Volume 59, Issue 1 -

Vorspann Ian Kershaw, einer der bedeutendsten NS-Forscher unserer Zeit, bezieht Stellung. Er äußert sich zur Debatte über das Konzept „Volksgemeinschaft“, das seit längerem die Gemüter bewegt. Kershaw verkennt nicht, dass sich hier neue Chancen eröffnen, die Dynamik und das verbrecherische Potenzial des Dritten Reiches zu erfassen. Zugleich warnt er aber auch davor, die Reichweite des Konzepts zu überschätzen; es sei nicht präzise genug und verleite dazu, die Vielfalt des NS-Staates zu verfehlen. Abstract This essay indicates three differing ways in which Volksgemeinschaft is currently used: to denote changed power relations; as a mobilising force through ‘affective integration’; and as a vehicle of exclusion, discrimination and persecution. It acknowledges in each area some value in the concept. But it sees nevertheless a major problem in trying to turn a propaganda slogan into a tool of historical explanation. It points to the difficulty in demonstrating consensus in a terroristic dictatorship, to the continued existence of subcultures that challenged the unity of a Volksgemeinschaft, and to surviving pluralistic attitudes even towards the treatment of Jews. It suggests that a binary divide between inclusion and exclusion might be too simplistic a model. The essay concludes that the Volksgemeinschaft concept has prompted some valuable research but that it has major defects as a genuine tool of analysis.

Vorspann Wie „säubert“ man eine Gesellschaft? Wie lässt sich ein politisches Programm verwirklichen, das auf den Prinzipien von Rassismus und politischer Intoleranz beruht? Nirgends wird der ganze Wahnsinn dieser Politik der Ausgrenzung so deutlich wie an ihren Grenzfällen. Davon erzählt diese Geschichte. Eine junge Frau, Rechtsanwältin in Frankfurt, gerät 1933 in die Mühlen des nationalsozialistischen Verfolgungsapparats, obwohl sie dafür die Voraussetzungen eigentlich gar nicht erfüllt. Abstract This article covers the attempt of the National Socialists to disbar lawyers "of non-Aryan descent" or "persons who acted for the Communist cause" by using the Lawyer Act of 7 April 1933. Disbarment also affected all lawyers who had defended Communists, often without being members of the KPD. The "Dr. Cohnen Case" is a drastic example for the "elimination" of this minority among the lawyers of the Weimar Republic. In 1929 Elfriede Cohnen was the first female lawyer to receive a license in Frankfurt/Main and had accepted defence cases of the Red Aid. The lawyer was "Aryan" and a member of the Catholic Centre Party, but was hated as a "Jewess" in Nazi circles. Cohnen, who was severely handicapped since suffering an injury as a Red Cross helper in an accident in 1914, studied medicine after unsuccessful attempts to be readmitted to the bar. Her story is a highly instructive example for the reality of Nazi legal policy.

Vorspann Die neue Ostpolitik der sozialliberalen Koalition gilt gemeinhin als Erfolgs-geschichte, so dass der Widerstand, auf den sie einst stieß, leicht in Vergessenheit gerät. Den gab es damals durchaus, vor allem von Seiten der CDU/CSU. Die meisten Unionspolitiker lehnten auch die deutsch polnischen Vereinbarungen vom Oktober 1975 ab. In Kraft gesetzt aber wurden diese Vereinbarungen erst durch die Zustim¬mung des Bundesrat, in dem die CDU/CSU die Mehrheit besaß. Wie war das mög¬lich? Warum votierten die beiden Parteien für eine Politik, die doch die meisten ihrer führenden Köpfe ablehnten? Abstract The German-Polish Agreements of 9 October 1975 closed a gap left behind by the Warsaw Treaty of 1970: A protocol binding under international law regulated the permanent departure of 100 000 persons of German descent from Poland to the Federal Republic. In their agreement about pension and accident insurance, the contractual partners committed to mutually recognise periods of insurance accrued in the other country for persons living inside their own country. The accompanying arrangements, an agreement about a flat-rate compensation payment for pension entitlements as well as an agreement about the granting of a financial loan, were described as hidden reparations by the opposition. This was true inasmuch as the genesis of the bilateral agreements shows that the Polish side demanded compensation payments and the Federal Government, albeit indirectly, responded. However the CDU/CSU opposition was not able to sustain a collision course with the Schmidt/Genscher Government. A small, prominent group within the CDU/CSU voted for the agreements on humanitarian grounds, which resulted in severe tensions within the party. The Bundesrat became the focus of the dispute; ultimately it surprisingly delivered a unanimously positive vote. First and foremost it was the CDU Party Chairman Kohl and the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Albrecht who moved the CDU onto a course of agreement for political and tactical reasons (related to future coalition building) - but only after pushing through important and (in this form) unique adjustments to the agreements in conjunction with Foreign Minister Genscher.

