Lessons from the Past: The Rapid Clearance of Denmark’s Minefields in 1945

The clearance of the vast majority of Denmark’s minefields during 1945 was remarkable. In just under five months, a force ranging between 750 and 2,600 German prisoners of war (POW) under the supervision of 250–350 Danish officers and noncommissioned officers cleared 1,389,281 mines from an area of 1,103.2 sq km (425.9 sq mi). Such speed of clearance stands in stark contrast with much of modern humanitarian mine action since the 1990s. This article will explain how such speed was possible and why it could not reasonably be repeated today. The article will also identify a number of important lessons that remain to be learned

The Stasi legacy: the case of the Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter

The following thesis examines both the individual and the societal confrontation with one particular aspect of the legacy of the GDR's Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS, or Stasi), that is the debate concerning onetime MfS informers (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, or IM). The thesis is divided into two main sections. Section One describes and analyses specific aspects of the IM system. Characteristics of the population of IM are examined in Chapter 1, and the ten case studies which are referred to throughout the course of the work are presented. These former IM were interviewed by the author in 1994-95, and the MfS files of eight of them were subsequently viewed. The remaining chapters in Section One examine the following issues: the recruitment procedure (2); the daily work with an IM and his/her relationship to the MfS (4); the motivational factors behind an IM-Tätigkeit (3 and 5). Section Two turns to the private and public confrontation with the IM legacy. The debate over former Stasi collaborators currently active in the political forum is considered in Chapter 6, and the handling of the IM issue by the criminal justice system in Chapter 7. The final three chapters are devoted to personal and interpersonal issues. Chapter 8 addresses the Täter/Opfer debate. Chapter 9 focuses on the manner in which an IM sought to cope with this aspect of his/her biography at the time of active collaboration, and on how s/he seeks to justify this in retrospect. The final chapter examines the profound effect which the availability of the MfS files through the Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetz has had and will have on the understanding of personal and collective history in the former GDR, and the work concludes that this is the most significant and far-reaching impact of this most extraordinary legacy

Complex Societies and the Growth of the Law

While a large number of informal factors influence how people interact, modern societies rely upon law as a primary mechanism to formally control human behaviour. How legal rules impact societal development depends on the interplay between two types of actors: the people who create the rules and the people to which the rules potentially apply. We hypothesise that an increasingly diverse and interconnected society might create increasingly diverse and interconnected rules, and assert that legal networks provide a useful lens through which to observe the interaction between law and society. To evaluate these propositions, we present a novel and generalizable model of statutory materials as multidimensional, time-evolving document networks. Applying this model to the federal legislation of the United States and Germany, we find impressive expansion in the size and complexity of laws over the past two and a half decades. We investigate the sources of this development using methods from network science and natural language processing. To allow for cross-country comparisons over time, we algorithmically reorganise the legislative materials of the United States and Germany into cluster families that reflect legal topics. This reorganisation reveals that the main driver behind the growth of the law in both jurisdictions is the expansion of the welfare state, backed by an expansion of the tax state.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures (main paper); 28 pages, 11 figures (supplementary information

Shifts Progress

A shift is the process which occurs when the letters of one word are all shifted the same number of steps along the alphabet (looping from Z to A) to make another word. For example OHM + 1 = PIN, whilst CHEER + 7 = jolly. Here, I refer to these as basic shifts. This article examines other types of shift in which the shift values are not all the same but which abide by various rules. Each series of shift values makes a shift pattern

M.W.A.K. Columbian, Vol. 1, No. 27

This issue contains articles about Christmas, a Christmas party at Meade Park, and the order of tunnel forms for grout tunnels.https://dc.ewu.edu/mwak_columbian/1142/thumbnail.jp

Axone, February 1954

https://digitalcommons.pcom.edu/axone/1030/thumbnail.jp

The Tiger Gap: Culture, Contradiction, and Clausewitz in German Armored Warfare in World War II

Why would the German military in World War II pay more resources for fewer tanks? When the Soviet Union and United States were out-producing Germany three to one in vehicles, the German Military High Command instead chose to develop the Tiger: a sixty-ton beast that could defeat any enemy on the battlefield, but could only be produced in extraordinarily limited numbers. Though there are thousands of publications on the history of the Tiger tank, they only fall into one of two categories: detailed technical specifications or oblique references to the Tiger as it was used by operators in the field.This historical study will introduce a novel perspective on the history of the Tiger. The tank was a pivotal cultural symbol that gained enough positive reception over its short three years of service with the German military that it acquired an agency of its own and influenced the events of World War II. When viewed in this new context, the Tiger becomes an important link in the continuity of a much-discussed German military culture founded in the 19th century philosophy of Carl Von Clausewitz that grew and developed through German reunification, and remained virtually unchanged despite the defeat of World War I.Using in-depth analysis of government documents captured by the Allies after World War II, soldier testimonials, and battle reports, this study proves that the Tiger was far more than merely another machine of war. It is an important cultural artifact and symbol of German military supremacy that still has impact to this day

Gumbo Yearbook, Class of 1907

The Gumbo yearbook chronicles the entire academic year at LSU. In words and especially photos, the Gumbo shows the people, places, and events that make each year unique. In addition to formal portraits of schools and departments, the book contains hundreds of snapshots of students with their friends and dozens of pages showcasing organizations.https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gumbo/1007/thumbnail.jp