Books by Astrid M. Eckert
Ch. Links Verlag, 2022
Das »Zonenrandgebiet« – entstanden mit der deutschenTeilung, verschwunden mit der Wiedervereinigu... more Das »Zonenrandgebiet« – entstanden mit der deutschenTeilung, verschwunden mit der Wiedervereinigung. Dieser 40 Kilometer breite Gebietsstreifen, der sich entlang der innerdeutschen Grenze von der Lübecker Bucht bis nach Bayern erstreckte, war die sensibelste Region der alten Bundesrepublik. Er hinkte dem »Wirtschaftswunder« hinterher, sollte aber zugleich im ideologischen Konflikt mit der DDR als Schaufenster die Vorzüge des bundesdeutschen Systems veranschaulichen. Hier wird seine Geschichte zum ersten Mal erzählt.
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West Germany and the Iron Curtain takes a fresh look at the history of Cold War Germany and the G... more West Germany and the Iron Curtain takes a fresh look at the history of Cold War Germany and the German reunification process from the spatial perspective of the West German borderlands that emerged along the volatile inter-German border after 1945. These border regions constituted the Federal Republic’s most sensitive geographical space, in which it had to confront partition and engage its socialist neighbor, East Germany, in concrete ways. Each issue that arose in these borderlands—from economic deficiencies to border tourism, environmental pollution, landscape change, and the siting decision for a major nuclear facility—was magnified and mediated by the presence of what became the most militarized border of its day, the Iron Curtain. In topical chapters, the book traces each of these issues across the caesura of 1989–1990, thereby integrating the “long” postwar era with the postunification decades. At the heart of this deeply-researched study stands an environmental history of the Iron Curtain that explores transboundary pollution, landscape change, and a planned nuclear industrial site at Gorleben that was meant to bring jobs into the depressed border regions. As Eckert demonstrates, the borderlands that emerged with partition and disappeared with reunification did not merely mirror larger developments in the Federal Republic’s history but actually helped shape them.
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trans. Dona Geyer.
Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN-13: 978-0521880183
Paperback 2014. I... more trans. Dona Geyer.
Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN-13: 978-0521880183
Paperback 2014. ISBN-13: 978-1107629202
Winner of the 2013 Waldo Gifford Leland Award of the Society of American Archivists.
When American and British troops swept through the German Reich in the spring of 1945, they confiscated a broad range of government papers and archives. These records were subsequently used in war crimes trials and published under Allied auspices to document the German road to war. In 1949, the West Germans asked for their return, considering the request one of the benchmarks of their new state sovereignty. This book traces the tangled history of the captured German records and the extended negotiations for their return into German custody.
Reviews
"Eckert's book does far more than trace the wartime and postwar fate of German archival records. It manages to incorporate a detailed and impeccably researched treatment of 'ownership' with a broader discussion of the international debate about the path of German history and the future of Germany. This issue interests a much wider audience within the field of German history and within the discipline of history as a whole. The other characteristic of this work that deserves emphasis is its transnational character. Eckert is so well versed in the history of Germany, Britain, and the United States that she can carry off a narrative of their interaction in the postwar period with success and with verve." - Richard Breitman, Distinguished Professor, American University
"The Struggle for the Files is an essential read for historians of Germany and the twentieth-century Atlantic world. Astrid Eckert provides a masterful, even riveting, account of the tangled odyssey of captured German archives after World War II - from the Allied confiscation and exploitation of Nazi-era records to the contentious return of the records to West Germany in the 1950s and after. At the same time she weaves her narrative within broader questions concerning the Allies' unprecedented archival guardianship. Partly these were immediate matters, ranging from the political and cultural sovereignty of a recent enemy-turned-ally to the use of wartime German records for Cold War intelligence. But they also concern the larger, more crucial, and most enduring postwar question of who would serve as the custodian and arbiter of Germany's catastrophic recent history." - Norman J. W. Goda, author of Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War
"Who knew you could write a thriller about archival transfer? This is a real page-turner, offering an exciting international tale of Cold War relations, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, and the writing of German history. Eckert's mastery of the archives - as well as the archival politics - of three nations is remarkable." - Mark Roseman, Professor of History and Pat M. Glazer Chair of Jewish Studies at Indiana University
"This is the book we have long needed. In no period of history has a study of the fate of the archives and public records of a nation defeated in war been more important than in the case of Nazi Germany. Astrid M. Eckert has created a splendid account of the postwar saga of the German records, and of their international importance through the long decades of the Cold War. Based on imaginative prodigious research and shrewd and judicious analyses, and written in a cogent and compelling narrative style, Professor Eckert's command of both the sources and the subject is complete. This is an important, and indeed essential, work of historical scholarship." - Charles W. Sydnor, Jr., Emory & Henry College, Virginia
"In her captivating book Astrid M. Eckert details the odyssey of the German archives after 1945 from their seizure by the victorious armies to their piecemeal, still incomplete return to Germany in the decades since." -Christina Morina, American Historical Review
"...exceptionally readable, especially for such a dense and detailed work." -Laura Millar, Archivaria
"...a quality historical narrative proving how critical archival records are to the political, social, and historical fabric of a nation. It successfully places archives in a position in which their possession is power. While that power is largely symbolic, it has the ability to build or undermine the very essence of sovereignty. Anything offering that level of respect to archives is worth reading." -Shawn San Roman, Archival Issues
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Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004
ISBN 9783515085540
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Hedwig-Hintze-P... more Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004
ISBN 9783515085540
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Hedwig-Hintze-Preis des Verbandes der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands 2004.
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Friedrich-Meinecke-Preis fuer eine hervorragende geschichtswissenschaftliche Dissertation des Jahres 2003 am Fachbereich Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften der Freien Universitat Berlin im Juli 2004.
