The Germans and the East
The Germans and the East

Author: Charles W. Ingrao

Publisher: Purdue University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 9781557534439

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The editors present a collection of 23 historical papers exploring relationships between "the Germans" (necessarily adopting different senses of the term for different periods or different topics) and their immediate neighbors to the East. The eras discussed range from the Middle Ages to European integration. Examples of specific topics addressed include the Teutonic order in the development of the political culture of Northeastern Europe during the Middle ages, Teutonic-Balt relations in the chronicles of the Baltic Crusades, the emergence of Polenliteratur in 18th century Germany, German colonization in the Banat and Transylvania in the 18th century, changing meanings of "German" in Habsburg Central Europe, German military occupation and culture on the Eastern Front in Word War I, interwar Poland and the problem of Polish-speaking Germans, the implementation of Nazi racial policy in occupied Poland, Austro-Czechoslovak relations and the post-war expulsion of the Germans, and narratives of the lost German East in Cold War West Germany.

Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe
Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe

Author: Tobias Grill

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-09-24

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 3110492482

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For many centuries Jews and Germans were economically and culturally of significant importance in East-Central and Eastern Europe. Since both groups had a very similar background of origin (Central Europe) and spoke languages which are related to each other (German/Yiddish), the question arises to what extent Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe share common historical developments and experiences. This volume aims to explore not only entanglements and interdependences of Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe from the late middle ages to the 20th century, but also comparative aspects of these two communities. Moreover, the perception of Jews as Germans in this region is also discussed in detail.

Orderly and Humane
Orderly and Humane

Author: R. M. Douglas

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2012-06-26

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 0300183763

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The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic). Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless. In this authoritative and objective account, historian R.M. Douglas examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the forced migrations were conceived, planned, and executed, and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The first comprehensive history of this immense manmade catastrophe, Orderly and Humane is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing." It may also be the most significant untold story of the World War II.

Germany's Empire in the East
Germany's Empire in the East

Author: David Hamlin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-07-03

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1107198194

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The collapse of political and economic order in World War One prompted Germany to turn to empire in Eastern Europe.

Becoming East German
Becoming East German

Author: Mary Fulbrook

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2013-09-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0857459759

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For roughly the first decade after the demise of the GDR, professional and popular interpretations of East German history concentrated primarily on forms of power and repression, as well as on dissent and resistance to communist rule. Socio-cultural approaches have increasingly shown that a single-minded emphasis on repression and coercion fails to address a number of important historical issues, including those related to the subjective experiences of those who lived under communist regimes. With that in mind, the essays in this volume explore significant physical and psychological aspects of life in the GDR, such as health and diet, leisure and dining, memories of the Nazi past, as well as identity, sports, and experiences of everyday humiliation. Situating the GDR within a broader historical context, they open up new ways of interpreting life behind the Iron Curtain – while providing a devastating critique of misleading mainstream scholarship, which continues to portray the GDR in the restrictive terms of totalitarian theory.

The German Myth of the East
The German Myth of the East

Author: Vejas G. Liulevicius

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-12-09

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0199605165

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An examination of the various different expressions of the distinctive German 'myth of the East' that has been such a marked feature of German culture over the last two centuries, influencing German attitudes both to Eastern Europe itself and also to Germans' own sense of identity.

Germans, Poland, and Colonial Expansion to the East
Germans, Poland, and Colonial Expansion to the East

Author: R. Nelson

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2015-11-09

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 9781349377367

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This volume presents a multifaceted study of Germany's engagement with Eastern Europe throughout the period of worldwide 'new imperialism' and expands scholarly notions of 'colonialism.'

Coming Home to Germany?
Coming Home to Germany?

Author: David Rock

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781571817181

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The end of World War II led to one of the most significant forced population transfers in history: the expulsion of over 12 million ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1950 and the subsequent emigration of another four million in the second half of the twentieth century. Although unprecedented in its magnitude, conventional wisdom has it that the integration of refugees, expellees, and Aussiedler was a largely successful process in postwar Germany. While the achievements of the integration process are acknowledged, the volume also examines the difficulties encountered by ethnic Germans in the Federal Republic and analyses the shortcomings of dealing with this particular phenomenon of mass migration and its consequences.

Occupation in the East
Occupation in the East

Author: Stephan Lehnstaedt

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2016-11-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1785333240

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Following their occupation by the Third Reich, Warsaw and Minsk became home to tens of thousands of Germans. In this exhaustive study, Stephan Lehnstaedt provides a nuanced, eye-opening portrait of the lives of these men and women, who constituted a surprisingly diverse population—including everyone from SS officers to civil servants, as well as ethnically German city residents—united in its self-conception as a “master race.” Even as they acclimated to the daily routines and tedium of life in the East, many Germans engaged in acts of shocking brutality against Poles, Belarusians, and Jews, while social conditions became increasingly conducive to systematic mass murder.

The Lost German East
The Lost German East

Author: Andrew Demshuk

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-04-30

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1107020735

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After 1945, Germany was inundated with ethnic German refugees expelled from Eastern Europe. Andrew Demshuk explores why they integrated into West German society.