Suchergebnisse

Dass der Antisemitismus in Deutschland nach der Machtübertragung an die Nationalsozialisten innerhalb kürzester Zeit durchsetzungsfähig wurde, war nicht allein Folge der brutalen Zerschlagung der politischen Opposition, der massiven Repression solidarischer Verhaltensweisen und der erfolgreichen ideologischen Durchdringung der deutschen Bevölkerung. Das Tempo, mit dem die Segregation der deutschen Bevölkerung vorangetrieben werden konnte, hing auch mit dem Zerfall institutioneller Organisationen und Strukturen zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus in der Spätphase der Weimarer Republik zusammen. Die Geschichte dieses Scheiterns nachzuzeichnen und die ergriffenen wie ausgeschlagenen Handlungsmöglichkeiten kenntlich zu machen, ist das Anliegen des folgenden Beitrags. ; Since the granting of equal legal rights to the Jews in 1871, Germany was the scene of repeated antisemitic campaigns aimed at counteracting this development. Until the mid-1920s, there was widespread public protest against these campaigns, with above all liberal, Social Democratic, and Jewish organizations—the Association for Defense against Antisemitism, the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, and both the Social Democratic Party and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany—playing an important role. In the second half of the 1920s, this protest abated. The failure of resistance to antisemitic agitation in this period was tied to a general decline of liberal forces in Germany, but also to an underestimation of the danger posed by the antisemitic parties and the lack of a new strategy in the face of so-called "Radau" antisemitism, with its violent penchant. Seemingly moderate antisemitic positions, advocating not violence but rather professional discrimination, now increasingly gained ground. In this framework, the National Socialist German Workers' Party adopted a legalistic course, proposing legal measures for Jewish segregation. When these measures were enacted in the 1930s, they were largely accepted without comment by the non-Jewish German populace. Those intervening in favor of persecuted German Jews in the following years hardly had any supporting structures and acted largely alone.

This essay is a critical discussion of the German revisionist historian Heinz A. Richter. Richter is a very productive writer on modern Greece, but has never, until recently, exerted substantial influence on the historiography of German-Greek relations during the 20th century, and more particularly on the historiography of the occupation of Greece in 1941–1944. This has changed in recent years, as Richter has begun to justify, from a historical viewpoint, the German government's harsh austerity policies towards Greece. The essay presents a critical review of the methodological deficits, ideological fictions and alarming prejudices in Richter's writing, especially with regard to his attempt to rehabilitate the collaboration between the German occupants and the Nazi faction of the Greek establishment during World War II. Part 1 of the polemic has been published in Sozial.Geschichte Online, 21 (2017).

During the Cold War system conflict, both sides operated not only with their respective intelligence services, but also through intermediate associations. The Western intelligence services mobilized a wide range of anti-Communist "front organizations" from the right wing of the political spectrum, but also radical leftist fringe groups. For example, the Group of International Socialists (GIS), which reemerged its their council-communist origins in the Weimar Republic, operated across the sector border of West Berlin and within the GDR in order to destabilize the totalitarian regime. This occurred with the support of US agencies. However, due to the abduction of GIS' most important activist, Alfred Weiland, the Eastern intelligence services were able to infiltrate the GIS' cross-zonal connections, which led to the destruction of the oppositional networks within the GDR. The article highlights the special role that Weiland played as a confidant of the US intelligence agencies.

Der folgende Beitrag entstand als Vorstudie zu einem größeren Forschungsvorhaben zur Zerschlagung der jüdischen Wirtschaftsunternehmen durch die deutsche Besatzungsmacht in Belgien in den Jahren 1942–1944, das die Verfasser zurzeit gemeinsam durchführen. Dabei sind wir von zwei Besonderheiten ausgegangen, die die "Arisierung" in Belgien von der in Deutschland unterschieden: Zum einen waren die damals in Belgien lebenden Juden zum allergrößten Teil Immigranten aus Osteuropa. Zum anderen führte die von den Deutschen angeordnete "Arisierung" der belgischen Wirtschaft nur in wenigen Fällen zu Firmenübernahmen, vielmehr zielte sie auf die Liquidation nahezu sämtlicher Klein- und Mittelbetriebe jüdischer Inhaber. So stellte sich uns zunächst die Frage nach der Entstehung und dem Charakter dieser migrantisch geprägten Ökonomie. Der vorliegende Aufsatz versucht, diese Frage mithilfe statistisch aufbereiteter Massendaten, aber auch durch Heranziehung vieler individueller Fallgeschichten zu beantworten. ; The "Aryanization" of the Belgian economy ordered by the German occupants aimed at the liquidation of virtually all small and medium-sized businesses owned by Jews. Most of these business owners had immigrated to Belgium from Eastern Europe. The articles deals with the genesis of this immigrant economy, presenting new findings on Jewish immigration to Belgium and examining the structure of Jewish businesses, as well as their distribution in Antwerp and Brussels. Statistically processed mass data serve as the basis for this, though individual case histories are also presented. The businesses of Jewish immigrants were mostly small family businesses and of an artisanal or proto-industrial nature, specializing on a few branches of trade and unable to secure for their owners more than a precarious existence. The article, which is being published in two parts, concludes with quotations from petitions business owners addressed to the German military administration in an effort to ward off the elimination of their livelihoods.

Schulbücher haben innerhalb der Schule eine große Bedeutung für die Gestaltung des Unterrichts. Das Thema Subsahara-Afrika spielt sowohl in der hiesigen Gesellschaft als auch in Schulbüchern eine eher untergeordnete Rolle. Diese Erfahrung machte der aus Eritrea geflüchtete Autor in den 1980/90er Jahren als Lernender an einer Wuppertaler Gesamtschule. Im Rahmen seines Studiums der Sozialpädagogik stellte er fest, dass diese Problematik im universitären Kontext ebenfalls nur marginal behandelt wird. Auch außerhalb der Schule wird Subsahara-Afrika in der allgemeinen Medienberichterstattung als Krisen- und Katastrophenregion dargestellt, bei der insbesondere der Anteil europäischer bzw. westlicher Länder an dieser Situation weitgehend eine untergeordnete Rolle spielt und Initiativen aus Subsahara-Afrika zur Lösung von Problemen kaum Erwähnung finden.

The discussion that follows uses interview transcripts from Goldthorpe and Lockwood's classic "Affluent Worker" study to explore a range of issues that can shed light on similarities and differences in the lives of white- and blue-collar workers in 1960s Britain. Although the original study stressed the fundamental differences in the life experiences of manual and non-manual (male) workers, it did concede that processes of "normative convergence" might be reducing those differences, especially outside work. Returning to workers' original testimony, and particularly to the under-used non-manual sample, allows us to explore the issue of "convergence" more fully than was attempted in the original study. Many non-manual workers possessed strong family and life-course connections to (manual) working-class life, indeed many saw themselves as working class. Most embraced a very similar understanding of class and class hierarchy to shop-floor workers, identifying themselves as part of a large mass of "ordinary workers" who constituted the great bulk of the population. Clerical workers in the lowest paid occupations were especially likely to see class in these terms. It is suggested that the tendency to highlight differences rather than similarities in class experience subsequently weakened the scope for a broad-based politics organized around "workingclass" interests, especially given the sharp deindustrialization of the 1970s and 1980s.

In the second part of this mini-series on Chinese capitalism in crisis, Ralf Ruckus discusses Li Minqi's recent book China and the 21st Century Crisis (2016) followed by a lively discussion with the book's author. Li presents the economic, social, and ecological limits not just of Chinese capitalism but of the current capitalist world-system as a whole, predicting the latter's collapse within the next fifteen years. While Li's argument on systemic limits is in large parts convincing, his views on a possible political solution are not. Ralf Ruckus writes: "If there is a chance to bring about the end of capitalism in China and globally, we have to learn from the experience of historical socialism—beyond the demonization of attempts to create a society without capitalist exploitation, and beyond the mystification of historical 'socialism,' which was meant to accomplish that but didn't."

During the last few years, interest in the thought of French poststructuralist philosophers has grown. Jacques Rancière, a representative of this tradition, has attracted considerable attention, leading to the translation of two important books by him in German: Die Nacht der Proletarier and Die Lektion Althussers. The article uses these two new publications and the book Das Unvernehmen to describe important milestones in the development of Rancière's political philosophy. Tracing Rancière's shift away from Althusser and his theory of political subjectivity, the text proposes a reading of Rancière that highlights the constitution of a subjectivity that challenges existing orders in our society.

