From the end of the Second World War historians have sought to answer one of its most intriguing questions: to what - and to whom - did the Wehrmacht owe its shocking initial operational successes? What was the nature of German strategic and operational perceptions, and were the…
This thesis is an examination of the relationship between the Ukrainian nationalists, led by Petliura (The Ukrainian People’s Republic) and both Germany and Poland in the period 1918-1922. Although the thesis addresses primarily the situation after World War I and the military c…
The KPD was born out of the rich theoretical traditions of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). As disillusioned Lassalleans, Wilhelm Leibknecht and August Bebel chose Marxism as their theoretical guide to a Socialist outcome. As the political and economic climate in German…
The thesis develops a discourse-theoretical framework for foreign policy analysis and utilises it to account for Germany’s policies in the Iraq crisis of 2002/2003. Germany’s response was deeply contradictory, as it included rhetorical opposition to the war and diplomatic activi…
This thesis examines how the German print news media negotiate notions of Germanness by narrating the acts of violent crime committed by the right-wing extremist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) between 2000 and 2011. Combining Paul Ricœur’s textual hermeneutics with i…
Between 1934 and 1936 various organisations of the French left joined forces to create the Popular Front, an alliance borne of an antifascist imperative. After winning the May 1936 legislative elections, and in a climate of growing opposition from conservative and far right forc…
This thesis explores young women's relationship with feminism, contributing to an enhanced understanding of feminist dis-identification. Feminist research offers various explanations for young women's repudiation of feminism; this study adds a further dimension to current debate…
The German Communist Party's response to the rise of the Nazis was conditioned by its complicated political environment which included the influence of Soviet foreign policy requirements, the party's Marxist-Leninist outlook, its organizational structure and the democratic socie…
This thesis investigates Goth culture (in the widest sense, including Post-Punk, New Wave and New Romantic scenes, genres and styles) in the GDR between 1983 and 1989/1990 from state and participants perspectives. Drawing on the major works within Gothic, subculture, and postmod…
This thesis analyses the changes in visual artists' living and working conditions and the ways in which visual artists reacted to these changes after German unification. It has sought to explore aspects of the interface between the state, the individual visual artists and the vi…
This study draws on and interprets an extensive corpus of archived materials, in particular from the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, to offer the first wide-ranging critical analysis of the written and visual images of the life and legend of Weimar Germany’s most important ‘modern’ art …
The thesis examines British fiction of the 1990s, focusing on the `novel of history'. It contributes to the analysis of recent and contemporary British fiction, joining work by John Brannigan, Steven Connor, Peter Childs, Dominic Head, Rod Mengham, Nick Rennison and Alan Sinfiel…
This comparative thesis explores how museums and monuments in postwar east and west Germany commemorate the eastern territories that were lost after 1945. I focus on the concept of Heimat which spans aesthetics and politics, psychological and political identity and emerges from …
After achieving political power in January 1933, the Nazis began to plan and implement racial policies that would redefine the lives of ordinary men and women. Persistently promoted as health measures, many of the racial policies enacted would go on to have considerable and, in …
This dissertation argues that the idea of a German Menace was not simply a product of concerns about the defence of the British Isles, but rather it was born out of the mentality of British imperialism. Over the period 1896-1903, imperial antagonism between Germany and Britain, …
This study examines the place of the PDS within the German political system. By developing and employing a typology of regional parties this work illustrates that the PDS has been politically successful on account of its mobilisation of distinct territorial interests - in much t…
As a notable academic, Marxist writer and one-time political activist, an extensive critique of Rudolf Schlesinger’s writings is long overdue. Raised in the revolutionary atmosphere of early twentieth century Austria, Schlesinger soon became embroiled in central European communi…
In the late 20th century, historical research on the 1632 Battle of Lützen, a major engagement of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), came to a dead end after 150 years of mostly unfruitful discussions. This thesis examines the battle’s military material culture, including histori…