Search

Copyright of Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift is the property of De Gruyter 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 article introduces the topics of the January 2015 issue of the social history periodical "Geschichte und Gesellschaft" with a focus on the use of counterworlds as a research tool with case studies including the Kurt and Erna Kretschmann environmental protection center in East Germany, encounters between clergy and liberals in late 19th-century Poland, and the influence of idealized Native American values on the Protestant church in West Germany during the 1960s and 1970s.

Copyright of Annee Sociologique is the property of Presses Universitaires de France 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.)

On 3 October 1990, the National People's Army (NVA) of the German Democratic Republic, in which about 2.5 million East German citizens served their country, was dissolved. Its personnel either was removed from military service, placed into early retirement, or integrated into the Bundeswehr after a two-year selection and examination process. Since then, the NVA has turned into an object of history with no immediate significance for contemporary German society—despite efforts of former NVA officers to change the official interpretation of 1989-1990. This article examines the processes of remembering and forgetting with regard to East Germany's military heritage since 1990, contrasting the Bundeswehr's politics of memory and “army of unity” ethos not only with the former NVA soldiers' vision of the past, but also with the East German population's general attitude towards their former armed forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the meaning of death in the military and the way society perceives its occurrence. The soldier's death and the martyr's death were associated and idealized from national and religious points of view. The German Bundeswehr's participation in international peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions is fully accepted by them. At the same time, the political and military elites feel that Germany has to more clearly define the reasons and the modalities of the Bundeswehr's international engagements. Many of the elite still tend to consider the German public to be casualty averse, notwithstanding evidence to the contrary.