Syllabus
1st meeting, 19th February 2015
Introduction and overview 2nd meeting, 26th February 2015
"Germany" and "the East" from the Middle ages to the enlightenment
Topics: Central and Eastern Europe as a historical region / Central and Eastern Europe during the middle ages and the early modern times / Bohemia as a part of the Holy Roman Empire / "Germany" and "the East" during the middle ages / German Eastern settlement during the middle ages and the early modern times / German law in Central and Eastern Europe / The Teutonic order / The enlightenment and the discovery of difference / Johann Gottfried Herder and his role for the "small" peoples in Central and Eastern Europe
Reading
· Larry Wolff: Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1996, pp. 2-16;
· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostsiedlung
· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_town_law
· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Order (only the part "history") 3rd meeting, 12th March 2015
The "friendship of peoples" and its breakup during the revolution of 1848/49
Topics: Central and Eastern Europe in the first half of the 19th century / Ethnic groups in Central and Eastern Europe / The emergence and development of nationalism / A typology of nationalism / The "friendship of peoples" of the democratic national movements / The revolution of 1848 in Central and Eastern Europe / The German revolution of 1848/49 / František Palacký’s letter to the German National Assembly / The Prague Slav congress of 1848 / Wilhelm Jordan’s speech in the German National Assembly and the end of the "friendship"
Reading: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius: The German myth of the East, 1800 to the present, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009, pp. 67-87 (1st paragraph); Letter sent by František Palacký to Frankfurt (11th April 1848), http://www.spinnet.eu/images/2010-12/letter_by_palacky.pdf (German: http://www.bohemistik.de/palacky2.html) 4th meeting, 19th March 2015
The age of nationalism and the emergence of the colonial relationship between Germany and its Eastern (Slavonic) neighbors I.
Topics: The changing character of German nationalism / The Austrian-Prussian dualism / From the revolution to the "Reichsgründung" / The impact of the "Reichsgründung" for Germany’s relations with "the East" / German imaginations of "the East" and the construction of a colonial space / "Ostforschung" in the German Empire / Gustav Freytag’s "Soll und Haben" and the changing image of the Slavonic East
Reading: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius: The German myth of the East, 1800 to the present, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009, pp. 87-113. 5th meeting, 26th March 2015
The age of nationalism and the emergence of the colonial relationship between Germany and its Eastern (Slavonic) neighbors II.
Topics: The Polish-German conflict in the Prussian Eastern provinces / Prussian settlement policy / Polish defensive strategies / Foreign workers in Imperial Germany / Comparison: The Czech-German conflict in Bohemia-Moravia / Germany and Russia: political and economic relations and mutual influence until 1914 / Changing images of Russia in Germany / Images of Germany in Central and Eastern Europe
Reading: Sebastian Conrad: Internal Colonialism in Germany. Culture Wars, Germanification of the Soil, and the Global Market Imaginary, in: Bradley Naranch, Geoff Eley (eds.): German Colonialism in a Global Age, Durham, London: Duke University Press 2014, pp. 246-264.
Presentation: Kinga Alina Langowska: Prussian settlement policy and the Polish defensive strategies 6th meeting, 2nd April 2015
Germany and "the East" during World War I: imaginations, conceptions and practice
Topics: German war aims in Eastern Europe / War on the Eastern front / Changing images of "the East" in Germany during World War I. / German occupation in Poland and Ukraine / Germany and the Russian Revolution /
Reading: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius: The German myth of the East, 1800 to the present, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009, pp. 130-148.
Presentation: Martin Landa: Friedrich Naumann’s "Mitteleuropa" 7th meeting, 9th April 2015
Germany and "the East" during the Weimar Republic
Topics: Developments after the end of the war: Revolution in Germany, civil war and state-building in Eastern Europe / The minority question after World War I / The ethnic struggle in Upper Silesia / German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe / The Weimar Republic and its Eastern neighbours / Weimar revisionism / Mutual images of Germany and its Eastern neighbours in the Weimar years / The Weimar Republic and Soviet Russia / German travellers in the Soviet Union / "Ostforschung" in the Weimar Republic / Images of Germany in Central and Eastern Europe
Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius: The German myth of the East, 1800 to the present, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009, pp. 148-170.
