Conference/CfP: National Socialism and Regional Identity in Eastern Europe. Ideology, Expansion of Power, Persistence

This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to examine the strategies of National Socialist non-military exertion of influence and expansion of power in Eastern Europe. The conference will consider such questions as the relationship between National Socialist territorial policy and ethnic policy on the one hand, and the reason of state and the regional identities in the countries of Eastern Europe on the other
hand. There will also be a comparison of the different regions with regard to political instrumentalisation and the cultural impact of ideologies.

In particular, German minorities in Central-Eastern Europe (the so-called Germans abroad, "Auslandsdeutsche") will be in the focus of the conference's investigation, as factors of Nazi influence on political and cultural concerns in the various states and as instruments of a new ethnic and regional order in Eastern Europe.

The conference will pay particular attention to those countries within Eastern Europe that had authoritarian or fascist governments temporarily allied with Nazi Germany. This includes such countries as Hungary, Romania and - during the Second World War - the "satellite states" of Slovakia and Croatia. The Soviet Union, as well as specific regions such as Galicia, will also be taken into consideration. The period under consideration will extend from the 1920s to 1944.

The conference is to be structured according to the following sections:

1. Ideology, culture and self-perception

Under the ideological and cultural influence of National Socialism, the identity of the German "ethnic groups" changed. Guiding questions may be the following:

• To what extent can we actually talk about homogeneous German ethnic groups in the individual countries? Which cultural conceptions and political ambitions did they possess?
• What personal continuities were there between the regional promotion of culture and heritage and the characteristically National Socialist cultural and historical policies focussed on the respective region?
• How did the nation states treat the German minority groups and how did the relationship change over the years?
• How did living together with other ethnic groups and the relationship with the respective governments develop?

2. Regional identities: Continuity - Persistence 

The National Socialists regarded regional cultures primarily through the prism of ethnic-racial ideas for the purpose of securing power and expansion.

• Were Nazi cultural policies always uniform or were they partially modified to better suit regional differences?
• To what extent did regional self-awareness and persistence (existing initiatives, institutions, museums and media, religious and other traditions) have an effect against Nazi monopolisation?
• What leeway did the regional protagonists have available within the context of Nazi cultural policies, and how was this used, for example in the form of self-mobilisation that only partially fell in line with National Socialist aims?

3. Politics and Expansion of Power

Nazi regional policies took up ideas of a "German ethnic and cultural soil" (Kultur- und Volksboden) which had been formulated in academic institutions during the Weimar Republic and which were developed further in the 1930s, often by the same persons.

• To what extent did the "Eastern research" (Ostforschung) become a mandatory element of this "Ethnic Policy"?
• Which authorities and structures of the Nazi state proved to be more
• successful than others in the interaction with the periphery?
• What role did the associations and parties of Germans abroad play with regard to the various expectations and loyalties towards the National Socialist leadership in Germany and the governments in their actual homelands?
• What influence did cross-border national or fascist networks and promises for the future have on the societies of the Eastern European countries - beyond the paradigm of ethnic groups?

4. Expansion and War

With the Munich Agreement in 1938, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia,
the invasion of Poland and the beginning of the Second World War, conditions fundamentally changed for the "Germans abroad" all over Europe in relation to National Socialism.

• What influence did the German ethnic groups have on inter-state relations to the German Reich and in the occupied areas?
• What function did they perform and how was loyalty generated during the War?
• What role did the "Germans abroad" actually play in the context of the National Socialist mass crimes, in the expansion and exploitation of the occupied and dominated countries, and in the Holocaust?
• What consequences did these events have after 1945 with regard to how the German minorities and/or their cultural legacy in the countries and regions of Eastern Europe were perceived?

This conference is organised according to an interdisciplinary structure. Academic disciplines that will be covered include Political History, Historiography, Prehistory and Early History, Art-History, Ethnology, Museum Studies, Media Studies, Literature and Film Studies as well as studies of the available sources on the social history of the
"Germans abroad" during the period.

The Conference languages will be German and English.

Please submit an abstract of your (yet unpublished) paper (half to at most one page, max. 2400 characters) as well as a brief biography including your current position until April 30, 2013. The organisers intend to produce a post-conference publication.

Proposals should be sent to the following address

Deadline: 30.04.2013