New Books In German Studies

Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War (Oxford University Press, 2016) is an important and fascinating book that not only tells the story of a remarkable woman’s life during the tumultuous years of the French Revolution and Restoration. Based on a recently discovered cache of letters between Marie von Clausewitz and her renowned husband, Carl, it also dramatically expands our understanding of the process by which Carl’s famous treatise, On War, came to be. Vanya E. Bellinger, currently a visiting professor at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, argues that Marie was a crucial foil for the development of Carl’s ideas over many years. Marie’s connections to the Prussian court (she was born into the prominent von Bruhl family) also helped to secure her husband’s often precarious position. Bellinger freely acknowledges Carl’s military genius but places Marie alongside her husband as an intellectual partner and political confidante,

In his new book, Coming of Age: Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich, 1942-1973 (Berghan Books, 2016), Martin Kalb, Assistant Professor of History at Bridgewater College examines the construction of youth culture in Munich Germany. Kalb describes constructions of Munich youth in three distinct periods, beginning with the years following the conclusion of World War II, followed by the years of economic stability following the Marshal Plan, finally ending with the protest years culminating in 1968. Overall, Kalb convincing shows how authorities used the fears of adult society effectively as a method to strengthen their control over society.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book Longing for the Good. The Relationship between Literature and Ethics in the Work of Peter Handke (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2017), Tanja Angela Kunz, a postdoc at the Humboldt University of Berlin, analyzes the work of the Austrian contemporary writer Peter Handke from a new perspective: By consulting philosophical theories about the relationship between ethics and aesthetics she achieves a new understanding of Handke’s very specific style of writing. Within this context, Kunz’s observation of different patterns of representations of the good within Handke’s work is especially interesting.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The German youth movement of the late Kaiserreich and ill-fated Weimar Republic has been a subject of controversy since its inception. The longing for community that drove the movement, and a sense of shared experience that members found on long hikes to historic sites, has been linked to everything from a revolution in conservative thought to the rise of Nazism. But how did the youth movement see history? Why did hiking become a bridge between the past and the present? What possibilities did members feel in the drumbeat of German history? Find out in our discussion with Robbert-Jan Adriaansen about his new book The Rhythm of Eternity: The German Youth Movement and the Experience of the Past, 1900-1933 (Berghahn Books, 2015). By examining the hiking reports of the youth movement, Robbert-Jan traces the development of historical thought among its members and how their experience of heritage became a vehicle to express hopes for the future. Robbert-Jan Adriaansen is an assistant professor of history at the Eras

In his new book, The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy (Harvard University Press, 2017), Steven Remy, professor of history at City University of New York, examines the Malmedy massacre which took place on December 17, 1944 and the trial that followed after the conclusion of World War II. Remy effectively demonstrates how in the decade following the trial how a network of German and American sympathizers succeeded in discrediting the trial. Remy directly looks at the accusations of torture, which the defendants and their allies alleged led to false confessions. Although these allegations were false, Remy demonstrates how amnesty advocates used them successfully to not only discredit the trial, but distorted our understanding of one of the most brutal massacres in American military history.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Associate professor of anthropology at the University of Washington Sareeta Amrute has written Encoding Race, Encoding Class: Indian IT Workers in Berlin (Duke University Press, 2016), a study of contemporary capitalism, new forms of work, and the racialized underpinnings of immaterial labor regimes. Amrute conducted research among Indian IT workers —“coders”—who were in Berlin for the short-term under Germany’s Green Card program. Instead of tech workers unmarked by race, class or gender, she introduces readers to their “double location”: as unwanted racialized immigrant and simultaneously as part of India’s globalized technoelite. Focusing equally on spaces of work and leisure, jokes circulated over email, gift sharing practices, political cartoons and advertisements, Amrute depicts a world that is constrained but not circumscribed by neoliberal logics. Madhuri Karak is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at The Graduate Center, City University of New

In his new book, The Politics of Unreason: The Frankfurt School and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism (SUNY Press, 2017) , Lars Rensmann, Professor of European Politics and Society at the University of Groningen, argues that even scholars of the Frankfurt school have often treated the theme of antisemitism with scant attention. However, as Rensmann argues, the problem of antisemitism had been a central motivating dynamic for their interdisciplinary research, from the very early years of the Institute. In this episode, we begin by discussing the general silence surrounding the Holocaust that presided in Germany into the 1990s, and how this can be understood as part of a phenomenon that Critical Theory called “secondary antisemitism.” We then circle back to explore how the Critical Theorists explained the “primary” phenomenon of antisemitism as an interplay of psychological, social-historical, and economic dynamics. As we learn from this book’s rich analyses, the insights develope

