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Being Muslim as a Way of Becoming German

Esra Özyürek

in Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe

This chapter takes a look at the Muslimische Jugend Deutschland (Muslim Youth of Germany, or MJD), a small organization of not more than 1200 registered members. The MJD promotes Muslim youths of ... More

This chapter takes a look at the Muslimische Jugend Deutschland (Muslim Youth of Germany, or MJD), a small organization of not more than 1200 registered members. The MJD promotes Muslim youths of diverse backgrounds coming together to discover ways of becoming active and desirable members of German society. Young members of the MJD participate in discussions about how to represent Muslims and immigrants in the general elections; arrange trips to Auschwitz in order to shoulder the weight of German history and talk about its meaning for contemporary German society; and organize New Year's evening celebrations along with hip-hop concerts that are Islamically proper. Many born Muslim members confirm that through their participation in the MJD, they start to embrace their German identity in a wholehearted way and define themselves primarily as German rather than Turkish or Arab.Less

Conclusion

Esra Özyürek

in Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe

This chapter offers some concluding thoughts on how German converts to Islam apply different and at times conflicting strategies in order to demonstrate how Islam is a perfect—and indeed better—fit ... More

This chapter offers some concluding thoughts on how German converts to Islam apply different and at times conflicting strategies in order to demonstrate how Islam is a perfect—and indeed better—fit for German/European society. It also briefly discusses the significance of Salafi communities in this context. In addition, the chapter tells the story of a moral panic over converts to Islam that swept Germany in the 2000s, which suddenly moved German converts from their previously invisible position to center stage in the media. This account highlights the most novel aspects of Islamophobia, with the reason for the panic being the fear of a potential terrorist attack.Less

Consolidation and Crisis, 1705–1740: the Reich Under Joseph I and Charles VI

Joachim Whaley

in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume II: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806

Joseph I and Charles VI had to deal with the turbulence arising from the War of Spanish Succession and faced significant challenges in Italy, the Low Countries and Spain. Confessional tensions ... More

Joseph I and Charles VI had to deal with the turbulence arising from the War of Spanish Succession and faced significant challenges in Italy, the Low Countries and Spain. Confessional tensions increased over differing interpretations of the terms of the Peace of Westphalia and of the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697). Joseph I died after barely five years on the throne but Charles VI successfully exercised the imperial prerogatives established by Leopold I. He lacked an heir, however, and this gradually undermined his authority in the 1730s. Many have argued that these events reflected the decay and imminent collapse of the Reich, but in fact writing about the Reich in the print media, the production of JJ Moser's classic study of the Reichs constitution and an upsurge in patriotism (Gottsched and the ‘German Societies’) suggests that, while the dynasty faltered in 1740, the Reich itself was in good repair.Less

Marx and Germany: The “Hegel Critique”

Roman Szporluk

in Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List

According to Engels, Marx was a “Marxist” when he wrote the “Hegel Critique”. Marx diagnosed the anatomy, morphology, and the dynamics of German society and drew specific guidelines to be used there. ... More

According to Engels, Marx was a “Marxist” when he wrote the “Hegel Critique”. Marx diagnosed the anatomy, morphology, and the dynamics of German society and drew specific guidelines to be used there. He was able to formulate a program that would launch a new stage in the history of humanity. As per Evans, Marx wrote his critique of List in March 1845. It was only at that time that Marx began to study the problems of the political economy. The “Hegel Critique” is the first work of Marx that did not mention the Friedrich List. It was where Marx spoke of the proletarian class for the first time. He was concerned with the backwardness of Germany. He dealt with anachronism. He linked the German Revolution to the French Revolution. He was after the abolition of the state. The “Hegel Critique” was the closest amongst all his works to advancing the idea of national communism.Less

Introduction: Writing under Weimar

David Midgley

in Writing Weimar: Critical Realism in German Literature, 1918-1933

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to examine how the changing nature of German society is critically reflected in the literature of the Weimar period, and how ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to examine how the changing nature of German society is critically reflected in the literature of the Weimar period, and how changing perceptions of the function of literature are reflected in literary texts. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Psychology of language during the Third Reich

