Announcements (old announcements move to bottom, where there are also visitor statistics)

• July 11, 2008: This page has been decommissioned prior to my Fall 2008 offering. It is superceded by the most current course homepage.
• Nov. 4, 2007: student essay upload page now available for testing; excellent master page of reviews of the DHM German history exhibition at zeitgeschichte-online.
• June 20, 2007: The grade distribution for Spring 2007 Hist 133c is:

  # students	86-89pts=B+   6	77     pts=C+   3	D   0
  94-107pts=A  14	84      pts=B     2	70-74pts=C     6	F    0
  90-93pts = A-  4	79-81pts=B-    7	64      pts=C-   1	incomplete:     0	total:  43

  The mean (average) grade was 86.0, and the median was 87.
  If you are dissatisfied with your grade, please note that I grade your work, not you. For reevaluation of work, please see my note on grading, below.
• June 14, 2007: I've finished uploading the web essays with links from the essay index page.
  • If you did the web essay, you should now check your individual essay:
    1. Find the link to your essays, making sure I've spelled your name and listed your book correctly (I did shorten some titles on purpose so they'd fit);
    2. Follow the link and then check all of the links on your page itself, including the amazon link in the navbar at top, and especially the links in the Bibliography and Links section near the bottom. (I did have to change the formatting on some of these, and I removed the access date, since you're not citing the page.)
    3. Note whether your name and the book author appear in the title bar of your browser (the bar across the top of that window).
    4. Proofread your essay for spelling or formatting errors. If you find any, please note the first 3 words of the paragraph in which the error occurs when you notify me.
    5. Notify me of what you find--even if there are no errors. That e-mail to me will be the all-clear signal that you get the appropriate credit for the assignment.
  • For those of you taking the final, good luck, and I hope to see you in my office when you drop it off on Thursday. There is no time limit, but it is designed to be done in 3 hours.
  • For everyone: Have a good summer!

Mary Fulbrook: History of Germany, 1918-2000 amazon $30 used, $39 new 1st ed. ok: amazon $5 used, $30 new	Bernhard Schlink: The Reader amazon $4 used, $11 new Study guide	Timothy Garton Ash: The File: A Personal History amazon $10 used, $12 new ($6 hardcov.)	No Reader in 2007: texts will be on eres or this website.

• Textbook: Mary Fulbrook, The Divided Nation: A History of Germany, 1918-1990 (1992). [$5/30 at amazon] DD240.F85 1992 [full text on-line through UCSB library]
  • Excellent textbook starting in 1918 but focusing on the post-1945 period.
• Bernhard Schlink, The Reader [person who reads aloud] (Vintage, 1995), 224 pages.
  • Fictional story of a young boy seduced by an older woman in 1950s West Germany. Many years after the woman's mysterious disappearance, the young law student learns about what she did under Nazism.
• Timothy Garton Ash: The File: A Personal History (Random House, 1997), 256 pages
  • A historian/journalist who worked in East Germany and Poland in the 1980s returns after the fall of the wall to read the file the Stasi kept about him.

Course Description and Goals (back to top)

Prior to 1945 Germany was the primary instigator of two world wars and the perpetrator of the most carefully organized and institutionalized genocide in the history of the world. However, within a decade its western part was one of the Western alliance's most reliable allies, while its eastern part was an crucial part of the security buffer Stalin had created for the Soviet Union. West Germany was a "bastion of democracy" buffering capitalist western from communist eastern Europe, while East Germany was a laboratory experiment in "real existing socialism" under the constraints of Cold War competition. By the late 1960s, one of the best organized grassroots movements in European history began to emerge in the West, entering mainstream politics as the Green party in the 1970s. A highly effective state security apparatus stifled civic activism in the East until the late 1980s, but then it burst forth in a sudden, peaceful revolution that felled the government in 10 months.

