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Fleeing Nazi Germany

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 124

Thousands of European intellectuals fled from fascism to America in the days leading up to World War II. They had tremendous obstacles, but many of them found success and made meaningful contributions. Historian Allan Mitchell knew five notable scholars of history who escaped, and he recounts in vivid detail their early careers and their successes as historians of Europe. He provides biographies of the following: Felix Gilbert, who taught at Bryn Mawr College and Princetons Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton Klemens von Klemperer, who studied at Harvard University, served in the US Army during World War II, and joined the faculty at Smith College Werner Tom Angress, who battled an identity crisis before journeying to America and earned a purple heart and bronze star during World War II, later going on to teach at the State University of New York in Stony Brook Peter Gay, who taught at Columbia and Yale universities and became a prolific author, writing dozens of books Fritz Stern, who also taught at Columbia University and became a renowned author Discover the contributions these five men made as historians and the personal obstacles they overcame to find a better life in...

The Second Generation

Author: Andreas W. Daum , Hartmut Lehmann , James J. Sheehan

Number of pages: 488

Of the thousands of children and young adults who fled Nazi Germany in the years before the Second World War, a remarkable number went on to become trained historians in their adopted homelands. By placing autobiographical testimonies alongside historical analysis and professional reflections, this richly varied collection comprises the first sustained effort to illuminate the role these men and women played in modern historiography. Focusing particularly on those who settled in North America, Great Britain, and Israel, it culminates in a comprehensive, meticulously researched biobibliographic guide that provides a systematic overview of the lives and works of this “second generation.”

An Academic Life

Author: Hanna Holborn Gray

Number of pages: 352

A compelling memoir by the first woman president of a major American university Hanna Holborn Gray has lived her entire life in the world of higher education. The daughter of academics, she fled Hitler's Germany with her parents in the 1930s, emigrating to New Haven, where her father was a professor at Yale University. She has studied and taught at some of the world's most prestigious universities. She was the first woman to serve as provost of Yale. In 1978, she became the first woman president of a major research university when she was appointed to lead the University of Chicago, a position she held for fifteen years. In 1991, Gray was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to education. An Academic Life is a candid self-portrait by one of academia's most respected trailblazers. Gray describes what it was like to grow up as a child of refugee parents, and reflects on the changing status of women in the academic world. She discusses the migration of intellectuals from Nazi-held Europe and the transformative role these exiles played in American higher education--and how the émigré...

Nazi Paris

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 264

Basing his extensive research into hitherto unexploited archival documentation on both sides of the Rhine, Allan Mitchell has uncovered the inner workings of the German military regime from the Wehrmacht’s triumphal entry into Paris in June 1940 to its ignominious withdrawal in August 1944. Although mindful of the French experience and the fundamental issue of collaboration, the author concentrates on the complex problems of occupying a foreign territory after a surprisingly swift conquest. By exploring in detail such topics as the regulation of public comportment, economic policy, forced labor, culture and propaganda, police activity, persecution and deportation of Jews, assassinations, executions, and torture, this study supersedes earlier attempts to investigate the German domination and exploitation of wartime France. In doing so, these findings provide an invaluable complement to the work of scholars who have viewed those dark years exclusively or mainly from the French perspective.

Unrepentant Patriot

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 206

Carl Zuckmayer's illustrious career as one of Central Europe's most prolific and popular playwrights during the years of the Weimar Republic after 1918 was cut short by the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933. His plays were banned during the following twelve years, and he was forced to flee into exile, first in Austria and then in the United States. His return to Germany after the war was fraught with difficulty as he sought to find his place amid the destruction and dislocation of his native land. Zuckmayer finally settled in a remote village in the Swiss Alps, where he died in 1977. This book attempts to summarize and evaluate Carl Zuckmayer's life and work. Part 1 is biographical, fleshing out his time as a schoolboy in Mainz, his military service during the First World War (during which he was severely wounded), his erratic ascent as a luminary in the world of European theater, his expatriate years of isolation on a farm in Vermont, and his efforts to reestablish a comfortable home and creative activity after his postwar return to Europe. Part 2 concentrates on Zuckmayer's satirical plays and stage productions. After a few notable failures at the outset, he developed a...

Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel, Nazi Agent

Author: Hal Vaughan

Number of pages: 304

Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, created the look of the chic modern woman: her simple and elegant designs freed women from their corsets and inspired them to crop their hair. By the 1920s, Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms, and had amassed a personal fortune. But at the start of the Second World War, Chanel closed down her couture house and went to live quietly at the Ritz, moving to Switzerland after the war. For more than half a century, Chanel's life from 1941 to 1954 has been shrouded in rumour. Neither Chanel nor her biographers have told the full story, until now. In this explosive narrative Hal Vaughan pieces together Chanel's hidden years, from the Nazi occupation of Paris to the aftermath of the Liberation. He uncovers the truth of Chanel's anti-Semitism and long-whispered collaboration with Hitler's officials. In particular, Chanel's long relationship with 'Spatz', Baron von Dincklage, previously described as a tennis-playing playboy and German diplomat, and finally exposed here as a Nazi master spy and agent who ran an intelligence ring in the Mediterranean and reported directly to Joseph Goebbels. Sleeping with the Enemy tells in...

German Soldiers and the Occupation of France, 1940–1944

Author: Julia S. Torrie

Number of pages: 300

For four years, German soldiers not only stood guard over and fought in France, but also lived their lives. While the everyday experiences of the occupied French population are well-documented, we know much less about the occupiers. The lives of ordinary German soldiers offer new insights into the occupation of France and the history of Nazism.

Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944

Author: Jean Guéhenno

Number of pages: 304

Diary of the Dark Years is a sharply observed record of day-to-day life in occupied Paris, but far more: it is "a remarkable essay on courage and cowardice" (Wall Street Journal), expressing both shame at French collaboration with the Nazis and the stubborn resistance of an intellectual under great pressure.

France since 1870

Author: Charles Sowerwine

Number of pages: 568

This thoroughly revised, updated and expanded new edition of an established text surveys the cultural, social and political history of France from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Paris Commune through to Emmanuel Macron's presidency. Incorporating the newest interpretations of past events, Sowerwine seamlessly integrates culture, gender, and race into political and social history. This edition features extended coverage of the 2007-8 financial crisis, the rise of the political and cultural far right and the issues of colonialism and its contemporary repercussions. This is an essential resource for undergraduate and taught postgraduate students of history, French studies or European studies taking courses on modern French history or European history. This text will also appeal to scholars and readers with an interest in modern French history. 'Richly informative and lucidly presented, Sowerwine's France since 1870 offers essential reading for students and researchers. Particularly powerful is the new final chapter, which draws on historical expertise to explore and explain the literary and political malaise of contemporary France.' – Jessica Wardhaugh, University of...

Sleeping with the Enemy

Author: Hal Vaughan

Number of pages: 304

“From this century, in France, three names will remain: de Gaulle, Picasso, and Chanel.” –André Malraux Coco Chanel created the look of the modern woman and was the high priestess of couture. She believed in simplicity, and elegance, and freed women from the tyranny of fashion. She inspired women to take off their bone corsets and cut their hair. She used ordinary jersey as couture fabric, elevated the waistline, and created bell-bottom trousers, trench coats, and turtleneck sweaters. In the 1920s, when Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms, she had amassed a personal fortune of $15 million and went on to create an empire. Jean Cocteau once said of Chanel that she had the head of “a little black swan.” And, added Colette, “the heart of a little black bull.” At the start of World War II, Chanel closed down her couture house and went across the street to live at the Hôtel Ritz. Picasso, her friend, called her “one of the most sensible women in Europe.” She remained at the Ritz for the duration of the war, and after, went on to Switzerland. For more than half a century, Chanel’s life from 1941 to 1954 has been shrouded in vagueness and...

