HIST 334
From Habsburg to Hitler Spring 2015
Division II
Cross-listed JWST 335
This is not the current course catalog

This course comprises intertwined German, Czech, and Jewish case studies in the rich and tragic history of nationalist politics in Central and Eastern Europe. We will start in 1848, with the “Springtime of Nations,” and end in the late 1940s, with the imposition of Stalinist rule on a region recently purged of Jews through the Holocaust, then stripped of Germans through mass expulsion. The territorial focus is Bohemia and Moravia, historic lands that belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy until 1918, to the Czechoslovak Republic until 1938 or 1939, and to the Third Reich until 1945. Through peace and war, we will study the contrasting philosophies and tactics of German and Czech nationalist movements which grew as they competed for power. We will trace the responses of the small but significant Jewish minority, and explore the quite different attempts by national or nonnational states–a liberal monarchy, a democratic republic, a fascist dictatorship, and its postwar, anti-fascist successor–to manage national or “racial” conflict. Readings include a variety of primary sources: eyewitness accounts, inspired analysis, radical rants, law, secret documents, poetry, memoir, fiction, and more.