Conflicted Afterlives
Managing Wehrmacht Fallen Soldiers in the Soviet Occupation Zone and GDR
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10073284 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Laura Tradii (0000-0001-7438-4543, University of Kent, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 267-286 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00220094231151817 |
| OpenAlex | W4319319818 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
In the last months of the Second World War, as the Red Army approached Berlin, the Wehrmacht suffered catastrophic losses, resulting in thousands of war graves on East German soil. In the aftermath of the war, the Soviet Occupation Zone (1945–9) and the German Democratic Republic (1949–90) committed to a socialist ‘politics of history’ which centred on the liberation of Germany by the Red Army, disowning the German fallen. This article, based on my PhD research and current British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, outlines how the central authorities of the Soviet Occupation Zone and the GDR managed the thousands of German Wehrmacht war burials on East German territory. I focus, in particular, on how Wehrmacht war burials came to constitute political and ideological liabilities, prompting concerns about their appropriations by the German Lutheran Church and West Germany. In doing so, I uncover a little-known yet highly significant dimension of the transition between the Third Reich and the German Democratic Republic
Ancient history · Archaeology · Democracy · Economic history · Federal republic · German · Ideology · Nazi Germany · Political science · Politics · Spanish Civil War · World War II · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · German History and Society · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |