Dienstethos, Abenteuerlust, Bürgerpflicht

Unlike in Britain, the history of volunteering has not yet become a major field of enquiry in German historiography. This can partly be explained by a greater emphasis on voluntary action in British political discourse in the last years, most prominently exemplified by David Cameron’s plea for a ‘big society’. Christine Krüger’s Habilitation from the University of Oldenburg addresses the topic in a comparative study of voluntary youth service organizations (Jugendfreiwilligendienste) in the UK and West Germany. On the one hand, the book is an institutional history that examines the Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (FSJ, ‘Voluntary Social Year’) and Aktion Sühnezeichen (‘Campaign for Reconciliation/Atonement’) in the German case, and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and Community Service Volunteers (CSV) in the British case. On the other hand, Krüger integrates this institutional history into a much broader analysis of the changing political and social discourses on voluntary service in both post-war societies. According to her analysis, public debates about voluntary action can be read as a mirror of contemporary discourses about gender, youth, community, the welfare system and national identities and traditions. More particularly, these debates were often connected to ‘moral panics’ (p. 79) about national descent and a lack of initiative and social responsibility of contemporary youth.

German · Historiography · Plea · Political science · Politics · Sociology · European history and politics · European Law and Migration · Gender Studies · German Social Sciences and History · History · Law · Public Administration