Full-text resources of CEJSH and other databases are now available in the new Library of Science.
Visit https://bibliotekanauki.pl

Results found: 6

first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last

Search results

help Sort By:

help Limit search:
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
EN
The aim of the article is the analysis of German policy in Reichsgau Wartheland, an area of western Poland annexed to Germany in the years 1939–1945. In scientific literature German rule in Warthegau (with its capital in Poznań) is often defined as ,,experimental training area of National Socialism”, where the regime could test its genocidal and racial practices, which were an emanation of the German occupation of Poland. The Nazi authorities wanted to accomplish its ideological goals in Wartheland in a variety of cruel ways, including the ethnic cleansing, annihilation of Polish intelligentsia, destruction of cultural institutions, forced resettlement and expulsion, segregation Germans from Poles combined with wide-ranging racial discrimination against the Polish population, mass incarceration in prisons and concentration camps, systematic roundups of prisoners, as well as genocide of Poles and Jews within the scope of radical Germanization policy and Holocaust. The aim of Arthur Greiser, the territorial leader of the Wartheland (Gauleiter) and at the same time one of the most powerful local Nazi administrators in Hitler‘s empire, was to change the demographic structure and colonisation of the area by the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutschen) from the Baltic and other regions in order to make it a ,,blond province” and a racial laboratory for the breeding of the ,,German master race”. The largest forced labour program, the first and longest standing ghetto (in Łódź, which the Nazis renamed later Litzmannstadt) and the first experimental mass gassings of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe (carried out from autumn 1941 in gas vans in Chełmno extermination camp) were all initiated in Warthegau, even before the implementation of the Final Solution. Furthermore, some of the first major deportations of the Jewish population took place here. Therefore in the genesis of the of the Nazi extermination policy of European Jewry Wartheland plays a pivotal role, as well as an important part of ruthless German occupation of Polish territories.
EN
For many years historians largely ignored the female half of the population of Nazi Germany, until feminists sharpened their pens and set to work restoring the balance. The picture that emerged was of a society run by misogynist monsters, brutal machos and mad scientists bent on mass sterilization, in which women were cast into depths of a gynaecophobic hell, where their only function was to bear a series of warrior children sired by callous patriarchs, to be sent to their deaths on the battlefields of Europe. Subsequent research by cooler-headed social historians reveals a more nuanced picture of the women’s social-political role in the Third Reich. For many women life in Nazi Germany was indeed hellish. Jewish women suffered unimaginable horrors, as did the hapless victims of the eugenicists. The wives, daughters and sisters of political prisoners who were punished for crimes committed by male members of the family – a system known as “clan arrest” – should not be forgotten. Nevertheless, the lot of the vast majority of women in the Third Reich improved greatly. Although they were excluded from political power, were underpaid and denied birth control and abortions, their husbands had steady jobs, real wages were rising and the future looked promising. For instance, married couples were given a loan of 1,000 RM, provided that the pair was eugenically acceptable and the woman stayed at home. Generous tax relief was given for children. Medical services for women were also greatly improved; pregnant working women were given six weeks of leave with full pay before and after the birth. The number of women workers increased sharply, particularly in low-paid and unskilled positions, especially during the war. Women were appreciative of these measures, and gave the state their grateful loyalty. It was no hell for women, it was also no paradise, and there were many negative aspects of Nazi policy towards women. Women were to be confined to the home as mothers of racially sound children, all in the interest of eugenics, racial politics and preparation for war. The Führer needed children, and to this end Mother’s Day was made into the central event of the Nazi fertility cult, celebrated with great pomp, ceremony and pathos. Motherhood ceased to be a private affair, and was seen as a public service that helped improve the racial stock and create a genuine “racial community”. Therefore, birth control devices were virtually unobtainable, except for Jews and other undesirables. Compulsory abortions were performed on the racially unwanted and the eugenically suspect. A new law on marriage and divorce in 1938 further reduced women’s legal rights. A lot shorter queues for financial relief at the beginning, brim-full kindergartens in the middle and strictly admonished rations at the end of the Third Reich – it is the lapidary synopsis of the regime’s picture in the eyes of German women.
EN
