Jost Dülffer

German research on the First World War in a centenary perspective

The article demonstrates that the debate over World War I for more than one hundred years was of utmost importance for German self-understanding. The recent centenary publications underline this diagnosis and demonstrate that these discourses still dominate scholarly as well as public debates in Germany.

League Of Nations

The League of Nations was designed to be a voluntary association of the member states, establishing as organs a permanent Secretariat with its seat in Geneva, a League Assembly of the members and a League Council . With regard to the administration of territories as consequence of the Paris Peace Treaties, the German city Danzig was put as a Free City under the control of a High Commissioner of the League of Nations up to 1939. The mandatory system of the League of Nations, as laid down in Article 22 of the Covenant, was intended to prepare for independence the former possessions of the Ottoman Empire, as well the former German colonies. The League system became instrumental in world-wide rationalization and scientific discourse. Keywords: Geneva; German Empire; League of Nations; Paris Peace Treaty; United Nations

Cold War history in Germany

To deal with the development of Cold War history means to summarize a part of international debates. Nevertheless, the (West) German approach originally had much to do with Allied responsibility of the German question, meaning partition in two states and the possibilities of re-unification. This meant that Cold War history in most cases placed the German question in the centre of research. Only since the 1970s a broader approach not only to European and transatlantic aspects emerged, but also to the inclusion of a world wide view. This was accompanied by the reception and advancement of international methodological debates.