Willem J.M. Levelt

in A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era

This chapter shows how events during Adolf Hitler's regime interrupted the study of the psychology of language. It focuses on the contributors to the psychology of language and the neurologists who ... More

This chapter shows how events during Adolf Hitler's regime interrupted the study of the psychology of language. It focuses on the contributors to the psychology of language and the neurologists who had previously contributed to the field of aphasiology. The first section discusses the psycholinguistic issues of language, race, and the world view, while the second and third sections study the 1931 Hamburg Congress of the German Psychological Society and the 1933 Leipzig Congress of the German Psychological Society. It then examines the effects of the ‘restauration’ of the German universities and some key individuals who contributed to the psychology of language. It also explores some developments on German psychology that emerged from 1933 to 1938. This chapter ends with a discussion of the fates of some notable contributors to linguistics.Less

Hollow Unity

Anna von der Goltz

in Hindenburg: Power, Myth, and the Rise of the Nazis

This chapter examines the fate of the Hindenburg myth during the period of relative stabilization of German politics and society. The author shows that Hindenburg's first term witnessed profound ... More

This chapter examines the fate of the Hindenburg myth during the period of relative stabilization of German politics and society. The author shows that Hindenburg's first term witnessed profound changes in attitude among his followers and former opponents. Although he had largely owed his presidential victory to the political right, radical right-wingers such as Heinrich Claβ and Joseph Goebbels started to turn their back on the President for his failure to overturn the republican order. Republicans, on the other hand, began to sing his praises for his constitutional stance and backing of crucial foreign policy initiatives. However, there was a considerable, if momentary, overlap of republican and anti-republican Hindenburg-worship, most evident during the near-regal festivities of his eightieth birthday in 1927. The chapter charts the mythical narrative as a multi-layered phenomenon appealing to different groups simultaneously, which helps to understand Hindenburg's remarkably broad and enduring appeal.Less

Grasping for a Great New Future: The German Colonial Lobbies in Search of a United Platform

Sean Andrew Wempe

in Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations

Chapter 4 examines fragmentation within the colonial lobbies in Germany and their efforts to unify the language of imperial internationalism by the Colonial German bloc in the interwar period during ... More

Chapter 4 examines fragmentation within the colonial lobbies in Germany and their efforts to unify the language of imperial internationalism by the Colonial German bloc in the interwar period during the lead-up to the Locarno Conferences of 1925. What follows is an analysis of the adaptation and reimagining of the three largest and most vocal of the German colonial societies in the Weimar period: the German Colonial Society, the Women’s League, and the Kolonial Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft (Imperial Working Group on the Colonies, KoRAG). Each of these organizations made an effort at retooling itself to serve the needs of Colonial Germans in the Weimar era. Yet despite all their efforts, the DKG and other colonialist organizations in Germany never managed to unite the German colonial bloc. Former officials, missionaries, and German settlers in and from Africa opportunistically adapted their understandings of nationality in pursuit of their own self-interests. The most difficult challenges that the German colonial lobbies faced in the wake of the loss of the empire did not come from the German government or even from the League and the new mandatory powers, but rather from the cacophony of demands placed upon them by a diverse constituency.Less

Introduction

Andreas Killen

in Berlin Electropolis: Shock, Nerves, and German Modernity

This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to study the dialogue between the German state and its citizens about the “hidden costs” of the modernization process, a ... More

This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to study the dialogue between the German state and its citizens about the “hidden costs” of the modernization process, a dialogue conducted in the specialized new idiom of “nerves.” Charting the emergence and decline in German society of a new conception of the nervous self between 1870 and 1930, it sets these developments against the backdrop of the rapidly modernizing German capital, which during this period became arguably the most advanced metropolis in Europe. The discussion then turns to how late nineteenth-century Germans came to analyze themselves and the shocks and afflictions of industrial society in terms of this idiom of “nerves”, and the history of nervousness. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Social Gatherings in Private Homes

Natalie Naimark-Goldberg

in Jewish Women in Enlightenment Berlin

This chapter focuses on the gatherings that took place in private homes, which provide a setting for social interaction and cultural exchange among enlightened Jewish women, with other members of the ... More

