European History Commons^™

Competing For Power In Postwar Europe: The Marshall Plan, Comecon, And Authoritarian Strategies Of Control In Eastern Europe, Jordan R. Mongold

ASPIRE 2026

This presentation will examine the authoritarian tactics used by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union to consolidate control over Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1955. Case studies on Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania are used to explore how Stalin weakened political and social systems in these states.

A Culture Divided: How Irish Americans Responded To Ireland’S Wartime Neutrality, Robert J. Barron

Honors College Theses

In the Second World War, the nation of Ireland declared its neutrality and maintained this status through the course of the long conflict. Meanwhile, Germany, Great Britain, and eventually the United States all competed to gain Ireland’s support in the war. However, one overlooked group continued to keep tabs on the affairs within their homeland: Irish Americans. How does one respond to a nation you have a connection with staying neutral in such a deadly conflict? The answer, for Irish Americans, was that it depended on the year. Before the United States entered the war, Irish Americans firmly defended the …

The Price Of Neutrality: Swiss Policy And Complicity In Wwii, Dave Quintal

Undergraduate Research Symposium

This poster presents my research into Switzerland's neutrality during World War II, a topic I found to be considerably more nuanced than commonly understood. While maintaining official neutrality, Switzerland engaged in significant financial transactions with Nazi Germany, including the movement of looted gold through its banking system. These actions, justified as necessary for neutrality, directly supported the Nazi war effort. Furthermore, Swiss refugee policies imposed restrictive measures, resulting in the denial of asylum and forced repatriation of persecuted individuals, notably Jewish and Roma refugees. The lack of post-war scrutiny changed in the 1990s, when revelations surrounding dormant Holocaust-era bank accounts …

From Heaven To Hell: A Reinterpretation Of Comparison Between Germany’S Airborne Fallschirmjäger Operations And The Allied Airborne Operation At Arnhem In World War Ii, Jeremy Herbert

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines the legacy of the German paratrooper corps and compares them to similar Allied operations during World War II. Relying on archival documents as well as 80 years of analysis by historians, the thesis argues that the overwhelming consensus among historians of the German Fallschirmjäger as a failed experiment is undeserved, since the pitfalls experienced during their operations pale in comparison to similar British operations. The German invasion of Crete in 1941 serves as the base example for Anglophone historians who favor the idea of German failure solely based on the number of German casualties. In reality, the …

Love And Rutabaga, Claire Hsu Accomando

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

In Love and Rutabaga, Claire Hsu Accomando reflects on her formative years growing up in war-torn France. Born in 1937 to a French mother and Chinese father, Accomando was just a child when her father departed for China on diplomatic duty in 1941. Left behind, she and her younger brothers were raised by their mother and grandparents in the small village of Rahon during the German occupation.

Despite the fear and uncertainty of World War II, Accomando paints a surprisingly joyful and richly textured portrait of those years. Her grandparents' home became a sanctuary - not just for their …

The Shift Of Western Power In The Anglo-American Relationship As Examined Through The Military Events Of World War Ii, Zaina A. Nait Omar

All Theses

How did the authority within the Anglo-American Alliance begin to shift toward the American domination that ruled the second half of the twentieth century? By examining the events of World War II, this thesis restructures the typical timeline with which historians have approached the dynamic of authority in the Anglo-American Relationship. Many historians claim that America was the perceived senior partner by 1941; however, this thesis demonstrates that by examining things from a military lens, that date must change. The British continued to operate under the intention of maintaining their global authority through 1945 and even into 1946. The thesis …

Book Review: Eyewitness To Wehrmacht Atrocities On The Eastern Front: A German Soldier’S Memoir Of War And Captivity, Timothy Heck

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Safiyyah’ S War (2023) By Hiba Noor Khan & The Grand Mosque Of Paris (2009) By Karen Gray Ruelle & Deborah Durland Desaix, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Middle Grades Books

Suppose that somebody takes over your city and begins harming your friends and neighbors. How do you respond? When is it your responsibility to act, and what kinds of risks should you take? How do these new moral demands change your relations to your neighbors, people in authority, and even your family? How do you stay sane and resolved when your safety is under constant threat? Telling the story of how the Muslim community in Paris risked their lives to save hundreds of Jews when Germany invaded France in World War II, this middle-grades novel and picture book also tell …

