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Territorial shifts after World War II entailed critical demographic changes: Germans were expelled from Elbing; Poles from the eastern territories were supposed to take their place in Elbląg. Personal and national narratives had to be created from scratch. The article explores different forms of texts and maps – memoirs, tourist guides, literature, and an exhibition – to scrutinise different city and neighbourhood narratives from German and Polish standpoints. Besides analysing the central motifs and narrative strategies that rely on an urban visualisation of memory, it rejects the popular notion of a palimpsest in favour of a decolonial perspective on urban space. Proposing a way to imagine a city beyond nation-based concepts can stimulate reconsidering hierarchic city structures.

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Copyright of Santander Art & Culture Law Review is the property of Jagiellonian University Press 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 Czytanie Literatury is the property of Czytanie Literatury 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 essay examines the recent German‐Polish limited series Der Überläufer (2020), a co‐production that shows many of the principal characteristics of German heritage aesthetics. In some regards, it functions as a pastiche of film styles reminiscent of the late 1940s and 1950s: the series employs melodrama to smooth over the differences between past and present, and by juxtaposing the wartime suffering of a German and a Pole, it converts a dark history into an agreeable, entertaining story. Der Überläufer also contributes to the development of an audiovisual language that depicts and recognizes the experiences of both Germans and Poles. This language transforms the focus of the series from trauma toward reconciliation. However, such a change borders on revisionist history since a relationship like the one depicted in the series would have been highly unlikely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dealing with the past is an essential part of transitional justice. It combines the four main pillars: the right to know, the right to justice, the right to reparation, and the guarantee of non-recurrence. Dealing with the past indicates that a significant amount of time has passed since the crime and injustice. Therefore, the problem of forgetting and modifying history deliberately or unconsciously forms the core of the instrumentalisation of dealing with the past. On the one hand, unconscious forgetting or modifying is usually the result of a non-responsible educational system (youth and adult education); on the other hand, deliberate modification of the past is driven by the desire to reach an aim which morally cannot be supported by its measures. One can observe governmental desire to modify and therefore instrumentalise history to secure the government's power, divert attention from domestic issues and thus shape national pride/patriotism which is built on a selective historical memory. This article highlights the development of German and Polish relationships in the context of reparations for World War II and a selective history spread by the German movement called 'Prussian Claims Society' that fights, using selective Nazi analogies, to reclaim former German property from Poland represented by the Polish government. The movement also wants to create a selective history to divert attention from the national separation of the population. The aim of the article is to show how Germans and Poles handle the topic of reparations for World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the confrontation in Ukraine Putin’s war, or also that of the Russian nation? Can the crimes of the Russian state be hidden in the shadows of Tolstoy or Tchaikovsky? This article distinguishes between the guilt or responsibility of individuals (criminal, political, moral); the international legal responsibility of states; and finally the political, moral, and historical responsibility of nations. In the legal or moral sense, guilt must be individualized. However, the extralegal (political, moral and historical) responsibility (not regulated by law) affects the whole nation and concerns responsibility both for the past and for the future.Nevertheless, if the nation is deemed entirely responsible for the actions of the state or of some national groups, it is not about attributing guilt to the whole nation, but about the collective recovery of the sense of humanity. Thus, suggesting the guilt of the entire nation is based on a misunderstanding. But if the responsibility does not imply guilt, neither does the lack of guilt imply the lack of responsibility. By definition, the moral and political responsibility of the nation does not take a legal (judicial) form. Other forms and instruments are applicable here. In this context such terms as regrets, forgiveness, shame, apologies, or reconciliation appear. Such actions, based on fundamental values, require political courage, wisdom, and far-sightedness. The passivity of the social environment favours the perpetrators of crimes. but does not release the other members of the nation from moral responsibility, and in particular from the obligation to distinguish good from evil. Not all Russians are guilty of crimes, but they all (whether guilty or innocent) bear some moral and political responsibility [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Progress. Journal of Young Researchers is the property of University of Gdansk / Uniwersytet Gdanskim 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 article deals with different forms of land ownership in the eastern provinces of Prussia in the three decades before the outbreak of World War One. Research in recent years has assigned a central role in the national conflicts of East Central Europe to the question of land ownership. In the Prussian case, it has focused on the "Royal Prussian Settlement Commission in the Provinces West Prussia and Posen" and reached the verdict that the state's policy of acquisition and settlement failed. This article examines the various measures used by the Prussian government and administration to restrict the liberal market for land ownership. For this purpose, three forms of ownership are distinguished (private, state and hybrid), which the state promoted in order to increase the share of German land ownership and prevent its sale to Poland. In addition, the quantitative significance of these measures is compared. The results show that, on the eve of World War One, almost one third of the area of both provinces was excluded from acquisition by potential Polish buyers. Prussian minority policy thus contributed to a considerable de-liberalization of the land market by aligning the right