▼ The purpose of this thesis is to examine attempts in post-reunification Germany to process or deal with (Aufarbeitung) the second German dictatorship of the twentieth century, the German Democratic Republic. Part I deals with Germany's attempts to address politically the East German past. The first chapter focuses on the legal and political actions taken by the German government to help make right the wrongdoings of the dictatorship of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED). This chapter pays special attention to the trials against the East German border guards and political figures. Moreover, this chapter looks at the policies made by the federal government that address what was to be done with the enormous amount of documents left over by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi). Part II focuses on the literary Aufarbeitung of the SED-dictatorship. The artistic Aufarbeitung comprises the body of literature and films that was created in the post-reunification era that helps the collective coming to grips with the SED-dictatorship. Chapter two examines the foundations of a literary discourse on the topic of state control in the GDR. This chapter looks mostly at autobiographical texts written from personal experience in the GDR, as well as the early conflicts among the East German literati concerning the role of the writer in the GDR. The topic of chapter three is the use of fiction to analyze the experiences of East Germans. The primary example in this chapter is Erich Loest's Nikolaikirche which this thesis treats as the quintessential Wenderoman. Chapter four examines the usage of humor in depicting life in the GDR which ultimately led to the movement known as Ostalgie. This movement, which began with the comeback of East German consumer products, but produced literary and filmic representations of the GDR, caused a great deal of reaction from critics who claimed that to represent the GDR with nostalgia is to trivialize the misdeeds of the Unrechtsstaat. The final chapter assesses recent developments concerning the Aufarbeitung of the SED-dictatorship and questions whether or not these new developments mean a new paradigm of representing the GDR. Advisors/Committee Members: Foell, Kristie.

▼ After reflection on specialized academic focus in the current scholarly tradition, this investigation sought to find an intellectual basis for interdisciplinary scholarship. Close readings in context of select feuilletons by Joseph Roth provided the stylistic and ideological basis for this new paradigm, which builds on both the classical education of Roth's Geistesgeschichte intellectual cultural tradition and the historiographical trends of the last sixty years (from NewCriticism through Hayden White to New Historicism and internal realism). Reading of text in context, application of varied types of writing, and acceptance of non-absolute objectivity in historiography are all requirements for this new historiographical paradigm. This interdisciplinary orientation is a call across the scholarly community to come together in cooperative exchange, which will once again open wide the intellectual cultural tradition. Advisors/Committee Members: Rippey, Theodore.

▼ This thesis assesses German involvement in the Ottoman Empire through the role of the German cultural impresario Ernst Jäckh, who worked as an academic and publicist in Germany, Turkey, Great Britain, and the United States, and became the central figure in promoting a strategic German-Turkish alliance in the years before the First World War. A confidant of Friedrich Naumann, the champion of German soft power imperialism in Central Europe, Jäckh advocated the using “Peaceful Imperialism” to build cultural bonds between Germans and Turks through intercultural exchange, building a modern infrastructure and education system, and reorganizing the military. This would give Germany a needed ally in the region without the burdens of direct colonial rule. The thesis draws on monographs and Jäckh's extensive published and unpublished papers to provide a general history of German involvement in the Ottoman Empire. It further addresses German “Peaceful Imperialism,” German involvement in the Armenian genocide, and the role of German liberals during the Wilhelmine era. Jäckh and other liberal figures involved in Wilhelmine “Peaceful Imperialism” supported German nationalism even though many would later support a democratic Germany. Moreover, “Peaceful Imperialism” anticipated the soft power nation building of great powers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The question of German culpability in the Armenian genocide remains inconclusive. Some Germans supported or ignored the liquidation of the Armenians while others opposed it and were sympathetic to the Armenians. There is, however, a link between völkisch ideas and genocide in Germany and Turkey. Long before National Socialism, cultural and political elites could not imagine peaceful co-existence of ethnic groups in one polity, envisioning future wars in which one nation vanquishes another. While German involvement in the Ottoman Empire was only one possible source of the idea of a mono-ethnic Turkish state (realized after the empire's demise), the Armenian genocide involved some tactics that the Germans had used against indigenous peoples in Southwest Africa. Advisors/Committee Members: Forsyth, Douglas.

