The Silesian town of Bedzin lies a mere twenty-five miles from Auschwitz; through the linked ghettos of Bedzin and its neighbouring town, some 85,000 Jews passed on their way to slave labour or the gas chambers. The principal civilian administrator of Bedzin, Udo Klausa, was a happily married family man. He was also responsible for implementing Nazi policies towards the Jews in his area - inhumane processes that were the precursors of genocide. Yet he later claimed, like so many other Germans after the war, that he had 'known nothing about it'; and that he had personally tried to save a Jew before he himself managed to leave for military service. A Small Town Near Auschwitz re-creates Udo Klausa's story. Using a wealth of personal letters, memoirs, testimonies, interviews and other sources, Mary Fulbrook pieces together his role in the unfolding stigmatization and degradation of the Jews under his authoritiy, as well as the heroic attempts at resistance on the part of some of his victims. She also gives us a fascinating insight into the inner conflicts of a Nazi functionary who, throughout, considered himself a 'decent' man. And she explores the conflicting memories and evasions of his life after the war. But the book is much more than a portrayal of an individual man. Udo Klausa's case is so important because it is in many ways so typical. Behind Klausa's story is the larger story of how countless local functionaries across the Third Reich facilitated the murderous plans of a relatively small number among the Nazi elite - and of how those plans could never have been realized, on the same scale, without the diligent cooperation of these generally very ordinary administrators. As Fulbrook shows, men like Klausa 'knew' and yet mostly suppressed this knowledge, performing their day jobs without apparent recognition of their own role in the system, or any sense of personal wrongdoing or remorse - either before or after 1945. This account is no ordinary historical reconstruction. For Fulbrook did not discover Udo Klausa amongst the archives. She has known the Klausa family all her life. She had no inkling of her subject's true role in the Third Reich until a few years ago, a discovery that led directly to this inescapably personal professional history.

Product Description: Dissonant Lives is not a standard 'history of Germany' in the twentieth century, or even of the German dictatorships. It is concerned with the ways in which Germans of different ages and life stages lived through this terrible period in German history, and how they interpreted, confronted, and responded to the multiple challenges of their times...read more

Product Description: Con este libro se pretende proporcionar al lector una guía clara e informativa de los tortuosos caminos de la historia alemana, desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros días. La compleja y multidimensional historia de las tierras alemanas ha dado origen a toda una serie de debates y diferencias de interpretación; en esta obra, la profesora Fulbrook ofrece, en una síntesis precisa, una extensa gama de material histórico y explora, a la luz de las controversias académicas, las relaciones entre los factores sociales, políticos y culturales...read more

Product Description: The Berlin Wall, for many people, epitomizes the communist German Democratic Republic, founded in 1949 in the Soviet-occupied zone of post-war Germany; other central features of life in the GDR appear to be under the threat of repression by Soviet tanks and surveillance by the secret security police, the Stasi...read more

Examines the social, political, and cultural changes in Germany from medieval times to the present

Product Description: The collapse of the supposedly 'civilized' German nation into the 'barbarism' of Hitler's Third Reich has cast a long shadow over interpretations of German culture and society. In the remarkable work of Norbert Elias, himself a refugee from Nazi Germany, a deep concern with the distinctiveness of 'the Germans' is linked with an ambitious attempt to work out more general relations between broad historical processes - patterns of state formation, changing social structures - and the character of the individual self, as evidenced in changing thresholds of shame and embarrassment...read more

This accessible study traces the dramatic social, cultural and political tensions in Germany since 1918. It ranges from the self-destructive Weimar Republic, through the extremes of genocide and military aggression in the Nazi era, to the extraordinary political experimentation of division of the nation in the Cold War, culminating in the collapse of communist East Germany and unification with capitalist democratic West Germany in 1990. The first edition of this book - one of the very first to appear after the fall of the Berlin Wall, treating East and West German history in equal depth - offered a powerful interpretation of the dynamics of twentieth-century German history. It focused particularly on the role of elites, and on the implications of political dissent and opposition under changing socio-economic conditions and international circumstances. For the second edition, revisions have been made to incorporate the results of recent research, an epilogue covering the years 1990 - 2000 has been added, and the suggestions for further reading and the bibliography have been updated.