Kampf um die Akten behandelt die Rueckgabeverhandlungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik und den Westalliierten ueber beschlagnahmtes deutsches Archivgut. Hunderte von Tonnen an Schriftgut aus den Registraturen und Archiven der Reichsministerien, militarischen Stellen und Parteiorganisationen waren bei Kriegsende in alliierte Haende gefallen. Die Geschichte der Aktenrueckgabe ist ein bisher vernachlaessigtes Kapitel der politischen Emanzipation der Bundesrepublik. Die Verhandlungen waren neben der Wiedereroeffnung von Konsulaten, der neuerlichen Aufnahme von Aussenhandelsbeziehungen oder der Regelung der Auslandsschulden nicht einfach ein weiteres Sachgebiet der jungen bundesdeutschen Aussenpolitik. Die Forderung nach ihrer Rueckkehr wurde auf der symbolischen Ebene schnell zur versuchten Wiederaneignung von verlorener Souveranitaet. Die Geschichte der Aktenrueckgabe ist zugleich eine Auseinandersetzung um die Deutungsmacht deutscher Geschichte. Der temporaere Verlust der diplomatischen Akten fuer die (west)deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft und der ungehinderte Zugang zu diesen Quellen fuer amerikanische und britische Historiker loeste eine Auseinandersetzung um die legitimen Sprecher in der Deutung deutscher Geschichte aus. Die Studie zeigt den Zusammenhang zwischen Rueckgabeverhandlungen und den Anfaengen westdeutscher Zeitgeschichtsforschung auf und arbeitet dabei besonders die transnationale Dimension der Diskussion heraus.
"Das Buch von Frau Eckert liest man wegen der spannend erzaehlten Passagen und der eleganten Formulierungen mit Vergnuegen […] Dieses Buch ist ganz und gar mit dem Methodenarsenal der alten Zeitgeschichte geschrieben - und gerade deshalb so vorzueglich." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Dieses Buch ist, entgegen der Erwartung, die man angesichts des Themas haben konnte, alles andere als aktenstaubtrocken; es fuehrt mit groaem erzahlerischen Schwung in die Welt der Archive und Archivare ein." Neue Zuercher Zeitung
“Kampf um die Akten ist eine der bemerkenswertesten zeitgeschichtlichen Einzelstudien der letzten Jahre.” Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft
"Eckert hat ein hervorragendes Buch geschrieben, das auch von Laien mit Genuss zu lesen ist. Historiker, die sich mit der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland befassen, werden an einer Lektuere ohnehin nicht vorbeikommen." sehepunkte
"Dieses Buch gehört in die Fachausbildung im Archivwesen! Eckerts Buch ist eine willkommene Bereicherung für eine Debatte, die in Zukunft noch verstärkt zu führen sein wird. [ ] Eckert gebührt das Verdienst, in einer spannenden und anschaulichen Weise die unterschiedlichen Motivationen das deutsche Archivgut in Besitz zu halten oder zu bekommen dargestellt zu haben. [ ] die Studie zeigt sehr deutlich, dass auch die Positionen der westalliierten Historiker zum Teil nicht stets redlich waren und natürlich machtpolitische Erwägungen auf beiden Seiten eine zentrale Rolle in den Rückgabeverhandlungen spielten." (H-Soz-u-Kult)
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Articles by Astrid M. Eckert
Central European History , 2019
Introduction to a special issue of Central European History 52:1 (2019) --
The introduction take... more Introduction to a special issue of Central European History 52:1 (2019) --
The introduction takes stock of the field on the basis of about half a dozen syntheses that have appeared during the last ten to fifteen years. It highlights the accomplishments of this existing literature but also points out some of its shortcomings, such as the failure to question Western liberalism as a normative model and/or the reluctance to address blind spots, internal contradiction, and exclusions that were inherent in that tradition. The introduction also argues for an incorporation of the post-1989 period into new narratives of the Federal Republic. It places the special issue in conversation with other scholars who have articulated similar dissatisfaction with established narratives, most explicitly in a series of recent edited volumes. It introduces the contributions to the special issue as possible paths to pursue in the ongoing search for new narratives for the history of the Federal Republic in the twenty-first Century.
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Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 2017
This article focuses on one of the most persistent regional aid programs in West German history, ... more This article focuses on one of the most persistent regional aid programs in West German history, the so-called “zonal borderland aid” (Zonenrandförderung). The program supported regions along the 1,393-kilometer long inter-German border that divided West and East Germany during the Cold War. The article seeks to explain the increasingly fraught relationship between borderland aid and European state aid control in the 1970s and 1980s. The intervention of the Directorate for Competition (DG IV) against borderland aid begs an explanation since the Treaty of Rome (1957) had granted a specific exemption for aid to these regions from the competition policies of the Common Market. The article makes the general case that regional state aid is a key component of structural policy alongside sectoral aid. It argues that interest politics prevented a sober needs assessment of the West German border regions, turning Zonenrandförderung into funding by habit, not by need. This left the European Commission as the only institution that could mount a credible challenge to an ossified sense of entitlement in the affected regions.
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Divided, but not disconnected. Transboundary River Pollution between East and West Germany
The a... more Divided, but not disconnected. Transboundary River Pollution between East and West Germany
The article analyzes transboundary pollution of rivers flowing between the two German states. For the Federal Republic, this was a pressing concern because the majority of these rivers ran from east to west, carrying waste and toxic agents into western Germany. The article illuminates the dynamic that evolved between both German states during the 1970s and 80s as they tried to negotiate transboundary environmental problems. It explains the specific political circumstances, clashing interpretations and interests that prevented any agreement which might have benefited the environment. One outstanding factor influencing East German negotiation strategies was the country’s need for western currency. During the 1980s, the chronic shortage of “valuta” facilitated a development in which the environment became a commodity. The river Werra, heavily polluted by potash salts, serves as an example for this development. Although a few environmental agreements were signed, the situation of the transboundary rivers did not change until the GDR’s collapse in 1989/90.
