Suchergebnisse

In November 1918, German women gained the right to vote, and female suffrage would forever change the landscape of German political life. Women now constituted the majority of voters, and political parties were forced to address them as political actors for the first time. Analyzing written and visual propaganda aimed at, and frequently produced by, women across the political spectrum--including the Communists and Social Democrats; liberal, Catholic, and conservative parties; and the Nazis--Julia Sneeringer shows how various groups struggled to reconcile traditional assumptions about women's interests with the changing face of the family and female economic activity. Through propaganda, political parties addressed themes such as motherhood, fashion, religion, and abortion. But as Sneeringer demonstrates, their efforts to win women's votes by emphasizing "women's issues" had only limited success. The debates about women in propaganda were symptomatic of larger anxieties that gripped Germany during this era of unrest, Sneeringer says. Though Weimar political culture was ahead of its time in forcing even the enemies of women's rights to concede a public role for women, this horizon of possibility narrowed sharply in the face of political instability, economic crises, and the growing specter of fascism

The tradition of legalism continues to influence German politics, generating a corollary propensity toward judicial resolutions of political disputes. Appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court, established after World War II, has been used increasingly as a weapon of political opposition. Despite self-restraint vis-a-vis the political authorities, the Court has sometimes construed basic rights expansively as 'participatory' rights to positive government action. Recently it has been criticized for conservatism & a tendency to restrict future legislative discretion. While the 'politicalization of justice' resulting from the judicialization of politics could reduce respect for the Court's authority, it could also foster a healthier relationship between politics & the law. Modified HA.

John Breuilly brings together a distinguished group of international scholars to examine Germany's history from 1780 to 1918, featuring chapters on economic, demographic and social as well as cultural and intellectual history. There are also chapters on political and military history covering the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the post-Napoleonic period, the revolutions of 1848-1849, the unification of Germany, Bismarckian Germany and Wilhelmine Germany, and Germany during the First World War.0This new edition, which retains the helpful further reading suggestions for each chapter and a chronology, has been completely updated to take account of recent historiography. The statistical data has been expanded, more maps and images have been introduced, and there are two new chapters on transnational approaches and gender history. Finally, the editor has added a conclusion which reflects on the key developments in the history of Germany over the "long nineteenth century".0Providing clear surveys of the central events and developments and addressing major debates amongst historians, Nineteenth-Century Germany is vital reading for all those wishing to understand this crucial period in modern German history