This chapter focuses on the gatherings that took place in private homes, which provide a setting for social interaction and cultural exchange among enlightened Jewish women, with other members of the Jewish community, and, significantly, with non-Jews. Receiving guests and visiting others' homes was an activity of threefold significance in the life of enlightened Jewish women. It was important to them as members of the cultured strata of German society, in that it offered them the opportunity to engage in cultivated conversation, and by extension to inform themselves and develop their intellectual powers. It had a particular significance for them as Jews, in bringing them into contact not only with members of their own religious community but also with non-Jews, thus strengthening their connections to the German and European world. And it had a further implication for them as women, in offering them an accessible forum for discussion at a time when communication was valued as an important means to foster enlightenment and human progress but women were excluded from many of the formal structures created to facilitate it. This less institutionalized form of sociability thus joined the practices of visiting the spas and exchanging letters as a viable option for female participation in cultural and conversational activity.Less

“Washing the black sheep white again”: Was German neuroscience rehabilitated after the collapse of the Third Reich?

Lawrence A. Zeidman

in Brain Science under the Swastika: Ethical Violations, Resistance, and Victimization of Neuroscientists in Nazi Europe

The first postwar period (1945–50) consisted, importantly, of the Nuremberg Medical Trial and formation of the Nuremberg Code for medical ethics. During the initial period most collaborator ... More

The first postwar period (1945–50) consisted, importantly, of the Nuremberg Medical Trial and formation of the Nuremberg Code for medical ethics. During the initial period most collaborator neuroscientists, even those involved in patient selection for euthanasia, escaped largely unscathed. The latter faced temporary career setbacks but re-emerged in the next decade professionally. The second period (1950–70) included a seminal event, the Hallervorden Affair, which pertained to the 1953 International Neuropathology Conference in Lisbon. Former Dutch neuroscientist resistor Rademaker and the Dutch delegation withdrew when they found out Hallervorden was presenting, leading to Hallervorden and Spatz’s withdrawal but only after fiery correspondence on both sides of the argument. Some collaborator neuroscientists continued to support sterilization, and even spoke against victims’ rights. Overall, only three of 25 (12%) of collaborators ever publicly repented for their involvement in Nazi programs, suggesting against an ability to rehabilitate for this directly involved group.Less

Introduction: The Biological Perspective and the Problem of a Modern Nature

in Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany

This book addresses the relationship of the emergence of modern society to the construction of a modern vision of nature. It argues that the biological perspective embodied both the challenges and ... More

This book addresses the relationship of the emergence of modern society to the construction of a modern vision of nature. It argues that the biological perspective embodied both the challenges and the opportunities presented by modern German society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It demonstrates that this biological perspective provided the conceptual foundation for the German version of animal ecology that developed in the early twentieth century. Moreover, it tries to illuminate the history of popular natural history in Germany by situating it in relation to the elite ideas understood to constitute “science” and the relations among the communities that produced both popular and elite knowledge of nature. The importance of Charles Darwin, Alexander von Humboldt, and Rudolf Leuckart is then discussed. An overview of the chapters included in this book is finally given.Less

Between Acculturation and Conversion

Natalie Naimark-Goldberg

in Jewish Women in Enlightenment Berlin

This chapter describes the relationship of the enlightened Jewish women to Judaism and to religion in general, including their attitude to conversion to Christianity. One of the most significant ... More

This chapter describes the relationship of the enlightened Jewish women to Judaism and to religion in general, including their attitude to conversion to Christianity. One of the most significant features of the act of conversion in the case of these Jewish women is the fact that, for them, it came in most cases at a relatively advanced age, despite the fact that their close involvement with German society and culture had started years before, in their teens or early twenties. All these women, then, spent many years distancing themselves in practice from the traditional Jewish way of life, blurring the borders that separated the Jewish and Christian worlds. During those years, they usually lived as non-observant Jews, who gradually abandoned Jewish practices but nevertheless remained affiliated to the Jewish people. As such, despite the indisputable importance of religious conversion, in most cases, the act itself did not mark a decisive point of departure in either the social life or the world-view of these women. The act of conversion constituted not a sudden leap from one world to another so much as one more step in a continuing process of acculturation in German society and alienation from the Jewish world.Less