Practising historians claim that their accounts of the past are something other than fiction, myth or propaganda. Yet there are significant challenges to this view, most notably from postmodernism. In Historical Theory, a prominent historian develops a highly original argument that evaluates the diversity of approaches to history and points to a constructive way forward. Mary Fulbrook argues that all historians face key theoretical questions, and that an emphasis on the facts alone is not enough. Against postmodernism, she argures that historical narratives are not simply inventions imposed on the past, and that some answers to historical questions are more plausible or adequate than others.  Illustrated with numerous substantive examples and its focus is always on the most central theoretical issues and on real strategies for bridging the gap between the traces of the past and the interpretations of the present. Historical Theory is essential and enlightening reading for all historians and their students.

Throughout Europe longstanding ideas of what it means to be a citizen are being challenged. The sense of belonging to a nation has never been more in flux. Simultaneously, nationalistic and racist movements are gaining ground and barriers are being erected against immigration. This volume examines how concepts of citizenship have evolved in different countries and varying contexts. It explores the interconnection between ideas of the nation, modes of citizenship and the treatment of migrants. Adopting a multi-disciplinary and international approach, this collection brings together experts from several fields including political studies, history, law and sociology. By juxtaposing four European countries - Britain, France, Germany and Italy - and setting current trends against a historical background, it highlights important differences and exposes similarities in the urgent questions surrounding citizenship and the treatment of minorities in Europe today.

Product Description: This book is a clear and accessible guide to the controversial course of modern German history. A series of intellectually innovative and stimulating essays address key issues and debates, providing both chronological coverage and a thematic approach to modern German politics, economy, society, and culture...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: The two Germanies, arising from the unpromising ashes of defeated Nazi Germany, came to represent opposing models of state and society. The Federal Republic established itself as a remarkably stable democracy and successful social market economy: the German Democratic Republic developed an apparently exemplary form of 'actually existing socialism' and became a pillar of the Soviet bloc...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Constructing the German nation has been one of the most contentious issues in modern Germany, since its “belated unification” in 1871; and all the more so in the turbulent 20th century, overshadowed as it was by Hitler and the Holocaust, riven by decades of division between East and West, and ultimately faced with the dramatic challenges of unexpected reunification in 1990...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The two Germanies, arising from the unpromising ashes of defeated Nazi Germany, came to represent opposing models of state and society. The Federal Republic established itself as a remarkably stable democracy and successful social market economy; the German Democratic Republic developed an apparently exemplary form of "actually existing socialism" and became a pillar of the Soviet bloc...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

(view table of contents)

Product Description: This is a guide to the controversial course of German history. Exploring the main issues in social, economic, cultural and political history, it aims to reflect the diversity of the field. It addresses the major themes and developments in each period, from 1800 to unification in 1990, and explicitly questions long-held assumptions about patterns in German history...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Created in the Cold War the two Germanies democratic capitalist West communist East have provoked a wide range of controversies and conflicting interpretations amongst historians This book presents a clear guide to the main historical approaches and introduces key questions concerning the stages of development political dynamics socio economic and cultural profiles of the two Germanies right up to the collapse of the communist rule in 199...read more

Product Description: Con este libro se pretende proporcionar al lector una guía clara e informativa de los tortuosos caminos de la historia alemana, desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros días. La compleja y multidimensional historia de las tierras alemanas ha dado origen a toda una serie de debates y diferencias de interpretación; en esta obra, la profesora Fulbrook ofrece, en una síntesis precisa, una extensa gama de material histórico y explora, a la luz de las controversias académicas, las relaciones entre los factores sociales, políticos y culturales...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.