Search

This article traces the history of paper patterns from the formation of the German Empire to the early days of the Federal Republic of Germany. These patterns are often overlooked, yet provide glimpses into the transformative power of everyday fashion. I show that sewing with paper patterns both consolidated and challenged ideas of gender and the female body. The article finally argues that by delegating the making of women's clothes to the private sector, however, the responsibility for the adaption of social bodily norms was also handed over to individual women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeithistorische Forschungen is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ambivalent Matter: Rags as Waste and Resource in the Eighteenth Century This article examines the dual role of rags as waste and a potential resource during the early modern period. Rags were indispensable to the early modern paper production, yet they also bore the potential to be perceived as mere refuse, which underscores the complexities involved in the commodification of waste. While much of modern research has predominantly emphasized the value of rags, the waste aspect of the paper rag trade has often been underestimated. This study seeks to offer a broader understanding, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of rags and the related economic implications. To address the ambivalent nature of rags, it is crucial to adopt a multi-perspective approach, looking beyond the paper industry alone. This means taking into account household practices regarding textile remnants and surrounding contemporary discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud's Lost Neighbours: Ways of Presenting Historical Documents in Exhibition Catalogues Historical documents such as forms and other writings are usually subordinated to linguistic narratives and used in exhibition catalogues to illustrate the necessary contextualization. Using the example of the exhibition catalog Freud's Lost Neighbours, designed by Walter Pamminger, this paper examines a mode of presentation that avoids illustration. Instead, forms from the National Socialist era make it possible to understand the bureaucratic procedures for confiscating the property of Viennese Jews. According to my hypothesis, the catalogue achieves this by placing the documents on an equal footing with the text, shifting the focus to the media implications. Drawing on Sybille Krämer's reflections on medial performativity, this article examines questions of the construction of truth through the media and the visual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropotechnologies of Learning: Optimization between Experiment and Exercise in Edward Lee Thorndike's Work Over the course of the twentieth century, "human beings" have optimized themselves through external (prosthetic, pharmaceutical, biotechnical) interventions to the point of being partially transformed. "Learning", on the other hand, is often not recognized as self-optimization. At first glance, learning seems to have little to do with human experiments or the technical utopias of transhumanist actors, including their optimized cyborgs. But even "learning", as this paper will show using Edward L. Thorndike's concept of "exercise" as an example, has been about the human self-optimization of its future development (as an individual or as a society) in Western cultural history. Specifically, I will look at the practices of experimentation and how these brought an actual economic concept of "success" into the focus of analyses of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Habitus of Self-improvement. Resolution and Reflection in the Diaries of Lausanne's Philippe Secretan (1756-1826) This paper examines the hitherto little-known diaries of Philippe Secretan (1756-1826) from Lausanne. Over a period of almost half a century (1778-1826), the young tutor, later judge and politician recorded in 18 volumes not only his experiences during this revolutionary period but also his personal ambitions. Secretan's diary also documents his methods, which makes it a rich source for exploring the relationship between writing practices and self-improvement at the end of the Ancien Regime. Secretan used his diary as a medium to optimize himself. Accordingly, its analysis reveals various techniques and the diarist's specific habitus of self-improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-optimisation in the Early Middle Ages: A Useful Anachronism Most research conceives of self-optimization as a phenomenon specific to modern "western" societies. It is characterized by a strong focus on the individual, techniques of self-control, and purpose-oriented methods of pursuing a goal that is, by definition, unattainable. It thus seems like a serious anachronism to speak of "early medieval self-optimization". However, used as an analytical term, it allows us to investigate premodern discourses on competition, performance and perfection. This paper aims to explore its heuristic potential, starting from the key term "athlete" as found in the sources. Based on a wide range of texts, such as hagiography, guidebooks and historiographical testimonies, it gives us first insights into the means and goals of early medieval "self-optimization". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the middle of the 20th century, socio-economic growth rates have accelerated, globally but also in Austria. The downside is soil sealing, loss of biodiversity, steadily increasing GHG emissions, rising temperatures and melting glaciers. In this context, environmental historians speak of the “Great Acceleration” since the 1950s; a self-reinforcing process driven by economic and population growth that was fueled by constantly rising energy consumption. In Austria, this process coincides with the extreme weather events of 1947, reconstruction of a wrecked national economy and participation in the European Recovery Program (ERP)/Marshall Plan. The paper argues that a socio-ecologically informed reading of the ERP contributes to a better understanding of the “Great Acceleration.” Such an analysis, however, should not be exhausted in either the analysis of political events or the quantitative long-term perspective of social ecology, but can unfold its potential only in the combination of both approaches, as discussed on the basis of some ERP projects and contemporary nature conservation debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree diagrams have dominated the visual diagrammatic representation of kinship since the late fifteenth century. Such diagrams were often part of proofs of ancestry in late medieval and early modern Europe. But especially in the Spanish Empire existed proofs of ancestry that lacked diagrams altogether. This paper explores what reasons, circumstances and processes can be argued for the fact that certain proofs got along without any diagrammatic visualization of ancestry. Furthermore, it tries to explain what makes it necessary to represent ancestry visually through diagrams. Finally, by showing alternative ways of representing descent, it aims to question the western diagram as a logical and natural model of visualizing kinship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Polish state's centuries-long contacts with the East are to be understood as an important instrument for the legitimization of a Polish imperialcolonial self-image in the epoch of European high imperialism. In the period between 1880 and 1914, the Polish-language commercial weekly press analyzed in this paper produced a sizeable body of historical knowledge on the East. Two focal points can be identified: the origins of Lithuanian, Ukrainian and, to a lesser extent, Ottoman history, as well as the manifold Polish-Lithuanian, -Ukrainian and -Ottoman historical relations. These two bodies of knowledge have contributed to the construction of the East as an inferior other vis-á-vis Poland, as well as a feature of Polish claims to be an imperial-colonial power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Established in 1886, the Royal Settlement Commission sought to settle German colonists, who came from inside of the empire and abroad, in Prussia's eastern provinces in order to decrease the relative Polish share of the population. This paper focuses on the importance of subdividing the settlers regarding their different regional origins. Based on official records, the paper demonstrates that the project of "inner colonization" was not determined to evoke a specific German identity. It also shows that negative stereotypes usually thought to be exclusively anti-Slavic can also be found in debates about German remigrants fromRussia. In conclusion, Prussian settler villages were more like regional "salad bowls" than national "melting pots." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses on the role of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in decision making processes which led to the foundation of a new university in Klagenfurt, Austria, in 1970. As Austria's educational policy and planning started to rely on the expertise of social scientists in the 1960s, studies of OECD experts on the future demand for graduates from certain disciplines influenced the decision of the Austrian Ministry of Education to establish a university for educational sciences (Hochschule für Bildungswissenschaften) in Klagenfurt. The OECD also helped to organise a conference in 1969 in order to facilitate the discussion of a draft concept for the envisaged university with international experts and hence became directly involved in the founding of the university. The findings in this paper are based on research in the Austrian State Archives in Vienna, the Carinthian State Archives in Klagenfurt and the University Archives in Klagenfurt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses ancient sources about the fall of the city of Sybaris. Sybaris' downfall is commonly attributed to luxury and transgression against the divine order, and the representation of the sybaritic past has some similarities to the platonic myth of Atlantis. The paper shows that the discourses of decadence and luxury had its origins in Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As "strangers" in a new land, Jewish refugees from National Socialism had experienced, what has been described as "everyday otherness" upon their arrival in Australia. This paper analyses refugees' memories of everyday-life situations to demonstrate the dynamics of self-identities and the diverse and complex ways, encounters had impacted upon their social relations and their identity formation in Australia. Located at the intersection of urban studies and the history of migration, it draws upon qualitative, biographical approaches based on the refugees' memories of their early years after their arrival to pin down experiences of encounter. Memories on their encounter experiences offer a reflective judgment of the meaning of their experiences. They show, how refugees recalled having experienced "everyday otherness" upon their arrival, a process that, as this paper argues, sustainably affected success or failure of their transition from being a "stranger" in the contact phase towards their acculturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While