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Much has been written about US efforts to solve the 'German problem' after the Second World War. Scholars have carefully studied US attempts to de-Nazify, pacify and democratise post-war Germany and have identified the creation of large-scale student exchange programmes as an integral part of that agenda. As this article shows, 1945 was not the first time in the twentieth century that US policy-makers and educators had pondered the German problem and sought to address Germany's apparently deficient democratisation and excessive militarism, as well as the alarmingly narrow horizons of its youth. Based on long-neglected or inaccessible archival materials in Europe and the United States, this article charts the development of US student exchanges with inter-war Germany and demonstrates that a fuller understanding of US re-education policies in West Germany requires paying attention to the 1920s and 1930s. The article traces the discovery of the German student as an object of US democratisation efforts in the inter-war period and shows that US re-education policy after 1945 was deeply informed by the experiences made, connections forged and convictions won (sometimes without reliable evidence) by US internationalists in the inter-war years. Facing the German problem after the First World War, the article argues, helped establish a modus operandi —and a modus cogitandi —with regard to the German student that would inform US cultural diplomacy well into the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does democratization pacify states-and thus their respective regions-or does it make them more war-prone? This is both a theoretical issue within the literature on democracy and peace, and an empirical issue, as in some regions democratization led to peace and in others it resulted in violence. To answer the posed question, this study probes the 'state-to-nation balance' model as it makes the preliminary argument that democratization is not the underlying cause of either large-scale violence or peacemaking. Democratization, thus, is at best an intervening variable and in some cases has no major effects on war and peace. Rather, it is the state-to-nation balance model that better explains the war- and peace-proneness of states and regions. For an exploratory probe of this argument, the study examines Germany and Iraq-two key powers in their respective regions-and the changes they have gone through since World War I until today. The paper shows that when democratization takes place within a state-to-nation balance, it tends to have stabilizing effects and warms the peace. In contrast, within a state-to-nation imbalance, it is probable that democratization will have destabilizing effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the role of mediators in the process of cultural transfer in the American-occupied Germany during the years 1944 to 1947. United States Office of Military Government in Germany's creation of the newspaper `Die Neue Zeitung'; Newspaper's transmission of cultural values to Germany; Staff's understanding of how to present American values to a German audience.

