Recovered Territory

A German-Polish Conflict over Land and Culture, 1919-1989
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78533-814-4
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, 302 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 443 g

Upper Silesia, one of Central Europe’s most important industrial borderlands, was at the center of heated conflict between Germany and Poland and experienced annexations and border re-drawings in 1922, 1939, and 1945. This transnational history examines these episodes of territorial re-nationalization and their cumulative impacts on the region and nations involved, as well as their use by the Nazi and postwar communist regimes to legitimate violent ethnic cleansing. In their interaction with—and mutual influence on—one another, political and cultural actors from both nations developed a transnational culture of territorial rivalry. Architecture, spaces of memory, films, museums, folklore, language policy, mass rallies, and archeological digs were some of the means they used to give the borderland a “German”/“Polish” face. Representative of the wider politics of twentieth-century Europe, the situation in Upper Silesia played a critical role in the making of history’s most violent and uprooting eras, 1939–1950.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Polak-Springer, Peter

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Konflikt- und Friedensforschung, Rüstungskontrolle, Abrüstung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Friedens- und Konfliktforschung
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Note on Place Names, Translations, and Labels

List of Abbreviations

Maps

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Making of a Contested Borderland, 1871-1939

Chapter 2. A Transnational Tradition of Border Rallies, 1922-1939

Chapter 3. Acculturating an Industrial Borderland, 1922-1934

Chapter 4. Giving “Polish Silesia” a “German” Face, 1939-1945

Chapter 5. Recovering “Polish Silesia,” 1945-1956

Epilogue: From Revisionism to Ostpolitik and Beyond

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Polak-Springer, Peter
Peter Polak-Springer is an assistant professor of modern and contemporary history at Qatar University. His major interests are in cultural, transnational, and comparative history, as well as borderlands, nationalism, and the 20th century. His more recent research focuses on nationalism after World War I in Central Europe and the Middle East.