Is cleanliness next to Germanness, as some nineteenth-century nationalists insisted? This book explores the relationship between gender roles, domesticity, and German national identity between 1870–1945. After German unification, approaches to household management that had originally emerged among the bourgeoisie became central to German national identity by 1914. Thrift, order, and extreme cleanliness, along with particular domestic markers (such as the linen cabinet) and holiday customs, were used by many Germans to define the distinctions between themselves and neighboring cultures. What was bourgeois at home became German abroad, as 'German domesticity' also helped to define and underwrite colonial identities in Southwest Africa and elsewhere. After 1933, this idealized notion of domestic Germanness was racialized and incorporated into an array of Nazi social politics. In occupied Eastern Europe during WWII Nazi women's groups used these approaches to household management in their attempts to 'Germanize' Eastern European women who were part of a large-scale project of population resettlement and ethnic cleansing.

Pulzer deals with the three attempts to build a German nation state between 1871 and 1945, and the reasons for their failure. His focus is the tension between authoritarian and democratic forces and the emergence, and influence, of interest groups.

Despite the enduring popular image of the blitzkrieg of World War II, the German Army always depended on horses. It could not have waged war without them. While the Army’s reliance on draft horses to pull artillery, supply wagons, and field kitchens is now generally acknowledged, D. R. Dorondo’s Riders of the Apocalypse examines the history of the German cavalry, a combat arm that not only survived World War I but also rode to war again in 1939. Though concentrating on the period between 1939 and 1945, the book places that history firmly within the larger context of the mounted arm’s development from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to the Third Reich’s surrender. Driven by both internal and external constraints to retain mounted forces after 1918, the German Army effectively did nothing to reduce, much less eliminate, the preponderance of non-mechanized formations during its breakneck expansion under the Nazis after 1933. Instead, politicized command decisions, technical insufficiency, industrial bottlenecks, and, finally, wartime attrition meant that Army leaders were compelled to rely on a steadily growing number of combat horsemen throughout World War II. These horsemen were best represented by the 1st Cavalry Brigade (later Division) which saw combat in Poland, the Netherlands, France, Russia, and Hungary. Their service, however, came to be cruelly dishonored by the horsemen of the 8th Waffen-SS Cavalry Division, a unit whose troopers spent more time killing civilians than fighting enemy soldiers. Throughout the story of these formations, and drawing extensively on both primary and secondary sources, Dorondo shows how the cavalry’s tradition carried on in a German and European world undergoing rapid military industrialization after the mid-nineteenth century. And though Riders of the Apocalypse focuses on the German element of this tradition, it also notes other countries’ continuing (and, in the case of Russia, much more extensive) use of combat horsemen after 1900. However, precisely because the Nazi regime devoted so much effort to portray Germany’s armed forces as fully modern and mechanized, the combat effectiveness of so many German horsemen on the battlefields of Europe until 1945 remains a story that deserves to be more widely known. Dorondo’s work does much to tell that story.

In this provocative book, David Calleo surveys German history - not to present new material but to look afresh at the old. He argues that recent explanations for Germany's external conflicts have focused on flaws in the country's traditional political institutions and culture. These German-centred explanations are convenient Calloe notes, for they tend to exonerate others from their responsibilities in bringing about two world wars, namely the American and Russian hegemonies in Europe. As a result of this approach the big questions in German history are still answered with the ageing clichés of a generation ago despite the proliferation of German historical studies. Throughout Professor Calleo examines with some scepticism the concept of Germany's uniqueness and its consequences. In effect, his study stresses the continuing relevance of traditional issues among the Western states. This book, he asserts, should be regarded as a modest dissent from the prevailing view that history either began or ended in 1945.

This absorbing book chronicles the exploitation of Beethoven's life and work by German political parties from the founding of the modern nation in 1870 to the peaceful East German Revolution of 1989. David Dennis taps a wealth of new archival resources to examine for the first time how propagandists of every persuasion have transformed Beethoven and his art into powerful, and varied, national symbols. In fascinating detail, Dennis introduces many 'Beethovens, ' each fashioned as part of a process that transformed the composer into the most protean, and widely abused, cultural-political symbol in modern German history.-David Large, Montana State University This book] should fascinate not only Beethoven devotees but also anyone interested in the elusiveness and malleability of historical evidence.-James R. Oestreich, New York Time

Wawro describes the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1, that violently changed the course of European history.

Covering the entire period of modern German history - from nineteenth-century imperial Germany right through the present - this well-established text presents a balanced, general survey of the country's political division in 1945 and runs through its reunification in the present. Detailing foreign policy as well as political, economic and social developments, A History of Modern Germany presents a central theme of the problem of asymmetrical modernization in the country's history as it fully explores the complicated path of Germany's troubled past and stable present.

A historian analyzes the Franco-Prussian War’s Battle of Sedan, from its causes and effects, to the characters involved. The Franco-Prussian War was a turning point in the history of nineteenth-century Europe, and the Battle of Sedan was the pivotal event in that war. For the Germans, their overwhelming victory symbolized the birth of their nation, forged in steel and tempered in the blood of the common enemy. For the French, it was a defeat more complete and humiliating than Waterloo. Author Douglas Fermer’s fresh study of this traumatic moment in European history reconsiders how the mutual fear and insecurity of two rival nations tempted their governments to seek a solution to domestic tensions by waging war against each other. His compelling narrative shows how war came about, and how the dramatic campaign of summer 1870 culminated in a momentous clash of arms at Sedan. He gives fascinating insights into the personalities and aims of the politicians and generals involved but also spotlights the experiences of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Praise for Sedan 1870 “Fermer is an eminently readable author and his books well worth the investment. Sedan 1870, is an excellent study in hubris and hunger, doctrine and professionalism and the underlying motivation that drives troops, regardless of the quality of their leadership, to astonishing levels of self-sacrifice.” —Chris Buckham, The Military Reviewer

The German Empire, its structure, its dynamic development between 1871 and 1918, and its legacy, have been the focus of lively international debate that is showing signs of further intensification as we approach the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. Based on recent work and scholarly arguments about continuities and discontinuities in modern German history from Bismarck to Hitler, well-known experts broadly explore four themes: the positioning of the Bismarckian Empire in the course of German history; the relationships between society, politics and culture in a period of momentous transformations; the escalation of military violence in Germany's colonies before 1914 and later in two world wars; and finally the situation of Germany within the international system as a major political and economic player. The perspectives presented in this volume have already stimulated further argument and will be of interest to anyone looking for orientation in this field of research.

Between 1870 and 1945, advances in communication and transportation simultaneously expanded and shrank the world. In five interpretive essays, A World Connecting goes beyond nations, empires, and world wars to capture the era’s defining feature: the profound and disruptive shift toward an ever more rapidly integrating world.