▼ The objective of this study is to analyze the controversy surrounding Pope Pius XII by looking specifically at the Reichskonkordat of 1933 and the papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge of 1937. These documents show Pius XII’s tendency toward diplomacy with the German Reich even before he was elected as Pope in 1939. This study evaluates several scholarly works on Pope Pius XII from the time he was still Pope until recent history. Chapter one focuses on these various schools of thought throughout the decades on Pius XII’s relationship with the Third Reich, including works from his critics, his defenders, and moderate historians. Chapters two and three are studies on the Reichskonkordat and Mit brennender Sorge; Pius XII, known as Eugenio Pacelli at the time, played a major role in bringing these documents to fruition. Chapter one explains the three schools of thought on Pius XII’s relationship with the Nazis, and results in the conclusion that historians should adopt a moderate point of view on Pacelli until more information is available. Pacelli was a tremendously diplomatic pope, who believed that speaking out against the Nazi party would only result in further persecution of the Church, as well as the Jews and others facing the Nazi crimes against humanity. Pacelli believed that the Church would violate the terms of the Reichskonkordat of 1933 if he specifically mentioned Nazi atrocities, thereby breaching the treaty and losing all protections given the Catholic Church therein. He also stated that Mit brennender Sorge, released in 1937, had already clearly stated the Church’s criticism of the Third Reich, although it never mentioned the party by name. This study has found that Pacelli’s involvement with the Reichskonkordat and Mit brennender Sorge affected his interaction with the Third Reich before and during World War II, and has led to the ensuing controversy which continues today. These documents are not normally thoroughly studied by historians, but they had a profound influence on Pius XII’s actions during his papacy. Advisors/Committee Members: Griech-Polelle, Beth.

▼ With the suicide of Adolf Hitler at the end of April 1945, leadership of the Third Reich was passed, as per Hitler’s Testament, to Karl Dönitz. Dönitz had, up to that point, served as head of the U-boat or submarine fleet, and then as Grand Admiral of the entire German Navy, or Kriegsmarine. Very little analysis has been offered in current literature regarding the impact of the Dönitz government. Indeed, history texts rarely mention it. This thesis set out to do just that, using both historically oriented works and insights as provided by German literature of the period such as Heimkehrerliteratur and Trümmerliteratur. By investigating the works of Dönitz himself and those of various other personalities associated with his government, primary documents of the period, and secondary works on the period as well as the aforementioned literature genres, several conclusions were reached. The activities of the Dönitz government can be broken up into pre-surrender and post-surrender activities. Pre-surrender activities included the negotiations of surrender itself, which insofar as it was conducted in several stages, was not unconditional, as is often claimed. The other major pre-surrender activity was the decision to continue the war in the East while seeking peace with the West to allow evacuation of Germans from East Prussia. Post-surrender activities involved mainly the preliminary investigations that would be needed to begin a government, had the Allies not arrested Dönitz. The Dönitz government was therefore key in the transition from war to peace. This impact has also been seen in German literature of the period, which functions as a collective analysis of the psychological impact made by the war. Particularly useful were Wolfgang Borchert’s Draußen vor der Tür and Uwe Timm’s Die Entdeckung der Currywurst. These works show the reader how the period is remembered and/or memorialized. It was therefore concluded that far from being without impact, the Dönitz government served a crucial role in Germany’s transition from war to peace, and that this transition left distinct impressions in the minds of Germans, as reflected in German speaking literature. Advisors/Committee Members: Griech-Polelle, Beth.

▼ How did the turbulent years of the First World War and the violently anti-German sentiments that developed during that time influence and change German-Canadian identity? While Canada was at war in Europe with Germany and her allies from 1914 to 1918, the treatment of domestic German immigrants deteriorated in some cases to the point of public hostility by native-Canadians. The reactions to this crisis by the German-born immigrant and Editor-in-chief Conrad Eymann of the German-language newspaper Der Courier from Regina, Saskatchewan, can offer valuable insight into the lives and culture of German-Canadians during these years. Eymann's correspondence with the Chief Press Censor Ernest Chambers, Police Commissioner A.B. Perry, and Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden "as well as Eymann's file recorded by the Royal North-West Mounted Police and the articles he published in Der Courier" are among the more valuable primary sources examined in this work. In this thesis, I analyze these sources and others through a microhistorical approach in an effort to develop an understanding of German-Canadian identity that both complements and challenges the accepted grand narrative view of Canadian history. That is, the research and discoveries presented in this thesis is hoped to both complement and challenge the widely accepted grand narrative perceptions of identity development during the First World War. Advisors/Committee Members: Mancuso, Rebecca.