New Books In German Studies

In Lutheran Theology and Contract Law in Early Modern Germany (ca. 1520-1720) (Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh, 2019), Paolo Astorri shows how the Protestant Reformation influence European law. Martin Luther and his successors led European Christianity away from medieval ideas of penance and the careful accounting that went with it toward theology of grace. Human salvation was thence justified by faith alone, and holy scripture the supreme authority. For the law, this meant that love (charity) and not complicated rules would guide jurists. For the poor, debts were to be forgiven freely, while a rich debtor could now be charged interest by his creditor. In this conversation, Paolo Astorri discusses these changes and other legal – and also political and social – consequences of the Lutheran Reformation. He also speaks about the origins of western law and remarks about other changes in it over the last few centuries. He discusses other developments in the Catholic and Protestant confessions. Dr. Astorri is a Post-Doc

The Sonderkommando--the "special squad" of enslaved Jewish laborers who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau--comprise one of the most fascinating and troubling topics within Holocaust history. As eyewitnesses to and unwilling abettors of the murder of their fellow Jews, they are the object of fierce condemnation even today. Yet it was a group of these seemingly compromised men who carried out the revolt of October 7, 1944, one of the most celebrated acts of Holocaust resistance. Testimonies of Resistance: Representations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando (Berghahn Books, 2019), edited by Nicholas Chare and Dominic Williams, assembles careful investigations into how the Sonderkommando have been represented-by themselves and by others-both during and after the Holocaust. Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion

Bowling for Communism: Urban Ingenuity at the End of East Germany (Cornell University Press, 2020) illuminates how civic life functioned in Leipzig, East Germany's second-largest city, on the eve of the 1989 revolution by exploring acts of urban ingenuity amid catastrophic urban decay. Andrew Demshuk profiles the creative activism of local communist officials who, with the help of scores of volunteers, constructed a palatial bowling alley without Berlin's knowledge or approval. In a city mired in disrepair, civic pride overcame resentment against a regime loathed for corruption, Stasi spies, and the Berlin Wall. Reconstructing such episodes through interviews and obscure archival materials, Demshuk shows how the public sphere functioned in Leipzig before the fall of communism. Hardly detached or inept, local officials worked around centralized failings to build a more humane city. And hardly disengaged, residents turned to black-market construction to patch up their surroundings. Because such urban ingenuity

In 1618, on the eve of the Thirty Years’ War, the German alchemist and physician Michael Maier published Atalanta fugiens, an intriguing and complex musical alchemical emblem book designed to engage the ear, eye, and intellect. The book unfolds as a series of fifty emblems, each of which contains an accompanying "fugue" music scored for three voices. Historians of alchemy have long understood this virtuoso work as an ambitious demonstration of the art’s literary potential and of the possibilities of the early modern printed book. Atalanta fugiens lends itself unusually well to today’s digital tools. Re-rendering Maier’s multimedia alchemical project as an enhanced online publication, Furnace and Fugue allows contemporary readers to hear, see, manipulate, and investigate Atalanta fugiens in ways that Maier perhaps imagined but that were impossible to fully realize before now. An interactive, layered digital edition provides accessibility and flexibility, presenting all the elements of the original book along w

In The Habsburgs: To Rule the World (Basic Books, 2020), Martyn Rady, Masaryk Professor of Central European History at University College London, tells the epic story of a dynasty and the world it built -- and then lost -- over nearly a millennium. From modest origins in what is to-day southern Germany and Switzerland, the Habsburgs gained control first of Austria in the 12th century and then the Holy Roman Empire in the fifteenth century. Then, in just a few decades, their possessions rapidly expanded to take in a large part of Europe, stretching from Hungary to Spain, and parts of the New World and the Far East. The Habsburgs continued to dominate Central Europe through the First World War. Historians often depict the Habsburgs as leaders of a ramshackle empire. But in this wide-ranging view of their past, Professor Rady reveals Habsburg’s enduring power, driven by the belief that they were destined to rule the world as defenders of the Roman Catholic Church, guarantors of peace, and patrons of learning. Th

