The NSA: the impact of the wiretapping scandal on German-American relations. OSW Commentary No. 124, 14.01.2014

Edward Snowden revealed that America’s National Security Agency (NSA) had tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone and had collected date en masse. This has caused the largest crisis of confidence in relations between Germany and the US since the Iraq war. Due to the technological advantage which American intelligence services have, Germany wishes to continue close co-operation with the US but is making efforts to change the legal basis of this co-operation dating back to Cold War times. Berlin would like to secure part of provisions similar to the Five Eyes alliance – agreements signed between the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia in the second half of the 1940s, aimed at intelligence sharing and a ban mutual bugging. This could spell the end of the last (not including the military presence) relic of Germany’s dependence on the US which emerged following World War II and took shape in the shadow of the Cold War. The process of Germany’s emancipation in trans-Atlantic relations, which began after Germany’s reunification, would be complete. The US is however opposed to such far-reaching changes as it is interested in continued co-operation with Germany without limiting it. Were it not to sign agreements satisfactory for Berlin, this would lead to a protracted crisis of confidence in German-American relations.

German-American relations : a selective bibliography /

Mode of access: Internet.

Jiddisch - niederdeutsche Sprachbeziehungen in Ostfriesland:Low German language relations in East Frisia

Recently discovered sources indicate that the Jewish population of East Frisia in Northwest Germany used a variety based on Western Yiddish as an in-group vernacular well into the 20th century. The East Frisian Jewish variety shows contact-induced traces of Low German, mainly in the lexicon but also in a number of morphological structures. This study does not only analyzes the influence of Low German on the East Frisian Jewish variety but also asks the question, whether three hundred years of language contact have led to traces of the Jewish variety in east Frisian Low German.

La politique russe de l'Allemagne sous la chancellerie de Gerhard Schröder : vers un partenariat renforcé ?

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Reprisals remembered: German-Greek conflict and car sales during the Euro crisis

During the Greek debt crisis after 2010, the German government insisted on harshausterity measures. This led to a rapid cooling of relations between the Greekand German governments. We compile a new index of public acrimony betweenGermany and Greece based on newspaper reports and internet search terms. Thisinformation is combined with historical maps on German war crimes during theoccupation between 1941 and 1944. During months of open conflict between Germanand Greek politicians, German car sales fell markedly more than those of cars fromother countries. This was especially true in areas affected by German reprisals duringWorldWar II: areas where German troops committed massacres and destroyed entirevillages curtailed their purchases of German cars to a greater extent during conflictmonths than other parts of Greece. We conclude that cultural aversion was a keydeterminant of purchasing behavior, and that memories of past conflict can affecteconomic choices in a time-varying fashion. These findings are compatible withbehavioral models emphasizing the importance of salience for individual decision-making.

The German reaction to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict- shock and disbelief. OSW Commentary No. 132, 03.04.2014

The crisis in Ukraine and the Russian intervention have brought about a situation in which it is necessary for Germany to make decisions and take action. No one in Berlin was prepared for this nor did anyone want this to occur. The effect of this is that the government has adopted a clearly critical stance on Russia, albeit in tandem with cautious diplomatic moves; it has given its consent to limited sanctions on representatives of the Russian elite, and has disapproved of economic sanctions. On the other hand, voices have been heard in the political debate in Germany not only warning of the catastrophic consequences of a deterioration in German-Russian relations but also those in fact expressing understanding for the Russian reaction. Although it is typical above all of the business circles engaged in Russia and the authors of Germany’s Ostpolitik to downplay the Kremlin’s moves, political parties and the German public are divided over how Germany should respond to Moscow’s policy, and this dispute will worsen. Berlin will take a whole array of actions to de-escalate the conflict, since the imposition of radical political and economic sanctions on Russia would also have a strong adverse effect on Germany. As regards sanctions, Germany would not only sustain economic losses, but they would also undermine the ideological foundations for the still popular vision for Germany’s strategy towards Russia in which great emphasis is laid on a strong “respect for the EU’s most important neighbour and its interests”.

