Download or read book Germany 1945 1990 written by J?rgen Weber and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers lively description and convincing interpretation of the most significant events, cruces and ongoing themes in German history from the end of the Second World War up to the present. The chronologies that accompany each chapter record the most important dates, facts and names occurring in the narrative. Jurgen Weber's text supplies the reader with a combination of vivid descriptive history, easily absorbed chronology, and a reliable reference work for the parallel lives of the two Germanies, a product of the Cold War. Weber describes in a clear and reader-friendly manner the history of Germany since 1945. The narrative begins with the period of the allied occupation and progresses through the diverse developments in East and West Germany up to the Federal Republic of today. The most important events, cruces and ongoing themes of the last fifty years are not only succinctly and vividly presented and interpreted, they are also placed in the context of international political developments. Each chapter is accompanied by a chronology featuring the most significant dates and facts relating to the period it covers. The last chapter gives a summary of what happened after 1990 and on present and future political problems of German reunification.
Download or read book The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War 1945 1990 written by Detlef Junker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-17 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Death in East Germany 1945 1990 written by Felix Robin Schulz and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the first historical study of East Germany‘s sepulchral culture, this book explores the complex cultural responses to death since the Second World War. Topics include the interrelated areas of the organization and municipalization of the undertaking industry; the steps taken towards a socialist cemetery culture such as issues of design, spatial layout, and commemorative practices; the propagation of cremation as a means of disposal; the wide-spread introduction of anonymous communal areas for the internment of urns; and the emergence of socialist and secular funeral rituals. The author analyses the manifold changes to the system of the disposal of the dead in East Germany—a society that not only had to negotiate the upheaval of military defeat but also urbanization, secularization, a communist regime, and a planned economy. Stressing a comparative approach, the book reveals surprising similarities to the development of Western countries but also highlights the intricate local variations within the GDR and sheds more light on the East German state and its society.
Download or read book France and the German Question 1945 1990 written by Frédéric Bozo and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-07-12 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the victors were unable to agree on Germany’s fate, and the separation of the country—the result of the nascent Cold War—emerged as a de facto, if provisional, settlement. Yet East and West Germany would exist apart for half a century, making the "German question" a central foreign policy issue—and given the war-torn history between the two countries, this was felt no more keenly than in France. Drawing on the most recent historiography and previously untapped archival sources, this volume shows how France’s approach to the German question was, for the duration of the Cold War, both more constructive and consequential than has been previously acknowledged.
Download or read book Germany 1945 1990 written by J?rgen Weber and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers lively description and convincing interpretation of the most significant events, cruces and ongoing themes in German history from the end of the Second World War up to the present. The chronologies that accompany each chapter record the most important dates, facts and names occurring in the narrative. Jurgen Weber's text supplies the reader with a combination of vivid descriptive history, easily absorbed chronology, and a reliable reference work for the parallel lives of the two Germanies, a product of the Cold War. Weber describes in a clear and reader-friendly manner the history of Germany since 1945. The narrative begins with the period of the allied occupation and progresses through the diverse developments in East and West Germany up to the Federal Republic of today. The most important events, cruces and ongoing themes of the last fifty years are not only succinctly and vividly presented and interpreted, they are also placed in the context of international political developments. Each chapter is accompanied by a chronology featuring the most significant dates and facts relating to the period it covers. The last chapter gives a summary of what happened after 1990 and on present and future political problems of German reunification.
