The Language of Human Rights in West Germany

The Language of Human Rights in West Germany PDF Author: Lora Wildenthal
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812207297
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Human rights language is abstract and ahistorical because advocates intend human rights to be valid at all times and places. Yet the abstract universality of human rights discourse is a problem for historians, who seek to understand language in a particular time and place. Lora Wildenthal explores the tension between the universal and the historically specific by examining the language of human rights in West Germany between World War II and unification. In the aftermath of Nazism, genocide, and Allied occupation, and amid Cold War and national division, West Germans were especially obliged to confront issues of rights and international law. The Language of Human Rights in West Germany traces the four most important purposes for which West Germans invoked human rights after World War II. Some human rights organizations and advocates sought to critically examine the Nazi past as a form of basic rights education. Others developed arguments for the rights of Germans—especially expellees—who were victims of the Allies. At the same time, human rights were construed in opposition to communism, especially with regard to East Germany. In the 1970s, several movements emerged to mobilize human rights on behalf of foreigners, both far away and inside West Germany. Wildenthal demonstrates that the language of human rights advocates, no matter how international its focus, can be understood more fully when situated in its domestic political context.

The Language of Human Rights in West Germany

The Language of Human Rights in West Germany PDF Author: Lora Wildenthal
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812207297
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Human rights language is abstract and ahistorical because advocates intend human rights to be valid at all times and places. Yet the abstract universality of human rights discourse is a problem for historians, who seek to understand language in a particular time and place. Lora Wildenthal explores the tension between the universal and the historically specific by examining the language of human rights in West Germany between World War II and unification. In the aftermath of Nazism, genocide, and Allied occupation, and amid Cold War and national division, West Germans were especially obliged to confront issues of rights and international law. The Language of Human Rights in West Germany traces the four most important purposes for which West Germans invoked human rights after World War II. Some human rights organizations and advocates sought to critically examine the Nazi past as a form of basic rights education. Others developed arguments for the rights of Germans—especially expellees—who were victims of the Allies. At the same time, human rights were construed in opposition to communism, especially with regard to East Germany. In the 1970s, several movements emerged to mobilize human rights on behalf of foreigners, both far away and inside West Germany. Wildenthal demonstrates that the language of human rights advocates, no matter how international its focus, can be understood more fully when situated in its domestic political context.

Human Rights Activism in Occupied and Early West Germany

Human Rights Activism in Occupied and Early West Germany PDF Author: Lora Wildenthal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 556

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Book Description


The Human Rights Dictatorship

The Human Rights Dictatorship PDF Author: Ned Richardson-Little
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108424678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Richardson-Little exposes the forgotten history of human rights in the German Democratic Republic, placing the history of the Cold War, Eastern European dissidents and the revolutions of 1989 in a new light. By demonstrating how even a communist dictatorship could imagine itself to be a champion of human rights, this book challenges popular narratives on the fall of the Berlin Wall and illustrates how notions of human rights evolved in the Cold War as they were re-imagined in East Germany by both dissidents and state officials. Ultimately, the fight for human rights in East Germany was part of a global battle in the post-war era over competing conceptions of what human rights meant. Nonetheless, the collapse of dictatorship in East Germany did not end this conflict, as citizens had to choose for themselves what kind of human rights would follow in its wake.

White Paper on the Human Rights Situation in Germany and of the Germans in Eastern Europe

White Paper on the Human Rights Situation in Germany and of the Germans in Eastern Europe PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description


Cold War Germany, the Third World, and the Global Humanitarian Regime

Cold War Germany, the Third World, and the Global Humanitarian Regime PDF Author: Young-sun Hong
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107095573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
This book examines global humanitarian efforts involving the two German states and Third World liberation movements during the Cold War.

Germany for Germans

Germany for Germans PDF Author: Maryellen Fullerton
Publisher: Human Rights Watch
ISBN: 9781564321497
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
Human Rights Watch conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. It addresses the human rights practices of governments of all political stripes, of all geopolitical alignments, and of all ethnic and religious persuasions. In internal wars it documents violations by both governments and rebel groups. Human Rights Watch defends freedom of thought and expression, due process and equal protection of the law; it documents and denounces murders, disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, exile, censorship and other abuses of internationally recognized human rights.

World Report 2019

World Report 2019 PDF Author: Human Rights Watch
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609808851
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 957

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Book Description
The best country-by-country assessment of human rights. The human rights records of more than ninety countries and territories are put into perspective in Human Rights Watch's signature yearly report. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable resource for journalists, diplomats, and citizens, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the fight to protect human rights in every corner of the globe.

Human Rights in Twentieth-Century Australia

Human Rights in Twentieth-Century Australia PDF Author: Jon Piccini
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110847277X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Human rights in Australia have a contested and controversial history, the nature of which informs popular debates to this day.

Different Germans, Many Germanies

Different Germans, Many Germanies PDF Author: Konrad H. Jarausch
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 178533431X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
As much as any other nation, Germany has long been understood in terms of totalizing narratives. For Anglo-American observers in particular, the legacies of two world wars still powerfully define twentieth-century German history, whether through the lens of Nazi-era militarism and racial hatred or the nation’s emergence as a “model” postwar industrial democracy. This volume transcends such common categories, bringing together transatlantic studies that are unburdened by the ideological and methodological constraints of previous generations of scholarship. From American perceptions of the Kaiserreich to the challenges posed by a multicultural Europe, it argues for—and exemplifies—an approach to German Studies that is nuanced, self-reflective, and holistic.

Poland's Solidarity Movement and the Global Politics of Human Rights

Poland's Solidarity Movement and the Global Politics of Human Rights PDF Author: Robert Brier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108665497
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
In the historiography of human rights, the 1980s feature as little more than an afterthought to the human rights breakthrough of the previous decade. Through an examination of one of the major actors of recent human rights history – Poland's Solidarity movement – Robert Brier challenges this view. Suppressed in 1981, Poland's Solidarity movement was supported by a surprisingly diverse array of international groups: US Cold Warriors, French left-wing intellectuals, trade unionists, Amnesty International, even Chilean opponents of the Pinochet regime. By unpacking the politics and transnational discourses of these groups, Brier demonstrates how precarious the position of human rights in international politics remained well into the 1980s. More importantly, he shows that human rights were a profoundly political and highly contested language, which actors in East and West adopted to redefine their social and political identities in times of momentous cultural and intellectual change.