History Commons^™

The Oldest Post-Truth? The Rise Of Antisemitism In The United States And Beyond, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Antisemitism, the negative stereotyping and hatred of Jews, has overshadowed Western history for 2000 years. In the 20th century, antisemitism led to the Shoah, the systematic state-sponsored murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies. In recent decades, antisemitism diminished significantly in the Western world, and there was hope that this plague would soon be consigned to the past. On the contrary, the past few years have witnessed a drastic increase of antisemitism in Western societies, often paired with far-right activism, racism, and xenophobia. In 2017 in Charlottesville, there were hundreds of marchers giving Nazi salutes, waving …

Introduction To Antisemitism On The Rise: The 1930s And Today, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

We live in uncertain and unsettling times. Tragically, today's global culture is rife with violent bigotry, nationalism, and antisemitism. The rhetoric is not new; it is grounded in attitudes and values from the 1930s and the 1940s in Europe and the United States. Antisemitism on the Rise is a collection of essays by some of the world's leading experts, including Joseph Bendersky, Jean Cahan, R. Amy Elman, Leonard Greenspoon, and Jurgen Matthaus, regarding two key moments in antisemitic history: the interwar period and today. Ari Kohen and Gerald J. Steinacher have collected important examples on this crucial topic to illustrate …

From Student To Citizen: The Impact Of Personal Narratives In University-Level Genocide Education, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

What follows, then, are some of the lessons gleaned from the first ever long-term, multi-phase, interpretative case study conducted in higher education; a complete exploration and analysis of the data collected in the project is beyond the scope of this short essay. Using more than one thousand surveys, in-person interviews, and other evaluative materials gathered over the course of five years, our research team sought answers to the questions posed above and looked specifically at the ways in which certain types of instructional materials make impressions on students.

What is argued here is that narrative sources such as autobiographies, diaries, …

Review Of The Armenian Genocide: Evidence From The German Office Archives, 1915–1916, Edited By Wolfgang Gust, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

This edited volume should be considered as an significant contribution to the history of the Armenian Genocide. Gust has rendered an important service to scholarship by reviving for the first time in English the voices of the German diplomats and their informants who became eyewitnesses to one of the first genocides of the twentieth century. Almost all of the German observers, be they diplomats or missionaries from the period, agreed on the fact that what happened to the Armenians was an act of genocide. Now that Gust has furnished historians with a plethora of vital documents, it is the task …

Österreich Und Die Flucht Von Ns-Tätern Nach Übersee, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Deutschland nie wieder zu einer militärischen Bedrohung für seine Nachbarn werden. Eines der Prinzipien, auf die sich die alliierten Mächte bezüglich der Behandlung Deutschlands (und in diesem Zusammenhang auch Österreichs) einigen konnten, war die „Entnazifizierung“. In der Moskauer Deklaration hatten sie bereits 1943 festgelegt, dass die Verantwortlichen für Kriegsverbrechen und Völkermord zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden würden. Die Haupttäter1 sollten von ihnen gemeinsam abgeurteilt, andere Verbrecher an diejenigen Staaten ausgeliefert werden, wo sie ihre Taten begangen hatten. Doch sofort zeigte sich, dass die westlichen Alliierten – allen voran die USA – und die Sowjetunion zuweilen sehr unterschiedliche Auffassungen von Entnazifizierung …

“A Man With A Wide Horizon": The Postwar Professional Journey Of Ss Officer Karl Nicolussi-Leck, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

In his biography of SS Obergruppenführer Werner Best, the German historian Ulrich Herbert coined the phrase Ausgrenzung in den Wohlstand, or "exclusion into prosperity." According to Herbert, "for those excluded from politics and public service, there remained the liberal professions and business, mostly provided by old contacts, some dating from their student days.”¹ Yet there are few studies on the postwar professional lives of former high-ranking Nazis and SS officers. Among them are Norbert Frei's edited volume Karrieren im Zwielicht (Careers in the twilight) and a dozen or so biographical studies, such as Herbert's work on Best.² Former …

Dolmetscher, Spione Und Mörder: Südtiroler Im Sicherheitsdienst Des Reichsführers Ss In Italien 1943-45, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Bei Kriegsende 1945 blickte die Welt entsetzt auf das Ausmaß der NS-Verbrechen. Auf die Frage, wie konnte das geschehen und wer war verantwortlich für Völkermord und Krieg, verwies man meist auf eine kleine Clique (größen-) wahnsinniger Führer und ihre fanatische und mörderische SS-Gefolgschaft. Alle anderen - etwa die Angehörigen der Wehrmacht und der Waffen-SS - hatten mit den Verbrechen nichts zu tun, hieß es zumeist. Seit den 1990er Jahren hat sich diese Sichtweise in Deutschland und Österreich deutlich geändert. Das jahrzehntelange Schweigen der deutschen Gesellschaft während des Kalten Krieges bezüglich der NS-Täter wurde durchbrochen. Ausstellungen wie "Verbrechen der Wehrmacht" und …

