At the moment of the publication of this book 75 years have passed since the defeat and beginning of the occupation of Germany by the victorious Allies, and 30 years since the reunification of the country, within restricted boundaries, after 45 years of division. I was born in the New World 20 years after the end of the war, lived most of my youth with the reality of the division, and witnessed the whole reunification process, as a member of a family of German descent living outside Germany. My interest in the subject, plus several logical links to Germany, a vision "from abroad" and obviously my knowledge of German, helped me to start preparing in 1987, well before any possibility of reunification existed, a legal thesis which, unexpectedly, even for me, turned into reality with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification in 1990. I was able to deliver the final work, my professional thesis, personally into the hands of Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker during his state visit to Mexico in 1992. And shortly thereafter I received from him a very rewarding letter. But just now, after 30 years, I am able to publish in English this reworked and updated version of my original thesis, now as a history book. I have tried to condense and explain the facts of 45 years of division so Germans and foreigners can have a full and objective view of all the aspects -historical, political, territorial and legal alike- pertaining to the so-called "German Question" during the period 1945-1990. I hope you enjoy it

In the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the victors were unable to agree on Germany’s fate, and the separation of the country—the result of the nascent Cold War—emerged as a de facto, if provisional, settlement. Yet East and West Germany would exist apart for half a century, making the "German question" a central foreign policy issue—and given the war-torn history between the two countries, this was felt no more keenly than in France. Drawing on the most recent historiography and previously untapped archival sources, this volume shows how France’s approach to the German question was, for the duration of the Cold War, both more constructive and consequential than has been previously acknowledged.

This book offers lively description and convincing interpretation of the most significant events, cruces and ongoing themes in German history from the end of the Second World War up to the present. The chronologies that accompany each chapter record the most important dates, facts and names occurring in the narrative. Jurgen Weber's text supplies the reader with a combination of vivid descriptive history, easily absorbed chronology, and a reliable reference work for the parallel lives of the two Germanies, a product of the Cold War. Weber describes in a clear and reader-friendly manner the history of Germany since 1945. The narrative begins with the period of the allied occupation and progresses through the diverse developments in East and West Germany up to the Federal Republic of today. The most important events, cruces and ongoing themes of the last fifty years are not only succinctly and vividly presented and interpreted, they are also placed in the context of international political developments. Each chapter is accompanied by a chronology featuring the most significant dates and facts relating to the period it covers. The last chapter gives a summary of what happened after 1990 and on present and future political problems of German reunification.

This is the first comprehensive, multi-author survey of German history that features cutting-edge syntheses of major topics by an international team of leading scholars. Emphasizing demographic, economic, and political history, this Handbook places German history in a denser transnational context than any other general history of Germany. It underscores the centrality of war to the unfolding of German history, and shows how it dramatically affected the development of German nationalism and the structure of German politics. It also reaches out to scholars and students beyond the field of history with detailed and cutting-edge chapters on religious history and on literary history, as well as to contemporary observers, with reflections on Germany and the European Union, and on 'multi-cultural Germany'. Covering the period from around 1760 to the present, this Handbook represents a remarkable achievement of synthesis based on current scholarship. It constitutes the starting point for anyone trying to understand the complexities of German history as well as the state of scholarly reflection on Germany's dramatic, often destructive, integration into the community of modern nations. As it brings this story to the present, it also places the current post-unification Federal Republic of Germany into a multifaceted historical context. It will be an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in modern Germany.

This book analyzes the relation of public memory to history, forgetting, and selective memory in three late-twentieth-century cities that have confronted major social or political traumas—Berlin, Buenos Aires, and New York.

Countless attempts have been made to appropriate the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche for diverse cultural and political ends, but nowhere have these efforts been more sustained and of greater consequence than in Germany. Aschheim offers a magisterial chronicle of the philosopher's presence in German life and politics.

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Through a close reading of novels by Ulrike Kolb, Irmtraud Morgner, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Bernhard Schlink, Peter Schneider, and Uwe Timm, this book traces the cultural memory of the 1960s student movement in German fiction, revealing layers of remembering and forgetting that go beyond conventional boundaries of time and space. These novels engage this contestation by constructing a palimpsest of memories that reshape readers’ understanding of the 1960s with respect to the end of the Cold War, the legacy of the Third Reich, and the Holocaust. Topographically, these novels refute assertions that East Germans were isolated from the political upheaval that took place in the late 1960s and 1970s. Through their aesthetic appropriations and subversions, these multicultural contributions challenge conventional understandings of German identity and at the same time lay down claims of belonging within a German society that is more openly diverse than ever before.

Culture from the Slums explores the history of punk rock in East and West Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. These decades witnessed an explosion of alternative culture across divided Germany, and punk was a critical constituent of this movement. For young Germans at the time, punk appealed to those gravitating towards cultural experimentation rooted in notions of authenticity-endeavors considered to be more 'real' and 'genuine.' Adopting musical subculture from abroad and rearticulating the genre locally, punk gave individuals uncomfortable with their societies the opportunity to create alternative worlds. Examining how youths mobilized music to build alternative communities and identities during the Cold War, Culture from the Slums details how punk became the site of historical change during this era: in the West, concerning national identity, commercialism, and politicization; while in the East, over repression, resistance, and collaboration. But on either side of the Iron Curtain, punks' struggles for individuality and independence forced their societies to come to terms with their political, social, and aesthetic challenges, confrontations which pluralized both states, a surprising similarity connecting democratic, capitalist West Germany with socialist, authoritarian East Germany. In this manner, Culture from the Slums suggests that the ideas, practices, and communities which youths called into being transformed both German societies along more diverse and ultimately democratic lines. Using a wealth of previously untapped archival documentation, this study reorients German and European history during this period by integrating alternative culture and music subculture into broader narratives of postwar inquiry and explains how punk rock shaped divided Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

The relationship between information and power is a relevant subject for all times. Today’s perceived ‘information revolution’ has caused information to become a separate object of study during the last two decades for several disciplines. As the contemporary perspective is dominant, information history as a discipline of its own has not yet crystallized. In bringing together studies around a new research agenda on the relationship between information and power across time and space, presenting various governance regimes, media, materials, and modes of communication, this book forces us to rethink the prospects and challenges for such a new discipline.