Hist 354 "History of Modern Germany" 2007-2008
Prof. Eagle Glassheim Office: 1203 Buchanan Tower E-mail: [email protected]
Times and Classroom: Tu/Th 3:30-4:50, Buch B 216
Course Description:
This course will introduce you to major themes in German history and historiography from early efforts towards national unification in 1848 through the reunification of divided Germany in 1990. After the failed attempt to unify Germany from below in 1848, Otto von Bismarck welded together a new German Empire under Prussian leadership in 1871. In conjunction with German unification from above and late but rapid industrialization at the end of the nineteenth century, we will raise the question of a German Sonderweg, or special path, in the modernization of state and society. We will examine continuities and discontinuities in German development from the Empire through World War I and the Weimar Republic, with a special emphasis on the causes of the breakdown of Weimar democracy and the rise of Hitler's National Socialism. The course will then turn to the Nazi revolution in politics and society, focusing on the place of racism, anti- Semitism and anti-Communism in Nazi ideology and practice. We will look at how Nazi ideology combined with the structure of the Nazi state and the cover of the Second World War to produce the unique horror of the Holocaust. The total defeat of Germany in 1945 and its subsequent reconstruction as two states again raises the question of continuities and discontinuities. We will trace the divergent, but linked histories of democratic West Germany and the Communist East, concluding with the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and subsequent reunification of the two states.
Required Texts:
Christopher Browning. The Path to Genocide (Cambridge, 1995). Mary Fulbrook. History of Germany 1918-1990 (Blackwell, 2002). Peter Gay. Weimar Culture (Norton, 2001). Ernst Jünger. Storm of Steel (Penguin, 2004). Christian Leitz, ed. The Third Reich: The Essential Readings (Blackwell, 1999). Nietzsche Reader (Penguin, 1978). Peter Schneider, The Wall Jumper (Chicago, 1998). Hagen Schulze, The Course of German Nationalism (Cambridge, 2003).
Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are part of the course reading pack.
Course Requirements:
. Regular discussion responses—due in class on days marked R (2 graded per semester) . One short paper (4-5 pgs) each semester (Oct. 25 and either Mar. 4 or Apr. 3) . Take-home exam (4-5 pgs) at end of each semester Term I
I.Making Germany, Making Germans
Week 1
Lecture: Introduction (Sept. 4) Lecture: Napoleon and the Holy Roman Empire (Sept. 6)
Readings: Schulze 33-63, 105-121
Week 2
Lecture: 1848 (Sept. 11) Discussion: Nationalism and Liberalism (Sept. 13-R)
Readings: Schulze 1-31, 64-81, 122-140; *Snyder 162-165, 174-191; *Evans
Week 3
Lecture: Nationalism and Unification (Sept. 18) Lecture/Discussion: What is Germany? (Sept. 20)
Readings: Schulze 82-101, 141-146; *Elon 196-210; *James 55-87
II.Imperial Germany
Week 4
Lecture: Industry and Mass Society (Sept. 25) Discussion: Modernity’s Discontents (Sept. 27-R)
Readings: *Blackbourn; *Elon 210-220; *Volkov; *Snyder 270-273
Week 5
Lecture: Popular Movements: Workers, Women, and the Middle Classes (Oct. 2) Discussion: Heimat, the Environment, and German Identities (Oct. 4-R)
Readings: *Applegate; *Confino 97-124; *Snyder 234-236, 244-247
Week 6
Lecture: Imperialism and Militarism (Oct. 9) Lecture/Discussion: The Sonderweg I, Authoritarianism and Empire (Oct. 11)
Readings: *Mitchell; *Zantop; *Hull and Zimmerer articles; *Second Zimmerer article
Week 7
Lecture: Nietzsche, Freud, and Modernity (Oct. 16) Discussion: The Sonderweg II, Cultural Despair (Oct. 18 R)
Readings: *Stern; Nietzsche, excerpts III.War and Revolution
Week 8
No class on Oct. 23. Lecture: Origins of World War I (Oct. 25)
Readings: Jünger, first half
Paper due Oct 25 on Nationalism and Modernity
Week 9
Lecture: The Fronts (Oct. 30) Discussion: Storm of Steel (Nov. 1 R)
Readings: Jünger, second half
Week 10
Lecture: Revolution (Nov. 6) Discussion: Revolution? (Nov. 8 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 1-24; *Haffner
IV.Weimar: The Liberal Experiment
Week 11
Lecture: Weimar Democracy (Nov. 13) Discussion: Debate on Versailles (Nov. 15)
Readings: *Lederer; Fulbrook 24-31; Gay 1-22; *Weimar documents 5-16
Week 12
Lecture: Weimar Culture (Nov. 20) Discussion: Faith and Doubt (Nov. 22 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 32-36; Gay 23-45, 70-101; *Weimar documents, 393-402, 438-445
Week 13
Lecture: Weimar on the Wane (Nov. 27) Discussion: Crisis of Democracy (Nov. 29 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 37-49; *Elon 355-403; *Weimar documents 80-85, 330-341, 352-360 Term 2
Week 1
Lecture: The Rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party (Jan. 8) Discussion: Why Hitler? (Jan. 10 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 49-61; Leitz 1-48; *Allen
Week 2
Lecture: Nazi Society (Jan. 15) Discussion: The Reach and Limits of Totalitarianism (Jan. 17 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 61-78; Leitz 95-128, 179-204, 229-252
Week 3
Lecture: Nazi Racism and Eugenics (Jan. 22) Discussion: Women, Workers, and Health (Jan. 24 R)
Readings: Leitz 151-178, 205-228; *Owings; *Kaplan
Week 4
Lecture: Total War (Jan. 29) Discussion: Collaboration and Resistance (Jan. 31 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 79-85; Leitz 49-94, 129-150, 253-274
Week 5
Lecture: The Holocaust I (Feb. 5) Film: Conspiracy (Feb 7)
Readings: Fulbrook 85-99; *Wannsee Protocol; Browning preface, chpts. 1,5,7
