Journal of Contemporary History current issue

Crime, Clairvoyance and the Weimar Police

Wolffram, H. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

During the Weimar years, Germany’s police experimented with a wide range of new technologies and forensic techniques. Among the more unusual of these was so-called criminal telepathy (Kriminaltelepathie): the practice of using a telepath or clairvoyant to shed light on unsolved crimes. Placing the emergence of the criminal telepath in the context of interwar crime and occultism, and the police interest in these occult practitioners in the context of professionalization, this article maintains that the Weimar police’s brief flirtation with the occult was consistent with, rather than antagonistic to, their efforts to professionalize through science. This article also explores contemporary critiques of this practice, arguing that the bitter polemics against criminal telepathy by men such as Albert Hellwig and Albert Moll resulted from their belief that the activities of clairvoyants endangered the claims of criminalists, jurists and psychiatrists to expertise in the nascent fields of criminology and criminalistics.

Rule Rather than Exception: Bruning's Fear of Devaluation in Comparative Perspective

Straumann, T. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

For decades, historians have debated why Germany’s Chancellor Heinrich Brüning resorted to policies worsening the economic crisis in the early 1930s. Some scholars, first and foremost Knut Borchardt, have argued that for various reasons the Chancellor had no choice but to depress the economy. In particular, Borchardt has pointed out that Brüning was reluctant to devalue the currency because he feared a return of hyperinflation. Borchardt’s critics, by contrast, have rejected this argument on the grounds that Brüning’s fear of devaluation was not shared by all German policy-makers and the public in general. This article tries to make a contribution to this debate by assessing Brüning’s fear of devaluation from a comparative perspective. Narrative evidence from Britain, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland strongly suggests that Borchardt’s argument is well grounded. Across Europe, politicians and central bankers, as well as business and union leaders, were convinced that devaluation would lead to inflation and do more harm than good. The evidence also shows that, because of this widespread fear of inflation, not a single European country deliberately devalued its currency in the 1930s.

'We Must Push Eastwards!' The Challenges and Dilemmas of President Benes after Munich

Hauner, M. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

This article has been inspired by the author’s editing of E. Benes’ Memoirs 1938—45 . One of the strongest challenges for the former Czechoslovak President Benes was the relationship with the Soviet Union. Did Benes, who formed his government in exile in the West, succumb to Stalin’s will during his visit in Moscow in late 1943 or later, during the communist putsch of 1948? The author believes that Benes’ decision to push eastwards, for the sake of building a closer relationship with Soviet Russia, was formulated much earlier, as a response to the western betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938. However, Benes’ motivation in the process of rebuilding Czechoslovakia was geopolitical rather than ideological, aiming at three objectives: a common border with the USSR (which entailed the sacrifice of Subcarpathian Ruthenia); crushing Slovak autonomy and reinforcing the Czecho-Slovak link; and the transfer of non-Slavic minorities, the Sudeten Germans and Hungarians. Moscow, rather than London or Washington, seemed to have satisfied Benes’ objectives. This pragmatic dependence on Stalin led also to Benes’ unwavering acceptance of the Soviet version of the Katyn massacre.

Foibe : Nationalism, Revenge and Ideology in Venezia Giulia and Istria, 1943--5

Baracetti, G. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

This article deals with a little-known but controversial chapter of second world war history: the massacres, arrests and deportations Yugoslavs carried out against Italians in the Venezia Giulia region between 1943 and 1945. Many of the victims were thrown into natural cavities of the Carso region called foibe. It is argued that these events were neither simply the effect of an anti-fascist reprisal, nor an instance of planned ethnic cleansing against Italians. Rather, the article will explore the complex interplay of personal and collective revenge, national and ideological rivalry and policies of pre-emptive cleansing that led to mass persecution.

Refugee Town: Germans, Americans, and the Uprooted in Rural West Germany, 1945--52

Seipp, A. R. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

This article examines the experience of the small rural community of Wildflecken in the Bavarian district of Lower Franconia after the second world war. This area became an important center for those uprooted by the war, including Polish displaced persons, evacuees from German cities, and Germans who fled or were expelled from Eastern Europe. Because of its strategic location, it also attracted the interest of the US Army. The multi-faceted refugee crisis strongly influenced the development and implementation of occupation policy, while the presence of American and non-German outsiders helped to integrate ethnic German refugees into rural communities.

'This is What Growth Does': British Views of the European Economies in the Prosperous 'Golden Age' of 1951--73

O'Hara, G. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

This article attempts to deconstruct and analyse British views of the European economies during the post-war years of fast growth, low unemployment and subdued inflation. Though there had been a great deal of academic attention paid to Britons’ self-perceptions, less research has been conducted as to how they saw the most relevant ‘other’: the societies and economies on either side of the English Channel. Two case-studies are utilized here to suggest both how Britons saw themselves by reference to their near-neighbours, and to study how policy ideas moved around the international world of advice, interpretation and global governance that was emerging after the Second World War. The French and Soviet examples, so scrutinized and apparently fascinating at the time, are the main focus of the article, though other sources of inspiration — German, Scandinavian, Italian — are also suggested. The article concludes with a brief sketch of the main reasons other Europeans’ apparent ‘success’ came to seem so important. These include a national sense of ‘declinism’; the importance of international bodies such as the United Nations; and the intertwined relationship between domestic and foreign policy during the Cold War.

Politics, Culture, and Economics: Reassessing the West German Guest Worker Agreement with Yugoslavia

Shonick, K. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

In 1968 the Federal Republic of Germany signed a guest worker agreement with Yugoslavia. Within the existing historiography, this agreement has largely been described in economic terms as resulting from the economic miracle. This article complicates that perspective by arguing that in fact political and cultural rather than economic priorities were responsible for the successful conclusion of the agreement between the FRG and Yugoslavia. Specifically, it argues that in his capacity as the FRG’s Foreign Minister, Willy Brandt pushed for the guest worker agreement with Yugoslavia as a means of addressing the legacies of National Socialism and promoting peace and reconciliation in Europe. The West German-Yugoslav guest worker agreement therefore should be understood as a product of West Germany’s changing political culture and priorities during the 1960s, and as one of the FRG’s earliest successes with Ostpolitik.

Cyprus, Britain, the USA, Turkey and Greece in 1977: Critical Submission or Submissive Criticism?

Mallinson, W. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

For hundreds of years, the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been subjected to the — not always welcome — attentions of external powers, finally gaining some independence from Britain in 1960. Since then, Cyprus has been the object of three international crises, almost leading to war between NATO members Greece and Turkey. Following a Turkish invasion and occupation which continues to the present, tensions have continued, while Turkey continues to occupy over one-third of Cyprus, an EU member, while trying itself to gain entry to the organisation. Papers released by British government departments in January 2008 reveal the following: an increasingly submissive yet tetchy attitude in British foreign policy formulation vis-à-vis American pressure (mainly Kissinger) on Britain not to leave Cyprus; the question of the USA financing the British bases; British government criticism of Turkey’s perceived intransigence in finding a solution to the Cyprus conundrum; British government criticism of Turkey’s position on its continental-shelf dispute with Greece; Britain’s strong support for Turkey’s European aspirations, flying in the face of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Cyprus’ recommendations; past and future President Clerides’ seeming contentedness with the British military presence on Cyprus; and a marked difference between French and British views. The article concludes that the British government submitted to US demands and suggests that Cyprus remains a cat’s paw of big-power politics.