Download or read book Red Prometheus written by Dolores L. Augustine and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This analysis of the relationship between science and totalitarian rule in one of the most technically advanced countries in the East bloc examines professional autonomy under dictatorship and the place of technology in Communist ideology. In Cold War-era East Germany, the German tradition of science-based technology merged with a socialist system that made technological progress central to its ideology. Technology became an important part of East German socialist identity--crucial to how Communists saw their system and how citizens saw their state. In Red Prometheus, Dolores Augustine examines the relationship between a dictatorial system and the scientific and engineering communities in East Germany from the end of the Second World War through the 1980s. Drawing on newly opened archives and extensive interviews, Augustine looks in detail at individual scientists' interactions with the East German system, examining the effectiveness of their resistance against the party's totalitarian impulses. She explains why many German scientists and engineers who were deported to the Soviet Union after World War II returned to East Germany rather than defecting to the capitalist West, traces scientists' attempts to hold on to some aspects of professional autonomy, and describes challenges to their professional identity on the factory floor. Augustine examines the quality of science and technology produced under Communist rule, looking at failed research projects and clashing cultures of innovation. She looks at technological myth-building in science fiction and propaganda. She explores individual career strategies, including the role played by gender in high-tech professions, and the ways that both enterprises and individuals responded to increasing state and party control of research during the 1980s. We cannot understand the economic choices made by East Germany, Augustine argues, unless we understand the cultural values reflected in the East German belief in technology as indispensable to progress and industrial development.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic 1945 1990 written by J. M. Dennis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book investigates communist rule in East Germany from its establishment as a sphere of Soviet influence after World War II to its rapid collapse after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Using newly available archive material, the early chapters trace the emergence of the GDR out of the Soviet zone of occupation. Later chapters cover the dramatic episodes of the 1953 uprising against Soviet dominance and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The subsequent stabilisation of the GDR and the establishment of an uneasy compromise between the ruling elites and the population in the later 1960s and 1970s are explained with reference to a range of internal social, economic and political factors. The disintegration of the regime in 1989 is explained in the light of: The chronic weakness of Gorbachev's Soviet Union. The bravery of the protestors. The enduring appeal of West Germany's social market economy. Political pluralism. This clear and comprehensive survey marshals secondary and original primary sources in order to give a unique insight into the GDR's struggles and achievements.
Download or read book A People s Music written by Helma Kaldewey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the history of jazz over the complete lifespan of East Germany, from 1945 to 1990, for the first time.
Download or read book The History of the Stasi written by Jens Gieseke and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A well-balanced and detailed look at the East German Ministry for State Security, the secret police force more commonly known as the Stasi. “This is an excellent book, full of careful, balanced judgements and a wealth of concisely-communicated knowledge. It is also well written. Indeed, it is the best book yet published on the MfS.”—German History The Stasi stood for Stalinist oppression and all-encompassing surveillance. The “shield and sword of the party,” it secured the rule of the Communist Party for more than forty years, and by the 1980s it had become the largest secret-police apparatus in the world, per capita. Jens Gieseke tells the story of the Stasi, a feared secret-police force and a highly professional intelligence service. He inquires into the mechanisms of dictatorship and the day-to-day effects of surveillance and suspicion. Masterful and thorough at once, he takes the reader through this dark chapter of German postwar history, supplying key information on perpetrators, informers, and victims. In an assessment of post-communist memory politics, he critically discusses the consequences of opening the files and the outcomes of the Stasi debate in reunified Germany. A major guide for research on communist secret-police forces, this book is considered the standard reference work on the Stasi.
Download or read book Tailoring Truth written by Jon Berndt Olsen and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-06 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By looking at state-sponsored memory projects, such as memorials, commemorations, and historical museums, this book reveals that the East German communist regime obsessively monitored and attempted to control public representations of the past to legitimize its rule. It demonstrates that the regime’s approach to memory politics was not stagnant, but rather evolved over time to meet different demands and potential threats to its legitimacy. Ultimately the party found it increasingly difficult to control the public portrayal of the past, and some dissidents were able to turn the party’s memory politics against the state to challenge its claims of moral authority.