Research shows that a few months after taking a course most students remember only 8-15% of the factual material from that course. Thus I try to emphasize themes and skills that may have more lasting value. In this course we will practice applying concepts and interpreting evidence to draw conclusions about the causes and consequences of historical developments in recent German history.

Some useful sites and interesting links (back to top)

• German News--daily translations of news shorts from Germany that you can have e-mailed to yourself
  (The Germany Embassy in Washington's This Week in Germany is similar, but weekly.)
• German-English dictionaries: LEO and TU-Chemnitz; babelfish gives rough translations
• The German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin has lots of mages and documents in its collection.
• East German propaganda documents, at an excellent site created in 1999 by Randall Bytwerk at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, author of Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic (2004; $17 at amazon).
• Germany-Info.org, maintained by the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., has fact sheets, a timeline, a historical overview (3 parts about 1945-present on right), and some historical features, such as on unification.
  Not to miss: the newsletter archive, cultural archive, archives of speeches since 1996-- it's endless!
• The US Embassy in Germany has a "History of German-American Relations" site with great documents from 1683 to the present, easily navigable with great e-texts (some are in my Hist 133c course reader) and links.
• Nicely illustrated short lecture series by Adolph Hoffman, a German instructor at Santa Rosa Jr. College, on "Berlin and the Two Germanies, 1945-1989."
• The US State Department has documents from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) about Germany and Berlin online (1964-1968 link).

Materials from Prof. Marcuse's 1998-2006 Hist 133c courses (back to top)

• Fall  1998:     homepage; syllabus
• Winter 2000: homepage; syllabus
• Winter 2004: homepage; syllabus;
• Winter 2006: homepage; syllabus; exam study guide; student book review index page

Grading policies (back to top)

Grading can serve many purposes. Among them are: motivating students to engage with the material (by providing feedback and rewarding effort), assessing how well students have done the assigned work, and ranking students relative to each other.
I personally dislike assigning grades. I'm interested in what you have to say, and want you to put in the effort to develop interesting thoughts and express them well. I hope you will be motivated to learn enough factual material to have a solid basis from which you can develop your thoughts. If you need the prospect of a better grade to do the learning and thinking, fine. For various reasons, I have to grade to assess your work anyway (if I write letters of recommendation, for instance, I need some data on relative strengths and weaknesses, and effort expended). The grade distributions I give my courses are also monitored by the department and the University. (see grade distributions for some of my other lecture courses: 33d-02, 33d-03)
My bottom line: I want the grades I give to be a FAIR reflection of the effort (attendance, doing assignments, meeting deadlines) and learning (content of submitted work) you show, and to give a rough indication of where you stand on those factors relative to others in the class.

• Mar. 29, 2006: Here is the distribution of grades for the 2006 course according to the raw point scores (see note on grading, below):

  # students	87-89pts=B+   6	77-78pts=C+   2	62-67pts=D   2
  93-100pts=A    6	83-86pts=B     2	71-76pts=C     3	F    1
  90-91pts=A-    2	79-82pts=B-    5	68-70pts=C-   1	incomplete:     1	total:  31

• Mar. 23, 2004: Here is the distribution of grades for the 2004 course according to the raw point score without the participation grade (95 possible points [well 101, if you count the double extra credit for the outside events]):

  # students	86-85pts=B+     2	75-71pts=C+   4	D   0
  94-90pts=A    5	84-80pts=B      10	70-62pts=C     2	D-  0	graduate student: 1
  89-87pts=A-   5	79-76pts=B-      4	pts=C-   0	F    0	total:   33

• Interested in grade inflation since the 1970s, all across the USA?
  Check out this website: www.gradeinflation.com. On the second-to-last graph, the one with the scattered points, you'll find UCSB below the blue line at the 10-year time span. The researcher got data from UCSB's Office of Budget and Planning showing that our campus GPA went from 2.84 in 1994 to 2.93 in 1999.