Review Article: Genocidal Politics -- Rethinking Crimes against Humanity in Global Perspective

Rensmann, L. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Tim Barringer, Geoff Quilley and Douglas Fordham (eds), Art and the British Empire, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2007; xx + 442pp.; {pound}60.00 hbk; ISBN 9780719073922

Potter, M. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Jack Kugelmass (ed.), Jews, Sports and the Rites of Citizenship, Urbana, IL, University of Illinois Press, 2007; viii + 232 pp.; $20.00 pbk; ISBN 0252030826 Marline Otte, Jewish Identities in German Popular Culture, 1890--1933, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006; xiv + 334 pp.; $85.00 hbk; ISBN 0521856302

Reuveni, G. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: John Turnock, Television and Consumer Culture: Britain and the Transformation of Modernity, London, I.B. Tauris, 2007; xii + 244 pp.; {pound}14.99 pbk; ISBN 9781845110796 David Bell and Joanne Hollows (eds), Historicizing Lifestyle: Mediating Taste, Consumption and Identity from the 1900s to the 1970s, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006; x + 178 pp.; {pound}45.00 hbk; ISBN 0754644413

Lunt, P. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Louise A. Jackson, Women Police: Gender, Welfare and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2006; ix + 220 pp.; {pound}50.00 hbk; ISBN 0719073901

Smith, H. L. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Thomas Burkman, Japan and the League of Nations: Empire and World Order, 1914--1938, Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2008; xv + 289 pp.; $58.00 hbk; ISBN 97808248290827

Barnhart, M. A. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: MacGregor Knox, To the Threshold of Power, 1922--33: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictatorships, volume 1, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007; xii + 448 pp.; {pound}40.00 hbk, {pound}14.99 pbk; ISBN 9780521703291 (pbk)

Reichardt, S. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Ludmilla Stern, Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920--40: From Red Square to the Left Bank, London and New York, Routledge, 2007; xi + 269 pp.; {pound}75.00 hbk; ISBN 100415360056

Sked, A. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Robert Stradling, Your Children Will Be Next: Bombing and Propaganda in the Spanish Civil War 1936--1939, Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2008; xix + 315 pp.; {pound}19.99 hbk; ISBN 9780708320952

Garcia, H. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Thomas Zeller, Driving Germany: The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930--1970, New York, Berghahn Books, 2007; 289 pp.; $85.00, {pound}50.00 pbk; ISBN 9781845453091

Closmann, C. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Robert Gildea, Olivier Wieviorka and Anette Warring (eds), Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe, Oxford and New York, Berg Publishers, 2006; x + 244 pp.; $99.95 hbk; ISBN 1845201809

Scheck, R. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Kevin P. Spicer, Hitler's Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism, DeKalb, IL, Northern Illinois University Press, 2008; xv + 369 pp.; {pound}29.95 hbk; ISBN 9780875803845

Hastings, D. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Henry Patterson and Eric Kaufmann, Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland since 1945: The Decline of the Loyal Family, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2007; xii + 269 pp.; {pound}16.99 pbk; ISBN 9780719077449

Kerr, M. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Michael S. Sherry, Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy, Chapel Hill, NC, The University of North Carolina Press, 2007; 238 pp.; {pound}20.00 hbk; ISBN 9780807831212

Narlock, J. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Angela Villani, L'Italia e l'Onu negli anni della coesistenza competitiva (1955--1968), Padova, Cedam, 2007; xxviii + 487 pp.; 42.00; ISBN 9788813272951

Tosone, L. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Eric P. Kaufmann, The Orange Order: A Contemporary History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007; xv + 373pp.; {pound}32.00 hbk; ISBN 9780199208487

Bew, J. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Kevin B. Witherspoon, Before the Eyes of the World: Mexico and the 1968 Olympic Games, DeKalb, IL, Northern Illinois University Press, 2008; xi + 212 pp.; $35.00 hbk; ISBN 9780875803883

Beck, P. J. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Jeffrey A. Engel (ed.), Local Consequences of the Global Cold War, Washington, DC, Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2007; xvii + 334 pp.; {pound}44.50 hbk; ISBN 9780804759472

Unger, C. R. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Julia von Dannenberg, The Foundations of Ostpolitik: The Making of the Moscow Treaty between West Germany and the USSR, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008; xvi + 301 pp.; {pound}55.00 hbk; ISBN 9780199228195

Niedhart, G. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT

Book Review: Julie Hemment, Empowering Women in Russia: Activism, Aid, and NGOs, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2007; xv + 188 pp.; $22.95 pbk; ISBN 9780253218919

Noonan, N. C. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:19 PDT