Suchergebnisse

Studying the cultural memory of war : theory and practice -- Local, national, and international memory of the First World War and the Armenian genocide -- The Bolshevik Revolution, communism, and successor states after the First World War : memory and identity in interwar Eastern Europe -- Victors' memory, forgetting, and recovery : civil war memory in Spain -- Germany, Nazism, collaboration, and the Holocaust : the history of the Second World War in Europe -- Dealing with Nazism in Germany -- War memory in France and Poland -- Finding the Holocaust and Jewish history in contemporary Europe -- The memory of communism and conflict in Eastern Europe -- War, violence, and memory return : the collapse of Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia.

The bombardment of civilians from the air was a regular feature of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. It is estimated some 15,000 Spaniards died as a result of air bombings during the Civil War, most civilians, and 11,000 were victims of bombing from the Francoist side that rebelled against the Republican government, supported by German and Italian aviation that joined the rebellion against the Republic. In Catalonia alone, some 1062 municipalities experienced aerial bombardments by the Francoist side of the civil war. In cities across Spain, municipal and regional authorities developed detailed plans for civilian defense in response to these air campaigns. In Barcelona, the municipality created the Junta Local de Defensa Passiva de Barcelona, to build bomb shelters, warn the public of bombings, and educate them on how to protect themselves against aerial bombardment. They mobilized civilians around the concept of 'passive defense.' This proactive response by civilians and local government to what they recognized as a war targeting them is an important and under-studied aspect of the Spanish Civil War.

AbstractThis work links the western Allies' policy of denazification in occupied Germany to efforts to repatriate German intelligence agents and Nazi Party officials – so-called 'obnoxious' Germans – from the neutral states of Europe after the Second World War. Once on German soil, these individuals would be subject to internment and investigation as outlined in occupation policy. Using the situation in Franco's Spain as a case study, the article argues that new ideas of neutrality following the war and a strong commitment to the concept of denazification led to the creation of the repatriation policy, especially within the United States. Repatriation was also a way to measure the extent to which Franco's Spain accepted the Allied victory and the defeat of Nazism and fascism. The US perception was that the continued presence of individual Nazis meant the continued influence of Nazism itself. Spain responded half-heartedly, at best. Despite the fact that in terms of numbers repatriated the policy was a failure, the Spanish example demonstrates that the attempted repatriation of 'obnoxious' Germans from neutral Europe, although overlooked, was significant not only as part of the immediate post-war settlement but also in its bearing on US ideas about Nazism, security and perceived collaboration of neutral states like Spain.

In 1946, the French government imposed sanctions on the authoritarian Franco regime in Spain. France was the only western state to take action on Spain that moved beyond rhetorical condemnation. This action was preceded and followed by intense private and public efforts to convince the United States and Great Britain to impose sanctions too. Why could France not accept the western alliance's commitment to the status quo when it was evident this was the preferred policy of the Foreign Minister Georges Bidault? When it came to the Spanish Question, the significance of Resistance rhetoric and imagery about an idealized new world competed with a realistic assessment of France's new role tied to the United States. The result was an awkwardly constructed French policy which undermined, at least for a moment, France's place in the emerging Cold War alliance.