If you are think your grade does not reflect your work and effort:

• First, please note that I grade YOUR WORK, not you.
• If you feel that the grade you received on your paper or exam does not correspond to the quality of work that you submitted, or the effort you put into it, you have two options:
  1. Print out, complete, and submit the following Grade Change Application Form ;-),
     OR:
  2. Write a page (or paragraph, whatever it takes) explaining WHY you think your work is better than the grade assigned to it. Please refer to the appropriate assignment sheet (for book essays and web projects), and make sure you did the assignment.
     • Then resubmit the work in question with your explanation, and I will regrade it and get back to you.
     • Be sure to put some contact address on your explanation sheet, so that I can be in touch with you.
     • Note that I reserve the right to lower your grade, if I feel that is warranted by closer examination

Picking up your work

I keep all student work for at least one quarter after the course is over. If you would like to pick up your work, please come to my office. During my office hours is usually best for me, but if you would like your work left in an envelope in the envelope outside my door, or to arrange a different pick-up time, send me an e-mail or leave a note.

Old Announcements (back to top)

• Jan. 5, 2004: The readings for Jan. 7 are also available on-line: poem "The Master Race"; H-German discussion comparing Iraq in 2003 and Germany in 1945
• Apr. 2, 2004: The German film Goodbye Lenin just opened in Santa Barbara. It is a wonderful comedy that turns the fall of the Berlin wall on its head (the Westerners flood eastward!). A must-see for students in this course--you'll recognize much of the documentary footage we saw. Here are some links: Internet Movie Data Base plot summary; trailer (on apple website); German homepage
• Sept. 29, 2004: I found an interesting teaching site developed since 1999 by a German teacher teaching at an elite school in Korea, "WHKMLA," hosted by the Center for Instructional Media in Germany. It is in English, and especially the links seem to be unique (they go beyond the usual).
• Nov. 11, 2004: Was Ronald Reagan the "real" cause of the fall of the Berlin Wall? In an op-ed piece in the LA Times "It was Reagan who tore down that wall," conservative historian Dinesh D'Souza argues he was. My and other letters to the editor argue he wasn't.
  So: What evidence does D'Souza present to make his case? What did cause the fall of the wall?
• July 27, 2005: Deutsche Welle's Dummy's Guide to German Elections is quite good.
• July 19, 2005: Nicely illustrated blog entry by Norman Birnbaum summarizing the summer 2005 political situation in Germany. Gives concise background information.
• Jan. 30, 2006: going through your book proposals, I find that 6 students have chosen to do the Stasi, based on the same two books (Funder and Koehler). I'd like to propose some alternatives that you can look into:
  • Timothy Garton Ash, The File (amazon)
  • Mike Dennis, Norman Laporte, The Stasi: Myth and Reality (amazon)
  • Dirk Philipsen, Voices from East Germany's Revolutionary Autumn of 1989 (amazon)
  • Peter Marcuse, A Personal and Political Journal of a Year in East Germany, 1989-1990 (amazon & UCSB library )
  • Robert Darnton, Berlin Journal, 1989-1990 (UCSB library)
  • Jonathan Grix. The Role of the Masses in the Collapse of the GDR (amazon)
  • A. James McAdams, Judging the Past in Unified Germany (amazon)
• • "The Promise" (imdb page)
• Feb. 13, 2006: On Wednesday, 2/15, Prof. Ursula Mahlendorf will come to our class to read portions of her memoir that she is still writing, and to answer questions and discuss issues that arise. Here are the chapters she will read from, which are also the texts for the extra credit assignment due Wednesday:
  • [for background, see this introduction (2 single-spaced pages)]
  • Memoir chapter 8: The Russian Invasion (18 pages)
  • Memoir chapter 9: Silesia becomes Polish (19 pages)
  • Extra credit: Read chapters 8 and 9, and type 4 questions you would like to ask Prof. Mahlendorf. You should ask some of these, and hand them in at the end of class (typed only). Worth the same as a "Q": up to 4 points.
• Feb. 21, 2006: I'm trying something new--doing my usual midterm course evaluation on-line.
  • Please take the Hist 133c midterm evaluation survey. [3/3/06: results reported in L21]
  • There are 10 radio button questions, 1 required text box, and 3 optional text boxes.
    [note 3/3/06: put all optional at end--otherwise empty cells in .csv export file]
  • The survey results page can be accessed publicly. (I've never done this before, so I don't know what it will look like...) [note 2/27: output is a real pain. I'm still tweaking it in excel.]
  • Please do this asap--I would really appreciate hearing from the whole class by Thursday, Feb. 23. Thank you!
• Feb. 27, 2006: The reading for Wed., Mar. 1, is available as scanned images; more easily printable OCR text will be available soon.
  • Dirk Philipsen, "The Troubled Emergence of an Idea" (1993), scans of pages 35-55. (easier for on-screen reading, but won't print well)
  • If you want to print it, use this OCR text of pp. 35-55. (my browser prints it on 17 pages)
• Feb. 24, 2007: Enrollment for this spring is limited to 40 and has been closed, so no one will be able to register (only to drop), until the first day of class. As of today there are 3 people on the waiting list, and 2 spaces have already opened up. E-mail me to get on the list.
  • The course themes for Spring 2007 will be: "The Stasi and the Greens," with emphases on the surveillance state and the environmental movement.
  • The course books are:
    

