Search

This article analyzes the nature of ethnic Germans’ identities and nationalisms in what is now modern Slovenia from the beginning of the Third Reich in 1933 to the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. The reactions of these Germans to world and local events are examined through the prism of local German-language media and archival sources, which show that ethnic Germans at this time were conflicted by multiple identities and nationalisms: one that most strongly aligned with the German nationalism of National Socialist ideology, and one that was marked by a robust Austro-Catholic regional identity aligned with conservative Christian Austrians in neighboring Austria. This article therefore adds to an understanding of the appeal of National Socialism for and types of nationalism of ethnic Germans outside of the Third Reich, as well as the role of religion in Austrian identity formation in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Austro-fascist goal of re-Catholicizing society entailed the restoration of a highly hierarchical gender order, resulting in legal discrimination against women. This article analyzes how the two women’s organizations that existed within the Austro-fascist unity party Vaterländische Front responded to the regime’s gender policies. Both organizations, Mutterschutzwerk (headed by former journalist Mina Wolfring) and Frauenreferat (headed by Countess Franziska Starhemberg, president of the Catholic women’s organization), specifically targeted housewives and mothers on the basis of their politics of gender difference. Using three axes of inequality – class, gender and religion – as an analytical tool, the article highlights how gender and class differences were conceived and implemented within the context of a Catholic and politically authoritarian system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate about the political allegiance of Pius XII and the Vatican during the Second World War remains unresolved. As more documents become available, they enable historians, detractors and defenders alike, to develop a more nuanced view on this contentious issue. Files recently released by The National Archives1 come within this category. They reveal that during the Second World War the British government systematically intercepted, monitored, and recorded in detail the financial transactions listed in the bank statements of the main financial agencies of the State of Vatican City from 1941 to 1943. These documents provide a detailed, if occasionally incomplete, day by day and month by month record of the Vatican's sources of income, expenditure priorities, investment strategies, and movements of money throughout its global network under the difficult wartime conditions of foreign exchange controls, blocked sterling and dollar accounts, Freezing Orders, and Trading with the Enemy restrictions imposed by the belligerent parties. This article examines the light they shed on Vatican finances throughout that period and what new insights they provide into the role of Pius XII and the Vatican during the Second World War, and, in particular, into the question of where their sympathies lay throughout the duration of that conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers a report from a December 12, 2011 conference in Munich, Germany on the history of Protestantism and Catholicism in that city during the 20th century. Topics of presentations given included the performance of theatrical productions with religious themes during the Third Reich, an analysis of antisemitic caricatures in Nazi newspapers, and the relationship between national socialism and the Catholic church.