Bulletin of the German Historical Institute | 45 Bulletin of the German Historical Institute Fall 2009
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Fall 2009 Bulletin of the German Historical Institute | 45 Bulletin of the German Historical Institute Fall 2009 1607 NEW HAMPSHIRE AVE NW WWW.GHI-DC.ORG WASHINGTON DC 20009 USA [email protected] German Historical Institute Washington DC Fellows and Staff For further information, please consult our web site: www.ghi-dc.org Prof. Dr. Hartmut Berghoff, Director Modern German social and economic history; history of consumerism and consumption PD Dr. Uwe Spiekermann, Deputy Director Modern German economic history; history of consumption; history of science and knowledge Sabine Fix, Administrative Director Dr. Uta Balbier, Research Fellow American and German history since 1945; history of religion; history of sports; transnational history Bulletin of the German Historical Institute Dr. Carola Dietze, Research Fellow Washington DC 19th-century German and American history; history of the media and social radicalism; history of Editor: Richard F. Wetzell emigration and remigration; intellectual history; historiography Dr. Martin Klimke, Research Fellow The Bulletin appears twice a year and is available free of charge. 19th- and 20th-century European and American History; U.S. foreign policy; protest movements; transnational history; cultural history; oral history; political communication Current and back issues are available online at: Dr. Anke Ortlepp, Research Fellow www.ghi-dc.org/bulletin 19th- and 20th-century American social and cultural history; history of women and gender; ethnic To sign up for a subscription or to report an address change history; history of space please contact Ms. Bärbel Thomas at [email protected]. Dr. Ines Prodöhl, Research Fellow Global History, cultural and economic History, civil society For editorial comments or inquiries, please contact Dr. Corinna R. Unger, Research Fellow the editor at [email protected] or at the address below. Postcolonialism, development, and modernization; American and German history since 1945; Cold War and anticommunism; history of philanthropy; history of exile; history of science For further information about the GHI, please visit our Dr. Richard F. Wetzell, Research Fellow and Editor web site www.ghi-dc.org. Modern German history; intellectual and cultural history; legal history; history of science and For general inquiries, please send an email to [email protected]. medicine; history of sexuality German Historical Institute Dr. Thomas L. Hughes, Senior Visiting Research Fellow 1607 New Hampshire Ave NW Dr. Robert Gerald Livingston, Senior Visiting Research Fellow Washington DC 20009-2562 Dr. Jan Logemann, Fellow in the History of Consumption USA Jessica Csoma, Research Associate Phone: (202) 387-3355 Bryan Hart, Research Associate Fax: (202) 483-3430 Insa Kummer, Project Associate David B. Lazar, Senior Editor © German Historical Institute 2009 Dr. Kelly McCullough, Project Manager All rights reserved Dr. Patricia Sutcliffe, Editor Mary Tonkinson, Editor ISSN 1048-9134 Barbara Amarasingham, Receptionist Christoph Bottin, IT/Web Anita Brown, Library Associate Christa Brown, Foreign Language Assistant Betsy Hauck, Administrative Assistant Katharina Kloock, Librarian Nicole Kruz, Assistant to the Director Elisabeth Mait, Library Associate Luzie Nahr, Library Associate Jörg Schröder, Deputy Administrative Director Bärbel Thomas, Foreign Language Assistant Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 45 | Fall 2009 5 Preface FEATURES 9 Civilizing Capitalism? The Beginnings of Credit Rating in the United States and Germany Hartmut Berghoff 29 Corporate Freedom of Action in Nazi Germany Peter Hayes 43 Corporate Freedom of Action in Nazi Germany: A Response to Peter Hayes Christoph Buchheim and Jonas Scherner 51 Rejoinder Peter Hayes GHI RESEARCH 55 Where to Shop? The Geography of Consumption in the Twentieth-Century Atlantic World Jan Logemann CONFERENCE REPORTS 71 1968 in Japan, Germany, and the United States: Political Protest and Cultural Change Laura Elizabeth Wong and Alexander Holmig 76 Representing Poverty: American and European Perspectives Christoph Ribbat 80 Black Diaspora and Germany Across the Centuries Mischa Honeck 85 Nuclear Armament, Peace Movements, and the Second Cold War: The 1979 NATO Double-Track Decision in German-German and International Perspective Philipp Gassert 91 15th Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar: German History in the Nineteenth Century Richard F. Wetzell 98 Junior Scholars Conference on the Future of German-Jewish History Amos Bitzan 102 A World of Populations: Twentieth-Century Demographic Discourses and Practices in Global Perspective Jesse Olszynko-Gryn 108 Global Challenge and Regional Response: Early-Twentieth- Century Northeast China’s Encounters with the World Susanne Hohler and Sören Urbansky 114 The Economic Effects of German Exploitation in Occupied Countries during World War II Jonas Scherner 118 Archival Summer Seminar in Germany, 2009 Corinna Unger 122 Public History in Germany and the United States: Fields, Developments, and Debates in Praxis and Theory Anke Ortlepp 2 BULLETIN OF THE GHI | 45 | FALL 2009 129 GHI NEWS Endowment of a Gerald D. Feldman Lecture Tenth Gerd Bucerius Lecture New GHI Publications Library Report Recipients of GHI Fellowships GHI Fellowships and Internships GHI-Sponsored Events, Spring 2009 GHI Research Seminar, Spring 2009 GHI Lecture Series, Fall 2009 GHI Calendar of Events, Fall 2009/Spring 2010 BULLETIN OF THE GHI | 45 | FALL 2009 3 PREFACE The thematic diversity of the feature articles in the Bulletin’s last issue refl ected the great diversity of historical research conducted by the German Historical Institute. The same is true of the conference reports in this issue, which range from the history of demographics to the history of poverty, from German-Jewish history to the black diaspora, and from the Nazi occupation of Europe to the history of Northeast China. By contrast, this issue’s feature articles have a thematic focus on economic and business history, which is one of the areas of research concentration during my directorship of the GHI. The fi rst feature article presents my inaugural lecture at the GHI, which traces the beginnings and early history of credit rating in the United States and Germany – a topic that has been given remarkable contemporary relevance by the role that faulty credit and bond ratings have played in the current fi nancial crisis. The next two articles present a controversial debate in the economic history of the Nazi regime that has received considerable attention in recent years. The fi rst presents Peter Hayes’s lecture in the GHI’s very successful Fall 2008 lecture series on “New Perspectives on the Economic History of National Socialism.” Examining the issue of “corporate freedom of action in Nazi Germany,” Hayes takes issue with the interpretation that has recently been advanced by Christoph Buchheim and Jonas Scherner. Whereas Buchheim and Scherner have contended that Nazi intervention in the economy left private fi rms considerable freedom of action, Hayes argues that the Nazi regime’s regulation, intimidation, and, when necessary, coercion of business severely circumscribed fi rms’ autonomy. As it happened, Jonas Scherner was the GHI Fellow in Economic and Social History during 2008-2009, and Christoph Buchheim delivered a lecture later in the same series. We therefore took the opportunity to invite Scherner and Buchheim to write a response to Peter Hayes’s critique, which we are publishing in this issue. All three authors have done a remarkable job of making the sometimes rather technical and arcane arguments of economic historians accessible to non-specialists and explaining the key issues of this debate, which has important implications for our understanding of the Nazi regime. We hope that readers will enjoy the direct argumentative style that such a debate forum aff ords. PREFACE 5 This issue’s “GHI Research” article deals with the history of consumption, a second thematic focus of my directorship. Jan Logemann, currently History of Consumption Fellow at the GHI, presents his comparative research on the “geography of consump- tion” in postwar West Germany and the United States. Examining the divergent development of suburban shopping malls and downtown pedestrian areas in these two countries, Logemann also analyzes these developments’ social and economic ramifi cations, many of which are of contemporary relevance, as Americans have recently begun to think seriously about reducing energy consumption and improving mass transit in response to global warming and the current economic crisis. In this sense, then, we hope that this issue does what the German Historical Institute sees as one of its missions: making history relevant to contemporary debates. Hartmut Berghoff, Director 6 BULLETIN OF THE GHI | 45 | FALL 2009 Features Features GHI Research Conference Reports GHI News CIVILIZING CAPITALISM? THE BEGINNINGS OF CREDIT RATING IN THE UNITED STATES AND GERMANY INAUGURAL LECTURE AT THE GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, NOV. 14, 2008 Hartmut Berghoff GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE Capitalism is intrinsically tied to risk and recurrent cycles of boom and bust. Despite this obvious and almost trivial observation, many people were surprised when the current fi nancial crisis broke out in 2007. Capitalism has never been stable. On the contrary, it stands for dynamic change, “creative destruction,” and a never-ending series of bull and bear markets. The all-important question is how to deal with this Janus-faced system. The enormous dynamism of modern capitalism poses