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s influence over the last several decades of philosophy is undeniable, but his place in the canon has been called into question in recent years in the wake of the publication of his private journals kept throughout his life, including during his involvement with the Nazi Party. This has led to a renewal of an intense series of debates about the relationship between Heidegger’s thought and his politics, and the broader implications this relationship may have for philosophy more broadly. Diving into some of these discussions is Adam Knowles with his recent book ​Heidegger’s Fascist Affinities: A Politics of Silence (Stanford UP, 2019). Combining both philosophical and cultural analysis, the book argues that Heidegger’s philosophy of language and his interest in Greek philosophy left him open to some of the reactionary currents that were active in his own time, and that his intellectual orientations left him with an easy path into Nazism. But beyond studying Heidegger in i

In his new book, The Nazi Spy Ring in America: Hitler’s Agents, the FBI & the Case that Stirred the Nation (Georgetown University Press, 2020), Rhodri Jeffreys Jones tells the dramatic story of the Nazi spy ring in America. In the mid-1930s just as the United States was embarking on a policy of neutrality, Nazi Germany launched a program of espionage against the unwary nation. The Nazi Spy Ring in America tells the story of Hitler's attempts to interfere in American affairs by spreading anti-Semitic propaganda, stealing military technology, and mapping US defenses. This fast-paced history provides essential insight into the role of espionage in shaping American perceptions of Germany in the years leading up to US entry into World War II. Fascinating and thoroughly researched, The Nazi Spy Ring in America sheds light on a now forgotten but significant episode in the history of international relations and the development of the FBI. Using recently declassified documents, prize-winning historian Rhodri Jeffreys-

The event that is commonly labeled as the ‘Holocaust’, was one of the most horrific of the Twentieth Century. It is also one of the most popularly discussed events of both the past and the current century. And like many popular events it is filled with mis-understandings and mis-interpretations. Here to explicate and clarify this most important of events is master-historian and polymath, Professor of History Emeritus at Exeter University, Jeremy Black, CMG in his book, The Holocaust: History and Memory (Indiana University Press). The most prolific historian writing in the Anglophone world to-day, Professor Black is precisely the type of historian to bring some light and clarity to this darkest of events. Black’s book takes the reader from the 19th century to the present day, all the while endeavoring to explicate for the lay educated reader and the academic one, his take on the causation of the Holocaust. A book which without a doubt should be on the bookshelf of anyone who is seriously interested in this mos

D-Day, June 6, 1944, looms large in both popular and historical imaginations as the sin qua non, or single defining moment, of the Second World War. Though there were other d-days launched across multiple theaters throughout Europe, Africa, and the Pacific, only one endures as a potent symbol for the war in its entirety: the D-day that saw 156,000 American, British, Canadian, and allied soldiers storm the Normandy beaches and punch an irreparable hole in Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. Over the subsequent seventy-five years, novelists, memoirists, filmmakers, journalists, and historians have followed the allied combat units from the landing craft, across the obstacle-strewn sand, through the hail of bullets and shells, up the high cliffs, and on to the bocage, Pegasus Bridge, Saint-Mère-Église, and the liberation of Paris. In all these narrations, the cross-Channel assault appears as an inevitability, the success of operation OVERLORD a fait acomplis. Yet as Stephen C. Kepher reveals in COSSAC: Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick

Next year, Germany goes to the polls. For the first time in 15 years, Angela Merkel will not be a candidate for chancellor. Although a leadership election is underway inside Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, all eyes are on the CDU’s Bavarian sister party and its leader Markus Söder as her likely successor. A “shameless” self-publicist and political chameleon, Söder first rose to national prominence in 2015-17 as a conservative opponent of Merkel’s refugee policy. Yet, three years on, he has redefined himself as a Green-friendly moderate whose national popularity has soared in response to his sound pandemic management. Who is the 53-year-old Bavarian first minister and, if he does succeed Merkel next year, what should Germany’s geopolitical partners expect? In Markus Söder: The Shadow Chancellor (Droemer Knauer, 2020) Roman Deininger explains. Few people know better than Deininger, a longtime political reporter for Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich who has been stalking this wily politician for two decades. Ti

