History Commons^™

Judicializing History: Mass Crimes Trials And The Historian As Expert Witness In West Germany, Cambodia, And Bangladesh, Rebecca Gidley, Mathew Turner

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Henry Rousso warned that the engagement of historians as expert witnesses in trials, particularly highly politicized proceedings of mass crimes, risks a judicialization of history. This article tests Rousso’s argument through analysis of three quite different case studies: the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial; the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; and the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. It argues that Rousso’s objections misrepresent the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, while failing to account for the engagement of historical expertise in mass atrocity trials beyond Europe. Paradoxically, Rousso’s criticisms are less suited to the European context that represents his purview, and apply more …

Jackson, Carlton Luther, 1933-2014 (Mss 581), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 581. Research and manuscripts for books written by Western Kentucky University history professor Carlton Jackson. Includes some personal and professional correspondence, unpublished writing, and a partial memoir. Click on "Additional Files" below to see a listing of correspondents who provided information about the influenza pandemic of 1918. This correspondence is found in Boxes 13 and 14.

Jewish Germany: An Enduring Presence From The Fourth To The Twenty-First Century, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Jewish Germany: An enduring presence from the fourth to the twenty-first century.

Soap From Human Fat: The Case Of Professor Spanner, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Soap from Human Fat: The Case of Professor Spanner, by Monika Tomkiewicz and Piotr Semków (Gdynia: Wydawnictwo Róza Wiatrów, 2013).

American Exceptionalism In Mass Incarceration, Isabell Murray

Global Honors Theses

American exceptionalism is often positively connotated; America’s exceptionalism often refers to the nation’s unique, progressive ideals of liberty during the nation’s founding, as well as the premise of a free Democratic Republic. While the United States of America has many positive and exceptional qualities, this research illustrates an unfortunate exceptional American quality: the mass incarceration of over 2.3 million people in the United States of America. This paper reviews the literature to understand the evolution of mass incarceration on the basis of three lines: the United States’ history of race, the nation’s governmental structure and the development of policy. Additionally, …

Der Hungerwinter: Family, Famine, The Black Market, And Denazification In Allied-Occupied Germany (1945 - 1949), Tyler Stanley

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This paper analyzes numerous letters written among several members of a German family living under the Allied occupation. The Lingenhoel family were one of a great many Germans enduring hunger, famine, and denazification in the immediate postwar period. Using the Lingenhoel family as the lens of analysis, this paper ultimately assesses the Allies' efforts to alleviate the widespread hunger and the Germans' responsibility of collaborating with the former Nazi government.

A German History Experience, Rachel Walters

Tenor of Our Times

Rachel Walter attended the history department's study abroad program to Germany in summer 2017. The trip proved to be a reflection on the German history and the academic value of international experiences.

Shades Of Gray: Conscience And The Cold War, Makyra Williamson

Tenor of Our Times

This book review discusses The File, by Timothy Garton Ash and the role informers played in East Berlin during the Cold War. It examines personal motivations for becoming informers and the justification that individuals used. In addition, this review weighs the value of The File as a primary source about the Cold War.

“A Christian World Order:” Protestants, Democracy And Christian Aid To Germany, 1945-1961, Ky N. Woltering

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the relationship between the German and American Protestantism from 1945-1961. I argue that in response to the threat of Nazism and communism, mainline ecumenical American Protestants aimed to create a universalist “Christian World Order” based on liberal democracy and Christian ethics. Only this new order, they argued, could supersede nationalist and materialist agendas and restore world peace. By rhetorically depicting Nazi and Communist "totalitarianism" as anti-Christian, a construction I refer to as the Christian-Totalitarian Dichotomy, these Protestants drove German conservatives away from Nazism and toward Western liberal democracy through association with Christianity. They accomplished this through two …

The Imperial Legacy: An Examination Of The Trends Of Empire And Genocide From German Southwest Africa To The General Government, Laura Guebert

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

This project is an examination of correlations between imperial enterprises of the Second German Empire and the Nazi Reich through the lenses of global and imperial critiques. The three primary case studies are German Southwest Africa, the Ober Ost, and Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, particularly the General Government. This research draws heavily on certain themes and theories developed by leading historians of modern German and Eastern European history, including Timothy Snyder, Ben Kiernan, Shelley Baranowski, Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, and Christopher Browning. By understanding the shared trends of empire and genocide, it is my aim to bring the actions of the National …

German And American Transnational Spaces In Women's And Gender History, Shelley Rose

History Faculty Publications

Books Reviewed:

Michaela Bank. Women of Two Countries: German-American Women, Women’s Rights, and Nativism, 1848–1890. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. vi.+ 192 pp. ISBN 978-0-85745-512-3 (cl).