Munich

Author: Jeffrey S. Gaab

Number of pages: 153

Munich is Germany's most popular city, and the Hofbräuhaus is Munich's most famous beer hall. This book explores the connection between beer, culture, and politics in Munich to examine the crucial role the city has played in the development of modern Germany over the last thousand years. Anyone interested in Germany, Bavaria, or Munich, or anyone who has visited the famed Oktoberfest will enjoy this fascinating book. This book is ideal for courses in European or German history and culture, political science, urban studies, and sociology.

The Nazi Revolution

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 209

This successful anthology explores the Nazi movement in the context of German history and society.

The King of Nazi Paris

Author: Christopher Othen

Number of pages: 356

Henri Lafont was a petty criminal who became the most powerful crook in Paris thanks to the Nazi occupation of France. A chance encounter in a prison camp led to a life of luxury running a ruthless mob of gangsters who looted the city on behalf of the Nazis who recognised Lafont’s talent for treachery and deceit. Lafont recruited ‘the French Gestapo’, a motley band of sadistic grotesques that included faded celebrities, ex-footballers, pimps, murderers, burglars and bank robbers. They wore the best clothes, ate at the best restaurants, and did whatever they pleased. They lived on the exclusive rue Lauriston where they mixed with celebrities and Nazi officers, while down in the cellar of their building, the rest of the gang tortured resistance prisoners. Then the Allies came, and a terrible price had to be paid.

Avenue of Spies

Author: Alex Kershaw

Number of pages: 320

The best-selling author of The Liberator brings to life the incredible true story of an American doctor in Paris, and his heroic espionage efforts during World War II. The leafy Avenue Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris's hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son Phillip at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high. Just down the road at Number 31 was the "mad sadist" Theodor Dannecker, an Eichmann protégé charged with deporting French Jews to concentration camps. And Number 84 housed the Parisian headquarters of the Gestapo, run by the most effective spy hunter in Nazi Germany. From his office at the American Hospital, itself an epicenter of Allied and Axis intrigue, Jackson smuggled fallen Allied fighter pilots safely out of France, a job complicated by the hospital director's close ties to collaborationist Vichy. After witnessing the brutal round-up of his Jewish friends, Jackson invited Liberation to officially...

Hitler

Author: Michael Lynch

Number of pages: 320

Adolf Hitler is the most notorious political figure of the twentieth century. The story of his life, how he became a dictator, and how he managed to convince so many to follow his cause is a subject of perennial fascination. Balancing narrative and analysis, this biography employs a chronological approach to describe the main features of Hitler’s career. Set against the background of developments in Germany and Europe during his lifetime, the text tells the extraordinary story of how an Austrian layabout rose to become Führer of the Third Reich. The chapters incorporate into their narrative the major debates surrounding Hitler’s ideas, behaviour and historical significance. Particular attention is paid to his experience as a soldier in 1914 -18 and to the reasons why his original left-wing sympathies transmuted into Nazism. Arguments over the real character of Hitler’s dictatorship are analysed and a measured assessment is offered on the disputed issues of how far Hitler initiated the Third Reich’s domestic and foreign policies himself and to what extent he was controlled by events. His destructive leadership of wartime Germany is now a subject of close scrutiny among...

Hitler 1889-1936

Author: Ian Kershaw

Number of pages: 880

Ian Kershaw's HITLER allows us to come closer than ever before to a serious understanding of the man and of the catastrophic sequence of events which allowed a bizarre misfit to climb from a Viennese dosshouse to leadership of one of Europe's most sophisticated countries. With extraordinary skill and vividness, drawing on a huge range of sources, Kershaw recreates the world which first thwarted and then nurtured the young Hitler. As his seemingly pitiful fantasy of being Germany's saviour attracted more and more support, Kershaw brilliantly conveys why so many Germans adored Hitler, connived with him or felt powerless to resist him.

