Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 52 (2004), 4

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Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 52 (2004), 4
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München 2004: Oldenbourg Verlag
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Jaroschka, Gabriele

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

soeben ist das neueste Heft der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte erschienen.

Ende November wird der Band 89 der Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte vorliegen:
Manfred Kittel
Nach Nürnberg und Tokio
"Vergangenheitsbewältigung" in Japan und Westdeutschland 1945 bis 1968

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Gabriele Jaroschka
Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Aufsätze:

Harold James: Krieg und Frieden in Zeiten der Globalisierung.
Harold James: War and peace in times of globalization.

Continued globalization certainly is not an inevitable and inexorable phenomenon. There have been several previous waves of "globalization", with increased integration of capital, labor and goods markets and impressive technical improvements: in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but also in the eighteenth century. The earlier episodes came to an end, in large measure because of domestic political reactions to new inequalities apparently generated by globalization. Earlier globalization eras also ended because of the impact of external conflicts. Wars, even small wars, make people think more in terms of security and more in terms of relative gains and losses, and less in terms of mutual advantage and collective goods. In a world obsessed by conflict, the rules that are necessarily required in operating an interdependent global order are reinterpreted as being the arbitrary imposition of a hegemonic power.

Sergej Slutsch: Stalins "Kriegsszenario 1939": Eine Rede, die es nie gab. Die Geschichte einer Fälschung
Sergej Slutsch: Stalin's "war scenario 1939": A speech never delivered. The history of a forgery.

For the past 65 years, a speech that Stalin allegedly gave at a secret politburo session on the eve of World War II has repeatedly caught the attention of historians. It is believed that in this speech, the Soviet dictator explained his motives for the pact of non-aggression with Hitler in detail. According to a French news agency Stalin claimed the following: not only did the German-Soviet treaty allow a German attack against Poland, but it would also draw the whole of Europe into a long war and thereby create an opportunity for a Communist revolution on the whole continent.
If this was true, Hitler and Stalin would share the responsibility for the unleashing of the Second World War. On the other hand, an article by Eberhard Jäckel in the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte revealed this document to be a fake as early as 1958. Recently, new findings in Russian archives have raised speculations anew. The author disproves such allegations and reveals the motives behind such deliberate historical misrepresentations.

Ralf Ahrens: Der Exempelkandidat. Die Dresdner Bank und der Nürnberger Prozess gegen Karl Rasche.
Ralf Ahrens: The scapegoat. The Dresdner Bank and the Nuremburg trial against Karl Rasche.

Between 1945 and 1947, the American Military Government investigated the members of the executive and the supervisory boards of all big German banks for suspected war crimes. Only one single banker, however, was actually tried and consequently sentenced to seven years in prison. This was Karl Rasche, the spokesman of the board of executives of the Dresdner Bank. The trial against Rasche serves very well to show a fundamental problem of the American criminal prosecution after the war. Although it is true that Rasche was especially incriminated through his contacts with the SS and his business activities in the occupied zones, he was at the same time tried as a representative of the Dresdner Bank and as symbolic political figure. Rasche was the only banker who was called to account for the German banks participating in the National Socialist system of exploiting occupied countries, a fact which shows the shortcomings of the Western allieds' post-war trials. The Dresdner Bank themselves did not want to have to do anything with Rasche after the trial, which made it clear that they had found a "scapegoat" for their behaviour during the NS rule. This gave them an excuse for refraining from every further examination of their own role between 1933 and 1945.

Michael Wildt: Himmlers Terminkalender aus dem Jahr 1937.
Michael Wildt: Himmler's appointments diary from the year 1937.

This essay deals with recently found pages listing Himmler's daily appointments in 1937. They were found in the Moscow Sonderarchiv ("special archive"). Up to now, Himmler's appointments in 1937 had only been known for the time between June and August 1937. Therefore, the pages found are a valuable historical source, even if there are some small gaps in the chronology of events.
The appointments diary documents how Himmler wanted to strengthen the SS as an organization of racist and ideological selection. He restructured the central authority for questions of race and settlement (the so called Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt), and curtailed the influence of Richard Walther Darré. Closely cooperating with Karl Wolff, Himmler fostered relations with representatives of industry and commerce in the Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS in order to raise money for strengthening the SS. The diary of appointments also documents the people who composed the circle before 1939. Furthermore, it shows that Himmler vehemently pushed ahead with his plans to amalgamate the SS with the police in order to create a uniform "corps of state protection", and that he also tried to bring the border police under his control. Besides, he cooperated with the police force of fascist Italy, an early connection with a future ally. Together with Theodor Eicke, Himmler saw to the creation of two new concentration camps at that time, namely in Sachsenhausen and in Buchenwald. Last but not least, Himmler's many appointments with Hitler are proof that Himmler's role within the leading National Socialist circles was certainly not a peripheral one, even if his person was not very prominent as regards the political arguments within the regime in 1937.

Diskussion:

Walther L. Bernecker: Spaniens Übergang von der Diktatur zur Demokratie. Deutungen, Revisionen, Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung
Walther L. Bernecker: Spain's transition from dictatorship to democracy - interpretations, revisions and coming to terms with the past.

This essay deals with the characteristics of the Spanish transition, i.e. the changeover from dictatorship to democracy after Franco had died in 1975, and especially its deficits, which historians have recently given greater consideration. The points that are now viewed critically have found expression in the different interpretations of the period of transition, which, in turn, refer to differing interpretations of the civil war and of Franco's regime itself. As the transition was marked by a desire for compromise and agreement, no reappraisal of the past in society and politics was achieved during those years. Only very recently has there been a broader public discussion about the repressive aspects of the Spanish civil war and Franco's ensuing rule. Finally, the essay refers as to how Spanish history was reinterpreted in the face of the fact that today's democracy had to be derived from somewhere. The "paradigm of failure" was replaced by a "paradigm of normality", which is why historians have abandoned the assumption of a Spanish "Sonderweg".

Notiz:

Online-Recherche zur Zeitgeschichte. Katalog der Bibliothek des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte im Internet.

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