Metamorphosis And Fairy Tale Tropes In Christa Wolf’S Patterns Of Childhood, B. E. Lara

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study is a sociohistorical analysis of East German writer Christa Wolf’s use of fairy tale tropes in her novel Patterns of Childhood, first published in German in 1976 in East Germany as Kindheitsmuster. Wolf uses fairy tale tropes to explore themes that she could not write about openly under East German censorship, which prohibited East German authors from exposing their culpability for prior acts committed under the Nazi Regime. Furthermore, Wolf introduces metamorphosis to explore the intrinsic evil and subsequent guilt of her child protagonist, and she uses the child’s capacity for evil to illustrate the German people’s similar …

Responding To The Global Crisis: Jacques Maritain, World War Ii, And New York's École Libre, Jacob Saliba

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article offers an interdisciplinary study of the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain during World War II in order to provide an historical resource for understanding the global dimensions and possibilities at work in modern Catholicism. In 1941, while living in New York City, Maritain helped to cofound and lead the École Libre des Hautes Études (the “Free French University”). An initiative primarily created by American and French intellectuals, the university became an important hub for rescuing and employing nearly two hundred individuals from across the world. Elected president in late-1942, Maritain worked closely with the New School for Social …

Bureaus Of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Comparing The Roles Of Women In The Special Operations Executive And The Office Of Strategic Services During World War Ii, Adaline Nolley

Senior Honors Theses

In 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive. The SOE was one of the first government agencies to recruit female spies. In 1941, United States President Franklin Roosevelt commissioned the Office of Strategic Services, which also employed women. The organizations approached the concept of female agents differently. The OSS maintained female staff in domestic offices, but employed foreign women as agents. The SOE recruited women to go abroad, as they were less suspicious than men in occupied territories. The study of female staff in the OSS and the SOE allow historians to understand roles of women …

Ua94/5/6 Lucian Flora Student/Alumni Papers, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Scrapbook and memoirs created by alumni Lucian Flora of Smiths Grove, Kentucky of his activities as a soldier in World War II. Flora saw action through North Africa and Italy from 1941 to 1945.

Ua1c11/128 Lucian Flora Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs and postcards removed from Lucian Flora's World War II scrapbook.

The Whispered Crimes Of Sexual Violence In The European And Pacific Theater Of World War Ii, Channing N. Morrison

History Theses

This thesis addresses sexual violence in World War II in both the European and Pacific Theater. Often, the violence of these War Crimes tends to be overshadowed and not talked about. This thesis examines the stories of women, children, and men who suffered from sexual brutality in World War II and how nations try to hide or justify acts of rape and violence. By using as case studies the nations of Japan, Germany, the United States of America, and the Soviet Union, and how they either committed sexual acts of violence or handled rape cases when it came to the …

The United States And The Need For An Improved Global Citizenship In The Twenty-First Century: How History Shaped Our Identity As A Nation, Karin Mika

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article describes how accidents of geography and history enabled the United States to become the global power that it has become. It examines how the extended warring in Europe during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth century allowed the United States to develop as a country without the repeated necessity of continually rebuilding, as was happening in Europe. The Article explores how the isolation of the United States enabled it to develop continuity in its initially experimental political system—a continuity that was never available to Europe. These factors enabled the United States to be in the position of being able to …

Volksdrogen: The Third Reich Powered By Methamphetamine, Madison Isenberg

Senior Projects

Leading up to and during the Second World War, the Nazified German Government wanted to perpetuate the belief that due to their exceptional strength spread through various forms of propaganda the “Aryan Race” was undefeatable. Unfortunately, this testament, and the propaganda that supported it, is still used by some to substantiate their claims that the Nazis devised the “master race”. The source of their strength has remained largely unresearched, so what was the factor that allowed the German home and war front to possess large amounts of energy to aid in their fight against the Allied forces? Initially, from whisperings …

The Nazis, The Vatican, And The Jews Of Rome, Patrick J. Gallo

Purdue University Press Books

On October 16, 1943, the Jews of Rome were targeted for arrest and deportation. The Nazis, the Vatican, and the Jews of Rome examines why—and more importantly how—it could have been avoided, featuring new evidence and insight into the Vatican’s involvement. At the time, Rome was within reach of the Allies, but the overwhelming force of the Wehrmacht, Gestapo, and SS in Rome precluded direct confrontation. Moral condemnations would not have worked, nor would direct confrontation by the Italians, Jewish leadership, or even the Vatican.