Der Artikel untersucht am Beispiel von Grenzgewässern die Dynamik zwischen der Bundesrepublik und der DDR im Hinblick auf grenzüberschreitende Umweltprobleme. Für die Bundesrepublik war die Verschmutzung von grenzkreuzenden Flüssen ein dringendes Problem, denn die Mehrzahl der Flüsse entwässerten von Osten nach Westen. Der Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, welche spezifischen politischen Umstände und Interpretationen der Sachlage während der siebziger und achtziger Jahre eine Anrainerkooperation zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland jeweils verhinderten und arbeitet dabei die Rolle der DDR-Devisenknappheit in den achtziger Jahren heraus. Die vorliegende Untersuchung beschränkt sich allerdings nicht allein auf Umweltpolitik, sondern räumt der Ökologie der Flüsse eine eigenständige Rolle ein. Als Fallbeispiel dient die Werra, die durch die Kaliindustrie der DDR mit Salzabwässern über Jahrzehnte aufs stärkste belastet wurde.
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http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/1-2011/id%3D4455
This article investigates the littl... more http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/1-2011/id%3D4455
This article investigates the little-known phenomenon of tourism to the Iron Curtain, using the example of the inter-German border. The practice of traveling to the demarcation line to see where Germany and Europe were divided peaked during the mid-1960s but was already in full swing by the mid-1950s and lasted until the fall of the border in 1989. The article analyses the growth of a tourist infrastructure on the western side of the inter-German border and situates this travel as a form of “dark tourism”. It argues that seeing the border and visualizing the partition of the country did little for overcoming it but rather tended to underwrite the political and territorial status quo. In the Cold War battle for public opinion, seeing the border allowed West Germans and their visitors from abroad to juxtapose freedom and prosperity with captivity and decay, thus advertising the superiority of the capitalist model over its socialist other.
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http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/zeitgeschichte/deutschlandarchiv/158899/der-andere-mauerfall
Nach... more http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/zeitgeschichte/deutschlandarchiv/158899/der-andere-mauerfall
Nach Günther Schabowskis berühmter Pressekonferenz am 9. November 1989 drängten DDR-Bürger nicht nur in Berlin gegen die Mauer. Astrid M. Eckert erinnert in diesem Artikel an den “anderen Mauerfall” – die Öffnung der innerdeutschen Grenze, das Ende des Grenzregimes und die vielfältigen Begegnungen im Grenzland.
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http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?decade=2000&jid=CCC&volumeId=40&issueId=01&iid=... more http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?decade=2000&jid=CCC&volumeId=40&issueId=01&iid=719600
The study of Zeitgeschichte, or contemporary history, was not an invention of the postwar era. But it was in the wake of the Second World War that it carved out a space in the historical professions of the United States, Great Britain and, most pronouncedly, West Germany. In each country, it came with similar definitions: in West Germany as “the era of those living, and its scholarly treatment by academics”; in the United States as “the period of the last generation or two”; and in Britain as “Europe in the twentieth century” or “the histories of yesterday which are being written today.” Such definitions contained a generational component and left contemporary history open to continuous rejuvenation. Yet during the postwar decades, the above definitions steered interest clearly toward the history of National Socialism, the Second World War, and foreign policy of the 1920s and 1930s. The horrific cost in human lives of Nazi racial and anti-Semitic policies gave an instant relevance to all aspects of Germany's past. The German grip on much of Europe had made National Socialism an integral component in the history of formerly occupied countries, and the Allied struggle to defeat Nazism added yet more countries to the list of those that had seen their histories become entangled with that of Germany. Hence, the academic writing of German contemporary history was never an exclusively German affair. Scholars outside Germany, especially in Great Britain and the United States, were part of the endeavor from the outset. Their involvement was facilitated by the fact that the Western Allies had captured an enormous quantity of German records and archives at the end of the war, part of which would become available to historians over the course of the 1950s and 1960s.
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Archival Science, Oct 2007
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10502-007-9057-3
The article examines the transiti... more http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10502-007-9057-3
The article examines the transition of (West) German archivists from the Nazi period to the time of Allied occupation and on into the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. After considering the extent of the profession’s nazification, the article focuses on Allied denazification efforts after the war and discusses the strategies archivists devised in order to maneuver through these dangerous times. In the end, the archival profession mastered the transition with only minor “denazification damage.” The article closes with an examination of the consequences of the continuity of personnel especially among the leading archivists of the former Prussian Archival Administration (Preussische Archivverwaltung) for the reconstruction of the archival profession in West Germany.
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Das deutsche Archivwesen und der Nationalsozialismus, ed. by Robert Kretzschmar, Astrid M. Eckert... more Das deutsche Archivwesen und der Nationalsozialismus, ed. by Robert Kretzschmar, Astrid M. Eckert, Heiner Schmitt, Dieter Speck, Klaus Wisotzky (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2006), 9-17.
Introduction to edited collection on the German archival profession during National Socialism. The volume documents the proceedings of the 75th Deutscher Archivtag in Stuttgart (Sept. 2005), the annual meeting of the Association of German Archivists. The meeting was convened under the theme "German Archives and Archivists under National Socialism."
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“’Im Fegefeuer der Entbräunung’. Deutsche Archivare auf dem Weg in den Nachkrieg“ ["In the Purga... more “’Im Fegefeuer der Entbräunung’. Deutsche Archivare auf dem Weg in den Nachkrieg“ ["In the Purgatory of Denazification": The Transition of German Archivists into the Postwar Era], in Das deutsche Archivwesen und der Nationalsozialismus, ed. Robert Kretzschmar, Astrid M. Eckert, Heiner Schmitt, Dieter Speck, Klaus Wisotzky (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2006), 422-444.
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Book Reviews by Astrid M. Eckert
Central European History 48:1 (2015), 140-142., 2015
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German Studies Review. Feb2013, Vol. 36 Issue 1, p228-232. 5p.
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Central European History, 2010
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Central European History, 2007
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Books by Astrid M. Eckert
Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN-13: 978-0521880183
Paperback 2014. ISBN-13: 978-1107629202
Winner of the 2013 Waldo Gifford Leland Award of the Society of American Archivists.
When American and British troops swept through the German Reich in the spring of 1945, they confiscated a broad range of government papers and archives. These records were subsequently used in war crimes trials and published under Allied auspices to document the German road to war. In 1949, the West Germans asked for their return, considering the request one of the benchmarks of their new state sovereignty. This book traces the tangled history of the captured German records and the extended negotiations for their return into German custody.
Reviews
"Eckert's book does far more than trace the wartime and postwar fate of German archival records. It manages to incorporate a detailed and impeccably researched treatment of 'ownership' with a broader discussion of the international debate about the path of German history and the future of Germany. This issue interests a much wider audience within the field of German history and within the discipline of history as a whole. The other characteristic of this work that deserves emphasis is its transnational character. Eckert is so well versed in the history of Germany, Britain, and the United States that she can carry off a narrative of their interaction in the postwar period with success and with verve." - Richard Breitman, Distinguished Professor, American University
"The Struggle for the Files is an essential read for historians of Germany and the twentieth-century Atlantic world. Astrid Eckert provides a masterful, even riveting, account of the tangled odyssey of captured German archives after World War II - from the Allied confiscation and exploitation of Nazi-era records to the contentious return of the records to West Germany in the 1950s and after. At the same time she weaves her narrative within broader questions concerning the Allies' unprecedented archival guardianship. Partly these were immediate matters, ranging from the political and cultural sovereignty of a recent enemy-turned-ally to the use of wartime German records for Cold War intelligence. But they also concern the larger, more crucial, and most enduring postwar question of who would serve as the custodian and arbiter of Germany's catastrophic recent history." - Norman J. W. Goda, author of Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War
"Who knew you could write a thriller about archival transfer? This is a real page-turner, offering an exciting international tale of Cold War relations, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, and the writing of German history. Eckert's mastery of the archives - as well as the archival politics - of three nations is remarkable." - Mark Roseman, Professor of History and Pat M. Glazer Chair of Jewish Studies at Indiana University
"This is the book we have long needed. In no period of history has a study of the fate of the archives and public records of a nation defeated in war been more important than in the case of Nazi Germany. Astrid M. Eckert has created a splendid account of the postwar saga of the German records, and of their international importance through the long decades of the Cold War. Based on imaginative prodigious research and shrewd and judicious analyses, and written in a cogent and compelling narrative style, Professor Eckert's command of both the sources and the subject is complete. This is an important, and indeed essential, work of historical scholarship." - Charles W. Sydnor, Jr., Emory & Henry College, Virginia
"In her captivating book Astrid M. Eckert details the odyssey of the German archives after 1945 from their seizure by the victorious armies to their piecemeal, still incomplete return to Germany in the decades since." -Christina Morina, American Historical Review
"...exceptionally readable, especially for such a dense and detailed work." -Laura Millar, Archivaria
"...a quality historical narrative proving how critical archival records are to the political, social, and historical fabric of a nation. It successfully places archives in a position in which their possession is power. While that power is largely symbolic, it has the ability to build or undermine the very essence of sovereignty. Anything offering that level of respect to archives is worth reading." -Shawn San Roman, Archival Issues
ISBN 9783515085540
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Hedwig-Hintze-Preis des Verbandes der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands 2004.
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Friedrich-Meinecke-Preis fuer eine hervorragende geschichtswissenschaftliche Dissertation des Jahres 2003 am Fachbereich Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften der Freien Universitat Berlin im Juli 2004.
Kampf um die Akten behandelt die Rueckgabeverhandlungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik und den Westalliierten ueber beschlagnahmtes deutsches Archivgut. Hunderte von Tonnen an Schriftgut aus den Registraturen und Archiven der Reichsministerien, militarischen Stellen und Parteiorganisationen waren bei Kriegsende in alliierte Haende gefallen. Die Geschichte der Aktenrueckgabe ist ein bisher vernachlaessigtes Kapitel der politischen Emanzipation der Bundesrepublik. Die Verhandlungen waren neben der Wiedereroeffnung von Konsulaten, der neuerlichen Aufnahme von Aussenhandelsbeziehungen oder der Regelung der Auslandsschulden nicht einfach ein weiteres Sachgebiet der jungen bundesdeutschen Aussenpolitik. Die Forderung nach ihrer Rueckkehr wurde auf der symbolischen Ebene schnell zur versuchten Wiederaneignung von verlorener Souveranitaet. Die Geschichte der Aktenrueckgabe ist zugleich eine Auseinandersetzung um die Deutungsmacht deutscher Geschichte. Der temporaere Verlust der diplomatischen Akten fuer die (west)deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft und der ungehinderte Zugang zu diesen Quellen fuer amerikanische und britische Historiker loeste eine Auseinandersetzung um die legitimen Sprecher in der Deutung deutscher Geschichte aus. Die Studie zeigt den Zusammenhang zwischen Rueckgabeverhandlungen und den Anfaengen westdeutscher Zeitgeschichtsforschung auf und arbeitet dabei besonders die transnationale Dimension der Diskussion heraus.
