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GERM 255
Fall
Semester 2021
Professor David Pike dpike@email.unc.edu Student Meetings by Arrangement Germany
and the Cold War. From Allied Occupation to Reunification and beyond (1945-)
Though scholars have long disagreed about the earliest causes of the Cold War, and will surely continue to argue about them, no one disputes that the “German question” played a central role in the break-up of the wartime alliance and the political division of western and eastern Europe that lasted for almost half a century. Ironically, in the case of Germany, its postwar division into four separate zones of occupation, a harbinger of division, was not the result of disagreements among the allies over the question of how to treat a defeated Germany. The original “division” developed rather out of the wartime consensus that splitting the country into occupied zones was the best way of ensuring that Germany never again waged war. In effect, the original protocol on zones of occupation agreed upon by the British, American, and Soviet governments prior to the war’s end pointed toward the harshest possible treatment of Germany ever contemplated by the allies. Breaking the country into a number of separate states, with the idea that the split would be permanent, was thought by some to provide the best guarantee of security against future German aggression. As a matter of fact, after several rounds of discussion begun first during the Teheran Conference in 1943, the allies never agreed upon a policy of permanent dismemberment, though there is good reason to believe that Stalin and Roosevelt seriously considered and, at times, may have preferred it. What the allies ultimately did approve, however, the system of zones, was not something inherently different than dismemberment. Once the two main zones congealed into semi-permanence, the one occupied by the Russians, the other “jointly” by the Americans, British, and French, and by the time these two zones turned into the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany, to all intents and purposes “dismemberment” was the result — for forty years. All this notwithstanding, it is by no means an established fact that such an outcome was either contemplated in 1945 by any of the allies or deliberately pursued from the outset by one or the other or all of them. Nonetheless, the division of Germany into two separate states, formally complete by 1949, was an historical “fact” that most observers, right up to the “end” in 1989/90, had come to regard as permanent. This course will investigate a wide range of questions associated with events that extended over half a century — developments and circumstances that dominated our lives for years during the cold war. We will attempt to understand the ways, too, in which the consequences of the cold war generally, and the division of Germany specifically, linger on — affecting generations of Europeans and Americans who are themselves too young to have any real recollection of the cold war. Against
this backdrop, having asked probing questions about patterns of Soviet
conduct in the early cold war then, we can transition to the present – the
daily impressions of unfolding events involving Russia today, right up to and
including Russian intervention in Georgia and the Russian public rationale
for the invasion. We can then undertake, looking back at our course
“foundation,” to place aspects of early cold war issues in the context of
emerging Russian conduct now. We will talk about the nature of this behavior
in relation to patterns of western outlooks and actions then and now (are
“our” actions in the West needlessly provocative to the Russians?); looking
at how historians are assessing and reassessing Soviet policy to this day;
considering interpretations of Russia’s path in the twenty-first century; and
pondering the possibility of a new, perhaps inevitable conflict with
her. Teaching
Methodology
The Covid pandemic, which in spring 2020 led to a sudden
disruption of in-class teaching and a shift to remote instruction,
necessitated a major alteration in the way I teach my classes. As you will
have inferred from my initial pre-semester email to you all, that earlier
approach revolved around a loosely structured, always germane, but
improvisational, associative presentation of issues vital to the course. I do
not adhere slavishly to a rigid syllabus. Additionally, you will be
periodically sent links to articles and news stories related to the inherent
subject matter of our course. You will soon come to understand that this
course, as do all courses I teach, raises issues that cannot be in some rigid
historically compartmentalized, with neat beginnings and neat ends. Your
world, the world you live in, remains vitally affected, to this day, by the
experiences of the two totalitarianisms: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Our
operating principle can be summed up by Shakespeare’s lines in The Tempest,
“The Past is Prologue,” and/or Faulkner’s line “The past is never dead. It's
not even past.” Or…. To employ the title plus addendum from a novel published
in 2005, which resulted in a film of the same name, “Everything is
Illuminated [by the light of the past].” This could be put slightly
differently: [knowing about and understanding] the past sheds light on the
present and is the only way to place the present in a context that enables
understanding of the “era” we live in; but the present, if you are informed
about it and ponder it sufficiently to grasp some of its essences, provides a
critically important window into grasping the past more fully. You will come
to understand that various things we experience or are experiencing are not
new. To quote Yogi Berra (google the name), it’s déjà vu all over again….
Making these connections is part and parcel of understanding the subjects we
are studying this semester. Though this approach of mine has in the past struck
students as unorthodox, unconventional, my experiences with outstanding
students, their evaluations, written work, emails, conversations, etc.
