Organisation

• Prof. Dr. Marina Cattaruzza
• Prof. Dr. Dieter Langewiesche
• Dr. Stefan Dyroff

Ort und Datum

Blaubeuern, 12.-13. September 2008

Veranstaltungsbeschrieb

Research on the Second World War in Europe has thus far concentrated mainly on two basic topics: individual countries, on the one hand, and the two big blocks of war opponents on the other hand. On the side of the Allies, historians pointed out very early that states with different political systems and values temporarily cooperated while trying to achieve their various goals. Awareness of this aspect was sharpened because of the sudden change from war partnership to the Cold War and the division of the European Continent between East and West along the Iron Curtain.

However, on the side of the German system of alliances, German dominance often covered up independent territorial revisionism by the satellite-partners of the "Third Reich". Furthermore, the fact that the "Alliance of the Revisionists" was broken during the war and that the former partner-satellites became enemies and were partially occupied by the Wehrmacht made the existing common aims of the German war coalition less obvious. Our conference wants to challenge these views.

The conference focuses on two main issues, which are analyzed in a comparative perspective:

1. the aims concerning territories and reshaping of boundaries within the "Alliance of Revisionists": Outside-Revisionism
2. the "New Europe" that became visible in the reshaping of society by the revisionist partners in accordance with Nazi ideology and practice (e.g. regarding criteria on attribution or loss of citizenship): Revisionism Inside

The conference brings together experts on “classical” revisionist states like Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria. But it also takes into consideration states becoming revisionist under the circumstances of the war like Romania, Croatia, Finland, Slovakia and the Ukraine.

The aim of the organizers is to develop a new view on Europe during the Second World War, putting the German role during the war into the broader context of its alliance system and inquiring the influence of National Socialism on the politics of race and citizenships of its allies.