A Strange Obsession with Nazi Christianity: A Critical Comment on Richard Steigmann-Gall's "The Holy Reich"

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Christianity, as Richard Steigmann-Gall argues in his study on the Holy Reich, did not constitute a barrier to nazism. Quite the opposite, he says: for many of the leading nazis he explores in his book the battles waged against Germany's enemies constituted a war in the name of Christianity. He aims to prove this central thesis by text analysis of prominent nazi leaders as well as some selected fields of nazi action. However, his main line of argumentation is far from being persuasive. A strange obsession to depict National Socialism as emphatically as Christian as possible runs throughout the book. It seduces the author into a series of systematic blind spots about National Socialism as a whole. Time and again he tends to over-generalize his partial findings. He refuses to adopt important sources like the Goebbels diaries and relevant literature, especially if they provide evidence contrary to his central thesis. In the end, the whole of his line of reasoning goes awry. Although Steigmann-Gall provides an interesting, stimulating and provocative interpretation of religious dimensions of the Third Reich, it is necessary to remind the author of the essential fact that National Socialism, above all, waged a war in the name of the ‘Aryan-Germanic race’, and preached a new and predominantly non-Christian faith, but not Christianity, the ‘old faith’

Contentious Food Politics: sozialer Protest, Märkte und Zivilgesellschaft (18.-20. Jahrhundert)

"Subsistenzproteste (food riots, Lebensmittelunruhen) sind eine historisch wie aktuell ubiquitäre Variante sozialen Konflikts. Sie sind Bestandteil einer weithin noch ungeschriebenen Sozial- und Mentalitätengeschichte von Märkten. Hier in einem weitergefassten Sinn als contentious food politics thematisiert, werden darunter strittige Aushandlungsprozesse zwischen verschiedenen Gesellschaftsgruppen, sowohl unmittelbar gegeneinander wie auch mit dem Staat, um Zugang bzw. Verfügung über lebenswichtige Grundnahrungsmittel verstanden. Letzthin umschreibt das Konzept ein weitgespanntes Repertoire sozialer Konfrontationen und Kämpfe um Existenz und auskömmliches Leben. Das vorliegende Discussion Paper skizziert die historische Verbreitung und Relevanz dieser Konflikte von klassischen alteuropäischen Ausprägungen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts in England, Frankreich und Deutschland über einschlägige Konflikte der Weltkriegs- und Zwischenkriegszeit bis hin zu ähnlich gearteten Antiglobalisierungsprotesten (austerity riots) der Gegenwart und fragt nach den jeweiligen Relationen zwischen diesen Sozialkonfliktfeldern und Zivilgesellschaften. Betont wird die ambivalente, im Ganzen eher schwierige Beziehungsgeschichte zwischen beiden konträren 'Lebenswelten', generell zwischen dem Sozialen und dem Zivilen. Gewiss gab es temporäre Annäherungen und gemeinsame Schnittmengen, etwa im Verlauf des späteren 19. Jahrhunderts im Kontext einer Transformation solcher Ressourcenkonflikte und Tendenzen einer Selbstzivilisierung der Protestakteure (Respektabilitätsdiskurse) im Umkreis der Arbeiterbewegungen. Zeitgenössische Protestaktionen unter Parolen wie 'Selbsthilfe' konnten an zivilgesellschaftliche Wertüberzeugungen durchaus anknüpfen und zu dauerhaften Assoziationen, Vernetzungen etc. führen. Sehr häufig jedoch - besonders in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts - repräsentierten sie eher destruktive Auflösungstendenzen von Gesellschaften, die völlig aus den Fugen zu geraten drohten und teilweise ins Totalitäre abglitten. Zugleich verweist die Fortdauer der Proteste im 20. Jahrhundert auf anhaltende Vermittlungsprobleme mit zivilgesellschaftlichen Projekten: 'direkte Aktion' und hohe Gewaltneigungen, sozialegalitäre Ansprüche auf Umverteilung sowie hartnäckige Versorgungsmentalitäten schlossen Allianzen/ Vereinbarungen mit zivilgesellschaftlichen Akteuren und deren Normen eher aus. Auf zivilgesellschaftlicher Seite korrespondierte damit eine relative Sprachlosigkeit hinsichtlich der sozialen Erwartungshaltungen der Protestakteure. Zivilgesellschaftliche Projekte bleiben, entsprechend ihrer Gemeinwohlziele, darauf verwiesen, soziale Programme zu formulieren, wollen sie erfolgreicher zukünftige gesellschaftliche 'Entgleisungen' verhindern, eine historische Aufgabe, die sie im frühen 20. Jahrhundert leider gründlich versäumt haben." (Autorenreferat)"Historically as well as in present-day global perspectives, subsistence protests (food or market riots) represent a ubiquitous variation of social conflict, they are part of an almost unwritten social history and histoire des mentalités of markets. Conceptualized here in a broader sense as contentious food politics, these conflicts are conceived as negotiation processes between different groups within societies (among themselves as well as with the state) enabling access to basic foods. More generally, the concept deals with social conflicts about survival and subsistence. This discussion paper outlines the historical extent and relevance of those conflicts from classical European manifestations of 18th and 19th century England, France and Germany over similar conflicts of the 20th century war and inter-war period up to antiglobalisation conflicts (austerity riots) of the present day, discussing the relationships between those fields of conflict and civil societies. As a general result concerning social and civil relations, it is emphasized that those relationships were critical, difficult and precarious. Certainly, there were temporary phases of approximation and even some intersections, for instance during late 19th century transformations of those resource conflicts and trends of self-civilizing of their actors (discourses on respectability) in the context of labour movements. Contemporary actions following slogans like self-help ('Selbsthilfe') could join norms of civil society leading to associations, networks etc. However, very often - especially in the first part of 20th century - they represented more destructive tendencies of dissolution in a society which was threatened to fall apart entirely. At the same time, the persistence of those conflicts in the 20th century shows prevalent problems of mediation within civil society projects: direct action and a strong tendency toward violence, social egalitarian demands for redistribution and long-lasting mentalities of provision precluded alliances with civil societal actors and their norms. On the side of civil society, this corresponded with silence concerning the social expectations of protest actors. Before this historical background it is argued here that civil society projects, according to their proclaimed selfobligations to the common good, should develop social programs more explicitly if they want to prevent new and more global societal derailments more successfully in the future - something they failed to do in Germany and elsewhere in the early 20th century." (author's abstract