This article situates the experiences of Baltic, Jewish, and Polish Displaced Persons within the overlapping stories of occupation policy, refugee circumstances, the gathering Cold War, and the process of rebuilding Germany. Using evidence from both the British and American Zones of Occupation, it explains the symbiotic processes of labeling the various groups of the uprooted and the shifting feelings of empathy that occupation authorities experienced for them. The connections between logistics and policy during mass population movements figure in this account, but the author focuses on shortages in housing and employment to trace reevaluations of who was most deserving of assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In postwar Germany, Allied personnel and displaced populations competed with local Germans for housing. Examining group interactions and conflicting interests in this competition sheds light on issues of responsibility and reconciliation in the occupied country. In the East, Germans quickly grasped the key political interests of the Soviet occupiers: inhospitable landlords were denounced as "Nazis," and many East Germans rewrote their pasts to claim "victim-of-fascism" status. In the West, Germans cast themselves as allies in the battle against Communism. Wartime and postwar victims in both East and West struggled to gain a moral status that would facilitate access to resources and authority; yet in neither East nor West did they create united fronts. Meanwhile, the alliance between local Germans and ethnic German expellees against the DPs and Communists did facilitate integration of the ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe into western German society, changing the social and political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a case study of the Protestant churches in the British zone in occupied Germany after the Second World War, the article explores church responses to an often-neglected aspect of the Allies' purge of post-Nazi Germany: their mass internment of German civilians. Whereas the literature is critical of church support for former Nazis and opposition to Allied measures, the article argues for differentiation. Church assistance for internees was even more extensive than previously recognized and erred on the side of assisting undeserving former Nazis, while also being somewhat selective and discerning. Much church activity was in opposition to the British, yet there was also a degree of cooperation and negotiation. The article argues that ecclesiastical criticism of civilian internment was not merely a symptom of a refusal to confront the past or an expression of nationalist ideology. Internment was a genuine object of criticism in its own right and a source of wider church objections to denazification. Ultimately, Allied internment policy, pressure from below, interconfessional rivalry, national solidarity and the lack of a German government all contributed to the Protestant churches becoming outspoken critics of the Allies and advocates for those members of the German people who found themselves in civilian internment camps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American rabbi Abraham Klausner played a vital role in rebuilding Jewish communal life in Germany during the first few years after World War II, advocating on behalf of survivors before U.S. military authorities, securing much-needed supplies, publishing lists of survivors, and establishing the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews as the official representative body of the Jewish displaced persons. The survivors lauded Klausner as their most trusted advocate, yet his zealous Zionism seemed increasingly to outpace that of much of the survivor population. In his May 2, 1948 confidential report to world Jewish leaders, Klausner suggested that after three years in the DP camps, perhaps only thirty percent of the survivors would choose to go to Palestine, and he proposed radical solutions to this perceived problem. Observing the DP situation from Klausner's unique perspective, the author of this article examines the contingent nature of DP Zionism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using recent scholarship on memory and German identity formation as a springboard, this article examines the illicit trade that flourished in the immediate postwar period to probe the creation of a community of fate, one that emphasized its victimhood. It explores both contemporary perceptions and the memory of the black market from multiple viewpoints, the occupiers, the Germans and the Displaced Persons (DPs). Rather than treating the illicit trade as solely one activity, it explains its gradations, in terms of what was exchanged, by whom, and the perceived morality of the exchange. This approach highlights the disconnection between ubiquitous participation by Germans in illicit trade and their memories of it as primarily a foreign phenomenon. In other words, Germans saw their trading outside of official channels as necessary and moral, whereas the trade by foreigners, either DPs or occupation troops, was seen as both exploitative and immoral. Given the high visibility of Jews among the DPs, it also provides a window into the continuation of antisemitism in the immediate postwar period. It argues that the conjunction in 1948 of the currency reform, the noticeable drop in black market activity, and the emigration of Jewish DPs have cemented two of the prevailing myths of the postwar period: the economic miracle and Jews as black marketers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent military interventions by the West highlight persistent and unresolved problems regarding future foreign policy. Reconsidering the wider legacy and precedent of the British occupation of Germany from 1945 is critical in understanding these debates. Addressing a neglected topic, this article examines whether Britain reconciled its liberal democratic values as an occupying power, and in particular how its government tried to invoke the Christian ‘moral mandate’ of the British churches and voluntary organizations as an instrumental feature of policy, part of its civilizing mission in Germany. Central to this, however, were manifest contradictions between the churches’ rhetorical efforts to help the presentation of the moral case for military rule, and a policy vacuum that offered few practical measures to help German civilians, and especially expellees and refugees. Moreover, Britain's claims of moral leadership were at odds with its decision to delegate refugee matters to the German authorities. There were major differences in approach by church leaders, Whitehall ministers and civilian administrators in Germany in assessing how magnanimous to be in their treatment of Germany. With greater unanimity of purpose, humanitarian initiatives might have had greater success and become a more uniting symbol for reconciliation. The main failing was in the churches’ inability to modify government policy. Compassionate rhetoric and humanitarian relief efforts could not repair the damage caused by earlier political decisions to marginalize forced migrants that effectively punished them as Germans, a legacy of the occupation often sidestepped in order to focus on greater British achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the cultural aspects of the United States' foreign relations. Modernization and cultural imperialism; US military forces' experience in American-occupied Germany after World War II; Factors affecting the assessment of America's foreign cultural relations.

Examines the role of culture in the United States' foreign relations with Europe. Focus on the American occupation of Germany after World War II; American cultural policy toward Germany after the war; Reeducation of Germans to democracy as part of the American policy in post-war Germany; Military command's failure to impose its ban on fraternization.

Discusses stereotyping of Germans in occupied Germany by American journalists following the end of World War II. Identification of the so-called Nazi type of German; Description of pre- and post-war reportage on Germans which represents this stereotype; Representations of German youth; Psychological aspects of the German defeat; Notion of the collective guilt of Germans for the atrocities committed by Germany during the war; Attitudes toward antisemitism; Policy implications of recognizing stereotyping trends.

Reviews the microfilm collection "Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files." "Germany: Internal Affairs, 1943-1949: Political, Governmental, and National Defense Affairs," Part I; "Germany: Internal Affairs, 1943-1949: Social, Economic, and Industrial Affairs," Part II.