"Das Buch von Frau Eckert liest man wegen der spannend erzaehlten Passagen und der eleganten Formulierungen mit Vergnuegen […] Dieses Buch ist ganz und gar mit dem Methodenarsenal der alten Zeitgeschichte geschrieben - und gerade deshalb so vorzueglich." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Dieses Buch ist, entgegen der Erwartung, die man angesichts des Themas haben konnte, alles andere als aktenstaubtrocken; es fuehrt mit groaem erzahlerischen Schwung in die Welt der Archive und Archivare ein." Neue Zuercher Zeitung
“Kampf um die Akten ist eine der bemerkenswertesten zeitgeschichtlichen Einzelstudien der letzten Jahre.” Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft
"Eckert hat ein hervorragendes Buch geschrieben, das auch von Laien mit Genuss zu lesen ist. Historiker, die sich mit der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland befassen, werden an einer Lektuere ohnehin nicht vorbeikommen." sehepunkte
"Dieses Buch gehört in die Fachausbildung im Archivwesen! Eckerts Buch ist eine willkommene Bereicherung für eine Debatte, die in Zukunft noch verstärkt zu führen sein wird. [ ] Eckert gebührt das Verdienst, in einer spannenden und anschaulichen Weise die unterschiedlichen Motivationen das deutsche Archivgut in Besitz zu halten oder zu bekommen dargestellt zu haben. [ ] die Studie zeigt sehr deutlich, dass auch die Positionen der westalliierten Historiker zum Teil nicht stets redlich waren und natürlich machtpolitische Erwägungen auf beiden Seiten eine zentrale Rolle in den Rückgabeverhandlungen spielten." (H-Soz-u-Kult)
Articles by Astrid M. Eckert
The introduction takes stock of the field on the basis of about half a dozen syntheses that have appeared during the last ten to fifteen years. It highlights the accomplishments of this existing literature but also points out some of its shortcomings, such as the failure to question Western liberalism as a normative model and/or the reluctance to address blind spots, internal contradiction, and exclusions that were inherent in that tradition. The introduction also argues for an incorporation of the post-1989 period into new narratives of the Federal Republic. It places the special issue in conversation with other scholars who have articulated similar dissatisfaction with established narratives, most explicitly in a series of recent edited volumes. It introduces the contributions to the special issue as possible paths to pursue in the ongoing search for new narratives for the history of the Federal Republic in the twenty-first Century.
The article analyzes transboundary pollution of rivers flowing between the two German states. For the Federal Republic, this was a pressing concern because the majority of these rivers ran from east to west, carrying waste and toxic agents into western Germany. The article illuminates the dynamic that evolved between both German states during the 1970s and 80s as they tried to negotiate transboundary environmental problems. It explains the specific political circumstances, clashing interpretations and interests that prevented any agreement which might have benefited the environment. One outstanding factor influencing East German negotiation strategies was the country’s need for western currency. During the 1980s, the chronic shortage of “valuta” facilitated a development in which the environment became a commodity. The river Werra, heavily polluted by potash salts, serves as an example for this development. Although a few environmental agreements were signed, the situation of the transboundary rivers did not change until the GDR’s collapse in 1989/90.
Der Artikel untersucht am Beispiel von Grenzgewässern die Dynamik zwischen der Bundesrepublik und der DDR im Hinblick auf grenzüberschreitende Umweltprobleme. Für die Bundesrepublik war die Verschmutzung von grenzkreuzenden Flüssen ein dringendes Problem, denn die Mehrzahl der Flüsse entwässerten von Osten nach Westen. Der Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, welche spezifischen politischen Umstände und Interpretationen der Sachlage während der siebziger und achtziger Jahre eine Anrainerkooperation zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland jeweils verhinderten und arbeitet dabei die Rolle der DDR-Devisenknappheit in den achtziger Jahren heraus. Die vorliegende Untersuchung beschränkt sich allerdings nicht allein auf Umweltpolitik, sondern räumt der Ökologie der Flüsse eine eigenständige Rolle ein. Als Fallbeispiel dient die Werra, die durch die Kaliindustrie der DDR mit Salzabwässern über Jahrzehnte aufs stärkste belastet wurde.
This article investigates the little-known phenomenon of tourism to the Iron Curtain, using the example of the inter-German border. The practice of traveling to the demarcation line to see where Germany and Europe were divided peaked during the mid-1960s but was already in full swing by the mid-1950s and lasted until the fall of the border in 1989. The article analyses the growth of a tourist infrastructure on the western side of the inter-German border and situates this travel as a form of “dark tourism”. It argues that seeing the border and visualizing the partition of the country did little for overcoming it but rather tended to underwrite the political and territorial status quo. In the Cold War battle for public opinion, seeing the border allowed West Germans and their visitors from abroad to juxtapose freedom and prosperity with captivity and decay, thus advertising the superiority of the capitalist model over its socialist other.
Nach Günther Schabowskis berühmter Pressekonferenz am 9. November 1989 drängten DDR-Bürger nicht nur in Berlin gegen die Mauer. Astrid M. Eckert erinnert in diesem Artikel an den “anderen Mauerfall” – die Öffnung der innerdeutschen Grenze, das Ende des Grenzregimes und die vielfältigen Begegnungen im Grenzland.
The study of Zeitgeschichte, or contemporary history, was not an invention of the postwar era. But it was in the wake of the Second World War that it carved out a space in the historical professions of the United States, Great Britain and, most pronouncedly, West Germany. In each country, it came with similar definitions: in West Germany as “the era of those living, and its scholarly treatment by academics”; in the United States as “the period of the last generation or two”; and in Britain as “Europe in the twentieth century” or “the histories of yesterday which are being written today.” Such definitions contained a generational component and left contemporary history open to continuous rejuvenation. Yet during the postwar decades, the above definitions steered interest clearly toward the history of National Socialism, the Second World War, and foreign policy of the 1920s and 1930s. The horrific cost in human lives of Nazi racial and anti-Semitic policies gave an instant relevance to all aspects of Germany's past. The German grip on much of Europe had made National Socialism an integral component in the history of formerly occupied countries, and the Allied struggle to defeat Nazism added yet more countries to the list of those that had seen their histories become entangled with that of Germany. Hence, the academic writing of German contemporary history was never an exclusively German affair. Scholars outside Germany, especially in Great Britain and the United States, were part of the endeavor from the outset. Their involvement was facilitated by the fact that the Western Allies had captured an enormous quantity of German records and archives at the end of the war, part of which would become available to historians over the course of the 1950s and 1960s.
The article examines the transition of (West) German archivists from the Nazi period to the time of Allied occupation and on into the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. After considering the extent of the profession’s nazification, the article focuses on Allied denazification efforts after the war and discusses the strategies archivists devised in order to maneuver through these dangerous times. In the end, the archival profession mastered the transition with only minor “denazification damage.” The article closes with an examination of the consequences of the continuity of personnel especially among the leading archivists of the former Prussian Archival Administration (Preussische Archivverwaltung) for the reconstruction of the archival profession in West Germany.
Introduction to edited collection on the German archival profession during National Socialism. The volume documents the proceedings of the 75th Deutscher Archivtag in Stuttgart (Sept. 2005), the annual meeting of the Association of German Archivists. The meeting was convened under the theme "German Archives and Archivists under National Socialism."
Book Reviews by Astrid M. Eckert
Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN-13: 978-0521880183
Paperback 2014. ISBN-13: 978-1107629202
Winner of the 2013 Waldo Gifford Leland Award of the Society of American Archivists.
When American and British troops swept through the German Reich in the spring of 1945, they confiscated a broad range of government papers and archives. These records were subsequently used in war crimes trials and published under Allied auspices to document the German road to war. In 1949, the West Germans asked for their return, considering the request one of the benchmarks of their new state sovereignty. This book traces the tangled history of the captured German records and the extended negotiations for their return into German custody.
Reviews
"Eckert's book does far more than trace the wartime and postwar fate of German archival records. It manages to incorporate a detailed and impeccably researched treatment of 'ownership' with a broader discussion of the international debate about the path of German history and the future of Germany. This issue interests a much wider audience within the field of German history and within the discipline of history as a whole. The other characteristic of this work that deserves emphasis is its transnational character. Eckert is so well versed in the history of Germany, Britain, and the United States that she can carry off a narrative of their interaction in the postwar period with success and with verve." - Richard Breitman, Distinguished Professor, American University
"The Struggle for the Files is an essential read for historians of Germany and the twentieth-century Atlantic world. Astrid Eckert provides a masterful, even riveting, account of the tangled odyssey of captured German archives after World War II - from the Allied confiscation and exploitation of Nazi-era records to the contentious return of the records to West Germany in the 1950s and after. At the same time she weaves her narrative within broader questions concerning the Allies' unprecedented archival guardianship. Partly these were immediate matters, ranging from the political and cultural sovereignty of a recent enemy-turned-ally to the use of wartime German records for Cold War intelligence. But they also concern the larger, more crucial, and most enduring postwar question of who would serve as the custodian and arbiter of Germany's catastrophic recent history." - Norman J. W. Goda, author of Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War
"Who knew you could write a thriller about archival transfer? This is a real page-turner, offering an exciting international tale of Cold War relations, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, and the writing of German history. Eckert's mastery of the archives - as well as the archival politics - of three nations is remarkable." - Mark Roseman, Professor of History and Pat M. Glazer Chair of Jewish Studies at Indiana University
"This is the book we have long needed. In no period of history has a study of the fate of the archives and public records of a nation defeated in war been more important than in the case of Nazi Germany. Astrid M. Eckert has created a splendid account of the postwar saga of the German records, and of their international importance through the long decades of the Cold War. Based on imaginative prodigious research and shrewd and judicious analyses, and written in a cogent and compelling narrative style, Professor Eckert's command of both the sources and the subject is complete. This is an important, and indeed essential, work of historical scholarship." - Charles W. Sydnor, Jr., Emory & Henry College, Virginia
"In her captivating book Astrid M. Eckert details the odyssey of the German archives after 1945 from their seizure by the victorious armies to their piecemeal, still incomplete return to Germany in the decades since." -Christina Morina, American Historical Review
"...exceptionally readable, especially for such a dense and detailed work." -Laura Millar, Archivaria
"...a quality historical narrative proving how critical archival records are to the political, social, and historical fabric of a nation. It successfully places archives in a position in which their possession is power. While that power is largely symbolic, it has the ability to build or undermine the very essence of sovereignty. Anything offering that level of respect to archives is worth reading." -Shawn San Roman, Archival Issues
ISBN 9783515085540
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Hedwig-Hintze-Preis des Verbandes der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands 2004.
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Friedrich-Meinecke-Preis fuer eine hervorragende geschichtswissenschaftliche Dissertation des Jahres 2003 am Fachbereich Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften der Freien Universitat Berlin im Juli 2004.