Week 6
Lecture: The Holocaust II (Feb. 12) Discussion: Responsibility—Hitler, Bureaucrats, Ordinary Men, Modernity? (Feb. 14 R)
Readings: *Klemperer Diaries, pages TBA; Browning, chpt 8
Break Week Feb. 18-22
Week 7
Lecture: Defeat, Expulsion, and de-Nazification (Feb. 26) Discussion: Germans as Victims? (Feb. 28 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 100-123; *Naimark; *Schieder documents VI.Germany Divided
Week 8
Lecture: Divided Germany (Mar. 4) Discussion: A New Totalitarianism? (Mar. 6 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 123-159; *Fulbrook, People’s State 23-48, 235-249, 291-298
Week 9
Lecture: Economic Miracles and the Environment, East and West (Mar. 11) No class Mar. 12
Readings: Fulbrook 160-174; *Dominick; *Snyder 569-576; start reading for next week
Week 10
Lecture: Communism (Mar. 18) Discussion: Women and Consumption under Communism (Mar. 20 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 174-204; *Harsch; *Merkel; *Rubin
Week 11
Lecture: Democracy and Its Discontents (Mar. 25) Discussion: Memory of War and Genocide (Mar. 27 R)
Readings: Fulbrook 204-234; *Moeller 21-50; *Maier 1-33
Week 12
Lecture: The Wall in our Heads (Apr. 1) Lecture: The Wall Falls, Long Live the Wall (Apr. 3)
Readings: Fulbrook 235-256; Schneider first half
Week 13
Discussion: The Wall and (N)Ost-algia (Apr. 8-R) Film: Good-Bye Lenin (Apr. 10)
Readings: Fulbrook 257-301; Schneider second half
Reader Contents
Term I
1. Louis Snyder, ed., Documents of German History (Rutgers University Press, 1958), 163-165, 174- 191, 234-236, 244-247, 270-273, 569-576. 2. R.J.W. Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, The Revolutions in Europe 1848-1849 (Oxford University Press, 2000), 1-26. 3. Amos Elon, The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 (Picador, 2002), 196-210. 4. Harold James, A German Identity (Phoenix Press, 2000), 55-87. 5. David Blackbourn, “Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany,” in Geoff Eley, ed., Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870-1930 (The University of Michigan Press, 1996), 2189-219. 6. Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code: Reflections on the History and Historiography of Antisemitism in Imperial Germany,” Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute, XXIII (1978): 25-45. 7. Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials (University of California Press, 1990), 1-19. 8. Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor (University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 97-124. 9. Alan Mitchell, ed., The Nazi Revolution (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), 1-23. 10. Susanne Zantop, Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770-1870 (Duke, 1997), 191-201. 11. Hull and Zimmerer, “Forum, The Measure of Atrocity: The German War against the Hereros,” German Historical Institute Bulletin, no. 37 (Fall 2005): 39-44, 51-57. 11a. Jürgen Zimmerer, “The Birth of the Ostland out of the Spirit of Colonialism: A Postcolonial Perspective on the Nazi Policy of Conquest and Extermination,” Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 39, no. 2 (2005): 197-219. 12. Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair (Anchor Books, 1965), 326-361. 13. Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution (Banner Press: 1986), 11-68, 116-129, 152-162, 194- 201. 14. Ivo Lederer, ed., The Versailles Settlement (D.C. Heath and Company, 1960), 17-23, 40-51, 78-105. 15. Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg, eds, The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (University of California Press, 1994).
Term II
16. William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power (Franklin Watts, 1984), 24-40, 294-303. 17. Alison Owings, Frauen (Rutgers University Press, 1995), 172-184 (248). 18. Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 1998), 17-49. 19. Wannsee Protocol at http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/wansee-transcript.html 20. Victor Klemperer, I will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years (Modern Library, 2001), pages TBA. 21. Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred (Harvard University Press, 2001), 108-138 (256). 22. Theodor Scieder, ed., The Expulsion of the German Population from Czechoslovakia (Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, 1960), 399-409, 462-469. 23. Mary Fulbrook, The People’s State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (Yale University Press, 2005), 23-48, 235-249, 291-298. 24. Raymond Dominick, “Capitalism, Communism, and Environmental Protection: Lessons from the German Experience,” Environmental History, vol. 3, no. 3 (July 1998): 311-332. 25. Donna Harsch, “Squaring the Circle: The Dilemmas and Evolution of Women’s Policy,” in Patrick Major and Jonathan Osmond, eds., The Workers’ and Peasants’ State (Manchester University Press, 2002), 151-170. 26. Ina Merkel, “Consumer Culture in the GDR, or How the Struggle for Antimodernity Was Lost on the Battleground of Consumer Culture,” in Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Matthias Judt eds., Getting and Spending (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 281-299. 27. Eli Rubin, “The Order of Substitutes: Plastic Consumer Goods in the Volkswirtschaft and Everyday Domestic Life in the GDR,” in David Crew, ed., Consuming Germany in the Cold War (Berg, 2003), 87-119. 28. Robert Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 21-50. 29. Charles Maier, The Unmasterable Past (Harvard University Press, 1988), 1-33.