Description
Book Synopsis"An important and fascinating study of the history of migration across Weimar Germany's eastern border that addresses a number of key aspects of the history of Weimar Germany."—Richard Bessel, University of York
Trade ReviewIn this excellent book, Annemarie H. Sammartino offers a lively transnational investigation of how a shifting eastern border and mass migration contributed to a 'crisis of sovereignty' in Germany during and immediately after the First World War.... She succeeds brilliantly not only in showing how Weimar was weakened by its inability to control its eastern border or achieve ideological coherence in its conception of people, state and territory, but also in explaining how for the political right-wing, the deceptively simple criterion of race and longing for a utopian east together led to an abandonment of territorial frontiers and the adoption of a new, ultimately destructive national project based on boundaries of blood.
-- Alexander Watson * German History *
Sammartino's title hardly does justice to the scope of her short but inspiring, well-written, well-researched, and thought-provoking work. As she explains, borders define differences determined by various mixtures of history, culture, and geography. Sammartino tests Hannah Arendt's theory of totalitarianism as a transnational form of analysis through the lens of the fluidity of borders throughout eastern Europe during and after WWI. Where context defines borders, German victory in the East inspired hope in an expanded German state, whereas defeat redefined the East as a final frontier to escape the ignominy of Germany's postwar collapse.... Summing up: Highly recommended.
* Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Crisis of Sovereignty
1. "German Brothers": War and Migration
2. "Now We Were the Border": The Freikorps Baltic Campaign
3. Socialist Pioneers on the Soviet Frontier: Ansiedlung Ost
4. "We Who Suffered Most": The Immigration of Germans from Poland
5. "A Flooding of the Reich with Foreigners": The Frustrations of Border Control
6. Anti-Bolshevism and the Bolshevik Prisoners of War
7. "A Firm Inner Connection to Germany": Naturalization Policy
8. Tolerance and Its Limits: Russians, Jews, and Asylum
Conclusion: The Legacy of CrisisAppendix: Maps—
German Gains in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk March
Prospective German Settlements in the Former Russian Empire
German Territorial Losses after World War IBibliography
Index