In his new book Morality and Literature: A Historical Typology (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2013)—in German: Moral und Literatur. Eine historische Typologie—Christian Kirchmeier, post doc at the University of Munich who is currently at Yale for a research stay, examines a change of different moral systems within the course of history. By looking at very many different German literary texts from different centuries he tries to find something which he calls “the historical grammar of moral judgments,” which basically means changes in morality on a structural level. Authors and works he therefore considers include Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools, Andreas Gryphius’ Leo Armenius, Walter Benjamin’s The Origin of German Tragic Drama, Johann Christoph Gottsched’s Dying Cato, Johann Gottfried Schnabel’s The Island Felsenburg, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, Friedrich Schiller’s Aesthetic Education, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Mademoiselle de Scuderi and Rob

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous.” Thus begins Guenter Lewy’s latest book, Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers (Oxford University Press, 2017), a welcome attempt to challenge the idea that all Nazi perpetrators were the same, and that they were all driven by the same bass motivations. Largely a synthesis of material previously only available in German, Lewy presents a typology of perpetrator types and dispels the idea that it was impossible for killers to walk away. He also presents arguably the most accessible analysis of the post-war justice available in English. Undoubtedly a must-read for anyone wishing to understand how and why people participate in acts of mass violence. Darren O’Byrne is a PhD student in History at Cambridge University. His dissertation, Political Civil Servants and the German Administration under Nazism, explores the dynamics of Civil Service behaviour under National Socialism, asking why senior administrators

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in western Europe over the 1970s. Observers feared Germany was becoming “ungovernable” and France was moving toward “civil war.” The source of this discontent? Nuclear power. Not weapons. Electricity. How did anti-nuclear protest become a debate about the future of society? What united farmers, housewives, hippies, and anarchists against the state? Find out in our conversation with Andrew S. Tompkins about his new book Better Active than Radioactive! Anti-Nuclear Protest in 1970s France and West Germany (Oxford University Press, 2016). By weaving government documents and police records with activist newspapers and oral history interviews, Andrew explains how a transnational network of activists emerged around the issue of nuclear power despite social divides and diverse interests inside the movement. Andrew S. Tompkins is a historian specializing in modern Europe. He is a lecturer at University of Sheffield, a former Humbolt Fellow, a

In his new book, The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial (Princeton University Press 2016), Lawrence R. Douglas, the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College examines the trial of John Demjanjuk. The Right Wrong Man examines Demjanjuk’s legal odyssey that began in 1975. Over the course of the next several decades Demjanjuk was tried twice, first in Israel where he was thought to be “Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka” only to be exonerated, owing to a case of mistaken identity. He was then tried in Munich for his actual crimes as a guard at the Sobibor death camp. The Right Wrong Man is a fascinating look at the law’s effort to bring closure to the horrific events of the Holocaust.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his new book Thieves: Stealing in Literature, Philosophy, and Myth (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2016)—in German: Diebe: Die heimliche Aneignung als Ursprungserzahlung in Literatur, Philosophie und Mythos—Andreas Gehrlach, post doc at the Humboldt University of Berlin, explores theft from a cross-cultural approach. This includes a discussion of several key German philosophers, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, Hans Blumenberg, Sigmund Freud and others. Therefore, Thieves can enable the reader to perceive German intellectual history from a completely new perspective. Since his childhood Gehrlach has been preoccupied with the topic of theft, thus turning an autobiographical aspect into this highly interesting and thought-provoking book.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, Selling under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany (Stanford University Press, 2013), Pamela Swett, Professor of History at McMaster University is the first comprehensive examination of commercial advertising in the Third Reich. Swett argues that advertisements played a much greater role in normalizing the Third Reich then previously thought. She highlights how advertisers at all levels enjoyed a great deal of freedom to sell their products, while using the National Socialist message not because they were forced, but because consumers were attuned to it. Swett’s book is a fascinating look at the advertising and consumer industries during the Third Reich.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the defining characteristics of the Nazi regime that ruled Germany from 1933 until 1945 was its attention to presentation as a means of winning support. In Marketing the Third Reich: Persuasion, Packaging and Propaganda (Routledge, 2017), Nicholas O’Shaughnessy details the centrality of political marketing to how the Nazis governed Germany, showing how vital it was to its success. As he explains, for all of the fear generated by the Gestapo and other tools of the authoritarian state, the basis of their rule was the construction of a broad consensus through domination of the media. At the center of this effort was Adolf Hitler himself, both as an architect of it and as the main figure in its imagery. As O’Shaughnessy demonstrates, the Nazi leadership created a brand that they spent enormous effort developing and protecting. Through a pioneering use of both “new” (radio, cinema, television) and “old” (newspapers, posters, oratory) media, the Nazis crafted a message tha

