West Germany Under Construction

West Germany Under Construction

Author: Robert G. Moeller

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 9780472066483

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Collects important recent essays in a critical reexamination of the Federal Republic's early history


The Path to the Berlin Wall

The Path to the Berlin Wall

Author: Manfred Wilke

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1782382895

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The long path to the Berlin Wall began in 1945, when Josef Stalin instructed the Communist Party to take power in the Soviet occupation zone while the three Western allies secured their areas of influence. When Germany was split into separate states in 1949, Berlin remained divided into four sectors, with West Berlin surrounded by the GDR but lingering as a captivating showcase for Western values and goods. Following a failed Soviet attempt to expel the allies from West Berlin with a blockade in 1948–49, a second crisis ensued from 1958–61, during which the Soviet Union demanded once and for all the withdrawal of the Western powers and the transition of West Berlin to a “Free City.” Ultimately Nikita Khrushchev decided to close the border in hopes of halting the overwhelming exodus of East Germans into the West. Tracing this path from a German perspective, Manfred Wilke draws on recently published conversations between Khrushchev and Walter Ulbricht, head of the East German state, in order to reconstruct the coordination process between these two leaders and the events that led to building the Berlin Wall.


Ireland, West Germany and the New Europe, 1949-73

Ireland, West Germany and the New Europe, 1949-73

Author: Mervyn O'Driscoll

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2018-01-10

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1526126060

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This groundbreaking book is an indispensable contribution to appreciating the dilemmas facing Ireland in the ‘age of Brexit’. Encompassing an exhaustive account, it traces the relationship between Ireland and FRG by drawing on original material from both. It critiques depictions of Irish-German relations as peculiarly affable and explores the problems presented by trade, Britain, neutrality, NATO, Northern Ireland and the Cold War. The work contends the German ‘economic miracle’ was a vital stimulus for Ireland’s tardy retreat from protectionism. It maintains that Ireland’s reorientation was informed by lessons gleaned from Irish-German trade relations as well as a budding recognition of the potential offered by German industrial investment. This granted Germany weighty influence over the shape and direction of Ireland.


Gerhard Richter, Individualism, and Belonging in West Germany

Gerhard Richter, Individualism, and Belonging in West Germany

Author: Luke Smythe

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-29

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1000625214

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book reevaluates the art of Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) in relation to his efforts to achieve belonging in the face of West Germany’s increasing individualism between the 1960s and the 1990s. Richter fled East Germany in 1961 to escape the constraints of socialist collectivism. His varied and extensive output in the West attests to his greater freedom under capitalism, but also to his struggles with belonging in a highly individualised society, a problem he was far from alone in facing. The dynamic of increasing individualism has been closely examined by sociologists, but has yet to be employed as a framework for understanding broader trends in recent German art history. Rather than critique this development from a socialist perspective or experiment with new communal structures like a number of his colleagues, Richter sought and found security in traditional modes of bourgeois collectivity, like the family, religion, painting and the democratic capitalist state. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history as well as German history, culture and politics.


West Germany

West Germany

Author: Julia Sneeringer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-10-17

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 135019400X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Julia Sneeringer's book provides a concise overview of developments in the Federal Republic of Germany from the end of the Second World War and Germany's division, to the unification of East and West Germany in 1990. Within the framework of key political and economic moments, it illuminates how West Germans experienced social, economic, and cultural change across four decades. Chronologically structured and supplemented with timelines, each chapter in the book presents the major themes, events and developments occurring during the period. A focused bibliography is also included to offer guidance on further reading. Among the notable topics covered are: · The redefining of German identity after Nazism · Democratization · The explosion of consumer culture · The protest movements of 1968 · Changing gender and sexual roles · Immigration and multiculturalism · Pop culture · Environmentalism · Terrorism · The return of the right in politics West Germany in Focus is a peerless introduction to West Germany for anyone looking to understand the complexities of German history since 1945.


Selling the Economic Miracle

Selling the Economic Miracle

Author: Mark E. Spicka

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9781845452230

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Through an examination of election campaign propaganda and various public relations campaigns, reflecting new electioneering techniques borrowed from the United States, this work explores how conservative political and economic groups sought to construct and sell a political meaning of the Social Market Economy and the Economic Miracle in West Germany during the 1950s.The political meaning of economics contributed to conservative electoral success, constructed a new belief in the free market economy within West German society, and provided legitimacy and political stability for the new Federal Republic of Germany.


American Military Communities in West Germany

American Military Communities in West Germany

Author: John W. Lemza

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2016-05-16

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1476624100

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

On April 28, 1946, a small group of American wives and children arrived at the port of Bremerhaven, West Germany, the first of thousands of military family members to make the trans-Atlantic journey. They were the basis of a network of military communities--"Little Americas"--that would spread across the postwar German landscape. During a 45-year period which included some of the Cold War's tensest moments, their presence confirmed America's resolve to maintain Western democracy in the face of the Soviet threat. Drawing on archival sources and personal narratives, this book explores these enclaves of Americanism, from the U.S. government's perspective to the grassroots view of those who made their homes in Cold War Europe. These families faced many challenges in balancing their military missions with their daily lives during a period of dynamic global change. The author describes interaction in American communities that were sometimes separated, sometimes connected with their German neighbors.


Democracy under Construction

Democracy under Construction

Author: Ursula J. van Beek

Publisher: Verlag Barbara Budrich

Published: 2005-09-12

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 3847414534

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The book compares five newly emerged democracies in Europe, South East Asia, Latin America and Africa. Cutting across vastly dif¬fer¬ent historical and cultural backgrounds it tells the story of how societies come to terms with a painful past and how politics, culture and the economy intertwine in the process of creating new democratic nations.


Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany

Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany

Author: Douglas B. Klusmeyer

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2009-11-01

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 1845459695

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

German migration policy now stands at a major crossroad, caught between a fifty-year history of missed opportunities and serious new challenges. Focusing on these new challenges that German policy makers face, the authors, both internationally recognized in this field, use historical argument, theoretical analysis, and empirical evaluation to advance a more nuanced understanding of recent initiatives and the implications of these initiatives. Their approach combines both synthesis and original research in a presentation that is not only accessible to the general educated reader but also addresses the concerns of academic scholars and policy analysts. This important volume offers a comprehensive and critical examination of the history of German migration law and policy from the Federal Republic’s inception in 1949 to the present.


Utopia and Dissent in West Germany

Utopia and Dissent in West Germany

Author: Mia Lee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-22

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0429753063

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Just as Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was seeking re-election on a campaign of "no experiments," art avant-garde groups in West Germany were reviving the utopian impulse to unite art and society. Utopia and Dissent in West Germany examines these groups and their legacy. Postwar artists built international as well as intergenerational networks such as Fluxus, which was active in Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden, and Cologne, and the Situationist International based in Paris. These groups were committed to undoing the compartmentalization of everyday life and the isolation of the artist in society. And as artists recast politics to address culture and everyday life, they helped forge a path for the West German extraparliamentary left. Utopia and Dissent in West Germany traces these connections and presents a chronological map of the networks that fed into the extraparliamentary left as well as a geographical map of increasing radicalism as the locus of action shifted to West Berlin. These two maps show that in West Germany artists and their interventions in the structures of everyday life were a key starting point for challenging the postwar order.