History 393N: Germany since 1945
Bartlett Hall room 125 – TR 11:15 – 12:30 pm

Readings:

  

The readings for this course have been chosen to compliment the lectures – they are no substitute.  For the most part they are intended to illuminate one or more perspectives on a particular issue. We will discuss the books in class on the days specified in the class schedule.  On those days you are to come prepared to discuss the material you have read.  The textbook (Winkler) will work in conjunction with the lectures, but here too, the roles are complimentary – there will be material presented in the lectures not found in the text.  You are responsible for material presented both in class and in the assigned textbook readings.

 

Books:

  

Please purchase the following books (available at the University Bookstore Textbook Annex)

  • Boell, Heinrich, Billiards at Half-Past Nine, Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd (1965), ISBN-13: 978-0714501246
  • Garton Ash, Timothy, The File: A Personal History (Paperback), Vintage; 1st Vintage Books Ed edition (1998), ISBN-13: 978-0679777854
  • Plenzdorf, Ulrich, The New Sufferings of Young W (Paperback), Waveland Press (1996), ISBN-13: 978-0881338911
  • Winkler, Heinrich August, Germany: The Long Road West: Volume 2: 1933-1990 (Hardcover), Oxford University Press, USA (2007) ISBN-13: 978-0199265985

Articles:

  

You will find all of the non-book texts for this course on SPARK

 
  • Clay, Lucius D. “Berlin,” in Foreign Affairs 41:1 (1962), pp. 47-58.
  • Heilbrunn, Jacob, “Germany’s New Right,” in Foreign Affairs 75:6 (1996), pp. 80-98.
  • Merkl, Peter H., “The German Janus: From Westpolitik to Ostpolitik,” in Political Science Quarterly 89:4 (1974-1975), pp. 803-824.
  • Olsen, Jon Berndt, “Recasting Luther’s Image: the 1983 Commemoration of Martin Luther in the GDR,” Andrew Plowman (ed.), Divided But Not Disconnected: The German Cold War Experience (New York: Berghahn Books, forthcoming 2009).
  • Osmond, Jonathan, “The End of the GDR. Revolution and Voluntary Annexation”, in Mary Fulbrook, ed., 20th Century Germany. Politics, Culture and Society, 1918-1990 (London, Arnold Publ., 2001), 270-289.
  • Pence, Katherine, “Women on the Verge: Consumers between Private Desires and Public Crisis,” in Katherine Pence and Paul Betts (eds.), Socialist Modern: East German Everyday Culture and Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), pp. 287-322.
  • Ramet, Pedro, “Disaffection and Dissent in East Germany” in World Politics 37:1 (1984), pp. 85-111.
  • Ross, Corey, “Before the Wall: East Germans, Communist Authority, and the Mass Exodus to the West,” in Historical Journal 45:2 (2002), 459-480.
  • Stern, Frank, “Occupiers, Germans and Jews in Postwar Germany,” in Robert G. Moeller, West Germany under Construction: Politics, Society and Culture in the Adenauer Era (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 199-229.
  • Ulrich Herbert and Karen Hunn, “Guest Workers and Policy on Guest Workers in the Federal Republic,” in Hanna Schissler (ed.), Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968, ch. 8, 187-218.

 

Films:

  

Two films will be shown over the course of the semester.  These films, like the readings, will highlight particular issues being dealt with in that unit of the class.  While the films are entertaining in their own right, we will want to view them also with an eye to what they can tell us about the history of a particular time and place.  We will view the films on the days specified in the class schedule.  You will also be responsible for this film on your quizzes and exams, so if, for whatever reason you cannot attend one of the screenings, please make sure to make-up what you have missed outside of class.

 
  • The Lives of Others
  • Good Bye, Lenin!