women's agency in the context of early modern diplomacy have recently come into focus, little attention has been paid to the fact that they were also involved in the system of European status competition. Using examples from Vienna and Rome, the paper shows that diplomatic ceremonial was by no means a 'male affair', as it has long been perceived. Rather, the wives of the House of Habsburg were an integral part of diplomatic ceremonial, as were the wives of ambassadors of other European rulers, with their own audiences and representative tasks. Subsequently, it will be discussed how these audiences were also used for the symbolic communication of power relations. This was based on the fact that ambassadors and ambassadresses as a couple not only embodied the sending ruler but also the dynasty and thus the ruling couple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the historiography, older women in post-war West Germany have predominantly been depicted as passive, as embodiments of a contaminated past and hindrances to cultural change. This paper challenges these stereotypical narratives by investigating quantitative and qualitative social data from the Bonn Longitudinal Study of Aging (BOLSA) in the framework of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social inequality. The results of our correspondence analysis show that women aged over sixty led more active lifestyles than commonly assumed. They also compensated for their lower economic and cultural capital by investing in higher social and symbolic capital. This was particularly pronounced in the case of unmarried elderly women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into youth violence and racism around 1989 / 90 has drawn primarily on sources of the MfS, police files, oral history interviews, and press coverage. This paper presents the Saxonian Longitudinal Study (SLS), a panel survey that began in the GDR in 1987 and is ongoing. It discusses the potential of secondary analysis to explore the relationship between transformation, racism, and nationalism in the longue durée of 1989 / 90. Social science data can be used to write a history of everyday racism during the upheaval and transformation in East Germany. The limits and possibilities of this history will be discussed in order to show that studies that did not focus on racism can assist when inquiring into the opinions and attitudes of the supposed political center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper uses the COVID-19 pandemic to reflect on the relationship between governance and solidarity. It considers how a social model based on self-regulating individuals has been complemented by a new form of state dirigisme reliant on evocations of solidarity. However, this configuration may be approaching the limits of its viability. Given that governance relies on the robust internalization and execution of both care and control and on an ethos of renunciation, especially among the middle and upper classes, the paper proposes the need for analyses that better incorporate concepts of social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing up under National Socialist rule, "aryan" youth kept scopes of actions to shape their own daily routines in line with or contrary to the restrictive and indoctrinative limitations set by the regime and especially the Hitler Youth. This paper investigates three biographical examples of Austrian youth and shows the lingering possibility for the young to either fully embrace the (new) system or to evade (parts of) the ideal behavior as dictated by the Nazi regime. Examining motives and frames of orientation that shaped individual actions, the paper analyses reports of the individuals' private lives as well as their experiences in the Hitler Youth Organization and the School system. Based on the diaries of one girl and two boys, it thus highlights motivational frames from a troubled love life, over catholic-bourgeois environment up to total indoctrination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ruminating on soaps, perfumes and shampoo, the paper examines the olfactory notion of political, social and gender orders in socialist Poland. The smellscape of cosmetics not only provides insight into cultural practices of everyday life but also serves as an indicator of changing political and economic regimes. Sniffing through various cosmetic products under state socialism in Poland, the paper aims at tracking down what actually was in the air? Focusing on the cosmetic sector, the contribution traces desires and projections, anticipation and contempt, self-perception and 'othering', triggered by certain odours. Drawing on narrative interviews, discussions in social media, articles in women's magazines and the history of cosmetic industry in the Polish People's Republic, the article focuses on smell-encounters and odour-images under state socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A research project conducted in 2014 and presented on perspective and deconstruction of the imperial eye in German colonial photography from Togo concludes that images from the German colonial period carry different forms of interpretation. Their categorization shows how some images served colonial propaganda, while others refer to the missionary "Kulturaufgabe" (cultural task). Still others have social aspects, such as images of memory. Thus, colonial images circulate in different social spaces depending on how they are perceived in Togo. This paper aims to show how people in Togolese society deal with these images today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the historiography, older women in post-war