Frontline agents of globalisation:the German merchant community in Glasgow, 1840s to 1914

During the second half of the nineteenth century, a German business community of about one hundred merchants and commercial clerks developed in Glasgow. Their trade networks extended not only to Germany but also to other world markets. The main arguments and findings of the microhistorical analysis include: numbers were significantly higher than previously assumed; endogenous recruitment based on ethnic and family ties was prevalent; migrants benefited from their migration-induced social capital (training, languages, intercultural competence) to fill a skills-gap in Britain; labour market competition at the junior career level was less pronounced than contemporaneous assessments suggested; naturalisation was taken out for purely pragmatic reasons; there was a sense of community at intra-ethnic level, but also with the local business elite. The case study is embedded into the larger context of Anglo-German economic relations and globalisation. A purely local perspective does not suffice to do justice to the wider significance of expatriate business communities in an age of economic globalisation.

Joseph Mainzer (1801-1851) and the popularisation of choral singing in Britain

Singing master Joseph Mainzer came to England in 1841 as a political refugee from Germany. Through his music schools, his textbook Singing for the Million, and his journal Mainzer’s Musical Times (today The Musical Times) he contributed significantly to the popularisation of choral singing in Britain. This essay takes Mainzer’s political background as a starting point to investigate the complex relationship between refuge and artistic production. It is argued that the latter was deeply informed by the former. Mainzer not only transferred choral traditions but also a politicised concept of popular culture which started to take hold in pre-revolutionary Vorma¨rz-Germany. The case study is integrated into the larger framework of Anglo-German cultural relations and political refuge in mid-nineteenth century Britain.

The continuing relevance of Germany's engine for CEE andthe EU

The article looks first into the nature of the relations between Germany and the CEE countries a decade since the accession of the CEE countries to the EU. The relations are characterized as normalised and intensive with diverse levels of closeness and co-operation reflecting of the conceptual and ideological compatibility/differences. Next, the article focuses on the German attitude to the euro zone crisis. Germany has become a hegemon in the rescue effort aimed at stabilisation and economic invigoration of the euro zone. However, German hegemony has developed by default, not by design: her leading position is linked with considerable political and financial costs. Germany moved central stage and took the position of a reluctant hegemon. However, German role is contested internationally (it has not the support of the French government in key areas) as well as internally (particularly by the Federal Constitutional Court and the Bundesbank).The article argues that the new situation makes the German-CEE relations increasingly relevant for both sides. The German leadership of the EU increasing split along the north-south divide requires backing by the Northern group countries to which the CEE in general belongs. Given a number of reasons the CEE countries implement three distinctive strategies of co-operation with Germany in European politics. Also military co-operation, which remained rather limited so far, may receive new impulses, given the financial austerity. © 2013 The Regents of the University of California.

Crisis y creación. Las ambivalentes relaciones germano-españolas en la producción cinematográfica de la primera mitad del siglo veinte

Las épocas de crisis político-social propician en especial medida la creación y el afianzamiento de determinados auto y heteroestereotipos. Esta afirmación resulta concluyente cuando se analiza cómo las distintas fases políticas de España a lo largo de la historia han condicionado de manera definitiva su imagen en el extranjero, en especial en Alemania. Las imágenes y estereotipos románticos creados a partir de la Guerra de la Independencia (1808-1814) sirvieron durante la primera mitad del siglo veinte de instrumento de manipulación propagandística que debía contribuir a ensalzar la ejemplaridad del aliado español. Este artificio político, que buscaba la simpatía ideológica con el sistema de valores nacionalsocialista, se valió de manera particular de las producciones cinematográficas hispano-alemanas para lograr su objetivo.

Testing native speakers of German and Portuguese on the understanding of topological operators-line-region relations in gvSIG

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies