Re-Imagined Communities: Racial, National, and Colonial Visions in National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy, 1933-1943

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. December 2014. Major: History. Advisors: Eric Weitz, Mary Jo Maynes. 1 computer file (PDF); iv, 248 pages.The rise of National Socialism in 1933 offered a new opportunity to the German colonial movement whose demands for a restored overseas empire had remained at the margins of nationalist politics throughout the Weimar Republic. Profiting from the broader political revisionism of National Socialism, colonial revisionists sought to meld their ambitions overseas with the racial, national, and expansionist politics of Nazism, while the regime sought to benefit from the popular support for colonialism. Using a biographical approach, I move beyond a strictly diplomatic history of National Socialist overseas empire to explore the experiences of members of the German colonial movement - from mid-level, Party functionaries, to women journalists, and even opponents of the regime - to demonstrate the contentiousness of ideas of race, space, and nation under the Third Reich. Viewing race and nation through the lens of overseas empire, I argue that not only were these ideas highly variable and mobile within a national context, but also that contestations over these terms allowed for the creation of new racial and national communities that transcended the borders of the nation-state. When it became apparent to the German colonial movement that the National Socialist leadership was more interested in expansion on the continent than overseas, the movement looked increasingly to Fascist Italian colonialism for inspiration and collaboration. This transnational cooperation provided an alternative to the formal political and military alliances between the two states and posited a German and Italian fascism as the defender of a "new Europe." My research draws on a broad variety of secondary sources and primary and archival source collections of the Bundesarchiv Berlin, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Politsches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, and the Archivio Centrale dello Stato

Research into production of biogas from maize silage in a batch reactor with hydromixing

Przedstawiono badania fermentacji metanowej kiszonki kukurydzy z wykorzystaniem konsorcjów o różnym składzie mikroorganizmów: (1) konsorcjum mikroorganizmów wyizolowane z gnojowicy bydlęcej (GB), (2) konsorcjum mikroorganizmów wyizolowane z biogazowni rolniczej (BF). Badania prowadzono w reaktorze okresowym z hydromieszaniem. Dla identycznych warunków prowadzenia procesu uzyskano większą ilość biogazu dla konsorcjum mikroorganizmów.Research of anaerobic digestion of maize silage using consortia of different composition of microorganisms: (1) consortium of microorganisms: (1) consortium of organisms isolated from cattle manure GB) and (2) consortium of microorganisms isolated from biogas plant (BF) are presented in the paper. The study was carried out in a batch reactor with hydromixing. At the same process conditions, the higher quantity of biogas was obtained in anaerobic digestion with microorganism consortium BF

Canopy closure, LAI and radiation transfer from airborne LiDAR synthetic images

Forest canopy structure and associated solar radiation fluxes greatly influence snow accumulation and melt and have large implications for water availability from forested areas. The ability to efficiently and explicitly infer canopy parameters at high resolution is crucial to improve the success of large scale applications of snow water resources modeling within these areas. In this paper, the utility of estimating leaf area index (LAI), canopy closure (CC) and below canopy potential incoming solar radiation (PISR) from synthetic hemispheric photos derived from airborne LiDAR data was evaluated. LAI and CC estimates from the synthetic LiDAR images were directly compared to actual hemispherical photos taken at 16 points at 7 field areas with heterogeneous canopy stand characteristics for a total of 112 photo comparison points. The synthetic data was further analyzed against LAI and CC derived from more traditional aerial LiDAR methods using a Cartesian space which integrates values over an area rather than a point based angular viewpoint. Furthermore, the PISR estimates were directly compared to in-situ radiometer measurements taken at 30 different locations during clear sky conditions with heterogeneous canopy stand properties. When compared to the actual hemispherical photos, the CC and LAI metrics from synthetic images showed higher correlations and lower biases for all canopy coverage classes (r: 0.93 for CC and r: 0.83 for LAI) than the metrics from the Cartesian approach which displayed decreased correlations and higher biases with increasing canopy closure. Using a clear sky partitioning scheme for the direct and diffuse portions of the incoming shortwave radiation, the PISR was also accurately estimated from the synthetic images with average site correlations ranging from 0.90 to 0.94 where the timing and peak trends of both the diffuse and direct radiation components were well represented. Finally, a basic methodology for the steps toward automation of the process was presented in order to explicitly derive these metrics within similar LiDAR datasets

Membrane installation for biogas enrichment – Field tests and system simulation

The paper presents results of the field tests on membrane biogas enrichment performed with the application of mobile membrane installation (MMI) with the feed stream up to 10 Nm3/h. The mobile installation equipped with four hollow fibre modules with polyimide type membranes was tested at four different biogas plants. Two of them were using agricultural substrates. The third one was constructed at a municipal wastewater plant and sludge was fermented in a digester and finally in the fourth case biogas was extracted from municipal waste landfill site. Differences in the concentration of bio-methane in feed in all cases were observed and trace compounds were detected as well. High selectivity polyimide membranes, in proper module arrangements, can provide a product of high methane content in all cases. The content of other trace compounds, such as hydrogen sulphide, water vapour and oxygen on the product did not exceed the values stated by standard for a biogas as a vehicle fuel. The traces of hydrogen sulphide and water vapour penetrated faster to the waste stream enriched in carbon dioxide, which could lead to further purification of the product – methane being hold in the retentate (H2O > H2S > CO2 > O2 > CH4 > N2). In the investigated cases, when concentration of N2 was low and concentration of CH4 higher than 50%, it was possible to upgrade methane to concentration above 90% in a two-stage cascade. To performsimulation ofCH4 andCO2 permeation through polyimide membrane,MATLABwas used. Simulation program has included permeation gaseous mixture with methane contents as observed at field tests in the range of 50 and 60% vol. The mass transport process was estimated for a concurrent hollow fibre membrane module for given pressure and temperature conditions and different values of stage cut. The obtained results show good agreement with the experimental data. The highest degree of methane recovery was obtained with gas concentrating in a cascade with recycling of the retentate

Studies on uranium recovery from a U-bearing Radoniów Dump

This work reports the possibility of uranium recovery from a post-mining uranium ore dump in Poland by a bioleaching method. The studies were conducted on the dump leaching model with the mass of 570 kg of uranium bearing mineral material from Radoniów pile and in the periodic bioreactor with a work volume of 80 dm3 and with mechanical mixing and aeration of the charge. The uranium concentration in the examined material was about 800 ppm. In this process, the consortium of microorganisms isolated from former mines was used. It was composed of the following microorganisms: Bacillius, Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Thiobacillus, Halothiobacillus, Thiomonas, and Geothrix. The effi ciency of the uranium bioleaching process was 98% in the reactor, and a yield of 70% was obtained in the dump leaching model. The post-leaching solution contained signifi cant amounts of uranium ions that were separated in two stages: (1) by ion chromatography and then (2) by a two-step precipitation method. The resulting solution was a source of ammonium diuranate, the precursor of yellowcake (uranium oxides)

Research of methane fermentation process using the radiotracer methods and gamma scanning technique

Określono metodami radioznacznikowymi, z wykorzystaniem trytu jako znacznika fazy ciekłej, rozkład czasu przebywania i średni czas retencji zawiesiny w bioreaktorach do produkcji biometanu. Wykorzystując technikę gamma skaningu określono objętość czynną fazy ciekłej, gazowej oraz obszar tworzenia się kożuchów.The residence time distribution and mean residence time of liquid phase in fermentor was determined using the tritium water as a radiotracer. With application of gamma scanning technique the volumes of liquid phase and foam in bioreactor were determined