    Mary Fulbrook: History of Germany, 1918-2000 amazon $30 used, $39 new 1st ed. ok: amazon $5 used, $30 new	Bernhard Schlink: The Reader amazon $4 used, $11 new	Timothy Garton Ash: The File: A Personal History amazon $10 used, $12 new ($6 hardcov.)	Course Reader:

• March 22, 2007: The waitlist now has 8 students on it. The course is closed, so you need to e-mail me if you want to be added.
• April 2, 2007: 2007 syllabus now available. The course is full, and there are 14 students on the waiting list, 4 of them with priority reasons. (So chances for anyone else at this point are nil.)
• April 4, 2007: Q1 is due on Friday at the start of class. I prefer that it be typed, unless your handwriting is *very* neat. Here is the question:
  • Based on Fulbrook, chaps. 1 and 14: What are the four main factors that explain the patterns of stability and change in 20th century German History?(Write a sentence or so explaining each; you might come up with five or six, although she mentions 4 explicitly several times.)
  • Several students have reported problems obtaining the textbook.
    This afternoon I requested that all of the books be put on reserve, but who knows how long that will take. For now, it is easy to use the library's ebook copy, if you are on campus (or know how to set up your computer's browser as a "proxy server"--instructions are on the library website--this makes the library think you are on campus):
    <http://www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summary&v=1&bookid=53374>
    The only problem is, if someone else is already looking at the book, you can't access it. But you sign up to be notified when it becomes available. I tried but found I could NOT copy the text and paste it into a document for later viewing. Chaps. 1 & 14 in that 1992 edition are pages: 1-14 and 349-369. Please be considerate and close the viewer as soon as you are done, so that others can use the book.
• April 5, 2007: You can also access the course textbook on amazon: 2002 edition (pp. 1-11 & 285-301). Searching for the keyword "external" will let you enter at pp. 2 and 6 (and browse in both directions), "inherited" will give you p. 9. "Dahrendorf" will give you 286 & 287; Junkers gives 288 (and back to 286); intelligentsias 295, wartorn 299 (297-301). Good luck!
  • PS. Films on Apr. 30/May 1 and June 4 & 5 will be in HSSB 4020, Mondays 6:30pm, Tue. 6pm.
• April 12, 2007: Q2 is due Friday. Look up on the internet or in reference works any two of the names following the groups corresponding to your last name in the alphabet. Write a few sentences on what the two post-1945 German politicians did during the Nazi era? (You should know what they did afterwards, but I want to read only what you found out about their Nazi activities.) If you add the website URL where you found the best information, that would be nice. Here are the groups:
  1. Names A-F: Konrad Adenauer, Kurt Schumacher, Willy Brandt
  2. Names G-K: Theodor Oberländer, Kurt Kiesinger, Hans Globke
  3. Names L-P: Hans-Jochen Vogel, Helmut Schmidt, Franz-Josef Strauss, Hans Filbinger
  4. Names R-Y: Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, Erich Honecker, Erich Mielke
  • Note: If I gave different letter groups in class and you've already researched your politicians, don't worry. I simply forgot to write down where I divvied up the alphabet.
• Apr. 16, 2007: Q3 is due Wednesday:
  • Select one quotation from each of 3 sections of The Reader, and:
    -explain why selected, or: -what significant issue it raises.
• Apr. 16, 2007: Film Walk on Water, Tues. 7pm, Corwin Pavillion + discussion with director. (103 mins.; imdb)