of ownership with ethno-national classification criteria. The end result is a complex picture of state measures, in which the settlement policy of the "Settlement Commission" is only one of several building blocks within a more comprehensive land policy and appears to have been much more successful than previously assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & 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 historic region of Bukovina, until 1918 a heavily multi-ethnic crownland of the Habsburg monarchy that was divided in 1940, is constantly being recreated in the stories and memories of its former inhabitants. Despite the dynamics of violence during the "short twentieth century," the region serves as a central and primarily positive place of identification for many groups. In this article, we explore the question of how, and under which circumstances, this site of memory was designed, focusing on the stories of German and Polish resettlers. Specifically, we compare and analyze German and Polish interviews as well as written memoirs that were created between the 1950s and 2017. These stories reveal a distinct narrative pattern, what can be called "Bukovinian tolerance." While in the early years of the Cold War this narrative still contained certain elements of Habsburg-era "Bukovinism"- a sort of regional patriotism-the construct of tolerance and multi-ethnicity was reshaped within the context of the changing political situation in Europe in the post- 1989 era and the E.U.'s integration of parts of the former Eastern bloc [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fierce national East Prussia-related conflict between Germans and Poles after the First World War basically contrasted with the prewar situation in the province. After the decision taken at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to hold a plebiscite in two governmental districts of this German province on their inhabitants’ political affiliations, the vast population there had to take a test on the basic choice of their political, and simultaneously cultural, orientation. Today, researchers agree that the plebiscite of 1920 caused irreversible damage to the multiethnic area. There is no doubt that the so-called Ostdeutscher Heimatdienst organisation strongly contributed to this. The article raises questions as to what circumstances promoted the establishment of the organisation, who its principal actors were, and how they affected the East Prussian population.

The article deals with the study of British-German relations during the period of exacerbation of territorial disputes between Germany and Poland in 1929-1931. Germany was making plans for revising the eastern borders. It sought to enlist the support of the new Labour government. Britain didn’t only approve of Germany's intention to carry out revision of the Treaty of Versailles (reparation issue, the evacuation of the Rhineland and the change in the German-Polish border), but also supported the strengthening of the political and economic situation in Germany as a whole. Assistance to Germany was advantageous for Britain. Firstly, the British support helped to improve the capacity of the purchasing power of the German market as one of the traditional markets of the English sale. Secondly, the strengthening of the position of the German cabinet meant failure of the French policy in Europe at this stage. The defeat of France in a dispute on the issue of early evacuation of the Rhineland would seriously devalue the foreign policy initiatives of Paris. Thirdly, the British government hoped that Germany will go into orbit of British political influence. The identity of the positions of the German and the British cabinets were considered as the components of British policy success not only in relations with France and Italy, but also with Czechoslovakia and Poland. Since the formation of the MacDonald’s cabinet, anti-Polish moods increased in the British course for the settlement of German-Polish relations. However, the threat of an attack on Poland by Germany was regarded by the government of Britain as unacceptable way of resolving the German-Polish conflict. Britain tried to follow the traditional foreign policy concept of “balance of power”, but the inefficiency of British policy “mediation” in European affairs was clearly shown in times of growing financial and economic crisis. The issue of the German-Polish border remained unsolved.

The forced migration of twelve million Germans was central to German memory after 1945, and reflects fundamental changes in remembering the Second World War, that is, refocusing from German victims, such as expellees, to the victims of Germany in the Holocaust. Within this discourse, 'flight and expulsion' demonstrates Germany's entangledness with her eastern neighbours and is turned into a European and transnational mnemonic discourse with the debates over a 'Centre against Expulsions' in the 2000s. This article studies 'flight and expulsion' between two mnemonic patterns, that is, the loss of the homeland against migration. After the collective imagination of a lost homeland in the east, the emerging Holocaust memory both marginalized 'flight and expulsion' in the late 1970s and introduced new patterns of commemoration. These patterns enabled a turn toward individual victimhood and the decontextualization of 'flight and expulsion' from the Second World War. The 'Centre against Expulsions' project demonstrates the coordination of the German example with other cases of forced migration and the claim for a universal commemoration of past expulsion and the condemnation of any future attempts. The case of Syrian civil-war refugees, however, reveals that such forms of decontextualization only in part transfer into humanitarian imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because dictionaries contain cultural references, they can provide insights into the stereotypical attitudes common in a nation towards other countries and ethnicities. This article investigates the image of the Prussians presented by the monolingual Polish dictionary ‘Słownik języka polskiego' (1958–1969). The author explored this topic by examining all the headwords in this dictionary listed under the following letters: A, B, C, Ć, K, Z, Ź and Ż. She then analysed all the example sentences she found that mention Prussia or the Prussians. Though the author found only limited references to these topics, the example sentences that do deal with them display a negative attitude, which is in line with the general Polish attitudes held towards Prussia and the Prussians from the Partition times to the People's Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Monatsschrift fuer Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform 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.)

