Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe aim of this article is to study discussions within the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) about the early postwar process of European integration at the intersection of international cooperation and nationally defined interests. The central question is the future of the Ruhr. This article argues that the developing Cold War, and the conflict between social democrats and communists, limited the reach of international trade-union cooperation but simultaneously strengthened the perceived need among social-democratic trade unionists in Western Europe to coordinate their policies in relation to supposed enemies. European integration in combination with the Cold War also highlighted a need to coordinate the resources of European and anti-communist trade unions in North America. The article shows that the IMF generally supported European integration as a defence against the hypothetical threat from the East, but made attempts to sway the process to include a pronounced social dimension.

This article combines a migration-systems approach with oral history and a local-level perspective. It focuses on migrant women recruited from Schleswig-Holstein to a Swedish garment factory in the early 1950s. These migrants were around 20 years old and single; about half of them were German wartime refugees and early post-war expellees from Central and Eastern Europe. The article analyses how migrants articulate retrospective narratives, as regards the different steps (background, journey and interactions in the receiving society) of the migration process. It shows how migrants' life stories are narratively constructed around contrastive elements and turning points, which correspond to the three steps of their migration experiences. The article also argues that oral sources can be used both to study subjective dimensions of individual migration experiences, and to illuminate important details of past migrations.