The categories religion and race share a common genealogy. The modern understanding of these terms emerges within the European enlightenment but grasping their gradual production requires us to investigate further. In Modern Religion, Modern Race (Oxford University Press, 2016), Theodore Vial, Professor at Iliff School of Theology, argues that the intersection of religion and race can be better understood by looking at the work of nineteenth-century German romantics. In the post-enlightenment period religion becomes a racialized category. Vial examines the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Max Muller, and Johann Gottfried Herder in order to outline the linked nature of race and religion as social categories. He puts their definitions and positions to work to determine the conceptual framework these authors deploy for theorizing difference. In our conversation we discuss Immanuel Kant on race, Schleiermacher as theologian and scholar of religion, the symbolic power of Max Muller within contempora

How did a generation of Germany’s best and brightest become radicalized? What convinced young intellectuals to join the SS and perpetrate genocide in pursuit of a racial utopia? Find out in our conversation with Christian Ingrao about his book Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine (Polity Press, 2015). Christian traces the experiences of the war youth generation from defining events in childhood, through their student activism, into the Reich Security Main Office, and abroad where they could finally realize their ideas. The resulting portrait reveals how a generation of intellectuals came to believe, and how those beliefs led them to destroy. Christian Ingrao is the former director of the Institute of Contemporary History (IHTP) and their current director of research. He teaches at the Catholic University of the West (Angers). His most recent book La promesse de l’Est : Esperance nazie et genocide, 1939-1943 (Le Seuil, 2016) explores Nazi dreams of victory and visions of the Tho

In her new book, Max Liebermann: Modern Art and Modern Germany (Routledge 2015), Marion Deshmukh, the Robert T. Hawkes Professor of History Emeritus at George Mason University, examines the life and career of the prolific German artist Max Liebermann. Liebermann, a pioneer of German modernism, portrayed scenes of the Dutch countryside and rural life, along with portraits of Germany’s cultural and political elites. Deshmukh describes Liebermann’s life and career in wonderful detail, while also demonstrating how the art world in Germany impacted and was impacted by the wider events of German history.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Strangers in Berlin: Modern Jewish Literature between East and West, 1919-1933 (University of Michigan Press, 2016), Rachel Seelig, Visiting Scholar in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto, works against the prevailing tendency to view German and East European Jewish cultures as separate fields of study. Looking at four writers, Seelig presents Jewish literature in the Weimar Republic as the product of a dynamic encounter between East and West. This is a very interesting and groundbreaking work of scholarship. Max Kaiser is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. He can be reached at kaiser@student.unimelb.edu.au.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new German Democratic Republic, known as East Germany, faced many challenges when it was founded in 1949. Not least of which was convincing its citizens that they should be loyal to the new state and mobilizing the population towards its ideological goals. In The People’s Own Landscape: Nature, Tourism and Dictatorship in East Germany (University of Michigan Press, 2014), Scott Moranda explores how the Socialist Unity Party (SED) attempted to use tourism and landscape planning to reshape East Germans’ definition of their homeland. He also demonstrates the messy boundaries between state and society, in which East Germans refused to change patterns of pre-World War II nature activities such as hiking and camping; conservationists and the regime found common ground on concepts of landscape management; and environmentalism resulted in a fundamental break between society and the state. The People’s Landscape contributes to our understanding of East Germany’s environmental history as wel

Food is a hot topic these days, and not just among the folks posting pictures of their dinner on Instagram. A growing number of scholars in many fields study food’s production, distribution, consumption, connection to geopolitics, environmental impact and history. Alice Weinreb‘s new book, Modern Hungers: Food and Power in Twentieth-Century Germany (Oxford University Press, 2017), is a most welcome contribution to this rapidly expanding and timely field of study. The global industrial food system grew out of late-nineteenth-century imperialism. In 1914, that system became a weapon of war. For combatant states, maintaining (and disrupting) food supply chains emerged as a major military-strategic objective. Today, all states are caught up in the global food system, but Germany in the twentieth-century provides a unique place to observe its fascinating and often distressing historical permutations, because the country’s history condenses so many modern forms of state (imperial, fascist, sociali