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The International Participation of Women in the Spanish Civil War: Searching for Traces in British Archives

Modern wars have global impacts. The war in Ukraine in particular has produced a large international solidarity movement. As a result, numerous international volunteers have travelled to Ukraine to take part in the war—including women. This fact has attracted a great deal of attention in international reporting since the beginning of the war. It still seems unusual to see women in the armed forces and in active warfare, especially when they are voluntarily participating in a war that does not directly affect them. This reveals gender stereotypes associated with war that go back many centuries: active men who protect their homeland, wives, and families vs passive women who dutifully care for their homes, children, and the wounded. As a result, women are denied political maturity, which has fatal consequences for their political role and rights of participation in times of war and peace alike.1

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  1. See e.g. Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining (eds.), A Companion to Women’s Military History (Leiden, 2012); Karen Hagemann, Stefan Dudink, and Sonya O. Rose (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Gender, War, and the Western World since 1600 (New York, 2020); Karen Hagemann and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.), Home/Front: The Military, War and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany (Oxford, 2002); Ute Frevert, Die kasernierte Nation: Militärdienst und Zivilgesellschaft in Deutschland (Munich, 2001). []

Who’s Responsible? ‘Illegitimate’ Children in England and Wales

Throughout time, the concept of ‘the family’ has had a variety of—often politicized—meanings in different parts of the world. In twentieth-century Britain, the nuclear ‘male breadwinner family’ remained the ideal, consisting of a father who provides for the family and a mother who raises the children and takes care of the household.

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Rethinking Transnational and Devolved (Hi)stories: German-Speaking Refugees from National Socialism in Wales

Part 3: The Kindertransport: Child Refugees to Wales

This is the third in a three-part series of blog posts. See also part one and part two.

Refugees under the age of 18 did not need a visa. They could either travel on their parents’ visa or, after November 1938, they could be part of an organized rescue scheme such as the Kindertransport. But unless they managed to travel with their family, and their family received support in one way or another, the minors’ opportunities for resettling in the UK were dependent on the support of sponsors, whether individuals or charities. The UK government facilitated the visa waiver scheme now known as the Kindertransport, but it did not support child refugees financially or organizationally.

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Rethinking Transnational and Devolved (Hi)stories: German-Speaking Refugees from National Socialism in Wales

Part 2: Artist Refugees in Wales

This is the second in a three-part series of blog posts. See also part one.

In the early years after 1933, and possibly also immediately after March 1939, most refugees tried to settle near either established Jewish communities or refugee or diasporic communities. Those with political affiliations sought to live where other members of the same political parties or groupings had established themselves. For religious Jewish refugees, a synagogue and an active congregation were obviously important. This meant that many areas of Wales were considered less attractive than the large urban centres of England. Only a few prominent refugees resettled in Wales—many of them after the outbreak of the Second World War, when pressures in the urban centres became unbearable.

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Rethinking Transnational and Devolved (Hi)stories: German-Speaking Refugees from National Socialism in Wales

Part 1: Refugees’ Work, Visas, and Lives in Wales

This is the first in a three-part series of blog posts on the migration history of Wales. In the first, I will set the scene, outlining the conditions under which German-speaking refugees lived and worked in Wales during the Second World War. In the second and third, I will focus on the experiences of two specific sub-groups: artists and children.

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The View from the Island: Britain’s Perception of the Franco-German Brigade

Formed in 1989, the Franco-German Brigade was the first operational military unit established in peacetime Europe whose soldiers were recruited permanently from two nations and whose units were constantly under binational command. It became an important part of multinational military cooperation in Europe, with the political ambition of Germany and France being the driving force behind European security and defence policy.

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The Spark of a Universal Uprising? Echoes of the Murder of Lord Moyne, 1944–5

Murder on Jabalya Street

Multiple shots were fired at Walter Guinness, better known as Lord Moyne, as his car was parking at his residence on Jabalya Street in Cairo. Later that day, on 6 November 1944, the British Minister Resident for the Middle East succumbed to his wounds. After a shoot-out with the Egyptian police, the two assassins, who had also killed Moyne’s driver, were apprehended. During their interrogation, they revealed their identity to be Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Beit Tzuri, Jewish inhabitants of Palestine in their early twenties. They declared themselves members of the militant underground organization Lehi—the Hebrew acronym for Loḥamey Ḥerut Isra’el or Fighters for the Freedom of Israel.

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Researching Religious Coloniality in East Africa: A Summer at the GHIL

Colonial Rule and Religious Resistance: My Research Project

My habilitation project, ‘“Arming the Natives and Inspiring Them to Resist German Influence”: Functions of Religion in Colonial Rule and Indigenous Resistance in German East Africa and Tanganyika (1885–1961)’, explores how religion functioned both as a tool of colonial domination and as a means of indigenous resistance. My research examines the period between 1885 and 1961, when German and British authorities used Christianity to establish their rule over present-day Tanzania.

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From Amboyna to Boston: How Massacres Become Media Events

Massacres and their staging in the media impact our everyday lives more than we realize. Whether it’s the latest news about the horrors unfolding in the Middle East or shocking images from Ukraine, the media coverage of these events is brought directly into our living rooms. This information penetrates deep into the collective memory of societies, as these incidents are not just local tragedies, but raise questions about humanity, responsibility, and international reactions.

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Compassion Mobilized: Antisemitism, Racism, and the Politics of Animal Welfare in Germany, 1945–2002

In Judaism, the protection of life, including animal welfare, is a biblical commandment, and only the meat of uninjured animals is considered kosher (prepared or kept in conditions that follow the rituals of Jewish law). The Jewish method of slaughter (schechtia) is carried out without prior stunning and is intended to ensure rapid loss of consciousness and maximal exsanguination of the animal. It is performed exclusively by a shochet, a religiously certified slaughterer whose training encompasses not only technical precision and physical skill, but also strict ethical and spiritual qualifications. The act involves a single, uninterrupted incision across the animal’s throat using a flawlessly smooth and extremely sharp knife (chalaf). This cut severs the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins, and major nerve pathways, leading to quick unconsciousness and substantial blood loss, as required by Jewish dietary law. Animals that are diseased, injured, or show internal defects are disqualified from kosher status. These conditions are identified during the ritual inspection (bedika), following which the meat may be certified as kosher if no disqualifying signs are found.

Common stunning methods, such as a percussive blow to the head or the use of a captive bolt, cause injury to the animal’s skull and are therefore deemed unacceptable by Jewish authorities. For over 150 years, significant segments of German majority society have rejected the Jewish method of slaughter, demonstrating hate and hostility. Since the Second German Empire, animal protection societies have mobilized against shechita, denouncing it as a ‘cultural disgrace’ and ‘Jewish cruelty to animals’. Although numerous independent experts have disproved the allegation of cruelty, these societies have persisted in their calls for obligatory stunning in German slaughterhouses. Antisemitic voices have swiftly echoed this demand, while the rhetoric of animal welfare activists is itself not devoid of antisemitic undertones.

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