Transregional connections in the history of East Central Europe 9783110680430, 9783110680515, 9783110680560, 3110680432

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Transregional Connections in the History of East-Central Europe

Dialectics of the Global

Edited by Matthias Middell

Volume 9

Transregional Connections in the History of East-Central Europe Edited by Katja Castryck-Naumann

This cooperation project of the SFB 1199, the Leibniz ScienceCampus “Eastern Europe – Global Area”, and the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe has been funded by the DFG, the Leibniz Association, and the Free State of Saxony.

The publication is co-financed with tax revenues on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.

ISBN 978-3-11-068043-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-068051-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-068056-0 ISSN 2570-2289 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Design by Thomas Klemm, Leipzig. Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

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on three heuristic principles, the project group Ostmitteleuropa transnational has, as a first step, presented conclusions for the period between the middle of the nineteenth century and the First World War, and has outlined what a transna57 tional history of East-Central Europe in its global dimensions might look like. In parallel, we draw on the research that is being done at the Leibniz ScienceCampus Eastern Europe Global Area (EEGA) and in the Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe) at Leipzig Univ ersity. The research programme of EEGA, a research network comprising eight universities and non-university research institutes, analyses Eastern Europe s shifting role in globalization processes by asking how Eastern European societies are positi oning themselves in and towards global processes and conflicts. 58 ReCentGlobe is devoted to the interdisciplinary and historically informed study of globalization processes and globalization projects, with 59 a particular interest in forms of regionalization and transregional entanglements. Moving from transnational to transregional histories is promising but not without prerequisites. Language skills are necessary, allowing various archives found inside and outside the region to be interli nked; wherever contacts and exchanges reached, there might be documents. Yet, international archival studies are timeconsuming and costly. Additionally, the re is a growing literature in the field of global history as well as in research on other world regions that is relevant for comprehending the wider contexts of East-C entral European co nnectedness. Making use of this literature requires similar efforts as consulting relevant works in economics, sociology, cultural, and literar y studies, which historians use to analyse economic, social, and cultural processes. It is, however, equally rewarding to cross the boundaries to global history and the different area studies when they study African, Latin American, Asian, and Near Eastern connections in a transregional

See in particular the first of the three-volume Handbuch einer transnationalen Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas , edited by F. Hadler and M. Middell, Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017, but also the following works: S. Marung, and K. [Castryck-]Naumann (eds.), , Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014; M. HidvØgi, , Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016; S. Lemmen, , Kln: Bhlau, 2018; F. Hadler and M. Middell (eds.), (thematic issue of 20 [2010] 1 2); B. Hock, Wozu ein transnationaler Denkansatz in der Kunstgeschichte Ostmitteleuropas , in: Hackmann and Loew, , pp. 131 150. See the website https://www.leibniz-eega.de. This research programme was addressed during the joint annual meeting of the ScienceCampus EEGA and GWZO (2018), which is also when the idea for this volume was conceived. See the website www.recentglobe.uni-leipzig.de and the publications listed there.

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1 From Rejection to Forced Integration

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5 6 7

Business History Review Pharmacy in History The Challenges of Globalization: Economy and Politics in Germany, 1860

1914

Drogenkonsum und -kontrolle: Zur Etablierung eines sozialen Problems im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts

5 Transnational Drug Trafficking and the German Embrace

Drug Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century: An International History Cocaine: Global Histories The Deluge: The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order 1916

1931

International Organization International Diplomacy, State Administrators, and Narcotics Control: The Origins of a Social Problem Frieden durch Recht? Der Aufstieg des modernen Vlkerrechts und der Friedensschluss nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg

7 The Polyglot Background of Eastern Europe

s Jewish International Jurists

Jews to endeavour to secure the prosperity and well-being of the non-Jewish societies within which they dwell derives directly from the prophet Jeremiah s comBC): mandment to the first Jewish exiles in Babylon (576 Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem [. . .] to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive to Babylon [. . .] Thus saith the Lord [. . .] Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat their fruit [. . .] And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away cap24 tives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in its peace thereof shall you have peace.