The Devil's Captain

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 140

Author of Nazi Paris, a Choice Academic Book of the Year, Allan Mitchell has researched a companion volume concerning the acclaimed and controversial German author Ernst Jünger who, if not the greatest German writer of the twentieth century, certainly was the most controversial. His service as a military officer during the occupation of Paris, where his principal duty was to mingle with French intellectuals such as Jean Cocteau and with visiting German celebrities like Martin Heidegger, was at the center of disputes concerning his career. Spending more than three years in the French capital, he regularly recorded in a journal revealing impressions of Parisian life and also managed to establish various meaningful social contacts, with the intriguing Sophie Ravoux for one. By focusing on this episode, the most important of Jünger’s adult life, the author brings to bear a wide reading of journals and correspondence to reveal Jünger’s professional and personal experience in wartime and thereafter. This new perspective on the war years adds significantly to our understanding of France's darkest hour.

When Paris Went Dark

Author: Ronald Rosbottom

Number of pages: 480

In May and June 1940 almost four million people fled Paris and its suburbs in anticipation of a German invasion. On June 14, the German Army tentatively entered the silent and eerily empty French capital. Without one shot being fired in its defence, the Occupation of Paris had begun. When Paris Went Dark tells the extraordinary story of Germany's capture and Occupation of Paris, Hitler's relationship with the City of Light, and its citizens' attempts at living in an environment that was almost untouched by war, but which had become uncanny overnight. Beginning with the Phoney War and Hitler's first visit to the city, acclaimed literary historian and critic Ronald Rosbottom takes us through the German Army's almost unopposed seizure of Paris, its bureaucratic re-organization of that city, with the aid of collaborationist Frenchmen, and the daily adjustments Parisians had to make to this new oppressive presence. Using memoirs, interviews and published eye-witness accounts, Rosbottom expertly weaves a narrative of daily life for both the Occupier and the Occupied. He shows its effects on the Parisian celebrity circles of Pablo Picasso, Simone de Beauvoir, Colette, Jean Cocteau, and...

Socialism and the Emergence of the Welfare State

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 92

To counter allegations that the United States is being led down a socialist path to a European-style welfare state, this concise account reviews the varieties of European socialism and the benefits of welfare reform that have characterized Germany, France, Britain, and Sweden. Which future is in store for America is left an open question.

A Stranger in Paris

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 95

In this compact and tightly argued essay, the author maintains that the French Third Republic - and European history during this period in general - can only be understood if particular attention is paid to the special relationship that existed between France and Germany. The experience of the French people was so intimately related to that of its closest neighbor that a bilateral perspective becomes unavoidable. Without the unifying theme of Germany's crucial role in acting upon and within the French Republic, this story would become a much more random tale of events. After 1870, an autonomous national history of France is no longer possible.

Witnessing Postwar Europe

Author: Allan Mitchell

Number of pages: 132

American born and bred, author Allan Mitchell found his identity transformed and molded by the discovery of Europe. This autobiographical account follows the private life and professional career of Mitchell, emphasizing his experience as a student and scholar in France and Germany. Witnessing Postwar Europe follows Mitchell as he grows up under the guidance of his Scottish immigrant parents, through his boyhood in Kentucky, to a PhD at Harvard and beyond, including long stints as a professor at Smith College and the University of California San Diego. Central to the story is his firsthand look at the development of postwar Europe, which he recounts with colorful detail. Mitchell includes personal testimony about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing departure of Soviet troops from Germany, the end of the Cold War. This memoir tells of his encounters with a host of such extraordinary public figures as Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Francois Mitterand, and Henry Kissinger, met as he conducted historical research into the comparative history of France and Germany during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Personal and colorful, Witnessing Postwar Europe presents a...