• Apr. 16, 2007: Some syllabus announcements:
  • The reading by Prof. Mahlendorf assigned for later this week is postponed. She will visit our class on Monday, April 30, so the chapters by Prof. Mahlendorf are assigned for the weekend of Apr. 28.
  • The reading for Monday, May 7 (visit by Prof. Judaken): Horkheimer & Adorno on antisemitism, is now on ERes at the library. Password is road.
• Apr. 16, 2007: The German department has organized a film series this quarter, which has several films of interest to this course:
  • Wednesday, April 18, at 7:00 p.m. in the Theatre & Dance Building 1701.
    Sophie Scholl: The Last Days Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film. (2005).
    Recreation of student resistor's interrogation prior to her execution in Feburary 1943. (120 mins; imdb; Wikipedia on Sophie)
  • THURSDAY, MAY 3 "AIMEE AND JAGUAR" HSSB 1173, 7:00PM
    A lesbian relationship in wartime Berlin (1999). (125 min; imdb)
  • WEDNESDAY, MAY 16 "THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM" THEATER & DANCE BUILDING 1701, 7:00PM (106 mins; imdb, wikipedia)
    A young German woman falls in love with a man who turns out to be a terrorist. (1975).
  • THURSDAY, MAY 31 "THE NASTY GIRL" HSSB 1173, 7:00PM
    When a young woman investigates her town's Nazi past, the community turns against her. (Comedy, Drama, 1991). (92 mins., imdb)
  • Join us each night before the film for Kaffeestunde at Nicoletti's (in the UCen), 5:30-6:30PM
• Apr. 21, 2007: The Book Essay handout is now available. Note that the proposal due date has been extended until Wednesday, Apr. 25. Also, be sure to finish reading textbook chapter 6 for Monday. I have not finished updating the Book List yet.
• Apr. 22, 2007, 5pm : The Suggested Books for Essay page is in the process of updating, but you can use whatever you find there.
• Apr. 25, 2007, 6pm: Q4 due Friday: From Fulbrook chap. 7, name the *5* events *1949-1960* that you think are most important in cementing the division of Germany.State briefly the role each played. (5 bulleted sentences)
• Apr. 28, 2007: Q5 due Monday: Based on the introduction, recommended (chap. 3=1938-40, chap. 4=1940-42) , and required (chap. 8=1945, chap. 9=1945-46) reading, write 3-4 questions to ask Prof. Mahlendorf. Best is if you clip a short quotation from the text on which your question is based, and include it with each question. Be sure to complete reading at least chaps. 8 and 9! Prof. Mahlendorf will be our guest on Monday.
  • Don't forget that the required film The Promise will be this Monday evening, Apr. 30.
• May 4, 2007: Q6 due Monday: Based on the 1944/47 Horkheimer & Adorno text on eres (password: road), give 5 short quotations indicating each of the EIEIO causes of antisemitism. Dr. Judaken will be our guest speaker on Monday, so please be prepared with questions about that text.
• May 9, 2007: Paper extension option. After having given this more thought, this is how it will work. Since submitting a paper on Monday would normally be 4 days late and subject to a reduction of 4 points, cancelling the 5-points for the revised version would be unduly harsh. Also, I want you to resubmit that version anyway. SO: I will give a one day "grace period" and only assess -3 pts. if you turn it in on Monday at 11am. This would basically be the same as the allowance to submit on Friday until 5pm without penalty. HOWEVER: the Friday grace period will only apply to those who come to class that day and sign in for it. (No license to miss class.)
  • In sum, there are three options:
