Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2025, History

This thesis argues that the Right was able to win the 1920 elections by shifting its strategy in the aftermath of the failed Kapp Putsch. Right-wing leaders focused on building their parties' mass political support among the German electorate, abandoning military-supported coups as a viable strategy to bring down the republic. Anti-democratic party leaders determined that the Right risked alienating moderate voters and natural allies through direct confrontation. The thesis identifies the 1920 Reichstag Election as a turning point in Weimar Germany's downward spiral towards fascism. This federal election gave the Right its solid voter foundation to create right-wing coalition governments and appoint conservative ministers. It achieved its electoral success by abandoning traditional conservative principles, previously held by the right-wing parties of the German Empire, pursuing populist party platforms and acquiring votes across Germany's diverse social milieux. The conservative governments, who gained power as a result of the 1920 elections, refused to confront right-wing threats. Consequently, Weimar's early cabinets lacked a strong pro-democratic party capable of shaping policy and appointing key ministerial positions. This thesis also stresses the role of the German judiciary in weakening the legitimacy of the republican system and the government's legal defenses. The empathetic German judiciary shielded the Right from lengthy prison sentences, regardless of if its actions overtly subverted the Republic. The electoral success of the Right affected the judiciary directly when examining the state courts (Landsgerichte), whose judges and appointments were determined by the state governments. Thus, it is argued that the Right's success in 1920 is inevitably tied to the pervasiveness of a conservative judiciary. Finally, the inability of the government to combat early right-wing extremism created systemic structural problems that plagued the republic throughout i (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Landscape Architecture, The Ohio State University, 1989, Graduate School

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Arts and Sciences: Germanic Languages and Literature

During the time period in Germany history from 1989-1990 known as the Wende, activist writing, movies, and mass protests highlighted the exclusion of racial minorities from Germany's unity story. These activists decried the racial violence and scapegoating that followed the mass disenfranchisement of East Germans. However, in wake of the pogroms and mass killings from 1991-1993, Germany did not adopt policies that would create structural change and prevent future right-wing radicalism and violence. Instead, Germany passed reforms, falling in line with the discourse of the intellectual, that focused on stopping the racialized “outside” assault on white German identity rather than ensuring the safety of its People of Color.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1964, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1962, History

BA, Oberlin College, 2020, History

With this thesis, I intend to formulate an argument about the evolution of a historical justice culture in Germany, both after the Second World War and post-unification. As a means of examining historical memory in post-war Germany, historians and scholars have turned their attention to the East and West German legal trials which were held in response to the crimes committed by the Nazi state. For the purpose of this thesis, my analysis will be structured around the examination of the 1950 Waldheim Trials and their lasting legacy in both post and preunification Germany.The Waldheim Trials were foundational in the establishment of the East German historical memory and redress movements, and have since become a symbol for the state's approach to historical justice. While the trials themselves have the power to illuminate the intricacies and dynamics of a very specific political environment and moment in history, their legacy and evolving symbolic significance in both divided and unified Germany can also shed light on the two varying approaches towards historical redress and memory employed by the post war Germanies. As part of this legacy, I will also be examining the post-unification 1992 trial of the Waldheim judges and what this says about the ways in which the Waldheim Trials were remembered and understood in Germany after reunification. This thesis aims to examine three distinct dimensions of this discussion, namely the Waldheim trial proceedings themselves and what they say about East German political priorities and denazification attempts, their legacies and evolving symbolic significance in East and West Germany, and the 1992 trials and their significance as a tangible manifestation of German historical memory during the politically dynamic reunification era.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2018, German

In “Grass Roots Urbanism,” I attempt to examine the phenomenon of squatting during the era between the 1970s and 1980s in West Berlin and how this simple, illegal act transformed into an entire movement. I begin with the student movement in West Berlin and the politics and ideals behind that movement, from overcrowding at the Free University to large, student-led protests against various issues, and how that movement inspired the squatters to organize themselves. I divide the squatters movement into two separate waves: I begin the dialogue pertaining to squatting by discussing the first wave, which was rather short and only lasted a few years at the beginning of the 1970s, and how that wave served as the foundation for the second wave, which was more prominent in the West Berlin political and alternative scene and ultimately had more of an impact on the West Berlin public and government. I discuss the political and social effects of the movement as a whole and how the squatters built an alternative lifestyle and culture for themselves during a time of housing shortages and an economic crisis. In my last chapter, I discuss the direct implications of the movement and how it ultimately had an effect on the urban landscape, both physically and politically, and how the movement itself is important in the overall context of German studies. I also bring the movement into a modern context by briefly discussing squatting in Berlin today and how those squats are organized and what they are trying to accomplish.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1978, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1977, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1974, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2003, Arts and Sciences : Germanic Languages and Literature