Holocaust Literature

Author: Saul S. Friedman

Number of pages: 677

"This massive compendium of Holocaust material encompasses three distinct categories: conceptual issues, regional studies, and the fine arts....The contributions of so many recognized scholars makes this an important reference tool." Library Journal

Elemental Germans

Author: Christoph Laucht

Number of pages: 274

This book considers the role of the two German-born emigre atomic scientists Klaus Fuchs and Rudolf Peierls in the evolution of British nuclear culture from the start of the Second World War until 1959. As outsiders coming to the United Kingdom, the experiences of these two figures offer points of access to key features of British nuclear culture, in particular its scientific foundations and the social, cultural and political consequences of the atomic scientist's work. Fuchs' and Peierls' ethnicity, their socialization and schooling in Germany along with their exposure to German culture before coming to the United Kingdom were instrumental in shaping nuclear culture in their host country. Peierls assumed a chief role in the establishment of the early British and the Allied nuclear weapons projects and took a leading role in the Atomic Scientists' Association, the chief organization of atomic scientists in Britain after the war. Fuchs, by contrast, shattered confidence in the efficiency of the British Security Service at home and abroad when he confessed in early 1950 that he had passed on sensitive nuclear data to the Soviet Union since 1940.

Treason

Author: Don Fulsom

Number of pages: 336

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” —Oath of Office of the President of the United States Right hand held high, Richard M. Nixon was sworn into the office he had already betrayed. In the months before the 1968 election, Nixon and his allies—including the “Dragon Lady” Anna Chennault and Henry Kissinger—collaborated with foreign nationals to undermine Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks in order to curry public favor for Nixon and his secret plan to bring an end to the Vietnam War. Nixon’s sabotage extended the brutal conflict, ultimately costing thousands of lives. This incisive account reveals the true Nixon and shakes the fundamental trust we place in our leaders.

Fleeing from the Fuhrer

Author: Charmian Brinson , William Kaczynski

Number of pages: 192

The exodus of men, women and children fleeing from the Nazi regime was one of the largest diasporas the world has ever seen. It sparked an international refugee crisis that changed society and continues to shape our culture and community today. The years between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi era in Germany, and the war years, 1939 to 1945, were a time of destruction, upheaval and misery throughout Europe and beyond. Displacement and death, whether in war or civilian life, became everyday experiences, for young and old alike. Families were torn apart by enforced emigration or deportation. Parents were separated from their children, husbands from wives, brothers from sisters. Interned in camps that spread across the globe from Shanghai to the United States of America to the Isle of Man, they became strangers in a foreign land and often the only link they had to their former lives were letters exchanged with friends and family. These scarce postal communications, therefore, assumed huge significance in the lives of both sender and receiver, one that is hard to imagine today in the age of instant communication. Fleeing from the Führer is an unusual collection of correspondence that shows...

German Art History and Scientific Thought

Author: Mitchell Benjamin Frank , Daniel Allan Adler

Number of pages: 194

A fresh contribution to the ongoing debate between Kunstwissenschaft (scientific study of art) and Kunstgeschichte (art history), this essay collection explores how German-speaking art historians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century self-consciously generated a field of study. Prominent North American and European scholars provide new insights into how a mixing of diverse methodologies took place, in order to gain a more subtle and comprehensive understanding of how art history became institutionalized and legitimized in Germany. The essays provide illuminating treatments of art history's prior and understudied interactions with a wide range of scientific orientations, from psychology, sociology and physiognomics, to evolutionism and comparative anatomy.

The Migration of Ideas

Author: Roberto Scazzieri , Raffaella Simili

Number of pages: 245

These papers consider how the migration of scientists and scholars, especially in response to political upheavals and major wars, impacts the movement of ideas.

Masters of the Air

Author: Donald L. Miller

Number of pages: 688

Chronicle of the U.S. 8th Air Force's daylight bombing campaign over Europe during World War II, from its genesis to the end of the war.

