Conference Group for Central European History
Newsletter
Fall 1997

Dear Colleagues,

The recent change in the method of distributing the Newsletter means that those of you who do not have access to the World Wide Web and get the Newsletter only as an insert in Central European History receive it several months late. I apologize for this long delay, but there is little one can do about it. Instead of being mailed out when ready, which was the practice until last year, the Newsletter now goes first to our editorial office, which includes the Newsletter in the current issue of Central European History before the latter is sent to the publisher and printer. The only remedy is to access the Newsletter via the Web, at the following address: http://www.olemiss.edu/~hsgispen/cgceh/cgceh.html.

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The business meeting of the Conference Group will take place during the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Seattle, Thursday, January 8 to Sunday, January 11, 1998. The meeting will convene Saturday, January 10, 1998, at 8:00 p.m. in the Cedar Room of the Sheraton Hotel. Among business to be conducted are the election of new officers of the Conference Group and the announcement of the winner of this year’s article prize. In 1999, the Conference Group will once again award its book prize.

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Immediately following the business meeting, the Conference Group will hold its annual Bierabend, which will begin at 9:00 p.m. in the Aspen Room, directly adjacent to the Cedar Room. I hope many of you will attend and look forward to seeing you in Seattle.

Kees Gispen

Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association

The joint session of the American Historical Association and the Conference Group will take place from 8:30-10:30 a.m., Sunday, January 11, in the Convention Center, Room 615.

Session 125: The Nazi Perpetrators: A Reexamination

Chair: Sybil Milton, Washington, D.C.

Managers and Supervisors in the Concentration Camps and Killing Centers
Henry Friedlander, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

The German Police and Their Local Auxiliaries
Christopher R. Browning, Pacific Lutheran University

Reconceptualizing the Role of the Wehrmacht
Jürgen Förster, Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt

Comment: Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto

Other AHA Sessions with Central European Themes

(A complete description of each AHA session, including those listed below, can be found at the following address: http://chnm.gmu.edu/aha.)

Friday, January 9, 9:30-11:30

Session 8: Mapping Nationalism in the Modern World
Convention Center, Room 304

Session 20: GI Sexual Behavior and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Post-World War II Era
Sheraton, Cedar Room

Session 23: Together and Apart: Connecting the Histories of the Two Germanies
Convention Center, Room 303

Session 24: Soviet Ideas, Eastern European Practices: Stalinism and Society in Postwar Poland
Sheraton, Juniper Room

Friday, Jan. 9, 2:30-4:30
Session 32: Prisoners of Public Memory: Comparative Perspectives on the Modern POW Experience
Convention Center, Room 605

Session 44: Knowledge for the Public? Museums, Audiences, and Scientific Practice in Wilhemine Germany
Convention Center, Room 203

Session 46: Insanity, Criminality, and the Jewish Question in Germany, 1800-1933
Convention Center, Room 618

Session 47: Mexican Revolutionary Nationalism: Comparing the Expropriation of American, British, and German-Owned Industries between 1910 and 1951
Convention Center, Room 607

Saturday, January 10, 9:30-11:30
Session 64: Food for the State: Corporatist Politics and Food Consumption in Germany, Italy, and Mexico
Sheraton, Juniper Room

Session 65: Particular Languages and Universal Texts: The Bible, the Dictionary, and the Encyclopedia in Early Modern Europe and America
Sheraton, Madrona Room

Session 67: The Politics of Twentieth-Century European Labor Movements in Comparative Perspective
Convention Center, Room 617

Session 82: Museums and European Nationalisms before the First World War
Sheraton, East Ballroom Section B

Session 84: A Shattered Past: Rethinking and Retelling a German History of the Twentieth Century
Convention Center, Room 608

Saturday, January 10, 12:15-1:45 p.m.
Luncheon Address: Interpreting Fascism: Phases and Functions
Robert O. Paxton, Columbia University
Sheraton, Madrona Room

Saturday, January 10, 2:30-4:30
Session 90: Western Militarism in Comparative Perspective, 1871-1918
Sheraton, Cedar Room

Session 91: Abortion in the Twentieth Century: The Politics of Reproduction in Crosscultural Perspective
Sheraton, Douglas Room

