scholarly journals Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: the head injury that may have prolonged the Second World War

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. E8
Author(s):  
Heather A. Fuhrman ◽  
Jeffrey P. Mullin ◽  
Chris A. Sloffer

War-related head injury, indeed neurological injury in general, has been a part of the history of humankind for as long as there has been warfare. Such injuries can result in the removal of the individual from combat, thus eliminating any subsequent contribution that he or she might have made to the battle. However, at times, the injuries can have more wide-reaching effects. In the case of commanders or leaders, the impact of their injuries may include the loss of their influence, planning, and leadership, and thus have a disproportionate effect on the battle, or indeed the war. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was a talented military strategist and leader who was respected by friends and foes alike. He held an honored reputation by the German people and the military leadership. His head injury on July 17, 1944, resulted in his being removed from the field of battle in northern France, but also meant that he was not able to lend his stature to the assassination attempt of Adolph Hitler on July 20. It is possible that, had he been able to lend his stature to the events, Hitler's hold on the nation's government might have been loosened, and the war might have been brought to an end a year earlier. The authors review Rommel's career, his injury, the subsequent medical treatment, and his subsequent death.

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 81-99
Author(s):  
Benjámin Dávid

The societies of the countries underwent many difficulties during the history of the 20th century. During World War II, in addition to the military loss of the country, there was a significant loss of civilian population. Due to the changed political circumstances after the war, the processing of these events at the individual, community, and social levels didn’t take place. The research of the MTA–SZTE Oral History and History Education Research Team (2016– 2020) focuses on how to include video interview details with people who have experienced the turning points in the Hungarian history of the 20th century and how to include them in classroom education. Concerning these the classes supplemented with a video details undergoes appropriate (subject-pedagogical) methodological preparation. In my study I examine that Hungary’s participation in the Second World War working group working within a research group how well the classes compiled, supplemented by life-course interviews, attracted the attention of the students, helped them understand the curriculum and its contexts, and what conveyed values to the students.


The destruction of Japan’s empire in August 1945 under the military onslaught of the Allied Powers produced a powerful rupture in the histories of modern East Asia. Everywhere imperial ruins from Manchuria to Taiwan bore memoires of a great run of upheavals and wars which in turn produced revolutionary uprisings and civil wars from China to Korea. The end of global Second World War did not bring peace and stability to East Asia. Power did not simply change hands swiftly and smoothly. Rather the disintegration of Japan’s imperium inaugurated a era of unprecedented bloodletting, state destruction, state creation, and reinvention of international order. In the ruins of Japan’s New Order, legal anarchy, personal revenge, ethnic displacement, and nationalist resentments were the crucible for decades of violence. As the circuits of empire went into meltdown in 1945, questions over the continuity of state and law, ideologies and the troubled inheritance of the Japanese empire could no longer be suppressed. In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire takes a transnational lens to this period, concluding that we need to write the violence of empire’s end – and empire itself - back into the global history of East Asia’s Cold War.


Author(s):  
Reginald Lilly

French anti-postmodernism emerged with the generation of philosophers that came of age in the late 1970s and early 1980s and counts among its ranks some of the most visible and prolific young scholars in France. Unlike schools of thought such as phenomenology, existentialism or Marxism, French anti-postmodernism has no founding figure, central text or core doctrine; anti-postmodernism (a term seldom, if ever, used by the French) therefore is less a philosophical school than a characterization for a diverse group of thinkers who react against those trends that have dominated French intellectual life since the Second World War, especially Marxism, structuralism, existentialism and deconstruction. These trends, grouped together under the heading of ‘postmodernism’, are seen by anti-postmodernists as the last episodes in a failed intellectual adventure whose origins go back at least to the French Revolution. Critical of nineteenth-century philosophy as having produced, on the one hand, totalizing, speculative philosophies such as those of Hegel and Marx, and, on the other hand, the anti-rationalism of Nietzsche and his postmodern scions, anti-postmodernists (or neo-moderns as the French prefer to say) represent a return to the concept of the individual and of history as the product of free human agency. Reaffirming the efficacy of public, rational discourse, they tend to be interested in political philosophy, taking democracy and its ideals as a model for raising and addressing philosophical issues. Pluralist in their outlook, they value the disciplinary structure of scholarly work; fields such as epistemology, theology, philosophy of science and the history of ideas which were neglected or marginalized by much postmodern thought have enjoyed renewed prestige and interest among the anti-postmodernists.


