History 103
Undergraduate Seminar
103B.005 - From War to Peace: Europe in the 1940s
Spring 2013
Th 10-12 2303 Dwinelle Hall
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann
Office: 3215 Dwinelle Hall
Hours: Th 2-4
Phone: (510) 642 3181
Email: slhoffmann@berkeley.edu
Summary
This reading seminar will explore the mid-1940s as a watershed moment in European history.
Within only a few years the descent into war and genocide was followed by the return to a
stable and, in comparison to prewar Europe, fundamentally different social and political order.
The starting point was in 1942-43: German mass killing policies in occupied Europe reached
their zenith, Nazi Germany’s defeat became a certainty, and the Allies began to impose their
vision for a postwar order. The transition ended in 1947-48 when the postwar settlement
turned into a new conflict among the victorious powers, splitting the continent into
Communist East and Capitalist West. We will discuss some of the major works of historical
synthesis on twentieth-century Europe as well as more specific historical writings on
European reconstruction that have appeared over the last decade. Weekly position papers and
an in depth literature review (or a prospectus for a possible honors thesis) constitute the
principal writing assignments.
Syllabus and Reading List
I January 24: INTRODUCTION
II January 31: EUROPE’S TWENTIETH CENTURY: EUROPE TRANSFORMED
Reading:
James J. Sheehan, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe
(2008).
III February 7: EUROPE’S TWENTIETH CENTURY: DARK CONTINENT
Readings:
Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (1998).
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IV February 14: EUROPE’S CIVIL WAR
Readings:
Sheila Fitzpatrick and Michael Geyer (eds.), Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism
Compared (2009), ch. 1 + one of the following chapters: 2, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Optional Readings:
*Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe Between Hitler And Stalin (2010).
*Stanley G. Payne, Civil War in Europe 1905-1949 (2011).
V February 21: THE IMPOSSIBLE EMPIRE: NAZI RULE IN OCCUPIED EUROPE
Readings:
Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire. How the Nazis Ruled Europe (2008).
Optional Readings:
*Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction. The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2006),
Robert Gildea, Anette Warring and Olivier Wieviorka (eds.), Surviving Hitler and Mussolini:
Daily Life in Occupied Europe (2007).
VI February 28: 1945 – THE END OF WAR AS ZERO HOUR?
Readings:
Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace (2009).
Optional Readings:
*Benjamin Frommer, National Cleansing. Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar
Czechoslovakia (2004).
*Fabrice Virgili, Shorn Women. Gender and Punishment in Liberation France (2002).
Richard Overy, “Interwar, War, Postwar. Was There a Zero Hour in 1945?,” In Dan Stone (ed.),
The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History (2012).
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, „Germany is No More: Defeat, Occupation, and the Postwar Order,“
In Helmut Walser Smith (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History (2011).
VII March 7: POSTWAR EUROPE
Readings:
Tony Judt, Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945 (2005), pt. 1+ 2.
VIII March 14: RECONSTRUCTING FAMILIES AND NATIONS
Reading:
Tara Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (2011).
Optional Readings:
*Atina Grossmann, Jews, Germans, and Allies. Close Encounters in Occupied Germany (2007).
Martin Conway, “Democracy in Postwar Western Europe. The Triumph of a Political Model,”
European History Quarterly, 32 (2002), 59-84.
Carlo Spagnolo, “Reinterpreting the Marshall Plan: The Impact of the European Recovery
Programme in Britain, France, Western Germany, and Italy (1947-1952),” In Dominik
Geppert (ed.), The Postwar Challenge. Cultural, Social, and Political Change in Western
Europe, 1945-58 (2004), 275-98.
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IX March 21: EASTERN EUROPE UNDER SOVIET RULE
Reading:
Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain. The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 (2012).
Optional Readings:
*Norman Naimark, The Russians In Germany: The History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation
1945–1949 (2005).
*Gregor Thum, Uprooted: How Breslau Became Wroclaw during the Century of Expulsions
(2011).
Jan T. Gross, “War as Revolution,” In Norman Naimark and Leonid Gibianskii (eds.), The
Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944-1949 (1997), 17-40.
Holly Chase, “Reconstruction in East-Central Europe. Clearing the Rubble of Cold War Politics,”
In Mazower et al. (eds.), Post-war Reconstruction in Europe, 71-102.
X April 4: FAMILY STORIES OF THE 1940S
Assignment:
Please use spring break to collect stories of the 1940s from your family and prepare a short
presentation for class: How was your family affected by the Second World War and its
aftermath?
XI April 18: HISTORY, MEMORY, POLITICS
Readings:
Annette Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness (2006).
Optional Readings:
*Frank Biess, Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany
(2009).
Pieter Lagrou, „Victims of Genocide and National Memory. Belgium, France, and the
Netherlands 1945-1965,“ Past & Present, 154 (1997), 181-222.
Elizabeth Heinemann, “The Hour of the Women: Memories of Germany's 'Crisis Years' and
West German National Identity,” American Historical Review 101 (1996), 354-395.
Frank Biess and Robert G. Moeller (eds.), Histories of the Aftermath: The Legacies of the Second
World War in Europe (2011).
XII April 25: THE END OF POSTWAR EUROPE
Readings:
Tony Judt, Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945 (2005), pt. 2 + 3.
XIII April 25: COURSE REVIEW
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Requirements
Student evaluations will be based upon:
Classroom Discussion
Weekly Responses
Presentation and Final Paper
35%
35%
30%
Presentation and Final Paper
In the beginning of the seminar you will be asked to pick one book from the optional
readings list (*marked with an asteriks), which you will review in detail. You may review a
book not included on the syllabus, but you should get my approval for the title beforehand.
You will be asked to present a summary (5-10 minutes) of the book in the seminar during
the week in which this book is on the optional readings list. Please be prepared to answer
questions that might come up in the discussion.
After the presentation, you will write an in-depth review of the book (approximately 10
pages). Your book review should contain two parts. The first part should summarize the
main arguments of the book and its sources. For this purpose, you might also search online
for other reviews of the book in learned and academic journals, but be careful not to
paraphrase other authors. The second part will situate the book within the discussions of
our seminar. Please raise some questions connecting this book to the optional readings for
the week. Make sure to share your paper with friends and to improve it several times in
terms of content and style. You can give me your final paper directly in the week before our
last seminar meeting.
If you decide to write a prospectus for your honors thesis in this seminar you don’t have to
write a book review.
Weekly Responses
In order to enhance individual engagement with the texts and classroom discussion, all
students will prepare short weekly responses. These will include 1) a critical synopsis of
the core reading assignment in 150-200 words, which presents the main argument of the
book 2) two or three questions about the argument of the book that you think merit
discussion in class (and can’t be answered by Wikipedia).
Classroom Discussion
Participation in classroom discussion will be the most important component of your overall
grade. While I expect every student to be prepared for class and to participate in the
discussion, I will base your grade not on the quantity but the quality of your contributions
to the discussion.