Session 95: The Body in the Social: Comparative Perspectives
Convention Center, Room 605

Session 112: Nazi Gold, Swiss Banks, and the Status of Historical Research: Roundtable Discussion
Convention Center, Room 606

Sunday, January 11, 8:30-10:30
Session 119: Family Labor Systems and Social Change: Mexico, Germany, and the United States in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Convention Center, Room 304

Session 120: Freemasonry in the National Context: Cultural Practice and Civil Society in France, Germany, and Russia
Convention Center, Room 205

Session 144: Documenting Jewish Identity in Transition and Crisis: Three Autobiography Projects of the 1930s and 1940s
Convention Center, Room 206

Session 158: German Film as History: Society, Ideology, and Culture
Convention Center, Room 609

Call for papers for the 1999 AHA meeting

The Executive Secretary received the following letter from John O. Voll (Georgetown University), chair of the 1999 AHA Program Committee.

Dear colleagues:

Recently you received the call for papers an other materials relating to the 1999 Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. We want to emphasize that the Program Committee views the participation of the affiliated associations as a very important part of the annual meeting.
The 1999 Annual Meeting will be in Washington and this provides us with opportunities to do many special things. We hope that you will encourage the members of your association to plan panels and submit proposals for participation in the program. We are limited by the rules governing program committee decisions so that we cannot guarantee a place in the program to anyone, but we are eager to receive proposals from your members.
We specially want to encourage people to consider proposals on our theme of Diasporas and Migrations in History. We hope that the 1999 Annual Meeting can make an important contribution to scholarship in this field.
Please feel free to contact either of us directly if you have questions or would like to discuss the program further.

John O. Voll 202-687-0288 vollj@gusun.georgetown.edu FAX: 202-687-8376

Gary Kulik, Co-chair Library and Academic Programs Wintherthur Museum gkulik@chopin.udel.edu

Conference Group for Central European History

Miscellaneous Announcements

We are pleased to announce that the Conference Group’s immediate past president, William W. Hagen, was awarded this year’s Chester Penn Higby Prize by the Modern Europe Section of the American Historical Association for best article biennially in the Journal of Modern History. Hagen’s article is entitled, "Before the ‘Final Solution’: Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in Interwar Germany and Poland." It appeared in JMH 68 (June 1996): 351-381.

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The Conference Group’s Archives Committee has been reconstituted and is once again at full strength. The executive board is very grateful to Geoffrey Giles and Alan Steinweis, who have graciously agreed to fill the two vacancies on the committee. The current members of the Archives Committee are:

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The Nominations Committee (Omer Bartov, Kathleen Canning, Helmut Walser Smith) met at the annual meeting of the German Studies Association in September of 1997 and proposed that the following individuals be nominated for positions of the Executive Board.

Vice-President elect: Mary Jo Maynes
Executive Board: Anson Rabinbach
Executive Board: Mary Lindemann

In addition, the Nominations Committee recommended that Gerald Feldman and Konrad Jarausch be nominated to continue serving as the Conference Group’s delegates to Friends of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. Other nominations can be made during the business meeting, which will elect next year’s officers.

Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar in German History 1998
Germany in the Early Modern Era

The German Historical Institute in Washington, the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University, and the Conference Group for Central European History are pleased to announce the fourth Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar in German History. The conference will bring together young scholars from Germany and North America who are nearing completion of their doctoral degrees. We plan to invite eight scholars from each side of the Atlantic for discussion of their doctoral projects. The discussions will be based on papers submitted in advance of the conference, which will be held in Goettingen from 22-25 April 1998. We shall cover travel costs and lodging
expenses. The conference will focus this time on Germany in the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries. We are now accepting applications from doctoral students whose work falls principally in this era and who will finish their degrees after June 1998. Applications should include a short (2-3pp) project description, a résumé, and a letter of reference from the major advisor. Please send applications by December 1, 1997 to: Transatlantic Doctoral Seminars, German Historical Institute, c/o Christa Brown, 1607 New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009.

The editor of this Newsletter may be reached at the following address:
Department of History
University of Mississippi
University, MS 38677
601-232-7148
601-232-7033 fax
hsgispen@olemiss.edu

This Newsletter was last updated on November 6, 1997.