Four responses to Nazism

This article examines four memoirs published in pre-war Britain which describe their authors’ first-hand experience of life under Nazi rule. These writers came from across the political spectrum, but by 1940 they had all risked their lives to escape and oppose the Nazi regime from a position of exile. Their powerful memoirs were an attempt to explain to international audiences what exactly had taken place in Germany, and to suggest ways forward. Incorporating a range of approaches, these writers’ honest reflections on their personal responses to the Nazi movement offer profound insights to readers today, as we try to understand the increasingly distant Nazi era, but are also confronted by a return of far right ideas to mainstream discourse

Enlightenment dilemmas: nationalism and war in Rudolph Zacharias Becker’s Mildheimisches Liederbuch (1799/1815)

This chapter explores the moral dilemmas encountered by the Enlightenment writer and pedagaogue Rudolph Zacharias Becker around the concepts of nationalism and war. His meticulous selection and adaptation of texts for the two editions of his Mildheimisches Liederbuch (an originally pedagogical work designed to teach peasants more enlightened ways of thinking) reveal the issues of war and nationalism to have been greatly troubling for him, yet also, unfortunately, unavoidable. While the first edition of Mildheimisches Liederbuch in 1799 treated war as a moral problem, the second edition in 1815 contained a great many new songs proclaiming the anti-French and pro-war sentiments that had arisen during the Wars of Liberation, even though his personal memoir from this period argued for tolerance and respect of the French. Why, then, did he include this anti-French material in the 1815 collection? I interpret Becker’s choice to include pro-war texts with which he did not agree as an attempt to respect freedom of different political opinions, rather than to censor and control them, in the aftermath of Napoleonic occupation

Romantic nationalism or romantic retreat? Re-evaluating the politics of Arnim and Brentano's Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1805/1808)

This article argues for a new approach to war and politics in Arnim and Brentano’s romantic poetry anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn. It departs from previous Wunderhorn scholarship by considering the collection’s three volumes individually, and paying attention to the different political circumstances of the two phases of its creation, 1805 and 1808. I show that there is a change of emphasis in the collection between volume I (1805) and volumes II and III (1808), identifying a shift away from political engagement and a withdrawal of the nationalist sentiments that are still, however, often associated with the collection as a whole. Instead, I argue that the later volumes of the collection turn inwards and come to reflect a more spiritual and escapist aspect of Romanticism, with a focus on the figure of the artist rather than any political goal. By exploring the change in emphasis between 1805 and 1808, my reading presents the Wunderhorn as a text torn internally between a tangible engagement with everyday politics on the one hand, and a tendency towards transcendence on the other. In this way, the collection represents two opposing impulses of German Romanticism around 1800

An Intervention for Pulmonary Rehabilitators to Develop a Social Identity for Patients Attending Exercise Rehabilitation: A Feasibility and Pilot Randomised Control Trial Protocol

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a degenerative condition that can impair health related quality of life (HRQoL). A number of self-management interventions, employing a variety of behavioural change techniques (BCTs), have been adopted to improve HRQoL for COPD patients. However, a lack of attention has been given to group management interventions with an emphasis on incorporating BCTs into rehabilitators practice. This study aims to pilot and feasibly explore a social identity group- management intervention, delivered by COPD rehabilitation staff to patients attending exercise pulmonary rehabilitation. Doing so will help inform the plausibility of the intervention before conducting a full trial to evaluate its effectiveness to improve HRQoL. Methods: This is a two center, randomized cross-over controlled trial. Two pulmonary rehabilitation centres based in the UK will be randomly allocated to two treatment arms (standard care and intervention). Outcome measurements relating to HRQoL and social identity will be completed pre and post exercise rehabilitation. Focus group interviews will be conducted at the end of exercise rehabilitation to capture participants’ contextualised experiences of the intervention. COPD rehabilitators will undertake semi-structured interviews at the end of the trial to garner their holistic perspectives of intervention fidelity and implementation. Discussion: This is the first study to adopt a social identity approach to develop a rehabilitator-led, group management intervention for COPD patients attending exercise pulmonary rehabilitation. The results of this study will provide evidence for the feasibility and sample size requirements to inform a larger study, which can ascertain the intervention’s effectiveness for improving HRQoL for COPD patients. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02288039. Date 31st October 2014

Reducing exposure to pathogens in the horse; A preliminary study into the survival of bacteria on a range of equine bedding types

Aims: Compare the rate of growth of four microbial strains that cause disease in the equine, on four commonly used types of bedding. The moisture holding capacity of each bedding type was also tested. Methods and results: Microbial strains included, Streptococcus equi, Streptococcus zooepidemicus, Fusobacterium necrophorum, Dichelobacter nodosus and Dermatophilus congolensis. The bedding types tested were Pinus syvestrus (Scots pine shavings), Pinus nigra (Corsican pine shavings), Picea sitchensis (Sitka spruce shavings), Cannabis sativa (hemp) and chopped wheat straw. A suspension of each microbial strain was spread in triplicate on agar media and incubated in its optimal growth conditions. The viable count (colony forming unit per ml) was determined for each bacterial strain for the five different bedding types. Pinus syvestrus bedding resulted in significantly less (p=0.001) bacterial growth of all strains tested. Conclusions: Factors resulting in the inhibition of bacterial growth include the anti-bacterial effects reported in the Pinacea family and the physical properties of the bedding substrate. Research is currently focussed on the diagnosis and management of disease. Prevention of disease is also important for matters of biosecurity. Strategies should include the provision of a hygienic environment and the use of specific types of bedding. Significance and impact of the study; Bedding choice has implications for global equine health and disease prevention as well as potential benefits in other animal species