Review Of Nazan Çiçek, The Young Ottomans: Turkish Critics Of The Eastern Question In The Late Nineteenth Century, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The ‘Eastern Question’, coined by European powers in the nineteenth century, came to denote the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The historiography on the Eastern Question has been mostly Eurocentric, addressing the diplomatic history of the Eastern Question without taking into consideration the Eastern actors of the Question, that is, the Muslim Turks. One of the major actors to emerge during the height of the Eastern Question was a group known as the Young Ottomans who became extremely critical of the Tanzimat reforms in general and the Ottoman Porte’s handling of the Eastern …

"Il Signor Mengele Di Bolzano": L'Alto Adige Come Via Di Fuga Dei Criminali Nazisti (1945-1951), Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Il tecnico altoatesino Richard Klement, il meccanico bolzanino Helmut Gregor: apparentemente semplici cittadini emigrati in Argentina dopo le devastazioni della seconda guerra mondiale. Ma questi nomi ne celano altri ben più noti: Adolf Eichmann e Josef Mengele. Sono solo due delle migliaia di nazisti che dopo la sconfitta, attraverso l'Alto Adige e il porto di Genova, riuscirono a raggiungere terre più sicure come Spagna, Sudamerica, Medio Oriente. Eichmann e Mengele si erano avvalsi per la loro fuga oltreoceano nel 1950 di documenti rilasciati loro in Alto Adige dopo aver assunto una nuova identità. Perché il prototipo del "burocrate dello sterminio" …

Review Of Murat Birdal, The Political Economy Of Ottoman Public Debt: Insolvency And European Financial Control In The Late Nineteenth Century, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire along with Egypt and Iran emerged as debtor states. This was the direct result of the extensive social, political and economic transformations that were taking place in the region. Extensive reforms under the rubric of defensive modernization aimed at saving these countries from political decline. Economic reforms aimed at preventing the encroachment of European powers within the political economy of these countries. However, drastic changes in the capitalist world economy led to mounting pressure over these economies and transformed them from economically self-sufficient countries to peripheral debtor states. By …

Das Massaker Der Fosse Ardeatine Und Die Taterverfolgung. Deutsch-Italienische Störfalle Von Kappler Bis Priebke, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Am 23. März 1944 explodiert in der Via Rasella im Herzen Roms eine Bombe und tötet 33 Mann des Polizeiregiments "Bozen". Die deutsche Antwort auf diesen verheerenden Partisanenanschlag sollte als die "grosste Repressalerschießung in Westeuropa während des Zweiten Weltkriegs" in die Geschichte eingehen und zu einem wichtigen Symbol deutscher Schreckensherrschaft in Italien werden: Die Erschießung von 335 italienischen Geiseln in den Höhlen der Fosse Ardeatine bei Rom. Die Fosse Ardeatine wurden in Italien nach 1945 zu einem wichtigen Erinnerungsort.

Welche Rolle haben dieses Kriegsverbrechen und der Umgang damit im deutsch-italienischen Verhältnis seit 1945 gespielt? Welche Rolle die juristische Aufarbeitung? Vor …

Formation Of Public Sphere(S) In The Aftermath Of The 1908 Revolution Among Armenians, Arabs, And Jews, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Revolutionary theories are most useful when they attempt to define and interpret the causes and mechanisms of revolutions. However, when they attempt to forecast the outcomes and the impact of revolutions on their indigenous societies, they are largely unsuccessful. This article deals with the impact of the Young Turk revolution on three non-dominant ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Arabs, and Jews. It will argue that the revolution resulted in the creation of a multiplicity of public spheres among the ethnic groupS.1 This multiplicity of public spheres became the main medium through which these ethnic groups internalized the Young …

Administrating The Non-Muslims And "The Question Of Jerusalem" After The Young Turk Revolution, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The historiography on the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 in general has mainly concentrated on the impact of the Revolution on the Ottoman Turkish society. Rarely do we see works that deal with the impact of the Revolution on the non-dominant groups in the Empire from a comparative perspective. How did the different ethnic groups view the Revolution? How did the Revolution influence the dynamics of power inside these groups? What were the relations between the Revolution and the religious groups within the Empire? How did the local /central government view the transformations taking place among the non-Muslim communities in …

Τρυφη And Υβρισ In The Περι Βιων Of Clearchus, Vanessa B. Gorman, Robert J. Gorman

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Recent discussions of the fragments of the Περι Βίων have seen the concept of pernicious luxury as a key to understanding aspects of this work of Clearchus. In particular, it is thought that Clearchus reflects a moralizing historiographical schema according to which wealth leads to an effeminate luxury (τρυφή), eventually producing satiety (κόρος), which in turn provokes the afflicted to violence (υβρις), ultimately bringing the subject’s destruction. We maintain, in contrast, that it is anachronistic to attribute this pattern of thought to Clearchus, and further, that the state of the evidence does not permit …

Adolf Eichmann: Ein Optant Aus Tramin, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Im Mai 2007 taucht in Buenos Aires das Reisedokument eines gewissen Ricardo Klement aus dem Südtiroler Weinort Tramin auf. Der Ausweis mit der Dokumentennummer 100.940 und dem Stempel des Roten Kreuzes wurde im Juni 1950 vom Delegierten des Internationalen Roten Kreuzes in der Hafenstadt Genua ausgefertigt und unterschrieben. Was die Sache brisant macht: Bei Ricardo Klement handelt es sich um Adolf Eichmann, den Organisator der Shoah - des Völkermords an den Juden. Eichmann hatte sich für seine Flucht nach Übersee 1950 Südtiroler Papiere und eines Rotkreuzausweises bedient. Der Fund löste einen weltweiten Sturm der Empörung und der Verwunderung aus. Im …

Looming Dangers, Turkey And Armenia: Opening Minds, Opening Borders: A Perilous Blueprint, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

On April 14, 2009, the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think tank that provides suggestions on conflict resolutions around the globe, issued a report entitled Turkey and Armenia: Opening Minds, Opening Borders in which it made recommendations for Armenian-Turkish reconciliation and the establishment of bilateral relations between the Republics of Armenia and Turkey. The report was published after the newly elected American President, Barack Obama, visited Turkey in early April 2009, and eight days before the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Turkey and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs issued a joint …

The Pontic Armenian Communities In The Nineteenth Century, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The Pontic Armenian communities of the nineteenth century were distinguished from those of previous centuries in that they were exposed to major social, economic, and political transformations. Social transformation entailed enlightenment of an emerging middle class and revival of Armenian national consciousness; economic transformation was characterized by advancement in the standard of living and growing prosperity; and political transformation entailed participation in the local administration, the adoption in Constantinople of an Armenian "National Constitution," which broadened the administration of the confessional-based Armenian millet to include the middle class, and in the latter part of the century the emergence of Armenian …

Venturing Into The Minefield: Turkish Liberal Historiography And The Armenian Genocide, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Historiography normally refers to the act of writing history, the collective writings of history and the history of such activities over time. I This chapter addresses the collective writings of history by a group of scholars of "Turkish origin," mainly deriving from a tradition ofleftist sentiments. What is particular about this group of Turkish liberal historians is that they provide an alternative historical interpretation2 of a specific historical event that is otherwise accepted by the official Turkish history (resmi tarih) as an historical travesty.1 Historical events, which are conventionally regarded as the "building bricks of history," are composed into a …

The Special Operations Executive (Soe) In Austria, 1940-1945, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

In January 1941, Great Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) defined its policy on Austria with two objectives: (1) to assist in the disintegration of the Third Reich by fostering the soon to be expected all-out revolutionary and separatist uprising in Austria; and (2) to bring about the “restoration of Austria as a national unit” within the framework of a central European federation. In short, the hopes and aspirations of the SOE in the Austrian resistance against Nazi Germany were flying high. Five years later, in March 1946, Britain’s political representative in Vienna, William B. Mack, summarized the history of the …

" ... Verlangt Das Gesunde Volksempfinden Die Schwerste Strafe ...": Das Sondergericht Für Die Operationszone Alpenvorland 1943-1945. Ein Vorbericht, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Seit Kriegsende 1945 gelten die Akten des Amtes "Oberster Kommissar für die Operationszone Alpenvorland" Franz Hofer als verschollen.2 Die Quellen- und Wissenslage zur Geschichte der Operationszone Alpenvorland ist dementsprechend dürftig. Das trifft besonders auf das Sondergericht für die Operationszone Alpenvorland zu. Im Rahmen der Bestandsaufnahme im Archiv des Landesgerichts (Tribunal) in Bozen im Oktober 2001 konnte nun auch ein kleiner Bestand Akten des Sondergerichts geborgen werden. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Mappe mit insgesamt 20 Akten der Jahre 1944- 1945.3 Neben diesen meist vollständigen Akten (Ermittlungsergebnisse, Anklage, Verhandlung, Urteil, Gnadenanträge, Gefängnisunterlagen, Sterberegistermitteilung, sogar ein Abschiedsbrief usw.) kann man aus …

