German Yearbook of Contemporary History
The German Yearbook of Contemporary History targets English-speaking readers with interests in the history of the 20th and 21st centuries. Each volume is dedicated to a specific topic. It is published by the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) and contains translated articles from the leading German journal Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte as well as previously unpublished articles and commentaries.
Forthcoming:
- Germany and European Integration
This inaugural volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History is devoted to a central theme of recent historical scholarship: the Holocaust. Ulrich Herbert and Peter Hayes take stock of German contributions to Holocaust research, Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe examines the collective memory of the murder of the Jews in the Ukrainian diaspora, and Jürgen Zarusky critically evaluates the controversial notion of the "Bloodlands". The volume is rounded out by an English translation of the original 1953 article by Hans Rothfels in which a key document, the Gerstein Report, was first published, as well as a retrospective analysis of this important article by Valerie Hébert. Updates on recent German projects in the field of Holocaust history are also provided by Frank Bajohr and Susanne Heim.
With its accession to membership of the United Nations in the early 1970s, the Federal Republic of Germany found new scope for its foreign policy, and it was at a time when the global North-South divide became a focus point of international politics. This is the background to the articles in the second volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History, edited by two historians from the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin) – Agnes Bresselau von Bressensdorf and Elke Seefried – together with Christian Ostermann from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The yearbook deals with West Germany during a time of Cold War confrontation, issues of human rights and threat from radical Islam. Selected contributions from the quarterly Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte offer detailed analyses of West German policies toward Cambodia, Chile, Iran and Afghanistan, and international experts provide a vivid commentary.
The German Yearbook of Contemporary History is published by the Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin.
How should we understand Hitler as a factor in the history of the Third Reich? In recent years scholarly interest in the German dictator has once again intensified, as is evident from debates surrounding the publication of Mein Kampf, and from the publication of numerous new studies on Hitler’s personality, ideology and politics. Edited by Elizabeth Harvey (University of Nottingham) and Johannes Hürter (Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin), the third volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History presents the latest in German research on Hitler based on selected articles from the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Additionally, it includes new commentaries by renowned experts from the English-speaking world on theories concerning Hitler’s personality and authenticity, the sources of his radical racism, and the relationship between the dictator and German society.
Since 1945, Germany’s role in the project of European integration has been central to the economic and political development of Europe. The fourth volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History, edited by Mark Gilbert (Johns Hopkins University), Eva Oberloskamp and Thomas Raithel (both Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, IfZ), assembles selected articles which have been published previously in the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, and specially commissioned contributions by international authors. The chapters cover a wide range of topics. The theories and visions of European integration that were articulated in Europe and in the United States after the end of the Nazi regime and of World War II are the starting point for the volume. The period covered by the book stretches to the foundation and earliest stages of European Economic and Monetary Union, which received substantial momentum from German unification in 1989/90.
