Postmodernism And Its Impact On The Western Of The Manifold Carnage And Destruction Left By World War II

To answer the midterm essay assignment I will detail my view of the Sonderweg thesis. I will then offer my opinion on the relationship of Sonderweg within the timeframe of Imperial Germany. I will summarize the thoughts of two historians who I believe to have an impressive influence on the debate of the Sonderweg theory: Wehler and Blackbourn. My essay will include a description of German character and how it impacted the perpetuation of the Sonderweg thesis, and the role of the “elites” in doing so as well. In conclusion, I will give my impression as to the influence that Imperial Germany had on the rise of Nazism within the context of the Sonderweg thesis.

East Germany, its demise relayed through the mass media of recent history, has in popular consciousness been posited as negative, a corrupt bulwark of the last dying days of Communism in Eastern Europe, barren and silent. The other Germany to its West, its citizens free, was striding confidently ahead into the millennium. Recent cinema has sought to examine re-unification, the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin! (2003) a recent example of such an investigation into the past through cinema. In this essay I will look at the film and the narrative techniques it uses, probing whether it portrays the East German nation as positive or

While the aftermath of World War II is often referred to as one of the primary creators of deep rooted turmoil in the Middle East region, the effects of the Cold War and the United States often over-zealous battle against communism is just as much a contributor if not more. The Arab world and the Middle East region were clearly going through quite an extraordinary period throughout World War II and its conclusion, primarily with the creation of most of the states we recognize today and struggling with the continuation of colonialism. These factors set the stage for the emergence of strong nationalist sentiments and Pan-Arab movements across the Middle East. Unfortunately, and much to the detriment of the region, the leaders of these young

The following is a critique of the article “Good Times, Bad Times: Memories of The Third Reich” by Ulrich Herbert. In this critique, I will explore the themes of the article, discuss the main arguments, and address the significance of the author’s insight to the world of Nazi Germany.

In addition to the damaging consequences of the First World War with the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, certain features of Germany caused the state to be susceptible to the influence of this dangerous ideology. Along with the damage to the national ego as a result of the First World War, Germany had co-existing and conflicting highly modern strands of development forced to integrate with powerful remnants of archaic values and social structures, and had a deeply fractured parliamentary political system, and the weaknesses of this system reflected the social and political differences within the population. This shame and failure after World War I was superimposed onto a modern country which once had an advanced economy, a sophisticated state

Neorealism came to fruition as a result of classical realism. While classical realism was based on the inclinations of human nature, neorealism proposed the structural constraints determined the behavior of states in the international realm. After World War II, the call for a politically and economically integrated Europe was of utmost importance among European leaders because of the brutal human and economic cost of the war. The idea of integration came in order to maintain the balance of power in the region, specifically regarding the rise of another expansive Germany type state and to guard against the rise of the nuclear armed Soviet Union. The idea of integration started with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European

​War takes a toll on those who fight, or are affected by it, this is undeniable. Over the course of the 20th Century, within the U.S. Military and Psychiatric Community the way that this effect is identified and treated has changed many times based on the conflict and the mindset of the American public. The purpose of this report is to discuss the history of the mental effect of the trauma created by US involvement in wars within the 20th Century and the steps that were taken in those eras to predict, prepare and treat for those effects.

Anna Funder’s investigative account of the traumas experienced during the totalitarian governance of the GDR (German Democratic Republic), Stasiland, presents an historical account of life under the communist regime and behind the Berlin Wall, an historical account which manifests in the personal stories, descriptions of the remnants of the East German government. Funder presents interviews of victims of the GDR to create a tangible account of the power held by the government. She further conveys the historical importance of the former Stasi operatives to be powerful in presenting a complete depiction of East German society. However, it is also through Funder’s presentation of the former East Germany to be permeated by its history that creates her powerful portrayal of East Germany.

The Third Reich was a racially motivated killing machine that resulted in the death of six million Jews. However, the regime’s murderous campaign was a response to a set of circumstances that allowed it to obtain control over Germany. Today, the question of what circumstances ignited the Third Reich has gained attention from historians all over the world while creating a variety of possibilities. Thus, the different perspectives have caused the subject to become controversial among the devoted historians. This is especially true when considering the views of writers Daniel J. Goldhagen, Robert Gellately, Hans Mommsen, and Norman M. Naimark.