"Introduction" To European Immigrants In The American West: Community Histories, Frederick C. Luebke

Department of History: Faculty Publications

European immigrants are the forgotten people of the American West. Their stories are not told in the many books, paintings, and movies that have created the mythic West. Immigrants did not easily fit the image of the West as the bastion of unfettered individualism and self-reliance-a region peopled by the free, brave, and pure-battling against the urbanized, industrialized, a,nd economically dominant East. Nor do European immigrants populate the pages of frontier history. Ever since Frederick Jackson Turner opened the field a hundred years ago, general histories of the American frontier have tended to ignore them. Grounded on the Turnerian notion …

Nichts Vergessen Nur Verschwiegen. Das Massaker Von Gröden 1945 Und Die Oss-Mission "Tacoma", Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Am 15. Mai 1985, genau 40 Jahre nach dem Auftakt zum sogenannten "Massaker von Gräden", erschien unter dem Titel ,,Auch das geschah vor vierzig Jahren" folgende Anzeige in der Bozner Tageszeitung Dolomiten:

"Nach Kriegsende, am 15. Mai 1945, der Morgen war gerade angebrochen, wurden jUnf unbescholtene, ehrenwerte Männer - Vater Adolf Senoner- Vastlt, Bürgermeister und Kaufmann, Lehrer Engelbert Ploner, Kau.fmann Gabriel Rijfeser, Lehrer Pepi Pitscheider und der Angestellte Kosmas Demetz - aus dem Schlaf gerissen und von den Partisanen der Provinz Belluno entfUhrt: sie wurden auf brutalste Weise im Wald von Pescul an der Forcella Staulanza gefoltert und ermordet. …

Germans In The New World: Essays In The History Of Immigration, Frederick C. Luebke

Department of History: Faculty Publications

In some respects the new immigration history contrasts strongly with the old. Whereas the traditional was assimilationist and stressed the cultural contributions of the newcomers, the new is more often pluralist and focuses on cultural conflict. The old tended to describe individual accomplishment and, drawing upon readily available sources such as letters, speeches, diaries, and other qualitative sources, was unintentionally elitist; the new analyzes the relationships of the ethnic group (i.e., the masses of ordinary people of limited skills in communication) with elements of the receiving society, including other ethnocultural collectivities. It uses quantitative sources, such as census manuscripts, tax …

Germans In Brazil: A Comparative History Of Cultural Conflict During World War I, Frederick C. Luebke

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The first three chapters establish the historical context for understanding what happened to the Germans in Brazil during the period of the war in Europe and its immediate aftermath, 1914 to 1920. The large pattern of German settlement in Brazil, offered in Chapter I, is followed by a study of German ethnic institutions--churches, schools, societies--and the German-language press to reveal literacy levels, religious and linguistic characteristics, and the measure of assimilation (or lack thereof) into Brazilian society. Ethnic group relations, perceptions, and images, along with attendant concerns and fears, are analyzed next to show how and why the Brazilian majority …

A Prelude To Conflict: The German Ethnic Group In Brazilian Society, 1890-1917, Frederick C. Luebke

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The anti-German riots in Brazil in 1917 are better understood within a larger context of ethnic history: the behavior of the dominant Luso-Brazilians (persons of Portuguese language and culture) and the minority TeutoBrazilians (as the Germans were often called) may be best interpreted if examined historically in terms of ethnic group relations, perceptions, and images.

Because of the accidents of time and place, the Germans in Brazil had been allowed to develop their own society without much interference. By the 1880s, the last years of the Brazilian Empire, they had become a society within a society - a large, diverse, …

Ethnicity On The Great Plains: Preface & Introduction, Frederick C. Luebke

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Immigrants from Europe formed a major element in the population that settled the Great Plains in the nineteenth century; their descendants constitute the majority of persons in many parts of the region today. A century ago, as the agricultural frontier moved across central Nebraska onto what is considered the Great Plains, foreignborn persons consistently formed a much larger proportion of the inhabitants on the western edge of settlement than they did in the state as a whole. Some years later the census of 1890 revealed that in North Dakota, for example, 42.7 percent of the population of that newly admitted …