Karen Hagemann and Sonya Michel, eds. Gender and the Long Postwar: The United States and the Two Germanys, 1945–1989. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. vii. +397 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-1413-3 (pb).

Lynne Tatlock. German Writing, American Reading: Women and the Import of Fiction, 1866, 1917. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2012. ix.+ 347 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8142-1194-6 (cl).

“Kinder, Küche, Und Kirche”: Women’S Work In The Third Reich, Margarete Crelling

History Undergraduate Theses

Under dictator Adolph Hitler, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state. When World War II was declared on September 1, 1939, it was clear that the world would never be the same. The Nazi Party controlled nearly every aspect of German society with an iron fist, including religion, education, culture, and the role of women and family. Today, conversations and research about the Nazi regime during World War II often focus on the horrors of the Holocaust and its male perpetrators—Adolf Hitler, his officers, and troops. The important role women played in Germany during World War II is often overlooked …

Ms-220: Homer W. Schweppe Papers, Abigail E. Metheny

All Finding Aids

This collection is made up of a vast variety of materials pertaining to Homer William Schweppe’s experiences during World War II. Schweppe compiled various items during his initial military service in the United States, such as his Seattle Port Officer I.D. badge and his uniform patches. There are also items from his time at Camp Ritchie, including his glossary of “Nazi Deutsch” terms and a book on the Order of Battle of the German Army, to which he contributed. Schweppe also included items he collected while overseas, such as a German Map of the D-Day Invasion area, a welcome pamphlet …

Jews: The Makers Of Early Modern Berlin, Conlan Vance

2018 Symposium

This paper will discuss how Jews fit into the economic policies of Brandenburg-Prussia in the later 16^th century. From Frederick William’s decree in 1671 to allow fifty Jewish families to settle in Brandenburg-Prussia to these families and their descendants becoming immersed in the economy of Berlin through their use in courts but more so through their trading, specifically, the ways in which they traded and how they used these to free themselves from some of the constraints of German Christian society. Thusly, this will be shown by looking at Jews in Brandenburg-Prussia in the later 17th century, Jews in …

Woosley, Naomi E. (Thurman), 1918-1980 (Sc 3181), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3181. Letter, 4 May 1948, to Dr. Bert Raldon Smith, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from former student Naomi Thurman Woosley. Writing from Munich, Germany, where her husband is a hospital chaplain, she describes a day spent in Rotterdam, Netherlands during a soccer match, and seeing Eleanor Roosevelt with Princess Juliana at The Hague. Remarking on animosity toward Germany, where her brother was a prisoner-of-war, she nevertheless regrets the hunger among the poor. She also describes her husband’s duties performing funerals for American soldiers and civilians. Includes 3 small …

Between Extermination And Child-Rearing: The Foreign Child-Care Facilities Of Volkswagen And Velpke, Lauren Elizabeth Fedewa

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

During World War Two, approximately 400 to 450 Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten, or foreign child-care facilities, were established across the German Reich as collection centers for the infants born to Polish and Soviet civilian laborers employed in the German war economy. My thesis examines two such foreign child-care facilities, the Volkswagen and Velpke children’s homes, where over 450 Polish and Soviet infants perished. Three themes provide the framework for an analysis of these two facilities: the conflict between two of the main goals of the Third Reich—racial cleansing and the exploitation of forced labor; the question of whether the establishment of the facilities …

Colonial Control And Power Through The Law: Territoriality, Sovereignty, And Violence In German South-West Africa, Caleb Joseph Cumberland

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

“Ewig ‘Schön’”: Politics And Poetics In The Work And Correspondence Of Sarah Kirsch And Helga Novak, Sophia J. Logan

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

German Covert Operations And Abandoning Wilsonian Neutrality, Cade Joshua Cover

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In the years approaching World War I's centennial, many scholars have published books reexamining different aspects of the conflict, as well as attempting to update prominent scholarship from years past. These include books focusing on individual battles, such as Verdun, to the importance of the Zimmerman telegram in spurring American desire to join the war effort. One topic of interest that appeals to a more general audience would be that of spy and sabotage activity during the conflict. The topic of spy and sabotage activity might interest a curious reader, but the matter concerning its importance during the war is …