Editorial
Letter from the Editor Andrew I. Port Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 699 - 699 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002179 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Memorial
Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931–2014) David Blackbourn Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 700 - 715 doi: 10.1017/S0008938915000023 Published Online on 04th March 2015
ArticlesEmpress Theophanu, Sanctity, and Memory in Early Medieval Saxony Laura Wangerin Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 716 - 736 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001927 Published Online on 04th March 2015 The Empress Theophanu, wife of Otto II and regent for her son Otto III, was by all accounts a woman skilled at maneuvering through the complicated world of Ottonian politics. When she died in 991 CE, around the age of thirty, she had accomplished much: after arriving in Italy from Constantinople in 972 at around the age of twelve, she became Otto II's queen and was crowned empress of the Western Empire. During her lifetime, she was among the wealthiest women in Europe and one of the continent's most powerful people. After her husband's death, she secured the succession of her son, Otto III, and actively ruled as regent, successfully navigating the dangerous political world of the Western Roman Empire. Her activities included building churches, placing her daughters in positions of power in key nunneries, issuing acts as imperator and imperatrix, receiving ambassadors, waging war and negotiating peace—essentially doing everything expected of a male emperor with the exception of personally engaging in battle. Thietmar of Merseburg, writing around 1013, praises her rule as regent, stating that she held the kingdom for her son “in a manly fashion,” clearly intending this as a compliment. And yet, after her death and the premature death of her son a few years later, Theophanu seems to disappear from the historical record. Despite the great number of contemporary sources in which she figured during her lifetime and immediately after her death, including charters and donations, letters, chronicles, and annals, we know almost nothing about her. The few sources that do mention her in the period following her death have little good to say about her. Why did this woman fall into disfavor?
The Homosexual Scare and the Masculinization of German Politics before World War I Norman Domeier Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 737 - 759 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001903 Published Online on 04th March 2015 It may seem strange today to study aspects of the political sphere—from foreign policy to diplomacy and the military—in the context of sexuality. But the Belle Epoque (1871–1914) was an era of prestige politics, also with respect to the politics of sexuality. This article reveals how the Eulenburg Scandal of 1906 to 1909 used sexual morality as a way to explain and interpret the tensions that pervaded Germany's domestic affairs and international relations. The reliance on sexual mores as an explanation for large-scale political events was the result of an ever-intensifying chain of national and international complications—complications that later undermined Germany's sense of national honor. The Eulenburg Scandal is remembered today mainly as the first major homosexual scandal of the twentieth century, but contemporaries experienced it in a wider sense: it became Germany's counterpart to the Dreyfus Affair in France—two examples of political, social, and cultural conflict that threatened the foundations of their respective countries.
Were the National Socialists a Völkisch Party? Paganism, Christianity, and the Nazi Christmas Samuel Koehne Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 760 - 790 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001897 Published Online on 04th March 2015 A trend in studies about National Socialism and religion in recent years argues for a deliberate distinction between the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the antisemitic völkisch movement of nineteenth-century Germany. This article challenges that contention. Several researchers have published comprehensive studies on the heterogeneous nature of Christian responses to the Nazis, but a comparable approach looking at how the Nazis viewed religion has not yet been undertaken. A study of the latter type is certainly necessary, given that one of the consistent features of the völkisch movement was its diversity. As Roger Griffin has argued, a “striking feature of the sub-culture . . . was just how prolific and variegated it was . . . [T]he only denominator common to all was the myth of national rebirth.” In short, the völkisch movement contained a colorful, varied, and often bewildering range of religious beliefs.
A Gulag in the Erzgebirge? Forced Labor, Political Legitimacy, and Eastern German Uranium Mining in the Early Cold War, 1946–1949 Caitlin E. Murdock Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 791 - 821 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001939 Published Online on 04th March 2015 “Dear Papa! I have been conscripted into a living grave. . . .” So began a letter in the West Berlin newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat in March 1948. The young man had been sent to work in the Soviet occupation zone's uranium mines, near Aue in the Saxon Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains), and had written to his parents in despair. The news article that accompanied the letter explained, “The uranium mines… are not in the Urals, but in the Erzgebirge. But reports from [the Erzgebirge] are as hard to come by as [ones] from the Urals.” Other newspapers in Germany's Western zones of occupation also published reports of “slave conditions,” and “forced labor” in the mines.
Provisional State, Reluctant Institutions: West Berlin's Refugee Service and Refugee Commissions, 1949–1952 Eric H. Limbach Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 822 - 843 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001915 Published Online on 04th March 2015 In May 1951, the Hamburger Freie Presse published an article on the alleged experiences of Hans Schmidt, an East German police officer (Volkspolizist) who had sought to register earlier that year for political asylum in West Berlin. The newspaper profile followed the twenty-one-year-old Schmidt from his unit's barracks in the northern city of Rostock, across the still undefended border between Brandenburg and West Berlin, to a police station in the northwestern district of Spandau, where he announced his intention to flee to West Germany.