Gallo underscores the necessity of determining what courses of actions most likely would have spared …

The Wehrmacht Experience In World War Ii, Tyler Masterson

Theses and Dissertations

German soldiers who were in the Wehrmacht during World War II faced many different experiences from the beginning of the war when it seemed they were in control to later parts of the war were they were being driven back by the Allies. Along with the different experiences from different times of the war, they also faced different experiences when it came to what front they were fighting on. Fronts and theaters that stretch from North Africa and the Mediterranean Campaign to Eastern Europe and Russia to Western Europe. When it comes to the troops that were fighting in the …

A Summer Of Mass Murder: 1941 Rehearsal For The Hungarian Holocaust, George Eisen

Purdue University Press Books

Most accounts of the Holocaust focus on trainloads of prisoners speeding toward Auschwitz, with its chimneys belching smoke and flames, in the summer of 1944. This book provides a hitherto untold chapter of the Holocaust by exploring a prequel to the gas chambers: the face-to-face mass murder of Jews in Galicia by bullets.

The summer of 1941 ushered in a chain of events that had no precedent in the rapidly unfolding history of World War II and the Holocaust. In six weeks, more than twenty thousand Hungarian Jews were forcefully deported to Galicia and summarily executed. In exploring the fate …

Full Issue

The Forum: Journal of History

No abstract provided.

20,000 Feet Between: The Experiential Disparities Of Precision Bombing In Austrian Bomb Victims And American Bombardiers, 1945, Emily E. Hanish

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

From November 1944 until May 1945, the 57^th Bomb Wing executed the “Battle of the Brenner” to incapacitate the German war machine. As a result of five campaign missions from March – April 1945, the USAAF not only decimated the village of Matrei am Brenner and Trautson Castle, but also killed dozens of civilians. Recent archaeological excavations at Medieval Trautson Castle prompted serious questions about the USAAF’s bombardment strategies and ethics, especially regarding precision bombing. By analyzing these bombing missions, this thesis will delineate the “Battle of the Brenner” within the evolution of the USAAF’s bombardment doctrine in order …

World War Ii, Displacement, And The Making Of The Postwar Ukrainian Diaspora, 1939-1951, Jennifer Lauren Popowycz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As a result, in an effort to expand the literature on the Ukrainian DP experience, this dissertation will specifically examine how foreign occupation, forced labor, and displacement impacted the construction of Ukrainian cultural nationalism between 1939 and 1951. Using a variety of memoirs written by Ukrainian DPs, published primary sources, as well as archival material from the online Interview Archive of Forced Labor 1939-1945, Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, the United Nations Archive, and the online Archive of Ukrainian Periodicals it will argue that cultural nationalism not only served as a common link that united Ukrainians, but also served …

American Fury: Catholic Responses To Spanish Anticlericalism (1936-1939), Paul Sanders Linker Jr.

Senior Theses

This thesis examines the roles, ideologies, attitudes, and arguments of American Catholics in debates over the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939. Although the war only lasted between these years, these debates carried over into WWII as Spain’s neutrality came into question. Specifically, the focus is on how American Catholics grappled with historically unprecedented Spanish anticlericalism, the direct murder of roughly 7000 Catholic clergy and persecution of many more by Spanish Republicans, and why this anticlericalism drove most Catholics into a form of unapologetic pro-Francoism. This research is conducted by careful analysis of both mainstream and Catholic newspapers/journals. Mainstream pro-Republican press …

Hannah Arendt And The Lives Of The Female Intellectual Celebrity: Public Imagery And Storytelling Before And Since 1995, Gabrielle G. Johansson

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the lives of Hannah Arendt, specifically her image as a celebrity intellectual before 1995 and variant Arendtian protagonists which arose after 1995, with the publishing of Elżbita Ettinger’s Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger. Ettinger’s book was the first of its kind to explore their love letters and create from them a narrative of scandal, passion, and paradox. Before 1995, Arendt’s image was secure as a well-respected philosopher and guide for Vergangenheitsbewältigung. After 1995, Arendt’s image and legacy fragmented as artists and academics tried to make sense of how the celebrated philosopher could have had an affair with …