West Germany have predominantly been depicted as passive, as embodiments of a contaminated past and hindrances to cultural change. This paper challenges these stereotypical narratives by investigating quantitative and qualitative social data from the Bonn Longitudinal Study of Aging (BOLSA) in the framework of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social inequality. The results of our correspondence analysis show that women aged over sixty led more active lifestyles than commonly assumed. They also compensated for their lower economic and cultural capital by investing in higher social and symbolic capital. This was particularly pronounced in the case of unmarried elderly women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into youth violence and racism around 1989 / 90 has drawn primarily on sources of the MfS, police files, oral history interviews, and press coverage. This paper presents the Saxonian Longitudinal Study (SLS), a panel survey that began in the GDR in 1987 and is ongoing. It discusses the potential of secondary analysis to explore the relationship between transformation, racism, and nationalism in the longue durée of 1989 / 90. Social science data can be used to write a history of everyday racism during the upheaval and transformation in East Germany. The limits and possibilities of this history will be discussed in order to show that studies that did not focus on racism can assist when inquiring into the opinions and attitudes of the supposed political center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a broad concept of wealth as a tool for analysis, this paper examines the wills of the writers Anna Louisa Karsch (1722–1791) and Caroline Luise von Klencke (c. 1750–1802), the grandmother and mother of Helmina von Chézy (1783–1856). It aims at determining how material and immaterial goods were transferred between women writers around 1800, what attributions and uses were thereby produced, and how persons were placed or placed themselves in the process. By using a gender-historical approach, it explores which assets were bequeathed in wills and what could be transported in testaments through and beyond material assets. In this way, a variety of intergenerational testamentary economies and a testamentary practice of (im)material (self-)positioning will be revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Musiktherapeutische Umschau is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Focusing on letters and diaries, this article examines how contemporaries tried to make sense of changes that occurred in the course of the "Austrian revolution" around 1918. These changes were often perceived of as revolutionary and related to aspects specific to categories such as gender, age and class. We examine different forms of possible participation in said revolutionary context, focusing on the topics of care, protest movements, the right to vote and (gainful) work. Women, men and children of different social backgrounds and political convictions described these years as a period of disorder, bearing in themselves previously unimaginable challenges but also opportunities. Personal papers show that the "Austrian Revolution" not only had dimensions of state politics, but also had an impact on the individual level [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of archival material produced by state authorities in charge of internal security and contemporary local newspapers this paper focuses on events taking place in Austria during the "Austrian revolution" (Otto Bauer) outside its urban centers. It reconstructs local actors, their political views and aims and asks for potentials of profound social change towards socialisms, workers' councils and a soviet republic. The author shows that the dissolution of the monarchy created a void which was filled by various "councils" of workers, citizens or peasants which mainly stepped in in order to uphold local internal security and food supply. Plans for further social transformation following the model of the Bavarian and the Hungarian Soviet Republics only emerged if members of political organizations like the Communist Party of Austria became involved in local unrest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the National Socialists came to power, the Gestapo gained access to the card files of the Prussian Secret Police. The Nazis' Secret State Police quickly recognized the potential of such repositories of knowledge for the regime's mission to realize the "Volksgemeinschaft." In the following years, it massively expanded its card indexes and developed them into a central resource for its relentless work, meticulously recording its brutal efforts to implement the National Socialist's vision of a social order. This paper reconstructs the Gestapo's doing of the 'Volksgemeinschaft' and emphasizes the complex dynamics of this process by digitally analyzing the card index of the Gestapo's Osnabrück branch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After World War II and the terror of national socialism, many countries were confronted with reorganising politics and societies, reestablishing democracy and humanitarianism as well as rebuilding free and diverse educational landscapes. In West Germany and Austria visions of a democratic, humanistic reeducated societywere projected into the foundation and building of universities. Inspired by the Anglo-Saxon traditions of campus-universities new spatial concepts and architectural languages were developed that followed social ideals of free and equal communication, respecting social individuality and diverse scientific communities. This paper not only