Featured Book Review
The Nazi Genocide of the Roma: Reassessment and Commemoration. Edited by Anton Weiss-Wendt. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2013. Pp. 284. Cloth $95.00. ISBN 978-0857458421.Vermessen und Vernichten. Der NS-“Zigeunerforscher” Robert Ritter. By Tobias Schmidt-Degenhard. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012. Pp. 246. Cloth €44.00. ISBN 978-3515092777. Ari Joskowicz Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 844 - 849 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002167 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Book Reviews
A Concise History of Switzerland. By Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xvi + 324. Paper $29.99. ISBN 978-0521143820. Jonathan Steinberg Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 850 - 852 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001964 Published Online on 04th March 2015
The Witch in the Western Imagination. By Lyndal Roper. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012. Pp. xii + 240. Cloth $39.50. ISBN 978-0813932972. Kathryn A. Edwards Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 852 - 853 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001976 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Conversion and the Politics of Religion in Early Modern Germany. Edited by David M. Luebke, Jared Poley, Daniel C. Ryan, and David Warren Sabean. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012. Pp. ix + 206. Cloth $70.00. ISBN 978-0857453754. Ute Lotz-Heumann Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 854 - 856 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914001988 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Acolytes of Nature: Defining Natural Science in Germany, 1770–1850. By Denise Phillips. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Pp. viii + 356. Cloth $50.00. ISBN 978-0226667379. Andre Wakefield Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 856 - 858 doi: 10.1017/S000893891400199X Published Online on 04th March 2015
The Transatlantic World of Higher Education: Americans at German Universities, 1776–1914. By Anja Werner. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2013. Pp. xiii +329. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-0857457820. Thomas Adam Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 858 - 860 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002003 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectuals across Empire. By Kris Manjapra. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Pp. 454. Cloth $49.95. ISBN 978-0674725140. Eric Kurlander Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 860 - 862 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002015 Published Online on 04th March 2015
The Mind of the Nation: Völkerpsychologie in Germany, 1851–1955. By Egbert Klautke. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2013. Pp. vi + 188. Cloth $72.00. ISBN 978-1782380191. H. Glenn Penny Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 863 - 865 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002027 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Simson. Vom unwahrscheinlichen Überleben eines Unternehmens 1856–1993. By Ulrike Schulz. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2013. Pp. 464. Cloth €34.90. ISBN 978-3835312562. Bernhard Rieger Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 865 - 867 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002039 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Theodor Wolff. Ein Leben mit der Zeitung. By Bernd Sösemann. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012. Pp. 304. Cloth €24.90. ISBN 978-3515101745. Conan Fischer Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 868 - 870 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002040 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Prinz Max von Baden. Der letzte Kanzler des Kaisers. Eine Biographie. By Lothar Machtan. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2013. Pp. 670. Cloth €29.95. ISBN 978-3518424070. Dieter K. Buse Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 870 - 871 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002052 Published Online on 04th March 2015
“Arbeitsschlacht”. Arbeitsbeschaffung und Propaganda in der NS-Zeit 1933–1939. By Detlev Humann. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011. Pp. 808. Cloth €49.90. ISBN 978-3835308381. Kristin Semmens Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 871 - 873 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002064 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938–1945. Edited by Anton Weiss-Wendt and Rory Yeomans. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Pp. 416. Paper $50.00. ISBN 978-0803245075. Maria Bucur-Deckard Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 873 - 875 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002076 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields. By Wendy Lower. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Pp. 288. Cloth $26.00. ISBN 978-0547863382. Donna Harsch Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 875 - 877 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002088 Published Online on 04th March 2015
The Holocaust in the East: Local Perpetrators and Soviet Responses. Edited by Michael David-Fox, Peter Holquist, and Alexander M. Martin. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014. Pp. 280. Paper $27.95. ISBN 978-0822962939. Waitman W. Beorn Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 878 - 880 doi: 10.1017/S000893891400209X Published Online on 04th March 2015
Germany's Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity. By Lily Gardner Feldman. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. Pp. xvii + 393. Cloth $85.00. ISBN 978-0742526129. Thomas W. Maulucci Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 880 - 882 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002106 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Heisenberg in the Atomic Age: Science and the Public Sphere. By Cathryn Carson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xxiv + 541. Paper $37.99. ISBN 978-1107436954. Alan Beyerchen Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 882 - 884 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002118 Published Online on 04th March 2015
Strangers in the Wild Place: Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945–1952. By Adam R. Seipp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 285 . Cloth $35.00. ISBN 978-0253006776. Frank Biess Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 884 - 886 doi: 10.1017/S000893891400212X Published Online on 04th March 2015
Protestants in Communist East Germany: In the Storm of the World. By Wendy R. Tyndale. Burlington, VT and Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010. Pp. 216. Cloth $119.95. ISBN 978-1409406105.The East German State and the Catholic Church: 1945–1989. By Bernd Schaefer. Translated by Jonathan Skolnik and Patricia C. Sutcliffe. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010. Pp. 320. Cloth $99.00. ISBN 978-1845457372. Benita Blessing Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 04 , December 2014, pp 887 - 889 doi: 10.1017/S0008938914002131 Published Online on 04th March 2015