The complicated situation which led to the American entry into the First World War in 1917 is often explained from the perspective of public opinion, US domestic politics, or financial and economic opportunity. In this new book, The United States' Entry into the First World War: The Role of British and German Diplomacy (Boydell Press, 2019), by Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Oklahoma, Justin Quinn Olmstead, however, reasserts the importance of diplomats and diplomacy. Based on original research, the book provides a look at British, German, and American diplomacy in the period 1914-17. It argues that British and German diplomacy in this period followed the same patterns as had been established in the preceding decades. It goes on to consider key issues which concerned diplomats, including the international legality of Britain's economic blockade of Germany, Germany's use of unrestricted submarine warfare, peace initiatives, and Germany's attempt to manipulate in its favour the long

The Beatles’ sojourn in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg during the early 1960s is part of music legend. As Julia Sneeringer reveals in A Social History of Early Rock ‘n’ Roll in Germany: Hamburg from Burlesque to The Beatles, 1956-69 (Bloomsbury, 2018), though, this was just the most famous episode in the neighborhood’s momentous engagement with rock ‘n’ roll during that period, one of importance not just to music history but to the history of modern Germany. Located as it was outside the walls of the medieval city, St. Pauli was known for centuries as the entertainment quarter of Hamburg. The neighborhood had only recently recovered from the hardships of the postwar era when German club owners began booking English bands to play the new style of music that had just been introduced in Europe. The performances quickly proved a hit among teenage Germans, who flocked to out-of-the-way venues to watch the acts perform. As Sneeringer details, the encounters changed everyone involved, giving the musicians the cha

In 20 years of studying the Holocaust, it didn’t occurr to me that German officials might, when petitioned by German Jews or by Germans advocating for German Jews, change their minds. But it turns out that, sometimes, they did. And even when they didn’t, petitioning local, regional or national officials (often all at the same time) could delay deportations or punishments or even function as a form of resistance. Resisting Persecution: Jews and Their Petitions during the Holocaust (Berghahn Books) looks at these petitions from a variety of perspectives. As editors Thomas Kaplan and Wolf Gruner argue, this is a topic that is surprisingly undercovered. And it’s a topic rich in insight and importance. The book shows clearly that petitioning was a common practice. It shows clearly that petitions were sometimes granted. It shows clearly that petitions sometimes led to unexpected and unusual outcomes. And it shows us that studying petitions sometimes opens our eyes to new ways of understanding old topics. The book i

In his groundbreaking 500-year history entitled Germany: A Nation in its Time (Liveright, 2020), Helmut Walser Smith challenges traditional perceptions of Germany’s conflicted past, revealing a nation far more thematically complicated than many twentieth-century historians have imagined. Smith’s dramatic narrative begins with the earliest glimmers of a nation in the 1500s, when visionary mapmakers and adventuresome travelers struggled to delineate and define this embryonic nation. Contrary to widespread perception, the people who first described Germany were largely pacific in temperament, and the pernicious ideology of German nationalism would only enter into the nation’s history centuries later. Tracing the significant tension between the idea of the nation and the ideology of its nationalism, Smith shows a nation constantly reinventing itself and explains how radical nationalism ultimately turned Germany into a genocidal nation. Richly illustrated, with original maps created by the author, the book is a sw

Who owns the street? This is the question that animates The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin: Politics, Consumption, and Urban Space, 1914-1945 (Cambridge University Press) by Molly Loberg. Interwar Berliners faced this question with great hope yet devastating consequences. In Germany, the First World War and 1918 Revolution transformed the city streets into the most important media for politics and commerce. There, partisans and entrepreneurs fought for the attention of crowds with posters, illuminated advertisements, parades, traffic jams, and violence. The Nazi Party relied on how people already experienced the city to stage aggressive political theater, including the April Boycott and Kristallnacht. Observers in Germany and abroad looked to Berlin's streets to predict the future. They saw dazzling window displays that radiated optimism. They also witnessed crime waves, antisemitic rioting, and failed policing that pointed toward societal collapse. Recognizing the power of urban space, officials pursued

