Oral History in der Fremde: Überlegungen zu Verständnisproblemen in sprach- und kulturübergreifenden Erinnerungsprojekten am Beispiel von Interviews in Russland

Der Beitrag zeigt am Beispiel der deutschen Korrespondentin Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, wie - bei aller Offenheit und Fairness gegenüber einer fremden Kultur - in Interviews bedenkliche Irritationen entstehen können. Die Interviews verdeutlichen, welche Missverständnisse in Begegnungen selbst scheinbar alltäglicher Situationen angelegt sind. So konfrontierte Krone-Schmalz die Frauen häufig mit der Frage nach der 'doppelten Belastung' als Frau (gemeint ist: in Beruf und Familie) - eine zweifellos aus der eigenen Kultur und der eigenen Identifikation erwachsene Vorstellung der Westeuropäerin, die schließlich noch zum Bild von der 'Dreifachbelastung' gesteigert wurde, als zum Pensum der sowjetischen Frau die sogenannte 'gesellschaftliche Tätigkeit' hinzukam. Die Journalistin stieß mit ihrer Frage regelmäßig auf Unverständnis. Erstaunt stellte die Reporterin immer wieder fest, dass das Fremde, Unbegreifliche, 'nicht aufgesetzt ist', nicht Masche oder Maske für den Besucher, sondern authentischer Bestandteil individuellen Selbstverständnisses. Der Beitrag fragt nach Ursachen und Determinanten sozialer und kultureller Entwicklung dieses Phänomens. In jedem Fall ist wichtig, sich dem Gegenstand angemessen und kundig zu nähern. Das setzt bei Fragen an fremde Gesellschaften eine besondere Sensibilität voraus. Für den Historiker im doppelten Sinne: besondere Sensibilität für das Gegenwärtige und für das Gewesene. (ICA2

Quantifying disturbance effects on vegetation carbon pools in mountain forests based on historical data

Although the terrestrial carbon budget is of key importance for atmospheric CO2 concentrations, little is known on the effects of management and natural disturbances on historical carbon stocks at the regional scale. We reconstruct the dynamics of vegetation carbon stocks and flows in forests across the past 100years for a valley in the eastern Swiss Prealps using quantitative and qualitative information from forest management plans. The excellent quality of the historical information makes it possible to link dynamics in growing stocks with high-resolution time series for natural and anthropogenic disturbances. The results of the historical reconstruction are compared with modelled potential natural vegetation. Forest carbon stock at the beginning of the twentieth century was substantially reduced compared to natural conditions as a result of large scale clearcutting lasting until the late nineteenth century. Recovery of the forests from this unsustainable exploitation and systematic forest management were the main drivers of a strong carbon accumulation during almost the entire twentieth century. In the 1990s two major storm events and subsequent bark beetle infestations significantly reduced stocks back to the levels of the mid-twentieth century. The future potential for further carbon accumulation was found to be strongly limited, as the potential for further forest expansion in this valley is low and forest properties seem to approach equilibrium with the natural disturbance regime. We conclude that consistent long-term observations of carbon stocks and their changes provide rich information on the historical range of variability of forest ecosystems. Such historical information improves our ability to assess future changes in carbon stocks. Further, the information is vital for better parameterization and initialization of dynamic regional scale vegetation models and it provides important background for appropriate management decision

Using dynamic vegetation models to simulate plant range shifts

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Application of a computationally efficient method to approximate gap model results with a probabilistic approach

To be able to simulate climate change effects on forest dynamics over the whole of Switzerland, we adapted the second-generation DGVM (dynamic global vegetation model) LPJ-GUESS (Lund–Potsdam–Jena General Ecosystem Simulator) to the Alpine environment. We modified model functions, tuned model parameters, and implemented new tree species to represent the potential natural vegetation of Alpine landscapes. Furthermore, we increased the computational efficiency of the model to enable area-covering simulations in a fine resolution (1 km) sufficient for the complex topography of the Alps, which resulted in more than 32 000 simulation grid cells. To this aim, we applied the recently developed method GAPPARD (approximating GAP model results with a Probabilistic Approach to account for stand Replacing Disturbances) (Scherstjanoi et al., 2013) to LPJ-GUESS. GAPPARD derives mean output values from a combination of simulation runs without disturbances and a patch age distribution defined by the disturbance frequency. With this computationally efficient method, which increased the model's speed by approximately the factor 8, we were able to faster detect the shortcomings of LPJ-GUESS functions and parameters. We used the adapted LPJ-GUESS together with GAPPARD to assess the influence of one climate change scenario on dynamics of tree species composition and biomass throughout the 21st century in Switzerland. To allow for comparison with the original model, we additionally simulated forest dynamics along a north–south transect through Switzerland. The results from this transect confirmed the high value of the GAPPARD method despite some limitations towards extreme climatic events. It allowed for the first time to obtain area-wide, detailed high-resolution LPJ-GUESS simulation results for a large part of the Alpine region

Moskaus Spuren in Ostdeutschland 1945 bis 1949. Aktenerschließung und Forschungspläne

As research conditions in Russian archives began to improve in the mid-1990s, empirical studies were undertaken in Germany on Soviet occupation policy in Germany and on the Soviet military administration. This volume discusses important projects, cites deficiencies, and outlines future perspectives, thereby providing an initial assessment of the research