    1) submit Friday at 11am as the syllabus says, no special arrangements. Earn my gratitude.
    2) submit Friday by 5pm w/o penalty IF you sign in on a list in class Friday, 5/11.
    3) submit Monday at 11am IF your name is on today's list, for only a 3 pt. late penalty.
    I will try to get the Monday papers back by 5/21, in case you qualify for the web option.
  • Note further: the ENTIRE 6-7 paper is due now, NOT just the 1-2 page summary.
• May 16, 2007: Midterm survey. As announced in an e-mail yesterday, if at least 38 students take the 2007 midterm survey, it will count as Q7 for everyone.
• Extra credit opportunity: attend the following film tonight and do a short write-up of your thoughts on it: Wednesday, May 16 "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" Theater & Dance Building 1701, 7:00PM (106 mins; imdb, wikipedia).
  A young German woman falls in love with a man who is suspected of being a terrorist, and the tabloid press hounds her and everyone who knows her. (1975).
• May 21, 2007: Q8 may be due on Wed., May 23. It will be based on Dirk Philipsen's 1990 interviews with Frank Eigenfeld and Harald Wagner (available as pdf on eres, password road; and as text and images on this site). The pdf is the best for printing.
• May 23, 2007: Q8 is due on Friday. Based on Philipsen's interviews with Eigenfeld and Wagner (on the web: see May 21 announcement):
  • for each dissident, name the 3 most important motivations why they became dissidents, with brief explanation why it was important for them (6 bullet points).
  • You should also start reading The File over the weekend. It is a relatively fast-paced read, but may be hard to fit in during next week. We will discuss it next Friday.
• June 1, 2007: Q9 is due today (Friday) . In preparation for a discussion of The File, name 6 Stasi IMs/employees, stating who each was and why they spied.
  • pdf of 1989 Timeline handout available (copies will be distributed in class)
• June 6, 2007: Ok, the 2007 final exam is available. I must say that I'm somewhat disappointed that so many of you are so eager to get it before the last class, all the while saying attendance Friday will be low. Anyway, the last lecture will contain much of the answer to the essay question. And I'll pass out hard copies of the exam in lecture.
  • Regarding Q10, by my count 12 students haven't seen Good Bye Lenin! (10 saw it Monday, 6 on their own, 17 Wednesday evening). I'll give automatic full credit to everyone on a sign-up sheet, or who've confirmed to me that they've seen it. (No need to submit anything written; if you saw it on your own since Wednesday morning, see me before or after class Friday and I'll ask you a question about it to confirm.)
  • If you can't see the film, as an alternative you can answer the following question based on Fulbrook chapter 14, due Friday in class:
    Q10 alternative: Describe briefly but specifically how each of four main factors contributed to stability or change in post-1945 East Germany only. (Sound like Q1? It should! But now you should know some depth for your answer.) Be sure to specify which elite(s) played a role.
• June 12, 2007: I'm starting to upload the 22 web option papers: index page; template.
• June 13, 2007: 2:30pm--12 papers are uploaded. When I'm done I'll send instructions on how to check the links so that you'll get full credit for the web option.
  • I've received some questions about point totals and grading. Since I grade on a curve, the best guideline is to look at my past point distributions and the grades they received, in the grading section, below. For instance, 80 points was a B in 2004, but a B- in 2006.