Kampf um die Akten behandelt die Rueckgabeverhandlungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik und den Westalliierten ueber beschlagnahmtes deutsches Archivgut. Hunderte von Tonnen an Schriftgut aus den Registraturen und Archiven der Reichsministerien, militarischen Stellen und Parteiorganisationen waren bei Kriegsende in alliierte Haende gefallen. Die Geschichte der Aktenrueckgabe ist ein bisher vernachlaessigtes Kapitel der politischen Emanzipation der Bundesrepublik. Die Verhandlungen waren neben der Wiedereroeffnung von Konsulaten, der neuerlichen Aufnahme von Aussenhandelsbeziehungen oder der Regelung der Auslandsschulden nicht einfach ein weiteres Sachgebiet der jungen bundesdeutschen Aussenpolitik. Die Forderung nach ihrer Rueckkehr wurde auf der symbolischen Ebene schnell zur versuchten Wiederaneignung von verlorener Souveranitaet. Die Geschichte der Aktenrueckgabe ist zugleich eine Auseinandersetzung um die Deutungsmacht deutscher Geschichte. Der temporaere Verlust der diplomatischen Akten fuer die (west)deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft und der ungehinderte Zugang zu diesen Quellen fuer amerikanische und britische Historiker loeste eine Auseinandersetzung um die legitimen Sprecher in der Deutung deutscher Geschichte aus. Die Studie zeigt den Zusammenhang zwischen Rueckgabeverhandlungen und den Anfaengen westdeutscher Zeitgeschichtsforschung auf und arbeitet dabei besonders die transnationale Dimension der Diskussion heraus.
"Das Buch von Frau Eckert liest man wegen der spannend erzaehlten Passagen und der eleganten Formulierungen mit Vergnuegen […] Dieses Buch ist ganz und gar mit dem Methodenarsenal der alten Zeitgeschichte geschrieben - und gerade deshalb so vorzueglich." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Dieses Buch ist, entgegen der Erwartung, die man angesichts des Themas haben konnte, alles andere als aktenstaubtrocken; es fuehrt mit groaem erzahlerischen Schwung in die Welt der Archive und Archivare ein." Neue Zuercher Zeitung
“Kampf um die Akten ist eine der bemerkenswertesten zeitgeschichtlichen Einzelstudien der letzten Jahre.” Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft
"Eckert hat ein hervorragendes Buch geschrieben, das auch von Laien mit Genuss zu lesen ist. Historiker, die sich mit der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland befassen, werden an einer Lektuere ohnehin nicht vorbeikommen." sehepunkte
"Dieses Buch gehört in die Fachausbildung im Archivwesen! Eckerts Buch ist eine willkommene Bereicherung für eine Debatte, die in Zukunft noch verstärkt zu führen sein wird. [ ] Eckert gebührt das Verdienst, in einer spannenden und anschaulichen Weise die unterschiedlichen Motivationen das deutsche Archivgut in Besitz zu halten oder zu bekommen dargestellt zu haben. [ ] die Studie zeigt sehr deutlich, dass auch die Positionen der westalliierten Historiker zum Teil nicht stets redlich waren und natürlich machtpolitische Erwägungen auf beiden Seiten eine zentrale Rolle in den Rückgabeverhandlungen spielten." (H-Soz-u-Kult)
The introduction takes stock of the field on the basis of about half a dozen syntheses that have appeared during the last ten to fifteen years. It highlights the accomplishments of this existing literature but also points out some of its shortcomings, such as the failure to question Western liberalism as a normative model and/or the reluctance to address blind spots, internal contradiction, and exclusions that were inherent in that tradition. The introduction also argues for an incorporation of the post-1989 period into new narratives of the Federal Republic. It places the special issue in conversation with other scholars who have articulated similar dissatisfaction with established narratives, most explicitly in a series of recent edited volumes. It introduces the contributions to the special issue as possible paths to pursue in the ongoing search for new narratives for the history of the Federal Republic in the twenty-first Century.
The article analyzes transboundary pollution of rivers flowing between the two German states. For the Federal Republic, this was a pressing concern because the majority of these rivers ran from east to west, carrying waste and toxic agents into western Germany. The article illuminates the dynamic that evolved between both German states during the 1970s and 80s as they tried to negotiate transboundary environmental problems. It explains the specific political circumstances, clashing interpretations and interests that prevented any agreement which might have benefited the environment. One outstanding factor influencing East German negotiation strategies was the country’s need for western currency. During the 1980s, the chronic shortage of “valuta” facilitated a development in which the environment became a commodity. The river Werra, heavily polluted by potash salts, serves as an example for this development. Although a few environmental agreements were signed, the situation of the transboundary rivers did not change until the GDR’s collapse in 1989/90.
Der Artikel untersucht am Beispiel von Grenzgewässern die Dynamik zwischen der Bundesrepublik und der DDR im Hinblick auf grenzüberschreitende Umweltprobleme. Für die Bundesrepublik war die Verschmutzung von grenzkreuzenden Flüssen ein dringendes Problem, denn die Mehrzahl der Flüsse entwässerten von Osten nach Westen. Der Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, welche spezifischen politischen Umstände und Interpretationen der Sachlage während der siebziger und achtziger Jahre eine Anrainerkooperation zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland jeweils verhinderten und arbeitet dabei die Rolle der DDR-Devisenknappheit in den achtziger Jahren heraus. Die vorliegende Untersuchung beschränkt sich allerdings nicht allein auf Umweltpolitik, sondern räumt der Ökologie der Flüsse eine eigenständige Rolle ein. Als Fallbeispiel dient die Werra, die durch die Kaliindustrie der DDR mit Salzabwässern über Jahrzehnte aufs stärkste belastet wurde.
This article investigates the little-known phenomenon of tourism to the Iron Curtain, using the example of the inter-German border. The practice of traveling to the demarcation line to see where Germany and Europe were divided peaked during the mid-1960s but was already in full swing by the mid-1950s and lasted until the fall of the border in 1989. The article analyses the growth of a tourist infrastructure on the western side of the inter-German border and situates this travel as a form of “dark tourism”. It argues that seeing the border and visualizing the partition of the country did little for overcoming it but rather tended to underwrite the political and territorial status quo. In the Cold War battle for public opinion, seeing the border allowed West Germans and their visitors from abroad to juxtapose freedom and prosperity with captivity and decay, thus advertising the superiority of the capitalist model over its socialist other.