produced a record of confirmation of the effectiveness of this approach and a
broad consensus of student endorsements. I grant you that, for some students,
it can take a week or two or perhaps even three to get used to. But, in the
beginning, there is no reason for anyone to be unsettled about this. Sooner
or later (usually sooner!), you will grasp the approach and understand what
it can achieve. However…. This approach was, of course, impossible under any
conceivable remote circumstances. I do not, and will not, use Zoom – that’s a
class killer in any case. What I hit upon beginning in March 2020 ultimately
generated an abundance of evidence from my students that my “remote” approach
worked and worked well. I surprised myself. Given the enormous enrollments in
my classes (this, too, is a phenomenon of the last 4-5 years, when my
enrollments began skyrocketing), I will divide each class into GROUPS. The
Coldwar, with a current enrollment of sixty, will result in three separate
groups. For any given assignment, alternating groups will EMAIL to me and the
rest of the class, a substantive, but succinct “impression” of a few
paragraphs of the assignment. With each specific assignment, a specific group
will be given a deadline to disseminate impressions. Everyone in class is
expected to read these impressions carefully and be ready to discuss some of
the major points in class. Those of you not belonging to a specific group
disseminating these “impressions” of any specific assignment are nonetheless
also required to write your own impression of that assignment and save it. At
midterm time, everyone in class compiles their collected impressions and
sends them to me as a WORD or PDF document. Same thing the end of the
semester. These impressions form the largest basis of your grade, and,
importantly, every one of you can and should be comparing what you write in
the way of your impressions with what other students disseminate. Though it
doesn’t work this way, in theory you ought to be able to grade yourselves by
comparing the quality of your thought and the quality of your writing with that
of others in the class. There are no other written assignments, but there will be
a final exam. During our remote semesters, I responded voluminously to the
disseminated impressions: I called them my “covid lectures.” Just to give you
an example, counting my “responses” as well, my course last spring “Auschwitz
and Gulag” generated close to 1,000 emails. It was one of the best courses
I’ve ever taught and included some of the finest students I’ve ever had. This
approach brought out their best. What I will be attempting to do this semester is to
hybridize, combine, what has worked best in my teaching approaches – the one
practiced for years in the form of free-wheeling classroom presentations of
essential issues related to the class, and my recent “remote” practice of
student “impressions.” It is up to you to organize these emails; print them out,
put them in a loose-leaf notebook, make dedicated folders in your email – I
don’t care how, but keep track of them, and any responses I elect to make by
email. I will be reading ALL of your impressions, as will you, but rather
than commenting upon them in writing by email, as I did during our remote
semesters, I will attempt to engage some of the best insights from the
impressions in class. I may or may not elect in additional to respond by
email to this or that especially good point in an impression. We’ll see. Importantly: I do not yet know how, if at all, to handle questions from you. You are all required to be masked. I asked the administration whether this or that student can lower a mask to ask a question; if you cannot, then I will not be able to understand you, sadly, and questions posed in class will not take place. Unsurprisingly, the administration has not answered my question, and likely will leave it unanswered – that’s the way they do things. Either way, we will have to find ways of being flexible under, at best, trying circumstances.
Grading
Procedures and Course Policies
This course is heavily professor-presentation and student impression-oriented (see above, teaching methodology). Course requirements are straightforward — attendance is mandatory,* class participation, in accordance with the course’s approach, nonetheless always heavily valued, and keeping current with reading assignments and impressions a necessity. In additional to the critically important student impressions, though each of you disseminate, and those you save for you collection of course impressions, there will also be a final examination that offers you the opportunity to reflect in a more overarching manner a wide variety of the questions raised by a topic, the cold war, that is in many regards right front and center in the form of Putin's Russia and the confrontation between it and "the West": the countries of the European Union, as currently constituted, and the United States. These kinds of "... and beyond...." questions will be dealt with throughout the semester in the form of current-event analyses, commentaries, and developments that seem to be unfolding on an almost daily basis. Many of the questions these "current events" raise compel us to engage in a good dealing of rethinking about the causes and origins of the cold war. Put bluntly, was the division of Germany inevitable? Was it's reunification - hinging (?) on the dissolution of the Soviet Union - only a matter of time? And perhaps most importantly, was a Russian "resurgence" of the sort we have been observing for the last three years especially, but which goes back in time under Putin at least a full decade, also predictable? And inevitable?
*Course attendance policy: I
follow university policy in general. There is no such thing as a preexisting
excused absence. As I wrote you already, you must install the Check-In app
for Android and/or iPhone for this class, and then check in using it each day
we have class. If you have to miss class, I expect, in advance, an email
informing me of your absence and its reason. Even then, barring very unusual
circumstances, each absence during the semester beyond TWO results in a
lowering of your grade by a half-point. Three absences lower your grade from
A to A-, four absences lower it from A- to B+, and so on. **Neither computers nor
mobile phones nor any other kind of device is allowed in class. I do not wish
to see a single mobile phone in your hands or on your desk, once class
begins, for the duration of the semester. iPhones and such on your desk or in
your hand equates to a non-excused absence. No recording is allowed in
class without my advance permission. Violations of this basic course
policy will be considered as honor code violations.
Course Topics
and General Periodization
German-Russian
Relations Prior to Hitler: the twenties
The War: From
“Barbarossa” to Berlin by way of Stalingrad
The Post-War
Treatment of Germany: Allied Understandings and Agreements
The Occupation:
1945-1949
Division: The
Years of Stalinism and the “Thaw” — 1949 - 1961
Berlin 1961
“Stability”: 1961
– 1971
"Permanence":
1972 – 1985
The Beginning of
the End: Gorbachev and Perestroika: 1985-1989
Dissolution
Reunification
“We now Know”:
Looking Back at the Cold War
What do we know now? Looking toward the future
List of Readings Our readings will be selected from the following books and articles - that is, in some cases, we will read texts in their entirety, but in most cases, I will have excerpted briefer sections from much longer texts (e.g., books) and placed them on our course website in digitized form for your convenience. The historical (and other kinds of) literature on this subject is voluminous, to put it mildly, and because so much of it, particularly when more specialist aspects are involved, is not in English, it is very difficult to locate concise texts that cover the more precise issues I consider important. This is the main reason why this list may, at first glance, strike you as daunting, but reading expectations will be appropriate to this level of course. The Atlantic Charter John Gaddis, We now Know Konrad Jarausch, The Rush to German Unity Charles S. Maier, Dissolution Lilia Shevtsova, Lost in Transition. The Yeltsin and Putin Legacies Edward Lukac, The New Cold War. Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West Lilia
Shevtsova, Putin's Russia |
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