The Legacy of the Kulturkampf

Beth A. Griech-Polelle

in Bishop von Galen: German Catholicism and National Socialism

This chapter is concerned with the Kulturkampf, which is argued to have had a successful effect on the internalization of fears that Catholics would once more be considered as outsiders. It looks at ... More

This chapter is concerned with the Kulturkampf, which is argued to have had a successful effect on the internalization of fears that Catholics would once more be considered as outsiders. It looks at the legacy of the Kulturkampf, in terms of the fact that von Galen used the language of an arriving Kulturkampf to keep the Catholic community together. It looks at the different divisions of German society that influenced how Protestants and Catholics viewed their national identity, as well as the works of Catholic writers such as Alban Stolz who showed Catholics as outsiders. The next section demonstrates the Catholic and Jews' ways of being accepted by the German nation, including setting aside their own traditions. This chapter also looks at the Concordat, which served as a medium for protest rather than a plan for resistance, and the wide-scale persecution of Jews thanks to a racial definition of Jewishness.Less

A Time for War, and A Time for Peace

J. Leonard Levy

in Jewish Preaching in Times of War, 1800 - 2001

This chapter investigates a sermon by J. Leonard Levy, delivered immediately after American entry into World War I. Despite his German sympathies, he supported Wilson's call for American neutrality ... More

This chapter investigates a sermon by J. Leonard Levy, delivered immediately after American entry into World War I. Despite his German sympathies, he supported Wilson's call for American neutrality as one that ‘reveals his wisdom and splendid statesmanship’. Yet his sermon contains a resounding paean to the achievements of German science, culture, and society. However, when the United States declared war against the Central Powers, Levy followed the pattern of anti-militarists (and even many pacifists) among the clergy in expressing his apparently unreserved support for the policy of the Wilson administration, in a long, somewhat sprawling, Sunday discourse delivered the following weekend. Here, he presents two themes of the biblical text in counterpoint: ‘The time for peace will come… The time for war is here’.Less

Setting the Law in Motion

Michael D Birnhack

in Colonial Copyright: Intellectual Property in Mandate Palestine

The law was activated in the 1930s. New technologies enabled public performance of music, the development of local culture(s), and emergence of a cafe/entertainment culture, placed copyright in the ... More

The law was activated in the 1930s. New technologies enabled public performance of music, the development of local culture(s), and emergence of a cafe/entertainment culture, placed copyright in the spotlight. The first plaintiffs were foreign: the European performing rights societies, first the German society (GEMA) and then the English Performing Rights Society (PRS), operating through a local agent, Meir Kovalsky and his lawyer, Shimon Agranat. This fits a general pattern of colonial copyright, that foreign players are the first to use the colonial law. The discussion traces the first steps of copyright law in courts, the issues addressed, the challenges, litigation strategies, and the judicial response. The process is conceptualized in the framework of glocalization. The foreign players also inspired local entrepreneurs to establish a local, Hebrew performing rights society, ACUM, in the mid 1930sLess

Connecting Germans: The Circuitry of National Knowledge

Jason D. Hansen

in Mapping the Germans: Statistical Science, Cartography, and the Visualization of the German Nation, 1848–1914

Networks are the focus of the fourth chapter, with a particular eye to the circuitry that connected the creators of these images of the national community with the public sphere. This circulation, ... More

Networks are the focus of the fourth chapter, with a particular eye to the circuitry that connected the creators of these images of the national community with the public sphere. This circulation, this chapter argues, played a critical role in legitimizing and authenticating maps and statistics of nationality as “scientific” and “accurate” documents. Once again technology also plays a role in the story, as the increasingly lower cost of printing enabled the foundation of geographic journals such as Petermanns Mitteilungen and Globus, who brought “serious” maps of nationality to the public sphere. By the 1880s, the school system, reference works and nationalist pressure groups also helped further build the credibility of these images.Less