WOrld War II Goes to the Movies & Television Guide

Author: Terry Rowan

A complete film guide to motion pictures and television shows that pertain to the war.

Forbidden Music

Author: Michael Haas

Number of pages: 358

Offers a study of the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich, and describes the consequences for music around the world.

Hitler's Mountain

Author: Arthur Mitchell

Number of pages: 214

"This work examines the political events that took place in Obersalzberg from the 1920s until the U.S. Army returned control of the area to the German government in 1995. Concentrating primarily on the years when Hitler was in residence, it discusses hisoriginal acquaintance with Berchtesgaden and focuses on the symbolism of self-identity and public perception"--Provided by publisher.

The New Middle Classes

Author: Arthur J. Vidich

Number of pages: 405

This volume is designed first to provide a theoretical orientation and historical perspective on the rise of the middle classes in modern civilization, and second, to portray the social and political roles these classes have played and continue to play in the United States over the past century, with particular reference to the American class structure and political economy. Our method is necessarily both historical and sociological and offers an orientation for understanding contemporary American society. The essays included here were written between 1926 and 1982: they reveal both the genealogical development of sociological thought about the middle classes and the substantive content of these classes' life styles, status claims and political orientations. The present work stresses empirical studies and puts forth neither a theoretical interpretation nor a conceptual taxonomy; rather it delineates the emergence and the social and political significance of the new middle classes in relation to the classes, above and below, that preceded them.

Cities of Refuge

Author: Lori Gemeiner Bihler

Number of pages: 232

Contrasts the experiences of German Jewish refugees from the Holocaust who fled to London and New York City. In the years following Hitler’s rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. “This is the first comprehensive comparative study of German Jewish immigration during the period of National Socialism. Comparing German Jews who fled their homeland and...

Tales of Loving and Leaving

Author: Gaby Weiner

Number of pages: 210

The stories of so-called ordinary families and their place in history are important. Though theyre not the stuff of kings and queens or governments or wars, they shed light on how political movements and decisions affect ordinary individuals and how those individuals react to those decisions. In Tales of Loving and Leaving, author Gaby Weiner tells the story of three of her family members: her maternal grandmother, Amalia Moszkowicz Dinger; her mother, Steffi Dinger; and her father, Uszer Frocht. Weiner shares how these peoples lives were profoundly affected by the great movements and isms of the twentieth century that included not only Nazism, but also the Russian Revolution, the rise and fall of Communism, and the displacement and migration of more than 60,000,000 people following the Second World War. The stories, told in chronological slices, tell about ordinary people who were rendered extraordinary by the period through which they lived. The narratives also focus on the treatment and experiences of Jewish migrants before, during, and after the war in different countries and the impact of these countries politics on them. Weiner illustrates the effects of separation and...

Zero Point Ukraine

Author: Olena Stiazhkina

Number of pages: 294

In her Four Essays on World War II, Olena Stiazhkina inscribes the Ukrainian history of World War II into a wider European and world context. Among other aspects, she analyzes the mobilization measures on the eve of the war, and reconsiders Soviet narratives on them. Scrutinizing social and political processes initiated by the Bolshevik leadership in the 1920s and 1930s, she outlines how mobilization and militarization became integral parts of Soviet politics. Today, the Kremlin uses Soviet and post-Soviet Russian narratives of World War II to justify its aggressive policies towards a number of democratic countries. Russia is engaged in falsification of the past to underpin claims of a so-called “Russian World” and its ongoing war against Ukraine. Against this background, Stiazhkina offers a new understanding of what happened in Ukraine before, during, and after World War II.

Britain and the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1939-1945

Author: J. Crossland

Number of pages: 269

James Crossland's work traces the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross' struggle to bring humanitarianism to the Second World War, by focusing on its tumultuous relationship with one of the conflict's key belligerents and masters of the blockade of the Third Reich, Great Britain.

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