Vorspann War die Friedensbewegung der achtziger Jahre tatsächlich kommunistisch „unterwandert“ und von Moskau gesteuert, wie immer wieder behauptet wird? Holger Nehring und Benjamin Ziemann, zwei in Großbritannien lehrende Historiker, wenden sich vehement gegen diese fast schon zur Meistererzählung geronnene Deutung. Sie analysieren die Wurzeln der Friedensbewegung, betonen ihre Vielfalt und betten sie in die Geschichte des NATO-Doppelbeschlusses und der allgemeinen NATO-Krise ein, die sich damals nicht zuletzt an der Frage entzündete: Wie sicher ist Europa und die Bundesrepublik? Abstract Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990/91 a master narrative about the Western German Peace Movement of the early 1980s has been established almost without objection: It sees this protest movement through the lens of the Cold War and interprets it as being infiltrated by Communists. Here in contrast, the engagement of Communist groups within the wider protests against the NATO Double-Track Decision is seen as part of the disparate social movements of the 1970s under the perspective of social and cultural history. This simultaneously sheds new light on the crisis of the Western alliance since the middle of this decade and the subsequent controversies about the understanding of security in the Federal Republic and the GDR.

Vorspann Die nicht heilbaren Konstruktionsmängel des Staatssozialismus liefern noch keine hinreichende Erklärung für „1989“. Erst angesichts der welthistorisch neuen Bedingungskonstellation, die sich ab Anfang der siebziger Jahre durch die elektronische Revolution und die Globalisierung herausbildete, erwiesen sich die Staatssozialismen in der Systemkonkurrenz als endgültig unterlegen. Ihr Todesurteil wurde bereits Anfang der siebziger Jahre gesprochen, die Wege zur Vollstreckung waren aber lang und unterschiedlich, wie der in Salzburg lehrende Zeithistoriker Christoph Boyer mit Blick auf die DDR, die Tschechoslowakei, auf Polen und Ungarn zu zeigen vermag. Abstract Historians tend to explain the failure of State Socialism by recounting the history of its ultimate crisis; social scientists in contrast are mostly interested in the long-term structural reasons of 1989. Both approaches are not in themselves wrong, but they are one-sided. The essay develops an interpretative framework connecting events and structure, actors and system, long-term and short-term developments, process logic and contingency. The incurable structural deficiencies of State Socialism do not offer a sufficient explanation for 1989. Only when faced with the new global historical constellation of circumstances which developed at the beginning of the 1970s with the electronic revolution and globalisation did the State Socialist countries prove to be definitely defeated in the competition of the economic systems. The death sentence was already pronounced over the State Socialist systems at the beginning of the 1970s, but the paths towards execution were long and different, as becomes clear with regard to the GDR, Czechoslovakia as well as Poland and Hungary.

Vorspann In Moskau machte man sich keine Illusionen: Die DDR steckte in der Schulden¬falle und mußte ständig neues Geld im Westen aufnehmen. Die Folge davon war eine beängstigende Abhängigkeit von der Bundesrepublik, die für ihr finanzielles Ent-gegenkommen natürlich einen politischen Preis forderte. Moskau war diese systemwidrige deutsch¬ deutsche Sonderbeziehung ein Dorn im Auge und ließ die SED Führung darüber auch nicht im unklaren, wie der renommierte Osteuropa Historiker Helmut Altrichter anhand einer Dokumentation des Treffens von Außenminister Gromyko mit dem Generalsekretär der SED Erich Honecker zu zeigen vermag. Eine Wende bewirkte Gromyko damit aber nicht, die kam später, wenn auch unter ganz anderen Vorzeichen. Abstract During a visit in East Berlin in May 1978, the Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko severely took the SED leadership to task: Every year 8 million West Germans visited the GDR, 35 million telephone calls were conducted between citizens in both states and 250 million letters were exchanged; in his view, despite a rhetoric of dissociation, the GDR leadership maintained special, intra-German relations with the Federal Republic, excessively accommodated the desires for consumption of its own population, permitted the Deutsch-Mark to function as a secondary currency, was seeking détente at the expense of Socialism and made itself dependent on the West. However Honecker stayed the course, ultimately because he had little choice for political and economic reasons.