Download or read book One Sound Two Worlds written by Michael Rauhut and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all of its apparent simplicity—a few chords, twelve bars, and a supposedly straightforward American character—blues music is a complex phenomenon with cultural significance that has varied greatly across different historical contexts. One Sound, Two Worlds examines the development of the blues in East and West Germany, demonstrating the multiple ways social and political conditions can shape the meaning of music. Based on new archival research and conversations with key figures, this comparative study provides a cultural, historical, and musicological account of the blues and the impact of the genre not only in the two Germanys, but also in debates about the history of globalization.
Download or read book American Military Communities in West Germany written by John W. Lemza and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Constructing Socialism written by Raymond G. Stokes and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trabant cars carried many East Germans westward after the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. The car's 1950s design, obvious environmental incorrectness and all-plastic body became a symbol of the technological limitations of East German communism. But as Raymond G. Stokes points out in this text, eastern Germany in 1945 was one of the most highly developed, technologically sophisticated industrial areas in the world. Despite the evident failings of its technology by the late 1980s, the German Democratic Republic maintained advanced technological capability in selected areas. If the system itself was fundamentally flawed, what explains successes under the very same system? Why could the successes not be repeated in other areas? And if examples of success are so isolated, how did East Germany last as long as it did?
Download or read book Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe 1945 1990 written by Frédéric Bozo and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the visions of the end of the Cold War that have been put forth since its inception until its actual ending, this volume brings to the fore the reflections, programmes, and strategies that were intended to call into question the bipolar system and replace it with alternative approaches or concepts. These visions were associated not only with prominent individuals, organized groups and civil societies, but were also connected to specific historical processes or events. They ranged from actual, thoroughly conceived programmes, to more blurred, utopian aspirations -- or simply the belief that the Cold War had already, in effect, come to an end. Such visions reveal much about the contexts in which they were developed and shed light on crucial moments and phases of the Cold War.
Download or read book The Bonn Republic written by Anthony James Nicholls and published by Pearson. This book was released on 1997 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an authoritative account, by one of Britain's leading Germanists, of the political history of the West German state from its birth amid postwar devastation and defeat through to reunification after the fall of the Soviet Empire, when she was once again the leading power of continental Europe. It describes how the new Germany was brought into being by the rapidly changing political patterns of the Cold War; how it built a stable - in due course formidable - economy in the face of overwhelming odds; and how the hard-won triumph of Germany's new federal democratic vision has itself contributed to the larger vision of a federal, democratic Europe. It ends with a consideration of whether the new reunified Germany can hold to the same goals and certainties. The book is written from a firmly historical perspective, at a judicious distance from the events it explores; and the approach is via a broad analytical narrative rather than a series of thematic investigations.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic 1945 1990 written by Mike Dennis and published by Longman Publishing Group. This book was released on 2000 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book investigates communist rule in East Germany from the end of World War II to its rapid collapse after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Using newly available archival material, the early chapters trace the emergence of the GDR in 1949 from out of chrysalis of the Soviet zone of occupation. Later chapters cover the dramatic episodes of the 1953 uprising against Soviet dominance and the buildling of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The subsequent stabilization of the GDR and the establishment of an uneasy compromise between the ruling elites and the population in the later 1960s and 1970s are explained with reference to a range of internal social, economic and political factors. The disintegration of the regime in 1989, despite the comprehensive system of surveillance operated by the infamous Stasi, is explained in the light of * the chronic weakness of Gorbachev's Soviet Union * the bravery of the protestors * the enduring appeal of West Germany's social market economy and political pluralism.This clear and comprehensive survey marshals secondary and original primary sources in order to give a unique insight into the GDR's struggles and achievements.Mike Dennis is Professor of Modern History, University of Wolverhampton. His many publications include `The German Democratic Republic' (1988).
Download or read book The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War 1945 1990 written by Detlef Junker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-17 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This multi-author work reviews all aspects of German-American relations following Germany's defeat in World War II through the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany's reunification. Besides chapters on political and military relations, its broad view of German-American relations provides extensive coverage of the economic, cultural, and social contacts between the U.S. and the two German states that led to the dramatic events of 1989-90.