Jeremiah s letter to the exiles of Babylon , as this passage came to be known, resonated with diasporic Jews through the ages. The Jews, so long as they dwelt amongst the gentiles, have a religious obligation ( Thus saith the Lord ) to do all in their power for the betterment and flourishment of their surroundings. It is worth noting here that to this day Jewish participation in the armed forces, for example, of the US or the UK, or indeed in the German armed forces during World War I draws its theological grounding from this decree by Jeremiah. The same goes for any religious Orthodox Jewish prayer offered in favour of the security and well-being of foreign heads of state, as in the common prayer held to this day for the health and security of the US president or the prayer for the Queen s well-being in the UK, as is said in all Orthodox synagogues across those countries. The Talmudic sages expanded upon Jeremiah s commandment and added to it the three oaths of the Tractate of Ketubot 111a ( ). The sages interpreted Jeremiah s decree as a two-way bond between Jews and gentiles, seeing as Jews would always remain a minority within their non-Jewish surroundings. The Jews would take three oaths: not to repossess the Land of Israel by force through unwarranted mass immigration, not to rebel against the world s nations, and not to attempt to forcefully cajole the coming of the Messiah. In return, the world s nations swore not to harm and persecute the Jews. Needless to say, the Talmudic sages were also exercising their fair share of wishful thinking in their interpretation here, as Jewish fanaticism and Rome s harsh retaliation during the destrucAD left harsh tion of the Second Temple and the exile during the second century psychological scars upon the sages. This measure of wishful thinking, of the

2015, pp. 239 266. On Raphael Lemkin s work in favour of Armenians, see Sands, pp. 141 191. On Rabbi Maurice Perlzweig and Peter Benenson s involvement in the establishment of Amnesty International, see J. Loeffler, New Haven: Yale Univers ity Press, 2018, pp. 215 229. 24 Jeremiah 29:7.

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members had the task of making as many W50 trucks as possible roadworthy again while training Angolan apprentices as truck drivers, mechanics, turners, 109 The best Angolan apprentices and other professions in the workshop area. were given the opportunity to complete training as master craftsmen in the GDR, highlighting the bidirectional flow of people. By 1989, over 300 Mozambicans and 85 Angolans worked as contract workers (Vertragsarbeiter ) in the automobile factories of the VEB Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde, primarily in the area for the final assembly of the W50 trucks. 110 The colonial legacy of a low education level an illiteracy rate of 8590 111 was per cent for Angola was estimated at the time of independence in 1975 mentioned as an enormous challenge for the vocational training by all brigade members: To offer insights into the black box of electrotechnics impossible, since it is already for me, an electrician, a black box, so how can you help someone like him [the Angolan apprentice] [. . .] what was just good, he was simply an intelligent guy who was also very skilled in craftsmanship and learned very quickly and wanted to learn [. . .] but I wouldn t say that it had anything to do with what we would have called training [ Ausbildung ], that s nonsense, that s over the top, because people sometimes had so few writing and numerical skills. 112

Moreover, due to the spontaneity of the dispatching of East Germans as Friendship Brigades to Angola, many brigadists lacked language skills in Portuguese, which greatly impaired their capacity to conduct the vocational work in the coffee sector and in the workshops, as the following quote makes clear:

109 SAPMO-BArch, DY 24/22234, Zwischenbericht ber den bisherigen Einsatz der FDJBrigaden des Ministeriums fr Allgemeinen Maschinen-, Landmaschinen- und Fahrzeugbau in der VR Angola (Stand per 1.2.1978) , 10 February 1978, annex 1. 110 Solidarische Verbundenheit mit Angola und Moambique , Neues Deutschland , 22 February 1989, p. 2. For a sophisticated portrayal of Angolan and Mozambican contract workers in the GDR, see the works of M. C. Schenck, From Luanda and Maputo to Berlin: Uncovering Angolan and Mozambican Migrants Motives to Move to the German Democratic Republic (1979 1990), African Economic History 44 (2016), pp. 202 234; M. C. Schenck, A Chronology of Nostalgia: Memories of Former Angolan and Mozambican Worker Trainees to East Germany, Labor History 59 (2018), pp. 352 74. See also U. van der Heyden, Das gescheiterte Experiment. Vertragsarbeiter aus Mosambik in der DDR-Wirtschaft (1979 1990) , Leipzig: Leipziger Universittsverlag, 2019. 111 R. Soares de Oliveira, Magnfica e MiserÆvel. Angola desde a guerra civil [Magnificent and Miserable. Angola since the Civil War], Lisboa: Tinta da China, 2015, p. 54. 112 Interview no. 2.