Since the end of World War II, historians and psychologists have investigated the factors that motivated Germans to become Nazis before and during the war. While most studies have focused on the high-level figures who were tried at Nuremberg, much less is known about the hundreds of SS members, party functionaries, and intelligence agents who quietly navigated the transition to postwar life and successfully assimilated into a changed society after the war ended. In A Nazi Past, German and American scholars examine the lives and careers of men like Hans Globke—who not only escaped punishment for his prominent involvement in formulating the Third Reich's anti-Semitic legislation, but also forged a successful new political career. They also consider the story of Gestapo employee Gertrud Slottke, who exhibited high productivity and ambition in sending Dutch Jews to Auschwitz but eluded trial for fifteen years. Additionally, the contributors explore how a network of Nazi spies and diplomats who recast their identities in Franco's Spain, far from the denazification proceedings in Germany. Previous studies have emphasized how former Nazis hid or downplayed their wartime affiliations and actions as they struggled to invent a new life for themselves after 1945, but this fascinating work shows that many of these individuals actively used their pasts to recast themselves in a democratic, Cold War setting. Based on extensive archival research as well as recently declassified US intelligence, A Nazi Past contributes greatly to our understanding of the postwar politics of memory.

Stereotypical descriptions showcase West Germany as an "economic miracle" or cast it in the narrow terms of Cold War politics. Such depictions neglect how material hardship preceded success and how a fascist past and communist sibling complicated the country's image as a bastion of democracy. Even more disappointing, they brush over a rich and variegated cultural history. That history is told here by leading scholars of German history, literature, and film in what is destined to become the volume on postwar West German culture and society. In it, we read about the lives of real people--from German children fathered by black Occupation soldiers to communist activists, from surviving Jews to Turkish "guest" workers, from young hoodlums to middle-class mothers. We learn how they experienced and represented the institutions and social forces that shaped their lives and defined the wider culture. We see how two generations of West Germans came to terms not only with war guilt, division from East Germany, and the Angst of nuclear threat, but also with changing gender relations, the Americanization of popular culture, and the rise of conspicuous consumption. Individually, these essays peer into fascinating, overlooked corners of German life. Together, they tell what it really meant to live in West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Volker R. Berghahn, Frank Biess, Heide Fehrenbach, Michael Geyer, Elizabeth Heineman, Ulrich Herbert, Maria Höhn, Karin Hunn, Kaspar Maase, Richard McCormick, Robert G. Moeller, Lutz Niethammer, Uta G. Poiger, Diethelm Prowe, Frank Stern, Arnold Sywottek, Frank Trommler, Eric D. Weitz, Juliane Wetzel, and Dorothee Wierling.

Interdisciplinary views of the debates over and transformation of German cultural identity since unification. The events of 1989 and German unification were seismic historical moments. Although 1989 appeared to signify a healing of the war-torn history of the twentieth century, unification posed the question of German cultural identity afresh. Politicians, historians, writers, filmmakers, architects, and the wider public engaged in "memory contests" over such questions as the legitimacy of alternative biographies, West German hegemony, and the normalization of German history. This dynamic, contested, and still ongoing transformation of German cultural identity is the topic of this volume of new essays by scholars from the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and Ireland. It exploresGerman cultural identity by way of a range of disciplines including history, film studies, architectural history, literary criticism, memory studies, and anthropology, avoiding a homogenized interpretation. Charting the complex and often contradictory processes of cultural identity formation, the volume reveals the varied responses that continue to accompany the project of unification. Contributors: Pertti Ahonen, Aleida Assmann, Elizabeth Boa, Peter Fritzsche, Anne Fuchs, Deniz Göktürk, Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Anja K. Johannsen, Jennifer A. Jordan, Jürgen Paul, Linda Shortt, Andrew J. Webber. Anne Fuchs is Professor of German Literature at the University of St.Andrews, Scotland. Kathleen James-Chakraborty is Professor of Art History at University College Dublin, Ireland. Linda Shortt is Lecturer in German at Bangor University, Wales.

