Volume 55, Issue 3

The starting point of this essay is the observation that a large backlog of reforms has arisen in some European democracies and that there is often a lack of political will to deal definitively with these long outstanding issues. Horst Möller therefore points out that democracy, the rule of law and parliamentary constitutions are not to be taken for granted, but instead have to be legitimised and reformed time and time again if they are to escape collapse; as an example of what can go wrong, the author uses the Interwar Period, during which almost all European democracies succumbed to inherent threats and mistaken developments. Thus the essay is not connected with the tradition of cultural pessimism – it sees itself rather as a premonitory plea to rapidly and sweepingly engage in the necessary reforms to avert the threatening but often ignored dangers for democracy.

During the Second World War, an immense partisan movement developed in Belarus. In Soviet historiography, the relationship between the partisans and the local population is described positively and is characterised by mutual friendship and assistance. In contrast, the German files speak of “Gang Terror”, which was also directed at the general population. Most of all, the partisans relied on the locals for their supply of provisions, which is why this aspect is at the centre of this study. Based on the example of the Gebietskommissariat Baranowicze, one of the focal points of partisan activity in Western Belarus, the relationship between the partisans and the general population is investigated. German and Polish sources paint a picture of a successively radicalising partisan movement, which secured its supplies from the rural population by force of arms. While the central leadership of the Soviet underground since 1942 attempted to prevent the accompanying assaults, rapes and pillage, it could not do so without the procurement of provisions either. The comparatively high food rations of the underground fighters suggest that considerations regarding the wellbeing of their own population did not possess a high priority for the Soviet leadership.

The question, whether the structural problems of German Fiscal policy can be explained historically, is at the centre of this article. The result of this investigation is clear: The current deficits of the public budgets as well as the false stimuli resulting from an overcomplicated tax system and fiscal constitution are historically explainable. The foundations of the structural problems go back as far as the Imperial period. In spite of a number of fiscal shocks, there are remarkable continuities in the areas of investigation: budget policy, tax policy and fiscal constitution. But the quintessence of the article is not a historical determinism. Rather, there never where any exigencies for fiscal policy which would have excluded alternative policies outright. This is also true for the current situation. With cognizance of the historical causes, the structural problems of German fiscal politics can be solved in the medium term.

The valorisation of the profile of the European Union as an actor on the international stage has been a goal of the member states for some time. However, progress is hard to achieve in the field of the Common European Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The history of European integration is therefore full of failed attempts to collectively develop a coherent foreign policy. The most recent effort to optimise the profile of the Union in this area by the planned introduction of a European Union Minister for Foreign Affairs as well as a European External Action Service (EEAS) subordinated to him has to be considered a failure for the time being. The article deals with the question why the development of a European Diplomacy has failed. However, the focus of the investigation does not lie in the present, but rather in the Sixties, during the de Gaulle era. The conversion of the Commission delegations into Union delegations as specified in the current constitutional treaty could have been achieved over forty years ago – if the French government had not vetoed it.

European contemporary history can be conceptualised as a coherent research programme. In view of a number of reciprocally linked modernising surges, the beginning of the present time is shifted into the late 19th century. Then, the leitmotiv of the 20th century is the search for solutions for the problems of developed and developing industrial societies. Three European paths of development (and numerous variants) can be distinguished. In the long term, they converge in a democratically constituted industrial capitalism, domesticated by interventionism and cushioned by a welfare state – all with a genuine European profile; this alleged “victor of history” steers towards an existential crisis during the final third of the century. Investigations into contemporary history reconstruct these learning experiences comparatively and in view of transfers and transnational interconnections and incorporates them into global relationships.

During the first half of 1944, the German armament ministry's planning office, headed by Hans Kehrl, wrote the “Bericht zur deutschen Wirtschaftslage 1943/44”. This report was originally conceived as a basis for future war economy planning. In August 1944 Albert Speer forwarded a slightly modified version of this document to all ministers, Reichsleiter and Gauleiter. The report provides a short but comprehensive survey of the German war economy's performance between the beginning of the War and mid-1944 from the perspective of those responsible. The report can be understood as a war economy programme of the Speer ministry and provides some hitherto unknown information, which poses new questions.