In his works on terror and the politics of annihilation during the Second World War, U.S. historian Timothy Snyder claims to overcome the narrow perspective of a historiography focused on nation states by examining the space of terror and the intersecting interests and dynamics within. However, his broadly received books Bloodlands and Black Earth show that Snyder's account is also informed by historico-political interests; this is evident, for example, in his consistently positive depiction of Polish society, which goes hand in hand with a consistently negative depiction of Soviet partisans. Snyder's work is also characterized by his understatement of the state's and bureaucracies' role in terror, and, at the same time, his view that the destruction of the state is the essential prerequisite of the Holocaust: a diagnosis that leads him to present Hitler as an "anarchist." In real-political terms, Synder's historico-political conclusions are leading to the affirmation of nation-state structures.

Au Loong Yu gives a detailed account of the development of the Hong Kong rebellion while focusing on the role of the different protestors' camps, as well as on the contribution of the labour movement to the mobilizations. Despite Hong Kong society's deeply entrenched conservatism and belief in the market, the massive demonstrations have facilitated the participation of large sections of the population hitherto relegated to the political margins. The recent Hong Kong elections saw the opposition win a landslide victory, possibly showing the limits of China's grip over the island.

In Italy, the 1970s were characterized by extended strikes and protests that spread from large factories to the service sector (transportation, healthcare, public administration). Contrary to the widespread view that these labor protests were the antechamber of terrorism—a view expressed, for example, in the entry for "hot autumn" (autunno caldo) on the Italian Wikipedia website—, the article shows that they in fact represented a lengthy process of emancipation on the part of the workers. Italian workers demonstrated political maturity and were able to free themselves of working conditions that were unworthy of a civilized country.

This article begins by presenting the "migration act" adopted by the German federal government in June 2019. The act entails far-reaching changes in German residence and asylum law. Subsequently, some aspects of the debate on migration and work in Sozial.Geschichte Online are discussed. This is followed by a final section on how the legal changes are to be classified and assessed with regard to the relationship between migration and work. It is argued that the legal changes are characterized by neoliberal, exploitation-oriented strategies on the one hand, and by repressive, nationalist strategies on the other. It is further argued that the changes will likely aggravate the repression exercised against rejected asylum seekers.

The "Gilets Jaunes" revolt has mobilized large parts of the politically disenfranchised and dispossessed classes. Tens of thousands of people have participated in the movement's nationwide demonstrations, which have now been going on for well over a year, since December 2018. In "Moral Economy and Power," Samuel Hayat attempts to assess the significance of E. P. Thompson's notion of "moral economy" for the revolt. According to Hayat, the revolt is characterized by the invocation of an exclusive community and by the abandonment of an established social pact between rulers and ruled by the rulers. Critical queries must be made as to whether this pact really existed. It could be argued that, given the current state of democracy, the movement raises new questions allowing us to explore the notion of an alternative society.

The "Aryanization" of the Belgian economy ordered by the German occupants aimed at the liquidation of virtually all small and medium-sized businesses owned by Jews. Most of these business owners had immigrated to Belgium from eastern Europe. The article deals with the genesis of this immigrant economy, presenting new findings on Jewish immigration to Belgium and examining the structure of Jewish businesses, as well as their distribution in Antwerp and Brussels. Statistically processed mass data serve as the basis for this, though individual case histories are also presented. The businesses of Jewish immigrants were mostly small family businesses and of an artisanal or proto-industrial nature, specializing on a few branches of trade and unable to secure for their owners more than a precarious existence. The article, which is being published in two parts, concludes with quotations from petitions business owners addressed to the German military administration in an effort to ward off the elimination of their livelihoods.

The protection of health has always been a stepchild of the working culture. Only since the 1970s has this tradition changed, in response to the environmental movement, Italian struggles for better working conditions and efforts to develop a critical medicine. These topics were introduced to the world of work by left-wing groups, often in open conflict with unions and works councils. The article examines cases related to chemical toxins, asbestos and other health risks and asks to what extent the struggle for better health at the workplace has been successful. Health protection and health promotion have been bureaucratized and made to conform with managerial notions of performance enhancement. Thus the core aim of the health movement – creating decent working and living conditions – remains unachieved.