Neurobeachin, a Regulator of Synaptic Protein Targeting, Is Associated with Body Fat Mass and Feeding Behavior in Mice and Body-Mass Index in Humans

Neurobeachin (Nbea) regulates neuronal membrane protein trafficking and is required for the development and functioning of central and neuromuscular synapses. In homozygous knockout (KO) mice, Nbea deficiency causes perinatal death. Here, we report that heterozygous KO mice haploinsufficient for Nbea have higher body weight due to increased adipose tissue mass. In several feeding paradigms, heterozygous KO mice consumed more food than wild-type (WT) controls, and this consumption was primarily driven by calories rather than palatability. Expression analysis of feeding-related genes in the hypothalamus and brainstem with real-time PCR showed differential expression of a subset of neuropeptide or neuropeptide receptor mRNAs between WT and Nbea+/− mice in the sated state and in response to food deprivation, but not to feeding reward. In humans, we identified two intronic NBEA single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are significantly associated with body-mass index (BMI) in adult and juvenile cohorts. Overall, data obtained in mice and humans suggest that variation of Nbea abundance or activity critically affects body weight, presumably by influencing the activity of feeding-related neural circuits. Our study emphasizes the importance of neural mechanisms in body weight control and points out NBEA as a potential risk gene in human obesity

Was macht eigentlich die historische Protestforschung? Rückblicke, Resümee, Perspektiven

The article deals with three and a half decades of research on historical protest in Germany. It scrutinises the reasons of its relative marginalisation since the early 1990s and tries to give some proposals for its renewal. After a short discussion of different meanings and concepts of “protest” and some preliminaries how the protest issue should be conceptualised for historical research, an overview is given on the early phases of “social protest” research and its contemporary shortcomings. Manfred Gailus argues for a more intensive research on what is conceived as “bad protest” like anti-Jewish violence etc. He also deals with the transformation of protest research (culturalisation, gender, history of violence) since the early 1990s in context of a general turn from social to cultural history. The author explains in detail that transnational comparisons as well as the globalisation of the issue, intensified receptions of recent debates and concepts of sociological movement research and issues like “civil society” may offer new opportunities. Finally, a short outlook on the future of protest research in today’s world full of protests is given

Einleitung

Siemens D, Gailus M. Einleitung. In: Gailus M, Siemens D, eds. „Hass und Begeisterung bilden Spalier“. Die politische Autobiografie von Horst Wessel. Berlin: Be.bra; 2011: 11-80

Abstract des Referats auf der Fachtagung „Theologie und Vergangenheitsbewältigung II. Französischer Katholizismus - deutscher Protestantismus 1930-1950“ vom 12. bis 14. Januar 2007: Protestantismus und Nationalsozialismus.

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