Nach Günther Schabowskis berühmter Pressekonferenz am 9. November 1989 drängten DDR-Bürger nicht nur in Berlin gegen die Mauer. Astrid M. Eckert erinnert in diesem Artikel an den “anderen Mauerfall” – die Öffnung der innerdeutschen Grenze, das Ende des Grenzregimes und die vielfältigen Begegnungen im Grenzland.
The study of Zeitgeschichte, or contemporary history, was not an invention of the postwar era. But it was in the wake of the Second World War that it carved out a space in the historical professions of the United States, Great Britain and, most pronouncedly, West Germany. In each country, it came with similar definitions: in West Germany as “the era of those living, and its scholarly treatment by academics”; in the United States as “the period of the last generation or two”; and in Britain as “Europe in the twentieth century” or “the histories of yesterday which are being written today.” Such definitions contained a generational component and left contemporary history open to continuous rejuvenation. Yet during the postwar decades, the above definitions steered interest clearly toward the history of National Socialism, the Second World War, and foreign policy of the 1920s and 1930s. The horrific cost in human lives of Nazi racial and anti-Semitic policies gave an instant relevance to all aspects of Germany's past. The German grip on much of Europe had made National Socialism an integral component in the history of formerly occupied countries, and the Allied struggle to defeat Nazism added yet more countries to the list of those that had seen their histories become entangled with that of Germany. Hence, the academic writing of German contemporary history was never an exclusively German affair. Scholars outside Germany, especially in Great Britain and the United States, were part of the endeavor from the outset. Their involvement was facilitated by the fact that the Western Allies had captured an enormous quantity of German records and archives at the end of the war, part of which would become available to historians over the course of the 1950s and 1960s.
The article examines the transition of (West) German archivists from the Nazi period to the time of Allied occupation and on into the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. After considering the extent of the profession’s nazification, the article focuses on Allied denazification efforts after the war and discusses the strategies archivists devised in order to maneuver through these dangerous times. In the end, the archival profession mastered the transition with only minor “denazification damage.” The article closes with an examination of the consequences of the continuity of personnel especially among the leading archivists of the former Prussian Archival Administration (Preussische Archivverwaltung) for the reconstruction of the archival profession in West Germany.
Introduction to edited collection on the German archival profession during National Socialism. The volume documents the proceedings of the 75th Deutscher Archivtag in Stuttgart (Sept. 2005), the annual meeting of the Association of German Archivists. The meeting was convened under the theme "German Archives and Archivists under National Socialism."
Im Windschatten der großen Verhandlungen zwischen der Bundesregierung und den Westalliierten verliefen noch andere Gespräche, die in den Augen der Zeitgenossen für die Souveränität des Staates nicht weniger relevant waren. Die Rückgabeverhandlungen um jene bei Kriegsende beschlagnahmten deutschen Akten sind dafür ein Beispiel. Auf der symbolischen Ebene waren sie ein Versuch der Wiederaneignung verlorener Souveränität.
Conference at the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF), May 28-29, 2015. Conveners: Ralf Ahrens (ZZF), Astrid M. Eckert (Emory University, Atlanta), and Stefan Hördler (GHI/Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation).
This volume emerged from the conference Access-Presentation-Memory: The Presidential Libraries and the Memorial Foundations of German Politicians held at the German Historical Institute, Washington DC. Facilitating dialogue across disciplinary boundaries as well as the Atlantic, it brought representatives from the U.S. presidential libraries, the with professors, archivists, and members of public interest groups. The selected essays offer unique insights into the legal, cultural, and historical.
Der Holocaust und die westdeutschen Historiker. Eine Debatte.
[The Holocaust and West German historians: a debate], eds., Astrid M. Eckert & Vera Ziegeldorf (Berlin: Clio-online, 2004).
Mit Beiträgen von: Nicolas Berg, Stefan Berger, Robert P. Ericksen, Ian Kershaw, Habbo Knoch, Claudia Koonz, Hanno Loewy, Peter Longerich, Alan E. Steinweis, Gerhard L. Weinberg.
In spring 2002, the GHI Bulletin featured an interview article with leading American scholars on the practice of German history in the United States. This article takes up the question in reverse and asks four leading German scholars of American history to share their thoughts on the state of their field in Germany. GHI Research Fellow Astrid M. Eckert interviewed Norbert Finzsch, Hans-Juergen Grabbe, Detlef Junker, and Ursula Lehmkuhl separately last fall.
https://lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/eine_umweltgeschichte_der_grenze_ist_komplex?nav_id=8960
At the end of World War II, the Western Allies seized pretty much every official German document they could find and moved the lot out of Germany and often overseas. They had, effectively, taken the German past. And they kept it for the better part of a decade. Why did they take the records and why did they eventually return them? In her fascinating book The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Astrid M. Eckert explains. The Western Allies saw that the archives could be used for a number of purposes: military intelligence (the Germans knew a lot about the Soviets), occupational administration, prosecuting war criminals, and making sure that the history of World War II was written just the way they wanted it written. And they used them in all these ways. The Germans, of course, wanted their documents back. They wanted to write their own history. But the Western Allies were skeptical that the Germans could really manage their archives (many German archivists had been active Nazis) or portray their past truthfully (it was, after all, a rather ugly past). In the end, the Allies relented and the archives were given back, new archivists were trained, and Germans faced their past themselves.
Oral history interview with historian Gerhard L. Weinberg (UNC Chapel Hill), March 13, 2012. Commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Conducted by Astrid M. Eckert. 2:52 hours (unedited).