This is the first fully researched biography of Martin Niemöller (1892-1984). It charts his life from his service in the Imperial German Navy, his work for the Inner Mission and as a Protestant pastor in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem from 1931. Niemöller's work as a leading figure of the Confessing Church and his contribution to the conflicts over church policy during the Third Reich are analysed and contextualised. Chapters on the post-war period chart Niemöller's contribution to ecumenism, anti-nuclear pacifism, and his role in rebuilding the West German Protestant Churches. From 1938 to 1945, Martin Niemöller was detained as 'Hitler's Personal Prisoner' in Nazi concentration camps. Liberated in April 1945, Niemöller was widely hailed as an icon of Christian resistance against the Nazi dictatorship. For many years, the Niemöller legend masked the problematic aspects of his life: his persistent antisemitism, on display even in the post-war period; his nationalism and support of the German war effort even whilst in concentration camp detention; and his disdain for parliamentary democracy. In his biography of the most important twentieth-century German Protestant, Benjamin Ziemann uncovers the 'historical' Niemöller behind the legend of the resistance hero. Carefully situating Niemöller's personal trajectory in his wider social milieu -- from the Imperial Navy to the West German peace movement -- Ziemann probes into core themes of twentieth century German history: militarism, National Socialism, German guilt, and moral reconstruction post-1945.

Hitler's Personal Prisoner: The Life of Martin Niemöller

History

Ziemann, Benjamin

Brocks, Christine

Europe

Oxford University Press

This innovative study of remembrance in Weimar Germany analyses how experiences and memories of the Great War were transformed along political lines after 1918. Examining the symbolism, language and performative power of public commemoration, Benjamin Ziemann reveals how individual recollections fed into the public narrative of the experience of war. Challenging conventional wisdom that nationalist narratives dominated commemoration, this book demonstrates that Social Democrat war veterans participated in the commemoration of the war at all levels: supporting the 'no more war' movement, mourning the fallen at war memorials and demanding a politics of international solidarity. It describes how the moderate Socialist Left related the legitimacy of the Republic to their experiences in the Imperial army and acknowledged the military defeat of 1918 as a moment of liberation. This is the first comprehensive analysis of war remembrances in post-war Germany and a radical reassessment of the democratic potential of the Weimar Republic.

Contested Commemorations: Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare, Series Number 36)

Military

Cambridge University Press

This innovative study of remembrance in Weimar Germany analyses how experiences and memories of the Great War were transformed along political lines after 1918. Examining the symbolism, language and performative power of public commemoration, Benjamin Ziemann reveals how individual recollections fed into the public narrative of the experience of war. Challenging conventional wisdom that nationalist narratives dominated commemoration, this book demonstrates that Social Democrat war veterans participated in the commemoration of the war at all levels: supporting the 'no more war' movement, mourning the fallen at war memorials and demanding a politics of international solidarity. It describes how the moderate Socialist Left related the legitimacy of the Republic to their experiences in the Imperial army and acknowledged the military defeat of 1918 as a moment of liberation. This is the first comprehensive analysis of war remembrances in post-war Germany and a radical reassessment of the democratic potential of the Weimar Republic.

Translated into English as the Winner of the Geisteswissenschaften International Translation Prize for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences 2015.\nDuring the Great War, mass killing took place on an unprecedented scale. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War explores the practice of violence in the German army and demonstrates how he killing of enemy troops, the deaths of German soldiers and their survival were entwined.\nAs the war reached its climax in 1918, German soldiers refused to continue killing in their droves, and thus made an active contribution to the German defeat and ensuing revolution. Examining the postwar period, the chapters of this book also discuss the contested issue of a 'brutalization' of German society as a prerequisite of the Nazi mass movement. Biographical case studies on key figures such as Ernst Jünger demonstrate how the killing of enemy troops by German soldiers followed a complex set of rules.\nBenjamin Ziemann makes a wealth of extensive archival work available to an Anglophone audience for the first time, enhancing our understanding of the German army and its practices of violence during the First World War as well as the implications of this brutalization in post-war Germany. This book provides new insights into a crucial topic for students of twentieth-century German history and the First World War.

Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War: Killing, Dying, Surviving

Bloomsbury Academic

Translated into English as the Winner of the Geisteswissenschaften International Translation Prize for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences 2015.During the Great War, mass killing took place on an unprecedented scale. Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War explores the practice of violence in the German army and demonstrates how he killing of enemy troops, the deaths of German soldiers and their survival were entwined.  As the war reached its climax in 1918, German soldiers refused to continue killing in their droves, and thus made an active contribution to the German defeat and ensuing revolution. Examining the postwar period, the chapters of this book also discuss the contested issue of a 'brutalization' of German society as a prerequisite of the Nazi mass movement. Biographical case studies on key figures such as Ernst Jünger demonstrate how the killing of enemy troops by German soldiers followed a complex set of rules. Benjamin Ziemann makes a wealth of extensive archival work available to an Anglophone audience for the first time, enhancing our understanding of the German army and its practices of violence during the First World War as well as the implications of this brutalization in post-war Germany. This book provides new insights into a crucial topic for students of twentieth-century German history and the First World War.

During the three decades from 1945 to 1975, the Catholic Church in West Germany employed a broad range of methods from empirical social research. Statistics, opinion polling, and organizational sociology, as well as psychoanalysis and other approaches from the “psy sciences,” were debated and introduced in pastoral care. In adopting these methods for their own work, bishops, parish clergy, and pastoral sociologists tried to open the church up to modernity in a rapidly changing society. In the process, they contributed to the reform agenda of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Through its analysis of the intersections between organized religion and applied social sciences, this award-winning book offers fascinating insights into the trajectory of the Catholic Church in postwar Germany.

Encounters with Modernity: The Catholic Church in West Germany, 1945-1975 (Studies in German History, 17)

Berghahn Books

World War I was a uniquely devastating total war that surpassed all previous conflicts for its destruction. But what was the reality like on the ground, for both the soldiers on the front-lines and the women on the homefront?Drawing on intimate firsthand accounts in diaries and letters, War Experiences in Rural Germany examines this question in detail and challenges some strongly held assumptions about the Great War. The author makes the controversial case for the blurring of 'front' and 'homefront'. He shows that through the constant exchange of letters and frequent furloughs, rural soldiers maintained a high degree of contact with their home lives. In addition, the author provides a more nuanced interpretation of the alleged brutalizing effect of the war experience, suggesting that it was by far not as complete as has been previously understood. This pathbreaking book paints a vivid picture of the dynamics of total war on rural communities, from the calling up of troops to the reintegration of veterans into society.

War Experiences in Rural Germany: 1914-1923 (The Legacy of the Great War)

Berg Publishers

World War I was a uniquely devastating total war that surpassed all previous conflicts for its destruction. But what was the reality like on the ground, for both the soldiers on the front-lines and the women on the homefront?Drawing on intimate firsthand accounts in diaries and letters, War Experiences in Rural Germany examines this question in detail and challenges some strongly held assumptions about the Great War. The author makes the controversial case for the blurring of 'front' and 'homefront'. He shows that through the constant exchange of letters and frequent furloughs, rural soldiers maintained a high degree of contact with their home lives. In addition, the author provides a more nuanced interpretation of the alleged brutalizing effect of the war experience, suggesting that it was by far not as complete as has been previously understood. This pathbreaking book paints a vivid picture of the dynamics of total war on rural communities, from the calling up of troops to the reintegration of veterans into society.

This vivid selection of firsthand accounts and other wartime documents sheds new light on the experiences of German frontline soldiers during the First World War. It reveals in authentic detail the perceptions and emotions of ordinary soldiers that have been covered up by the smokescreen of official wartime propaganda with its talk of ‘heroism’ and ‘patriotic sacrifice’. Over 200 mostly archival documents are featured in the selection, including wartime letters, military dispatches and orders, extracts from diaries, newspaper articles and booklets, medical reports and photographs. This fascinating primary source material provides the first comprehensive insight into the German frontline experiences of the Great War published in English.

German Soldiers in the Great War: Letters and Eyewitness Accounts

Biographies & Memoirs

Ulrich, Bernd

Historical

Pen and Sword Military

The scientification of the Catholic Church offers important insights into the history of church and religion in the twentieth century and new perspectives on the history of the Federal Republic.

Katholische Kirche Und Sozialwissenschaften 1945-1975 (Kritische Studien Zur Geschichtswissenschaft, 175) (German Edition)

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Gmbh & Co

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ziemann, Benjamin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ziemann, Benjamin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ziemann, Benjamin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Hitler's Personal Prisoner: The Life of Martin Niemöller

Contested Commemorations: Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare, Series Number 36)

Contested Commemorations: Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare, Series Number 36)

Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War: Killing, Dying, Surviving

Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War: Killing, Dying, Surviving

Encounters with Modernity: The Catholic Church in West Germany, 1945-1975 (Studies in German History, 17)

War Experiences in Rural Germany: 1914-1923 (The Legacy of the Great War)

War Experiences in Rural Germany: 1914-1923 (The Legacy of the Great War)

German Soldiers in the Great War: Letters and Eyewitness Accounts

Katholische Kirche Und Sozialwissenschaften 1945-1975 (Kritische Studien Zur Geschichtswissenschaft, 175) (German Edition)