Author(s):  
Tarak Barkawi

This chapter examines how war fits into the study of international relations and the ways it affects world politics. It begins with an analysis of the work of the leading philosopher of war, Carl von Clausewitz, to highlight the essential nature of war, the main types of war, and the idea of strategy. It then considers some important developments in the history of warfare, both in the West and elsewhere, with particular emphasis on interrelationships between the modern state, armed force, and war in the West and in the global South. Two case studies are presented, one focusing on war and Eurocentrism during the Second World War, and the other on the impact of war on society by looking at France, Vietnam, and the United States. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether democracy creates peace among states.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 120-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schneider

Abstract The history of Egyptology in the Third Reich has never been the subject of academic analysis. This article gives a detailed overview of the biographies of Egyptologists in National Socialist Germany and their later careers after the Second World War. It scrutinizes their attitude towards the ideology of the Third Reich and their involvement in the political and intellectual Gleichschaltung of German Higher Education, as well as the impact National Socialism had on the discourse within the discipline. A letter written in 1946 by Georg Steindorff, one of the emigrated German Egyptologists, to John Wilson, Professor at the Oriental Institute Chicago, which incriminated former colleagues and exonerated others, is first published here and used as a framework for the debate.


Author(s):  
Catherine Andreyev

After a long period of scholarly neglect, owing partly to political reasons, the Second World War is now being studied as an integral part of the history of the Soviet Union. This chapter considers the war’s far reaching effects on state and society, taking a multi-faceted, comparative view. Beginning with German and Soviet war aims, the chapter goes on to highlight recent historiography, which has revealed much about the experience of the individual Soviet soldier and has emphasized that by concentrating on military set-pieces, such as the battle of Stalingrad, we risk distorting our understanding of the war. Also discussed are controversial subjects such as collaboration and partisan warfare, and the impact of the war on the Russian Orthodox Church and on Russian national identity.


Author(s):  
Mara Gubaidullina ◽  
Laura Issova ◽  
Almagul Kulbayeva

Introduction. The article investigates the versatile activities of Polish diplomats on the example of the representative offices of the embassy of Poland (delegations) in Alma-Ata (Almaty) and Semipalatinsk (Semey). Documents in the Kazakhstani archives indicate the presence of nine delegations created during the war in Kazakhstan to facilitate the formation of the Polish army (Anders Army). Polish “delegates” – diplomats, military, civilian employees – helped to rescue the Poles from places of detention and settlements, to draw up their documents for further sending to the army. Materials. Documents of the “especially valuable” fund of the Semipalatinsk Archive (currently the Documentation Center of Modern History of the East Kazakhstan Region, Semey), which are put into scientific circulation for the first time, testify to the versatile activities of Polish delegations in a large space in the east of the country. Analysis and Results. Polish delegates organized not only military-political and consular issues, but also economic, social, humanitarian activities. Polish employees worked in contact with Soviet institutions. They provided social support to both the military and displaced, evacuated, orphans, and disabled people. The organization of orphanages and shelters for Polish children was carried out, including by the efforts of Polish diplomats. The Poles who returned after the war to their homeland organized societies of the so-called “sybyraki”. Today they act as a kind of bridge in relations between Kazakhstan and Poland.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
Olga Konkka

This article analyzes the presentation of the Second World War in the multimedia “history parks” of the Russian educational project “Russia My History.” In these exhibition complexes, modern digital technologies offer visitors a “revolutionary” way to discover Russian history. The article first explores the history and conception of the Russia My History project, as a pedagogical tool, a digital museum, a historical narrative, and a response to current memory policies. Next, I focus on the exhibition dedicated to the Second World War (specifically, on its technical, visual, structural, lexical, and historical aspects) and assess the impact of the digitalization and commodification of history on the traditionally rigid official Russian memory of the war. I attempt to show that instead of exploiting digital technologies to develop new approaches to the history of the war, the exhibition neglects the potential of multimedia and provides a narrative close to the one used in Soviet and post-Soviet textbooks.


2018 ◽  
Vol 300 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-275
Author(s):  
Tomasz Gliniecki

This article presents divergent views of the national memories of the Germans and Russians, accumulated since the Second World War in two leading narratives, presenting the mnemonic syndromes of winners and losers. The railway disaster at Zielonka Pasłęcka in January 1945 and its consequences was used as a point of comparison. The author presents, amongst others, the impact of the work of the German researcher Heinz Timmreck, in the form of numerous reports from this incident, mainly highlighting the suffering of the German civilian population fleeing the region endangered by fighting. On the other side, the author presents memoirs of Soviet officers marked with personal ambitions and traces of vengeful attacks preserved in the military documentation. The juxtaposi�tion of the narratives and their comparison provides a new perspective, prompting changes in the mythologised memory of both nations.


2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 716-730
Author(s):  
N. Hwalla ◽  
M. Koleilat

The history of dietetics can be traced as far back as the writings of Homer, Plato and Hippocrates in ancient Greece. Although diet and nutrition continued to be judged important for health, dietetics did not progress much till the 19th century with the advances in chemistry. Early research focused focuses on vitamin deficiency diseases while later workers proposed daily requirements for protein, fat and carbohydrates. Dietetics as a profession was given a boost during the Second World War when its importance was recognized by the military. Today, professional dietetic associations can be found on every continent, and registered dietitians are involved in health promotion and treatment, and work alongside physicians. The growing need for dietetics professionals is driven by a growing public interest in nutrition and the potential of functional foods to prevent a variety of diet-related conditions


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document