reconstructs the history of founding universities in Linz, but also discusses their campus concepts and modern architectural formations as manifestations of political and educational ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses the question why the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire did not fall in the seventh and eighth centuries, although it was exposed to similar threats and structural problems as the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. To explain this phenomenon, the arguments that John Haldon put forward several years ago are taken up and supplemented by a further aspect that seems to have played a relevant role: apparently, a new definition of Roman identity (Romanness) had been developed in the East between the late fifth and the late sixth centuries. It caused the Eastern Roman population to remain loyal to the emperors during the crucial period of the seventh and eighth centuries and was able to face the challenges despite the heaviest burdens it was confronted with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is the debate on the war memorial established in 1967 in Silbertal/Vorarlberg as well as the changes concerning the commemoration within the village resulting therefrom. Due to a media report, it was revealed that Josef Vallaster, listed as a "soldier killed in action" on the memorial, had been involved in the foundation and operation of the killing facility Hartheim and had also held a key position within "Aktion Reinhardt". The paper describes the developments of the debate lasting from 2007 until 2010, analyses the role of municipality, regional politics, media and the initiative "Geschichtswerkstatt" and deals with the consequences of the commemoration's new contextualisation in Silbertal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to an estimate from the 1970s, during the boom years after the Second World War, 10,000 to 15,000 children of foreign workers lived secretly in Switzerland because their parents had no right to family reunification due to their seasonal status. As a result, many of these children stayed in hiding in Switzerland, sometimes for several months, often for several years. The clandestine character of this situation is reflected in the almost complete absence of these children in the historical record. The paper argues that a historical reappraisal of the history of the hidden children requires a multiperspective approach, drawing on a variety of source genres and sources. Three approaches are presented: an approach that focuses on sources from popular culture in order to highlight the gender-historical dimensions of the topic;a second one that looks at the mobilisation of civil society in terms of solidarity and lobbying; and a third that examines political discourses between national and international agenda-setting. The approaches reveal that the story of the hidden children is able to challenge long-held certainties of post-war history at the intersection of gender and social history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates some of the major themes that emerged from acts of remembering suffragists across Britain and Ireland, focusing especially on the English “Vote100” and Irish “Vo´ta´il100” commemorations. It pays particular attention to the memory of the small number of patriotic militant suffragists who at times struggled to reconcile competing nationalist and feminist goals. This was especially apparent when nationalist feeling was high, for example, in wartime. The article traces how far these tensions are reflected in centennial suffrage commemorations. Through examining major themes emerging from these acts of remembering, it seeks to understand why those memories are considered relevant in the early twenty-first century. The paper finds that memories of the English and the Irish suffrage campaigns have been used to address concerns shared by feminists in both states today, including the under-representation of women in national politics. However, it also finds that twenty-first century memorials have been harnessed to address issues of specifically national concern, such as the efficacy of feminist militancy or ‘terrorism’ in England, and the pro-abortion movement in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the new language of "scientific colonialism" emerged and was shaped in a transnational communicative space by the members of a European colonial community. In this article, I explore key moments of this process that I call the "scientization of colonialism" leading to both the establishment of the colonial as object of scientific knowledge and administrative regulation. The paper investigates in a first section the formation of "scientization" as a cultural code through international practices and institutions highlighting in the second and third section the establishment of an educational landscape and the construction of hybrid and interdisciplinary knowledge fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonial Germany erected numerous monuments during (but especially in the wake of) its short period of expansion into Africa, Asia, and Oceania. When the Treaty of Versailles abruptly ended this period, these monuments, among which one commemorated the plenipotentiary Clemens Baron von Ketteler (1853–1900), who had fallen by the hands of the so-called 'Boxers' during the war in China, were left behind in the former colonies, or – in this case – in a so-called 'half-colony'. After a heyday of colonial revivalism in the 1920s and 1930s, they were mostly understood as forgotten 'remains' and commonly disappeared from the Eurocentric narratives of German