„Völkische Flurbereinigung“ –: Vertreibungen im Nationalsozialismus

This essay focuses on the Nazi ethnic and racist policy in Eastern and Western Europe. From the beginning on the Nazi plans for the war against Poland intended to transform huge parts of Polish territory into areas of German settlement – the realization of the Nazi project of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. Germanization of these areas meant racist differentiation of the local people and different practices of inclusion and exclusion, whether they were classified as German or of German origin, as friendly or hostile Poles or as Jewish. These racist measures had been practiced in Western Europe, too. The context of Nazi ethnic politics was a conceptual shift from nation to Volk, from demos to ethnos since the end of nineteenth century. The coincidence of the definition of people not only an ensemble of citizens but as a cultural, ethnic unit and the rise of biology as a dominant pattern of interpreting human nature made ‘biopolicy’ (Foucault) a common political practice not only in Nazi Germany but all over Europe. What made Nazi ethnic politics unique was the unalterable, exclusionary Anti-Semitism which lead to systematic mass murder and the violent eagerness of the Nazi regime to realize its vision of an ethnically structured ‘New Europe’ in which Germans should rule as a superior race

Antisemitische Gewalt und Novemberpogrom

In der Reichspogromnacht vom 9. No­vember 1938 wurden 1.400 Synagogen und Beträume, Tausende Wohnun­gen und Geschäfte von Jüdinnen und Juden zerstört und geplündert; mehr mehr als 30.000 Männer in Konzentrationslager verschleppt, un­gefähr hundert wurden ermordet. Dieser vielfach als "Reichskristallnacht" bezeichnete Pogrom, die "Kata­strophe vor der Katastrophe" (Dan Diner), war der Startschuss für die Verdrängung der Juden aus der Wirtschaft und die Arisierung jüdi­schen Eigentums. Er stellte eine Brutalisierung im Umgang mit der jüdischen Bevölkerung dar und war zugleich ein Schritt in Richtung Schoah. Die 75-jährige Wiederkehr der Reichspogromnacht vom 9. auf den 10. No­vember 1938 war für das Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein Anlass, dieses Er­eignis im Kontext der jüdischen und der Landes- sowie der nationalsozialis­tischen Gewaltgeschichte erstmals in einer eigenen Ausstellung mit dem Schwerpunkt auf dem Norden Deutschlands zu präsentieren. Die Ausstellung entstand in enger Zusammenarbeit mit der Universität Flensburg und der Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Schleswig-Hol­stein. In Schleswig wurde sie von einer Vortragsreihe begleitet, deren Bei­träge, ergänzt durch weitere Aufsätze, in diesem Band dokumentiert sind. Abbildungen aus der Ausstellung illustrieren die Texte.During the Reichspogromnacht between November 9th and 10th, 1938, in Germany and Austria 1400 synagogues and other Jewish institutions as well as thousands of Jewish homes and shops were destroyed. More than 30.000 men were deported, and at least 100 killed. This pogrom, frequently referred to as „Reichskristallnacht“, marked the beginning of political and economic persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, and an increasingly brutal treatment of the Jewish minority, thus paving the way for the Holocaust. With regards to the 75th annual recurrence of the Reichspogromnacht, the Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein in 2013 presented an exhibition centered around the events of that night in Northern Germany. This exhibition was prepared in close cooperation with the University of Flensburg and the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Schleswig-Holstein. It was accompanied by a series of lectures that are included in this book as well as some of the illustrations displayed

Was heißt: Singularität des Holocaust?

In der aktuellen Debatte um Holocaust, Kolonialismus und Erinnerung hat Per Leo jüngst angeregt, dass Historikerinnen und Historiker irritierende Fragen stellen sollten. Diesem, wie ich finde, klugen Vorschlag folgend, möchte ich hier diskutieren, ob und inwieweit die Rede von der Singularität des Holocaust angemessen, sinnvoll, erkenntnisfördernd ist. Wie ist sie (in der Bundesrepublik) entstanden, und worin könnte heute ihre Aussagekraft liegen? Müsste die Perspektive nicht erweitert werden? Solche Fragen führen in das Zentrum einer Debatte, die hierzulande seit der Auseinandersetzung vom Frühjahr 2020 um den afrikanischen postkolonialen Theoretiker Achille Mbembe heftig entbrannt ist, dem der Antisemitismus-Beauftragte der Bundesregierung Felix Klein vorwarf, den Holocaust zu relativieren. Die vor allem in den Feuilletons geführte Debatte verschärfte sich, als der in den USA lehrende Historiker A. Dirk Moses im Mai 2021 mit einem provokanten Essay die deutsche Erinnerungskultur kritisierte: In der Fixierung auf den Holocaust würden die Kolonialverbrechen ausgeblendet. Die Kontroverse um Antisemitismus auf der diesjährigen documenta bildete mit den schrillen Tönen zweifellos den vorläufigen Tiefpunkt dieser Debatte. Nachdenkliche Argumente wie von Micha Brumlik, Sebastian Conrad, Charlotte Wiedemann oder Natan Sznaider scheinen kaum noch Gehör zu finden

Arbeit im Nationalsozialismus

Work was a core concept in National Socialism. In pre-war concentration camps, it was a tool for converting prisoners into Volksgenossen, or members of the national community. And during the war, forced labor was crucial to armaments production. “Ability to work” meant life or death for Jews, POWs, and others. The essays in this volume explore the multiple meanings of work as a social, political, and cultural practice in National Socialism

Inbreeding Avoidance Influences the Viability of Reintroduced Populations of African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus)

The conservation of many fragmented and small populations of endangered African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) relies on understanding the natural processes affecting genetic diversity, demographics, and future viability. We used extensive behavioural, life-history, and genetic data from reintroduced African wild dogs in South Africa to (1) test for inbreeding avoidance via mate selection and (2) model the potential consequences of avoidance on population persistence. Results suggested that wild dogs avoided mating with kin. Inbreeding was rare in natal packs, after reproductive vacancies, and between sibling cohorts (observed on 0.8%, 12.5%, and 3.8% of occasions, respectively). Only one of the six (16.7%) breeding pairs confirmed as third-order (or closer) kin consisted of animals that were familiar with each other, while no other paired individuals had any prior association. Computer-simulated populations allowed to experience inbreeding had only a 1.6% probability of extinction within 100 years, whereas all populations avoiding incestuous matings became extinct due to the absence of unrelated mates. Populations that avoided mating with first-order relatives became extinct after 63 years compared with persistence of 37 and 19 years for those also prevented from second-order and third-order matings, respectively. Although stronger inbreeding avoidance maintains significantly more genetic variation, our results demonstrate the potentially severe demographic impacts of reduced numbers of suitable mates on the future viability of small, isolated wild dog populations. The rapid rate of population decline suggests that extinction may occur before inbreeding depression is observed

Protein Arrays: Issues to Be Addressed

Protein arrays are fast becoming established as a means to monitor protein expression levels and investigate protein interactions and function. They present particular technical demands that will need to be solved in order to achieve the maximum capability of efficient and sensitive protein analysis in the high throughput setting of functional genomics. The following resumé of some major issues around this new technology was made as the chairperson’s introduction to the workshop session on peptide and protein chips