The Evolving Singing Voice: Changes Across the Lifespan examines how the human vocal instrument transforms from infancy through old age. Synthesis of this unique and comprehensive approach is beneficial to singers, voice teachers, and voice professionals across a broad spectrum of ages. At every age, vocal function is dependent upon how the body is progressively and constantly changing. The Evolving Singing Voice discusses these changes and their direct impact on the singing voice. A deeper understanding of chronological development offers a "lifetime perspective" for optimal, realistic potential at every age. With the information available in The Evolving Singing Voice, singers and voice pedagogues can begin to see logical and useful correlations between age, vocal function, and vocal expectations over the course of an individual's singing life. Key Features Coverage of respiration, vibration, resonation, and expectations for each stage of lifePractical, age-related exercises and concepts"Vocal Bundles" to encourage self-evaluation and improve vocal facility. Each bundle includes:Sign of the Vocal AgeTechnical Issue or Normal Age-Related IssueExerciseMindful Concept5 day Mini-Challenge consideration

Ossi Wessi includes the proceedings of the fourteenth annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference at the University of California, Berkeley (2006), which explored issues surrounding the Berlin Wall, both pre- and post-reunification, in language, literature, and visual media. The collected articles discuss the situation of the Berlin Wall, describing its portrayal as both a dividing and uniting boundary, and often discussing the continued existence of the Wall in the minds of Germany’s citizens. The multi-disciplinary range of approaches contained in this volume reveals how diverse the portrayals of the history of the Wall have been, as well as how controversial the division of Germany remains today. Topics covered in this collection include Wende Literature and film, linguistic changes and attitudes since 1989, the complicated history of the Neo-Nazis, and the visual arts. Although Ossi Wessi is by no means a comprehensive reference work, each of its essays serve as a though provoking springboard for further research.

"The papers... were delivered at a conference, Aesthetics and Politics in Modern German Culture, which was held in honour of Professor Rhys W. Williams ... the conference took place, from 31 August to 2 September 2008, at the University of Wales Conference Centre, Gregynog Hall" --Foreword.

A Berlin Republic brings together writings on the new, united Germany by one of their most original and trenchant commentators, Jürgen Habermas. Among other topics, he addresses the consequences of German history, the challenges and perils of the post-Wall era, and Germany's place in contemporary Europe. Here, as in his earlier The Past as Future, Habermas emerges as an inspired analyst of contemporary German political and intellectual life. He repeatedly criticizes recent efforts by historical and political commentators to 'normalize' and, in part, to understate the horrors of modern German history. He insists that 1945 - not 1989 - was the crucial turning point in German history, since it was then that West Germany decisively repudiated certain aspects of its cultural and political past (nationalism and antisemitism in particular) and turned towards Western Traditions of democracy: free and open discussion, and respect for the civil rights of all individuals. Similarly, Habermas deplores the renewal of nationalist sentiment in Germany and throughout Europe. Drawing upon his vast historical knowledge and contemporary insight, Habermas argues for heightened emphasis on trans-European and global democratic institutions - institutions far better suited to meet the challenges (and dangers) of the next century.

Charles Maier, one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of European history, published Recasting Bourgeois Europe as his first book in 1975. Based on extensive archival research, the book examines how European societies progressed from a moment of social vulnerability to one of political and economic stabilization. Arguing that a common trajectory calls for a multi country analysis, Maier provides a comparative history of three European nations and argues that they did not simply return to a prewar status quo, but achieved a new balance of state authority and interest group representation. While most previous accounts presented the decade as a prelude to the Depression and dictatorships, Maier suggests that the stabilization of the 1920s, vulnerable as it was, foreshadowed the more enduring political stability achieved after World War II. The immense and ambitious scope of this book, its ability to follow diverse histories in detail, and its effort to explain stabilization—and not just revolution or breakdown—have made it a classic of European history.

While the first decade after the fall of the Berlin wall was marked by the challenges of unification and the often difficult process of reconciling East and West German experiences, many Germans expected that the “new century” would achieve “normalization.” The essays in this volume take a closer look at Germany’s new normalcy and argue for a more nuanced picture that considers the ruptures as well as the continuities. Germany’s new generation of writers is more diverse than ever before, and their texts often not only speak of a Germany that is multicultural but also take a more playful attitude toward notions of identity. Written with an eye toward similar and dissimilar developments and traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, this volume balances overviews of significant trends in present-day cultural life with illustrative analyses of individual writers and texts.

At the end of the Second World War, Germany lay at the mercy of its occupiers, all of whom launched programmes of scientific and technological exploitation. Each occupying nation sought to bolster their own armouries and industries with the spoils of war, and Britain was no exception. Shrouded in secrecy yet directed at the top levels of government and driven by ingenuity from across the civil service and armed forces, Britain made exploitation a key priority. By examining factories and laboratories, confiscating prototypes and blueprints, and interrogating and even recruiting German experts, Britain sought to utilise the innovations of the last war to prepare for the next. This ground-breaking book tells the full story of British exploitation for the first time, sheds new light on the legacies of the Second World War, and contributes to histories of intelligence, science, warfare and power in the midst of the twentieth century.