Presentation: Adéla Vondrovicová: The Weimar Republic and Soviet Russia 8th meeting, 16th April 2015
Germany and "the East" under National Socialism
Topics: Characteristics of National Socialism: ideology & political approaches / German-Polish relations / German-Soviet relations / "Ostforschung" in Nazi Germany / German images of Eastern Europe / Nazi Germany and German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe / Nazi images of Slavs and Jews / Images of Nazi Germany in Central and Eastern Europe / German war planning in relation to Central and Eastern Europe / Towards war: The Munich treaty of 1938 and the establishment of the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia / The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its meaning
Presentation: Kendy Zerwonka: "Ostforschung" in Nazi Germany 9th meeting, 23rd April 2015
German policy in Eastern Europe during World War II: imaginations, conceptions and practice I.
Topics: World War II. in Central and Eastern Europe / The character of the war on the Eastern front / German war aims in the East; the concept of "Lebensraum" / German "Ostforschung" and the war in Central and Eastern Europe / The German occupation in Bohemia-Moravia / The German occupation in Poland / Mass resettlements of Poles and Germans 1939-40 / German settlement policy in Western Poland
Presentation: Veronika Tichá: The German occupation in Poland 10th meeting, 30th April 2015
German policy in Eastern Europe during World War II: imaginations, conceptions and practice II.
Topics: Germany’s war against the Soviet Union / War and occupation in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia / The Holocaust: Origins, plans and practice / The "Generalplan Ost" / Forced labor / Prisoners of war /
Presentation: Martin Herzig: "Lebensraum" and German war aims in World War II 11th meeting, 7th May 2015
Germany and "the East", "the East" and Germany from the end of World War II until the 1960’s
Topics: The war conferences of the Allied powers and their decisions / Central and Eastern Europe after World War II / The fate of the Germans in Central and Eastern Europe / German "Eastern policy" after WW II / German images of "the East" after 1945 / "Eastern" images of Germany after 1945 / German compensation payments for victims of National Socialist rule / The GDR and Eastern Europe since 1949: Political, economic and cultural relations /
Presentation: Sean McQuiggan: The expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe after World War II 12th meeting, 14th May 2015
Germany and "the East", "the East" and Germany since the later 1960’s / Germany and its Eastern neighbors since unification / Closing discussion / Summary
Topics: Détente in world politics since the late 1960’s / Changing mutual images of West-Germany and "the East" / New directions in West-German "Eastern policy" during the 1960’s / The "Ostverträge" (Eastern treaties) and their meaning / Political, economic and cultural relations between the FRG and "the East" since the 1970’s / Political, economic and cultural relations between the GDR and "the East" / The development of mutual relations between united Germany and its Eastern neighbors since 1990 / Czech-German, Polish-German, and Russian-German controversies about history / An "informal (economic) empire" of Germany in Central and Eastern Europe?
Presentation: Kateřina Kuklíková: Czech-German debates on shared history
Annotation
The relationship between Germany and its Eastern neighbors in the 19th and 20th century was a peculiar one: In the age of nationalism it changed from a relatively calm coexistence into a colonial one, which ended in extreme violence, genocide and the final ethnic unmixing of peoples in Central and Eastern Europe. After a period of silence since 1945, contacts were slowly being reestablished in the 1960s, while Willy Brandt’s "New Eastern Policy" made an important step forward, because it meant a qualitative change of German policy towards its Eastern neighbors. After 1989 burning questions of shared historical experience of the Germans and their Eastern neighbors reemerged and sometimes became a burden of politics in integrating Europe. Today, these questions seem to be finally settled and a new era in the relationship between Germany and its Eastern neighbours has begun.
Historical research on the relationship of Germany and its Eastern neighbors has intensified in the 1990’s and brought a lot of new insights into this topic. It has pointed to how writers, historians and other experts on "the East" in German constructed Eastern Europe as a site of German domination, expansion and colonization - up to Hitler’s idea of "Lebensraum" and the "Generalplan Ost". On the other hand, the Slavonic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe created their own imagination of Germany; some parts of the Polish political specter for example were proponents of a Polish "return" to territories in the West, which in the Middle ages were settled by Slavonic tribes.
In the seminar we will analyze the changing German imagination of "the East" and its counterpart - the imagination of Germany in Central and Eastern Europe (Bohemia/ Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia/USSR) in the 19th and 20th century. What was the general development of these mutual imaginations over time, who were the main proponents, which their incentives? What were the reasons for changes in these imaginations? We will discuss research on the mutual imaginations of Germany and its Eastern neighbors and analyze sources on the topic. The students will acquire knowledge on the German imagination of "the East" and Germany’s policy towards its Eastern neighbors in the 19th and 20th centuries.