Relatives and Strangers: The Identity of Post World War II Ethnic German Immigrants

The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the constant arrival of new Canadians. Between 1946 and 1960, Canada opened its doors to over two million immigrants and approximately 13 per cent of them were German. The first ten years of German immigration to Canada were dominated by the arrival of ethnic Germans. Ethnic Germans, or Volksdeutsche, were German speaking immigrants who were born in countries other than the Germany of 1939. This thesis explores the identity of those ethnic German immigrants. It has frequently been noted that German immigrants to Canada were inordinately quick to adapt to their new society. As a result, studies of German immigrants in Canada have tended to focus on the degree and speed with which they adopted the social framework of the dominant society. The present work seeks to place the ethnic German experience in the context of rapidly changing Canadian social and economic realities. Ethnic Germans have a history that has subjected them to rapid changes in political, family, and economic reality. They came to a Canadian society that was increasingly urbanized, with a growing consumer orientation and accompanied by changes in self-perception. Using archival sources and a variety of personal stories in the form of memoirs, personal interviews, letters to newspapers and published materials, the thesis explores the processes of ethnic German identification. Conceptually the argument follows Fredric Barth's suggestions that culture should be thought of as a process. Ethnic identity should not be thought of as static but rather as a constant process of social construction. The coherence of features of ethnic identity is constantly in flux, and it is these processes that should engage the student of culture. The processes of labelling, memory, socialization and the social construction of family, work, and associations provide the structure for the chapters that follow. For ethnic Germans, each of these processes became arenas where identities were formed and coherence was enhanced or discarded in favour of new social realities.Master of Arts in Histor

Authors: The Members of the European Economic Advisory Group at CESifo 2008

Authors of the Report on the European Economy 2008

Chapter 2: A New Crisis Mechanism for the Euro Area

The European debt crisis followed the US financial crisis with a delay of one and a half years. While its first signs were visible in November and December of 2009 when the rating agency Fitch downgraded Ireland and Greece, it culminated on 28 April 2010 when the intra-day interest rate for two-year Greek government bonds peaked at 38 percent. Since then capital markets have been extremely unstable, showing signs of distrust in the creditworthiness of the GIPS countries: Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The European Union reacted by preparing voluminous rescue plans that, at this writing (January 2011), have been resorted to by Greece and Ireland.

Chapter 3: The effect of globalisation on Western European jobs: curse or blessing?

This chapter analyses the impact of increased economic integration with low-wage economies on Western European jobs: the message is that when taking all effects into account, globalisation is more likely in the end to raise rather than to reduce employment, because it will help making labour markets more flexible. The challenge for policy is to counter adverse income distribution effects, but to do so in a way that employment is not harmed.

Chapter 4: Industrial policy

This chapter argues against using industrial policy to protect European firms from international competition because of the long-run costs that are likely to arise. Industrial policy should be horizontal rather than sector-based and it should be located mainly at the regional and EU level, but cut back at the national level.

Chapter 4: Spain

Spain has suffered a lot from the current crisis and is the first large economy that may find itself in need of fiscal rescue. If this happens it may prove quite damaging to the euro. Yet, since the mid-1990s, Spain was a champion of growth and fiscal stability; its unemployment had fallen rapidly to the levels that prevailed in the rest of the European Union. This chapter discusses the reasons why such a virtuous initial situation deteriorated so sharply since the start of the crisis. Was this just bad luck or were the booming years just a mirage?

Chapter 1: The Macroeconomic Outlook

The structural problems brought to light by the financial crisis have largely remained in place or shifted from the private (banking) sector to the public sector. In the United States, despite increased saving, household debt remains high; their wealth position has deteriorated substantially due to the bursting of the house price bubble. The real estate sector has shrunk, and the financial sector has still not fully recovered.

Chapter 2: How much real dollar depreciation is needed to correct global imbalances?

A crucial issue for macro developments in Europe is how large and persistent the depreciation of the US dollar against the euro will be. This chapter offers an in-depth analysis of this.