Marion Kaplan's riveting book, Hitler’s Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal (Yale University Press) describes the dramatic experiences of Jewish refugees as they fled Hitler’s regime and then lived in limbo in Portugal until they could reach safer havens abroad. Drawing attention not only to the social and physical upheavals these refugees experienced, Marion Kaplan also highlights their feelings as they fled their homes and histories, while having to beg strangers for kindness. Portugal’s dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, admitted the largest number of Jews fleeing westward—tens of thousands of them—but then set his secret police on those who did not move along quickly enough. Yet Portugal’s people left a lasting impression on refugees for their caring and generosity. Most refugees in Portugal showed strength and stamina as they faced unimagined challenges. An emotional history of fleeing, this book probes how specific locations touched refugees’ inner lives, including the borders they nervous

The Journal of Holocaust and Genocide Studies is turning twenty-five. One of the first academic journals focused on the study of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies, it has been one of a few journals that led the field in new directions. So it seemed appropriate to mark the moment by talking with Richard Breitman, its long-time editor. Breitman is professor emeritus at American University and the author of several books on German history and the Holocaust. We talk in the interview about the origins of the Journal, about what it means to be the editor of an academic journal, and about how the field of Holocaust studies has evolved over the years. Kelly McFall is Professor of History and Director of the Honors Program at Newman University. He’s the author of four modules in the Reacting to the Past series, including The Needs of Others: Human Rights, International Organizations and Intervention in Rwanda, 1994, published by W. W. Norton Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, I look at Eisler’s last days in England, where he found that the Oxford readership he had been promised before being sent to Dachau was taken by someone else, a paper shortage had put a stop to academic publishing, and that foreign Jews without visas were being imprisoned in a British internment camp on the Isle of Man. I also talk with astrology scholar Dr. Nicholas Campion about Eisler’s scathing criticisms of newspaper astrological columns and unpack Eisler’s final scholarly works on folklore, philology, and ethics. This episode officially concludes the story of Robert Eisler, but there will be a tenth and final episode in the near future that reflects on this project and academic podcasting as a whole after I have had time to hear some feedback. On that note, now that you have heard the story, I would love to hear what you think about it! Guests: Steven Beller (independent scholar), Nicholas Campion (Principal Lecturer in History at Bath Spa University and Director of the Sophia Centre fo

Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March of 1938, Robert Eisler wrote to Oxford asking about being appointed to the Wilde Readership in Comparative and Natural Religion, thereby gaining a way out of Nazi-controlled Europe. On the day after Hitler held a rally at the Heldenplatz in Vienna attended by 200,000 Austrian supporters, a letter came expressing regret that Oxford was unable to offer any assistance. Desperate to find an escape, Eisler wrote to friends all over Europe and America, asking for help. Finally, Gilbert Murray, Eisler’s old friend from his days with the League of Nations, stepped in and secured him the Oxford readership, which he was to have taken in October and held for three years. But on May 20th, Eisler was arrested and spent the next fifteen months in Dachau and Buchenwald, where he would see the things that inspired him to write Man into Wolf. I talk about the events of 1938 with Steven Beller and we also examine the case of a high-ranking S.S. officer who was expell

In Karl Kraus and The Discourse of Modernity (Northwestern University Press, 2020), Ari Linden analyzes Karl Kraus’s oeuvre while engaging in the conversation about modernism and modernity, which is shaped and conditioned by the already post-postmodern condition. This perspective opens up the exploration of modernist projects and allows a discussion that goes beyond a specific time-period and invites us to locate the conversation about Kraus, as well as about the modernist discourse, in the context of the present moment. In his book, Linden outlines the most salient features of Kraus’s writing and establishes an ethic and aesthetic matrix to explore the variations and renditions that the modernist projects may promote and welcome. The book specifies Kraus’s aesthetic engagement with satire, as well as with the exploration of the language limitations (if any) and with intellectual conversations, which serve as responses to political and historical events. The latter makes Linden’s project particularly relevant