Antifascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the International Brigades 1945-1989 (Oxford Historical Monographs)


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Anti-Fascism and Memory in East Germany is a book about remembering and about forgetting, about war, and about the peace which eventually followed. In the unlikely setting of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the Spanish Civil War became the subject of a debate which both predated and outlasted the Cold War, involving historians, veterans, politicians, censors, artists, writers, and Church activists. Examining these multiple memories and interpretations of Spain casts new and unexpected light on the legacy of the Spanish Civil War, and the relationship between history and memory under state socialism.Antifascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the International Brigades 1945-1989 (Oxford Historical Monographs) Review
This is an excellently written book about the role the Spanish Civil War in general and the Spanienkampfer (German veterans of the war) in particular played in promoting and maintaining the mythology and raison d'etre of the GDR as a bulwark against fascism, imperialism and capitalism. The reality of the International Brigades was that they were ideologues fighting in an ideological conflict; messy realities that did not jibe with the ideology were suppressed in official histories of the War, just as all nonconformities that deviated from the SED's socialist ideal were intimidated and harrassed out of existence. Nevertheless, by and large these mythologies about sacrificing Communist heroes were used right up to the Wende as support for an increasingly brittle regime. It was a testament to the abject failure of the GDR that they needed to use old men from a lost war 50 years past as models for The New Socialist Man. A must read for cold war fans. The length of the book was just right also.Most of the consumer Reviews tell that the "Antifascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the International Brigades 1945-1989 (Oxford Historical Monographs)" are high quality item. You can read each testimony from consumers to find out cons and pros from Antifascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the International Brigades 1945-1989 (Oxford Historical Monographs) ...

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