medical doctors, educators, social workers, and others. This literature illuminates the histories not only of urbanization and cities but also of sexuality and Christianity, crime and criminology, leisure and education, youth and women, charity and social work, and the welfare state as well as local government.
Focusing on positive instead of escapist responses to the challenges that inhered in urban society, this work can be read as part of an ongoing reassessment of the German Empire that points away from the idea that Germans were traveling an antimodernist Sonderweg, or special path, that led inevitably to National Socialism and the Third Reich. Although intended primarily for scholars and students of modern Germany, this book should speak to a variety of readers, among them anyone who cares about the history of cities, deviant behavior, or social reform.
Andrew Lees is Professor of History, Rutgers University.
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A comprehensive study
More focused than Lees previous work, Cities Percieved, this work examines various characters to illuminate the Imperial German scene. Lees mastery of his subject matter, and cohesive writing style make this work a must read for scholars of German society. ... Read more

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There have been dramatic shifts in the behavior of labor markets and the conduct of industrial relations in the last century. This volume explores these changes in the context of four very different societies: Germany, Sweden, Britain and Japan. Despite their manifest differences, the author demonstrates that for long periods their labor markets were similar in many respects. The book discusses the failure of neo-corporatism in Britain in the 1970s and the subsequent rise of Thatcherism; the rise of Japan as a model for orderly industrial relations in the 1970s; and the collapse of the German and the success of the Swedish labor markets in the 1930s. ... Read more

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The business culture in Germany presents a fascinating picture in the mid-1990s.Attempts are still being made to introduce into eastern Germany the beliefs, attitudes and core values of the business culture which have been responsible for so much
success and prosperity in the west - but have for many years been culturally rejected by the east.In his new book, Collin Randlesome identifies strengths and conservatism as two of the most powerful of these western values.


Collin Randlesome identifies strength and conservatism as two of the most powerful of these western values and he suggests they find their general expression in: *a social, rather than a free market economy *a solid manufacturing base *a strong emphasis on research and development in industry *concern for the physical environment *a nurturing, long-term view of business.Criticism of German companies has oftenfocused on the less tangible aspects, however, such as a tendency to be product-led and an aversion to risk and the spirit of enterprise.

Eastern Germany has developed in a very different direction, and the author examines the effects of introducing western values here, as well as the conflicts and contrasts that have arisen.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this merging of cultures is the reaction to the integration process by Germans themselves.The differing responses of people in both western and eastern Germany are recorded in detail. ... Read more

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Though much has been written about the Green Party in Germany, less is known about the changes in individuals' attitudes towards the environment that led to the rise of the environmental movement, or of its cultural roots. This volume draws attention to the breadth of environmentalism in contemporary Germany and its significance for German political culture by focusing on the treatment of "Green" issues in literature, the media and film, against the background of Green politics and the environmental movement. Traditional German notions of cultural uniformity and social conformism continue to inform policy makers and public opinion, since reunification, social and cultural diversity have begun to gain ground. Culture and Society in Germany addresses the new link between culture and society in Germany, and its new complexity. Each volume focuses on a German-language writer and also on the relevant social context. It normally includes a short work, an interview with the writer, a critical study of their work, a social science-based analysis of the milieu to which they belong, as well as a select bibliography.The series is edited by Eva Kolinsky (Professor of Modern German Studies, Keele University) and David Horrocks (Lecturer in German, Keele University) ... Read more

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The essays contained in this volume arose from a DAAD conference at the University of Toronto and can be read as markers of a historic watershed in the development of a united Germany.Eberhard Lämmert (Berlin) vividly portrays the challenge to the humanities in a society that is now summoned to redefine its political and cultural values.Other essays by Werner Meissner (Frankfurt am Main), Wilfried von Bredow (Marburg), and William Chandler (McMaster University) address primarily the political aspects of German and European unification.This thoughtful book will be of interest to cultural historians and political scientists as well.The essays contained in this volume arose froma DAAD conference at the University of Toronto and can be read as markers of a historic watershed in the development of a united Germany.Eberhard Lämmert (Berlin) vividly portrays the challenge to the humanities in a society that is now summoned to redefine its political and cultural values.Other essays by Werner Meissner (Frankfurt am Main), Wilfried von Bredow (Marburg), and William Chandler (McMaster University) address primarily the political aspects of German and European unification.This thoughtful book will be of interest to cultural historians and political scientists as well. ... Read more