In the mid-twenties, the world was affected by a numerous amount of significant wars, but the one that I will be focusing on is known as World War 2 (WW2). WW2 started 21 years after World War 1 from 1939 to 1945. It was an extremely deadly war, one of the deadliest wars in war history to be exact. According to the textbook, Handbook for the Humanities during its six-year period the war left over seventeen million soldiers and over eighteen million civilians’ dead (Benton 289). In the book History of the second war it explains that this disaster was initiated by Adolf Hitler and his deadly plan to invade Poland so that the German people could expand and attain additional living space (Hart 3). During this time the leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler was holding Jewish men, women, and children in concentration camps in hopes to eliminate the entire “race.” Before WW2 Germany was hit hard by the great depression and was going through an economic crisis, he used the holocaust and the invasion as a justification to limit inflation. The war was between two countries broken into groups. On one side were the Axis Powers and on the other side were the Allies. The Axis powers included Japan, Germany and Italy, while the Allies included Britain, Australia, France, the Soviet Union, and China, the United States did not join the Allies until a few years later. The war was fought in Europe, Asia, Russia, and North

Peter Fritzche’s book, Germans into Nazis, contends that, “Germans became Nazis because they wanted to become Nazis and because the Nazis spoke so well to their interests and inclinations…however, voters did not back Hitler mainly because they share his hatred of the Jews…but because they departed from established political traditions in that they were identified at once with a distinctly popular form of ethnic nationalism and with the basic social reforms most Germans counted on to ensure national well-being.” (8-9) His argument rests on the notion that the Nazis had a vision for Germany that incorporated Germans into a national community, throwing off the restraints of a tired government, and propelled them towards a future that would

In Giles MacDonogh’s After the Reich, the author attempts to reshape the way that we view World War II and its subsequent aftermath in history. Once Germany is defeated in 1945, many tend to think that the end of World War II in Europe finally brought peace back to the ravaged continent. However, as MacDonogh is able to convincingly examine and prove, the end of the war was just the beginning of suffering for millions of Germans spread across Europe. In the book, he sets out to offer a comprehensive view of what happened to the German people when the tables had turned, where they now found themselves defeated and under Allied occupation. In the title, he includes “The Brutal History”, and the author is able to detail and display just how

The rise and subsequent take-over of power in Germany by Hitler and the Nazi Party in the early 1930s was the culmination and continuation not of Enlightenment thought from the 18th and 19th century but the logical conclusion of unstable and cultural conditions that pre-existed in Germany. Hitler’s Nazi Party’s clear manipulation of the weak state of the Weimar Republic through its continued failure economically and socially, plus its undermining of popular support through the signing the Treaty of Versailles all lead to the creation of a Nazi dictatorship under the cult of personality of Hitler. This clear take-over of power and subsequent destruction of any

German history is seen as a ‘painful issue for thousands of Germans and other Europeans’ . However it has interested many historians over the years into inquiring how and why Hitler came to power and how much of this was to do with the failure of parliamentary democracy in Germany. To fully ascertain to what extent these events have in common and what reasons led to the fall of democracy and rise of the Nazis, each have to be looked at individually. Also it seems beneficial, to be able to evaluate these in the relevant context, to look at the situation in Germany was in prior to 1920.

The reasons for the rise of the Nazi Dictatorship of the 1930’s and 40’s have been a topic much debated upon by historians for decades. Arguably the most prominent theory is the idea of a “Sonderweg” or special path taken by Germany that “deviates from the normal path to modernity… the British way, the first and therefore classical model.” There is ample evidence of a “Sonderweg” throughout Wilhelmine/Bismarckian Germany, from the lack of a real democracy in 1871 to attempts to repress threats through policies such as Kulturkampf and the anti-Socialist laws. There is also evidence in Weimar Germany, such as the structural weaknesses of the constitution, for example proportional representation and Article 48. There is, however, evidence