Colonialism. However, this perspective undermines their constant entanglements with local as well as trans-national histories. The history of China's Ketteler-monument is one of power, appropriation, and silencing, with multiple meanings and understandings. Therefore, the paper argues that the current perspectives on the former Ketteler-monument, as presented in academic research so far, should be expanded by broadening the time frame and following the history of the monument up until today, by consulting Chinese sources and by incorporating its 'after-' and 'social-life' into the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nazis heavily propagated wine consumption during the mid-1930s. Their aim was to transform it into a Volksgetränk ("people's drink"). The paper argues that the promotion of wine primarily served ideological and political purposes by linking it to the idea of the Volksgemeinschaft (people's community). Nationwide wine festivals were held which celebrated the coming together of peasants and city-dwellers. Volksgemeinschaft was performed through newly invented rituals involving the consumption of wine. The festivals are an example of how the Nazis used alcohol as a means of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the first decade post-World-War-II the Austrian policy on denazification changed from punishment and exclusion to reintegration of former National Socialists. In the same timeframe the Austrian victim theory ("Opferthese") underwent a universalization, aiming to integrate former National Socialists. Shifting patterns of political and public discourses on denazification were central in this transformation, whose repercussions can be seen in the development of statements given by former National Socialists on the matter during 1945-57. This paper intends to identify discursive shifts in the self-presentation of former National Socialists as shown in informal letters to Austrian Government and in statements in court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the portrayal of the former SS physician Dr. Peter Hofer in Eugen Kogon's historical bestseller "Der SS-Staat" first published in 1946. The book determined the West German perspective on the concentration camp system and the SS personnel operating there for nearly seven decades. It is also the basis for a kind of mystification and glorification of the austrian Peter Hofer being a "white raven" among the black ravens of the camp SS. The paper will show that Hofer was under no circumstances an opponent of National Socialism but an early and active member of the Nazi party. Furthermore, the article will demonstrate that Kogon was not the close observer and precise chronicler, he did consider himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Homeric epics, man's encounter with immortals strikes the human senses. Both, the human and the divine body are at stake. Focusing on the goddess Athena, this paper analyses the sensory regimes of the human perception of the gods. Whenever a divinity appears, the human body is temporarily but strongly affected. The senses are altered, and this alteration is precisely what makes the god or goddess recognisable as such. With Athena, we explore the divine body and its perception. In a scene where she undresses and then arms herself with the aegis, the poet stages a gendered feminine body. This body changes from a state of non-visibility (as it would be dangerous to see it) to a state of hyperbolic visibility, characteristic of the gods' presence on the battlefield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The establishment of the South Seas Development Company in 1921 quickly transformed the Northern Mariana Islands, ruled by a Japanese League of Nations mandate after World War I, into the Japanese empire's next 'sugar islands' (following on from the colonization of Taiwan). In previous research, connections between the Company and various Japanese colonial authorities, including the South Seas Government and the government-sponsored Oriental Development Company, have been the focus of analyses of the development of the sugar industry under Japanese rule. However, little attention has been paid to the indigenous Chamorro people who were forced out from their homes, or to the Okinawan people who constituted the primary labour force of the sugar plantations and who resisted the Company. Instead of seeing the Company-led development of the sugar industry as an example of Japan's expanding colonial powers, this article argues that the tensions and conflicts between the Company and the Chamorro and Okinawan peoples were part of the process by which the industry developed. By providing the perspective of 'the excluded', this paper aims for a more impartial and comprehensive description of the history of the sugar industry in Japan's Northern Mariana Islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volkswagen's success has generated both admiration and criticism. As such, the enterprise shines a light on the Federal Republic of Germany's global position as an export nation. By examining the company's presence in the USA and Mexico and its sustained efforts to become a leading global automaker since the early 1990s, the paper asks to what extent Volkswagen's international conduct has been shaped by the norms of self-restraint and moderation that define Germany's diplomatic style. That an economic actor like Volkswagen repeatedly diverged from these official diplomatic codes by pursuing its interests and provoking conflict underlines the importance of economic power in shaping Germany's image abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)