The following study inquires into the emergence and development of homosexuality in German medical, legal, and social discourses from the turn of the last century through the Weimar Republic. Literary works, medical journals, homosexual journals, visual art, and film from the turn of the last century to the early thirties reflect a growing “gender crisis” throughout German society. Such primary media provide the data for this study. Of particular interest are the works, theories, and the person of Magnus Hirschfeld, a physician whose politics were social-democratic and who was of Jewish background. Hirschfeld was himself homosexual, but never portrayed himself as such due to the legal and political climate of his times. Having published extensive studies on homosexuality,hermaphroditism (today's “intersexual”), and transvestism, Magnus Hirschfeld was an established sexologist in Wilhelmine Germany. In 1919, Hirschfeld founded the world's first Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. This Institute was a site of research, consultation, and therapy for those who sought enlightenment in sexual matters including birth control, venereal disease, intersexuality, and homosexuality. This project examines the dissemination and reception of Hirschfeld's progressive theories both inside and beyond the medical community—indeed, how homosexuals themselves responded to Hirschfeld's project of normality. This response, which I term the “modernist homosexual aesthetic,” is the basis of my thesis. The “modernist homosexual aesthetic,” an aesthetic, self-affirming expression of male homosexual identity, arises from this period of gender crisis in Germany, and is that aesthetic force that not only defines but is defined by the homosexual male body. I maintain that the media of photography,literature, and popular journals disseminated this aesthetic among those who sought to define themselves simultaneously outside normative gender roles and in a positive manner.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, History

When the Allies entered Germany in late-1944, most of the male population of Germany was either incapacitated or absent. German women, the majority of the German population, were confronted with rebuilding Germany under the supervision of military governments. This dissertation is a comparison of the experiences of German women in the Soviet, British, American and French zones of occupation. It also informs the historian and military commander regarding the effects of perceptions about women in the home country and how these can affect military occupation. The policies of the four occupying powers directly reflected the roles of women in the home countries. The Soviets immediately set up German socialist organizations to incorporate German women into the new communist government of the East. Through the benefits of these organizations and the communist punishment system, the communists worked to recruit German women to their cause. The British military government used a decentralized approach by allowing some British women to experiment with the education of German women. After the founding of a large centralized socialist German women's organization in March 1947 in the Soviet zone, the British officially began educating German women to participate in Germany's recovery. The Americans were rather late in recognizing German women as an important group. Once they did in late-1947 the Americans formed a Women's Affairs Branch of their military government, which had a limited effect on assisting German women to become politically active. The French never had a program to assist German women. Instead, the French watched German women as a potentially dangerous political faction. German women now hold more seats in the German representative assemblies than women in any other large western-style democracy. This is partially a result of the work of German women in the Soviet zone combined with the reaction of the western occupation powers to stir German women to a new level (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2009, German/History (dual)

This thesis assesses German involvement in the Ottoman Empire through the role of the German cultural impresario Ernst Jackh, 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, Jackh 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 Jackh'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. Jackh 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 volkisch 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 stat (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2025, German/History (dual)

Martin Luther has taken on different forms as he has been appropriated by his followers and political powers differently over time. The Reformation Day Celebrations starting in 1617, with the most recent occurring in 2017, illustrate how the political powers wished to portray Luther at that specific time and demonstrate that time's values and priorities. This study analyzes three common themes throughout the Reformation Day celebrations and how they have varied. The three themes trace the image of Luther as a divisive theological pathfinder, as the archetypal German, and as an example of modernity. The thesis contrasts these understandings with Friedrich Nietzsche's interpretation of Luther's legacy during a pivotal point in German history. While Nietzsche initially seems to follow the common understanding of Luther as a pathfinder and archetypal German, he becomes highly critical of Luther and the narratives surrounding him in his later writings. The view of Luther as a divisive theological pathfinder, as the unifying German, and as a modern man is reversed in different ways again during the 2017 Reformation Day celebration in response to the political misappropriation of Luther in the 1917 centennial and its disastrous echoes in Nazi Germany.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1970, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1968, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1922, Graduate School