Strange Alliance: An American, A Nazi, And The Battle Of The Bulge, James J. Weingartner

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

One of the stranger episodes in the history of World War II occurred over a period of 90 hours in the Belgian village of La Gleize in December 1944. During the bloody Battle of the Bulge, Hal McCown, a major in the U.S. 30^th Infantry Division, was captured by troops of the Nazi Waffen SS and taken to La Gleize, where Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Joachim Peiper had established his headquarters. Peiper commanded a battlegroup whose orders were to capture crossings over the Meuse river, thus opening the way to Antwerp, the primary German objective. It was also …

Keep Calm And Carry On: Uncovering The True Blitz Spirit, Lauren Niedergeses

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

First shown by Britain’s civilian population during the Blitz, this Blitz Spirit is widely understood today as a heroic display of courage, cheerfulness, unity, and the ability to “keep calm and carry on” in the face of danger and discomfort. Drawing from radio broadcasts, photographs, propaganda posters and films, and the wartime morale reports of Mass-Observation, I seek to uncover the true Blitz Spirit and how it became an integral – if somewhat mythicized – element of Britain’s modern identity. First, I explore the emergence of the Blitz Spirit during World War II, identifying gaps between reality and propagandistic myth. …

Kalmar Family Diaries (2021.01), Robyn Conroy, Lamisa Muksitu, Tara O'Donnell

Strassler Center Archival Collection Finding Aids

Karl Kalmar (September 17, 1871 (Vienna, Austria) – December 26, 1942 (Theresienstadt)) and Margarethe Kalmar (Pollak) (December 5, 1881 (Vienna, Austria) – After May 16, 1944 (KZ Auschwitz)). They had two sons Paul Kalmar (May 31, 1908 (Vienna, Austria) – August 3, 1977 (Scotland, UK)) and George Otto Kalmar (November 16, 1913 (Vienna, Austria) – November 12, 1994 (Copake, NY)).

George Kalmar studied painting at the Kunstgewerbschule (now University of Applied Arts) in Vienna. He married Vera Rosa Kalmar (Raschkes) (August 24, 1914 (Vienna, Austria) – August 24, 1988 (Acton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts)), a fellow artist, on July 10, 1938. …

Political Procrastination: Swiss Neutrality And World War Ii, Maria Ott

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Among the various facts about World War II that have become practically common knowledge, the neutral response of Switzerland stands out as particularly well-known. In recent years, this renowned reaction has been scrutinized, with many accusing Switzerland of at best problematic indifference to the affairs of the world during this time and at worst near collaboration with Axis powers, particularly Nazi Germany. Though the nation cannot boast an entirely clean ethical record when it comes to its involvement in the wartime economics, these accusations seem exaggerated. The tradition of neutrality held by Switzerland for decades and its vulnerable position at …

Italian Society During World War Ii, Shira Klein

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter showcases what life was like for ordinary Italians during the Second World War. Up to the 1980s, a typical textbook on Italian history told a narrative of victimhood and heroism, promoting the idea that most Italians had never wanted to join the war in the first place, and resisted both the Fascists and the Germans. It was Mussolini and his henchmen, according to this narrative, who led unwilling Italians into war. The Italian rank-and-file were anti-Fascist heroes and victims of the leadership’s repressive tactics, whereas the Fascist leaders were villainous perpetrators.[i] Since the 1990s, historians have shown that …

Reframing The Sacred: Valkyrie And The Basis Of Resistance, William S. Skiles

Journal of Religion & Film

The film Valkyrie (2008) is a thriller that explores the religious basis of the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in the last year of the Second World War. While the political motivations are clearly stated in exposition and dialogue, the religious motivations are shown through a series of images, symbols, and dramatic uses of the word “sacred” (heilig and its derivatives). The filmmakers focus on Colonel von Stauffenberg’s struggle against the Nazi conception of the sacred, revealing his Christian sense of the sacred as a basis for his resistance. The religious elements in the film provide …