The aim of the article is depiction of the scientific cooperation between historians from Szczecin and Greifswald which is continuously developed in the beginning of the 21st century. The cooperation based primary on the DAAD guest professorship of Prof. Joerg Hackemann at the Institute for History and International Relationships at the University of Szczecin, lectures held by Prof. Lutz Oberdörfer from Greifswald, workshops at the EMAU lead by Dr. Paweł Migdalski, various research projects presented there by Dr. Rafał Simiński and Dr. Tomasz Ślepowroński. To mention be in this context the activity of Prof. Włodzimierz Stępiński and Prof. Jan M. Piskorski in the German scientific life and their participation at many debates and historical conferences. The rich contacts between the historians from both Pomeranian universities are referred to in a new and original form of a Szczecin–Gryfino postgraduate programme, started in the 21st century by the Institute for History and International Relationships at the University of Szczecin and Historisches Institut Ernst Moritz Arndt Universität Greifswald. Within this undertaking two meetings of postgraduates took place where their scientific output was presented: on the 3rd/4th November 2010 in Szczecin and on the 26th/28th Mai 2011 in Greifswald. This initiative is for young researchers of importance – it allows their development outside of the only one, native research milieu. Unfortunately, the project of postgraduates from Szczecin and Greifswald is one of only few initiatives within the Polish-German historical neighbourhood.
PL
Zjawisko faszyzmu do dziś inspiruje rzesze uczonych, którzy nadal nie są jednak w stanie udzielić w pełni satysfakcjonującej i jednoznacznej odpowiedzi na temat jego istoty. Wielość naukowych interpretacji narodowego socjalizmu, które pojawiły się już w okresie istnienia III Rzeszy, przede wszystkim jednak po 1945 roku, w historiografii zachodniej, a także w badaniach polskich, wciąż nie dają jednoznacznej odpowiedzi na temat powodów sukcesu Hitlera, wewnętrznej stabilności oraz społecznej atrakcyjności jego reżimu. Jedną z najnowszych koncepcji opisujących fenomen nazizmu jest teoria modernizacji, która w polskiej historiografii została opracowana przez germanistę Huberta Orłowskiego. Stanowi ona pokłosie głośnego w zachodnioniemieckiej nauce „sporu historyków” w latach 1985–1987, który koncentrował się na zagadnieniu porównywalności bądź wyjątkowości nazistowskiej polityki eksterminacji Żydów. Zdaniem historyka Henryka Olszewskiego owa polemika zakończyła się zwycięstwem argumentacji naukowej nad polityczną, rewizjonistyczną, która chciała zrelatywizować problem niemieckiej odpowiedzialności za masowe zbrodnie. W narracji „modernizacyjnej”, reprezentowanej zwłaszcza przez takich historyków RFN, jak Rainer Zitelmann, Frank Bajohr, Detlev Peukert, Werner Johe, Uwe Lohalm czy Götz Aly, chodzi przede wszystkim o ukazanie janusowego oblicza III Rzeszy, która była mieszaniną niejednokrotnie przeciwstawnych tendencji, nowoczesnych oraz konserwatywnych czy wręcz reakcyjnych pod względem społecznym i politycznym. W sensie polityki społecznej protagoniści tej teorii zwracali uwagę, iż państwo Hitlera było wariantem państwa opiekuńczego, tyle że o zabarwieniu totalitarnym, co w polskiej nauce opisywał już w latach siedemdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku Franciszek Ryszka, który stwierdził, iż III Rzesza nie produkowała jedynie armat, lecz również masło. W najnowszych badaniach wskazuje się, iż polityka ludobójstwa realizowana przez dyktaturę była ściśle skorelowana z osiągnięciem faktycznego dobrobytu i czerpaniem materialnych korzyści z mordu na ludności żydowskiej przez niemieckie społeczeństwo w czasie wojny. W ostatnich latach powraca się również do traktowania hitleryzmu jako zjawiska natury psychologicznej, którego powstanie i sukcesy były efektem fobii, nadziei oraz ambicji narodu niemieckiego, trwającego z dyktatorem w swoistej symbiozie „na śmierć i życie” aż do katastrofy roku 1945.
EN
The phenomenon of forced labour of Poles in the period of the Second World War in the area of West Pomerania already has some historiography. The authors attempt to present a new publication created in Polish and German cooperation, Miejsca pracy przymusowej Polaków w Stralsrundzie i Stargardzie (The areas of forced labour of Poles in Stralsrund and Stargard) in the context of the existing literature on the subject. The paper discusses the contents of the publication, and accentuates on its ground-breaking character through, hitherto unknown to the Polish historiography, a topographically precise image of the micro-world of forced labour, combining like never before the topics of history, sociology, psychology and cultural anthropology. The book is characterised by its powerful imagery and equally suggestive narration which, along with the apt choice of iconography, allows the reader to follow the authors along the path of foreigners subjected to forced labour.
PL
Zjawisko pracy przymusowej Polaków w okresie II wojny światowej na obszarze Pomorza doczekało się już wielu opracowań historycznych. Autorzy artykułu omawiają nową publikację, powstałą we współpracy polskiej i niemieckiej, pt. Miejsca pracy przymusowej Polaków w Stralsundzie i Stargardzie, ukazując ją na tle dotychczasowej literatury przedmiotu. Omówiono treść niniejszej publikacji oraz uwypuklono jej przełomowy charakter, polegający na – nieznanym dotychczas w historiografii polskiej – ukazaniu dokładnego topograficznie obrazu mikroświata pracy przymusowej i łączeniu, jak nigdy dotąd, wątków historii, socjologii, psychologii i antropologii kulturowej. Książkę cechuje wielka siła wyrazu i sugestywna narracja, która wraz z odpowiednim doborem ikonografii pozwala czytelnikowi wraz z autorami wędrować trasą losu obcokrajowców-robotników przymusowych.
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.