Krieg

Die alliierten Luftangriffe auf Hamburg vom 24. Juli bis 3. August 1943 zerstörten weite Teile der Stadt fast vollständig. Über 30¿000 Menschen kamen bei der »Operation Gomorrha« ums Leben, viele Überlebende leiden bis heute an den Folgen. Im »Erinnerungswerk Hamburger Feuersturm« wurden in den letzten Jahren über einhundert lebensgeschichtliche Interviews mit Zeitzeuginnen und Zeitzeugen geführt, die während des Zweiten Weltkriegs überwiegend noch Kinder oder Jugendliche waren. Die hier vorgestellten Berichte dokumentieren ihr unmittelbares Erleben im Feuersturm ebenso wie ihren persönlichen Umgang mit den Kriegserfahrungen im weiteren Leben. Ergänzt werden die Erinnerungen der Überlebenden durch Beiträge aus der Geschichtswissenschaft, aus Medien, Film und Musik sowie von Vertreterinnen und Vertretern der Hamburger Gedenkkultur. Sie verorten die Bombenangriffe im Gedächtnis der Stadt und reflektieren Hamburgs Umgang mit dem einschneidenden Kriegsereignis im Wandel der Zeit.

Finnland 1947: Die Journalistin und Fotografin Inkeri lässt sich in einem kleinen Ort in Westlappland nieder, um den Wiederaufbau des durch den Krieg verwüsteten Landes zu dokumentieren. Die junge Samí Bigga-Maja und ihr Großvater eröffnen Inkeri den Einblick in eine Kultur und Lebensweise, die im Zuge des Wiederaufbaus von den Finnen unterdrückt zu werden droht. Und gleichzeitig ist Inkeri aus persönlichen Motiven in Lappland: Sie will herausfinden, was mit ihrem Mann geschehen ist, der während des Krieges spurlos verschwand. Als ihr ein Tagebuch aus Kriegszeiten in die Hände fällt, scheint sie das Rätsel endlich lösen zu können ...In Petra Rautiainens kraftvollem und bewegenden Debüt steht die Schönheit des arktischen Lapplands den brutalen Machenschaften der Nazis und ihrer finnischen Kollaborateure gegenüber. Ein spannungsgeladener und gleichzeitig tief poetischer Roman, der sich der Wahrheit der Vergangenheit stellt und geschehenes Unrecht wiedergutzumachen versucht.

This book describes how Italy elaborated a master narrative of the Second World War that evades the faults of Mussolini's fascist war by attributing all responsibility on the shoulders of the German ally

Militarizing Outer Space explores the dystopian and destructive dimensions of the Space Age and challenges conventional narratives of a bipolar Cold War rivalry. Concentrating on weapons, warfare and viölence, this provocative volume examines real and imagined endeavors of arming the skies and conquering the heavens. The third and final volume in the groundbreaking ¿European Astroculture trilogy, ¿Militarizing Outer Space zooms in on the interplay between security, technopolitics and knowledge from the 1920s through the 1980s. Often hailed as the site of heavenly utopias and otherworldly salvation, outer space transformed from a promised sanctuary to a present threat, where the battles of the future were to be waged. Astroculture proved instrumental in fathoming forms and functions of warfare¿s futures past, both on earth and in space. The allure of dominating outer space, the book shows, was neither limited to the early twenty-first century nor to current American space force rhetorics.

This book recounts the history of Raymond A. Firmani - from his humble beginnings as the son of poor Italian immigrants, to earning his wings as a B-17 pilot, completing twenty-five bombing missions and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross, then on to participating fully in family life and a successful career in the aftermath of the war. A citizen airman of WWII, Ray risked his life every time he flew a combat mission. His experience during the war was unique, but it also has much in common with that of other veterans. The task before them was simple in concept yet colossal in scale: Rid the world of evil by stopping the Axis powers from levying atrocities on civilization and carrying forth their imperialistic intentions. Altruism reigned when our basic freedoms were openly threatened. Those men - practically boys at the time - and the women who joined them in service to their country, marched bravely into the unknown.

When the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands began in 1942, the occupying forces used the refugee camp near Westerbork in the east as a transit camp, without modifications. The Westerbork camp was established and paid for by the Dutch-Jewish community in the 1930s to house the increasing number of Jewish refugees from Germany.In two years, more than 100,000 Jews were deported from this camp, also known as the "Dutch gateway to hell".Because a well-functioning camp organization was already present, the surveillance did not require brutal sadists, as was the case in other camps. Camp commander Albert Konrad Gemmeker only had a dozen SS men at his disposal.The Order Service (OD), composed of Jews, was responsible for the necessary order and peace within the camp. Due to the constant pressure to still be deported, the OD men carried out their assignments promptly inside and sometimes also outside the camp.That is why other camp residents also referred to them as the Jewish SS.The outdoor surveillance was carried out by the Dutch Gendarmerie* (Military Police). These mostly young police officers, who were tasked with this service for only a few months each time. They were not allowed to have any contact with the Jews and did not enter the camp.In this book, extensive attention was paid to the OD men and their background because, in particular, they made the system of divide and conquer work well.Because of these Jewish guards, the Nazis were able to keep the well-oiled deportation machine running at full speed.

Return to the Motherland follows those who were displaced to the Third Reich back to the Soviet Union after the victory over Germany. At the end of World War II, millions of people from Soviet lands were living as refugees outside the borders of the USSR. Most had been forced laborers and prisoners of war, deported to the Third Reich to work as racial inferiors in a crushing environment. Seth Bernstein reveals the secret history of repatriation, the details of the journey, and the new identities, prospects, and dangers for migrants that were created by the tumult of war. He uses official and personal sources from declassified holdings in post-Soviet archives, more than one hundred oral history interviews, and transnational archival material. Most notably, he makes extensive use of secret police files declassified only after the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014. The stories described in Return to the Motherland reveal not only how the USSR grappled with the aftermath of war but also the universality of Stalinism's refugee crisis. While arrest was not guaranteed, persecution was ubiquitous. Within Soviet society, returnees met with a cold reception that demanded hard labor as payment for perceived disloyalty, soldiers perpetrated rape against returning Soviet women, and ordinary people avoided contact with repatriates, fearing arrest as traitors and spies. As Bernstein describes, Soviet displacement presented a challenge to social order and the opportunity to rebuild the country as a great power after a devastating war.

The Broken Guitar by Richard Greene is a collection of poems about war:MemorialReading the nameof a young man who died in warsaddens us.Yet more the names of thousandsengraved in granite, or marble,their parents' hopes and dreamsinterred in stone.All that remains are a few keepsakes,and memoriesof newborns, toddlers, vulnerable boys,youths becoming men,those now sad memories,and names carved in cold stone.Who wanted those wars?Their leaders of course,but all too often those same young men,and all too oftenthose who mourn for them.