This article takes the Oder region as an example to demonstrate the way in which memories of the Second World War and the postwar years are cultivated by residents of the region, and furthermore, how the place of remembrance of the Oder–Neisse line was encoded by Germans and Poles respectively. The Oder region saw an almost complete population exchange, which was a result of several migration processes. On both sides of the Oder–Neisse line, the memories of these events were manipulated politically and influenced the collective memory of the respective groups. The following text is based on the results of an Oral History project (www.pyrzany-kozaki.eu) carried out under my direction in 2011, as well as on the analysis of memoirs written by Polish new settlers in the 1950s and on reports by German refugees and expellees. These sources were the main focus of my research on the topic of ‘“Poland's Wild West” – forced migration and cultural appropriation of the Oder region 1945–1948’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the portrayal of German-Polish relations in Robert Thalheim's 2007 film Am Ende kommen Touristen. Situated within present day Oświęcim, Poland-more commonly known as Auschwitz, the historical site of Nazi perpetration-Touristen shifts viewer attention toward contemporary concerns surrounding historical memories of Auschwitz and the present day transnational encounters at the memorial site. This article discusses memory constellations as well as the intercultural and intergenerational issues depicted in the film. By showing how the past still continues to affect contemporary relationships between Germans and Poles, the film calls for continued engagement and dialogue to work through the shared past in the European present. This article furthermore discusses the status of Touristen as a 'third wave' Holocaust film that distances itself from cinematic, historical reconstruction on a visual and narrative level by rather focusing attention on the pieces of the past that continue to affect contemporary German-Polish relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims to shed light on the role of radio in state territorial conflicts during the interwar era, a topic that has hardly received serious attention from scholars. Its focus is on the use of radio in the German-Polish contest over the Upper Silesian borderland. State actors of both countries built radio stations at the border with the explicit aim of integrating the largely culturally-mixed and ‘nationally indifferent’ population of locals on both sides of the borderland into – and thereby to secure the whole region for – their nation. A ‘radio war’ thus erupted by 1927, as the two sides competed against one another in this effort, and it lasted to the very end of the interwar era. This essay focuses its analysis on the programmes of the Polish Radio Katowice as they were broadcast over and received in German Upper Silesia. It demonstrates that contrary to the views of Polish nationalists, the popularity of this radio station stemmed not so much from widespread Polish consciousness as the quality of the programmes and popularity of the performers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most important developments in the incipient Berlin Republic's memory regime has been the return of the memory of German suffering from the end and aftermath of World War II. Elite discourses about the bombing of German cities, the mass rape of German women by members of the Red Army, and, above all, the expulsion of Germans from then-Eastern Germany and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe have gained massive visibility in the last decade. Although many voices have lauded these developments as liberating, many others within Germany and especially in Poland—from where the vast majority of Germans were expelled—have reacted with fear. Yet, do these elite voices resonate with mass publics? Have these arguments had demonstrable effects on public opinion? This paper delves into these questions by looking at survey results from both countries. It finds that there has been a disjuncture between the criticisms of elites and average citizens, but that the barrage of elite criticisms leveled at German expellees and their initiatives now may be affecting mass attitudes in all cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 21 December 2007, the German–Polish border became a "Schengen" border. Passport controls and other limitations to the movement of people and goods were abolished, removing one more obstacle to European and, perhaps, German–Polish integration. Several years earlier, Poland introduced territorial and administrative changes that moved it closer institutionally to western European states. Forty-nine subnational administrative units were replaced by sixteen self-governing voivodships. This article explores the implications of this new institutional context for German–Polish border relations. It finds that, despite the expansion of the opportunity structure for greater German–Polish cross-border cooperation, interaction still tends to be among elites. The development of linkages at the societal level lags behind for several reasons, including lingering institutional impediments and cultural differences, but also the failings of political leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes contrasting notions of Heimat and Fremde, as explored cinematographically by three contemporary German filmmakers. The spatial aspect of Heimat, traditionally connected to a particular region or even neighborhood denotes the sense of belonging, whereas the temporal aspect—often associated with childhood and youth—carries the sense of longing. In the second half of the twentieth century, the concept has shifted to include identity, reflection and self-reflection, the loss of Heimat, and even multiple Heimaten. The article argues further that the notions of Heimat and Fremde are not mutually exclusive, but interdependent. Peter Lilienthal's film Ein Fremder concludes that in parts of German society the binary opposites of Heimat and Fremde are still intact. On the other hand, Peter Patzak in Adeus und Goodbye shows how Heimat and Fremde are mutually dependent and include a search for identity and individuality. In Michael Gutmann's travelogue-documentary, Familienreise, the protagonists experience aspects of Fremde and Heimatlosigkeit without ever finding Heimat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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