ArgumentThe Germans occupying Paris arrested Emile Borel and three other members of the Académie des Sciences in October 1941 and released them about five weeks later. Drawing on German and French archives and other sources, we argue that these events illustrate the complexity of the motivations and tactics of the occupiers and the occupied. While Borel and his colleagues were genuine members of the Resistance, and those who arrested them were full participants in a brutal occupation, both sides (...) respected a bargain, of no small importance to the Vichy regime, that allowed the university to pursue its work if its members avoided overt acts of opposition. (shrink)

During the German occupation, the fratricidal Polish-Ukrainian conflict became particularly acute. In 1941 Archbishop Boleslav Tvardovsky and Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky discussed the question of their pastoral duty to prevent the rise of crimes caused by this conflict. At the same time, both hierarchs expressed some despair that they did not have sufficient influence on the perpetrators of these crimes.

Le Bureau international des poids et mesures fait partie en 1940 des quelques organisations intergouvernementales dont le siège est en zone occupée. Pendant toute la durée de la guerre, il est soumis à la pression du Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich (MbF), le commandement militaire allemand, et entretient des relations continues avec le gouvernement de Vichy et de nombreuses institutions françaises. Cette contribution a pour ambition d’apporter une vue d’ensemble sur l’histoire de cette organisation sous l’Occupation en analysant son fonctionnement et (...) ses points d’appui dans ce contexte particulier. Elle examinera la trajectoire de son directeur, Albert Pérard (1880-1960), et de son réseau, les stratégies déployées pour s’adapter aux contraintes de la période et plus généralement pour maintenir une coopération scientifique à l’échelle internationale dans un monde fracturé par la guerre et une Europe sous domination nazie. Quelles conséquences de la « parenthèse Vichy » peuvent-elles être identifiées au niveau institutionnel et sur la construction des carrières de ses figures emblématiques? (shrink)

The article presents the military fortifications built by the Germans during World War II near Tomaszów Mazowiecki in the years 1940–1944, especially the long belt of fortifications called Piliza Stellung, although it focuses on a relatively short section running along the Pilica River from Sulejów to Inowłódz and Lubocz (near Rzeczyca). The paper discusses various types of shelters, and more broadly presents the preserved military fortifications in Tomaszów Mazowiecki and the railway shelter complexes (“Anlage Mitte”) in Konewka and Jelenia.

The managerial turn in academia is currently broadly discussed. Based on empirical data gathered from a sample that includes all German universities, we can give a broad and fine-grained account of this turn. What we can clearly see is that whole new categories of administrative management positions have been created over the last years. Furthermore, within the non-academic staff we can see a profound restructuration. Lower-level positions like those for clerical work decreased, while higher-level positions in the administration increased. (...) However, and in contrast to studies of countries, we do not observe a general shift from academic to non-academic positions. In addition to the statistical analysis of survey data and personnel data, we conducted seventy in-depth interviews with heads of administrative management units, in particular those being created over the last two decades, for example, on quality control, technology transfer, and career service. Although we clearly see important changes indicating a managerial turn in higher education, core characteristics of a professional organization whose basic processes are ultimately controlled by academics and not by administrators or managers have been retained. These findings call for further cross-national research. (shrink)

The sketch of communist society in The German Ideology is often dismissed for lacking seriousness or coherence. Thorough philological, contextual and philosophical inquiry reveals otherwise. The final version of the sketch enjoys a systematic place within Marx’s thought, as a description of activity in developed communism, and advances a provocative thesis of the negation of vocation. This thesis is composed of two distinct claims: occupational confinement is abolished, and occupational identities disappear. These claims recommend communist society on grounds of (...) autonomy and recognition. (shrink)

Soumis aux conditions difficiles que lui impose l’Occupation, Julien Benda exprime dans La Grande Épreuve des démocraties une foi lucide en la démocratie, fondée sur un bilan critique du combat antifasciste. Appelant les Européens à privilégier dans leur passé les éléments d’une tradition républicaine d’inspiration libérale et sociale, il remet en cause la relative indifférence qu’il a longtemps entretenue, dans l’esprit de La trahison des clercs, à l’égard des systèmes politiques et de l’espoir de promouvoir la justice dans les (...) sociétés humaines, au profit d’un idéal élitiste soucieux de préserver la liberté d’une minorité d’intellectuels tournés vers l’éternité.Affirmant nettement la nécessité d’un ordre juridique international coercitif et chargé de veiller au respect des principes démocratiques, Julien Benda, collaborant aux publications de la Résistance, a la conviction que la démocratie doit se libérer de l’humanisme pacifiste dont elle est naturellement porteuse, et qu’elle doit, passant par un moment machiavélien, aller contre ses propres valeurs, et s’appuyer sur la force pour assurer son existence face à ses ennemis.Submitted to the difficult conditions imposed on him by the German occupation in France, Julien Benda, in La Grande Épreuve des démocraties expresses a true lucid faith in democracy, grounded on the critical appraisal of the anti-fascist fight. Urging the Europeans to privilege within their past the elements of a Republican tradition of a social and liberal inspiration, he questions the relative indifference he had for quite a while entertained, within the spirit of the Trahison des clercs, towards political systems and his hope to be able to promote justice in human societies, to the profit of an elitist ideal careful to safeguard the freedom of a minority of intellectuals turned towards eternity.Strongly stressing the necessity of a legal international order both coercive and meant to be sure democratic principles should be applied and respected, Julien Benda, by collaborating to the publications of the French Resistance, strongly believes that democracy should free itself from the pacifist humanism which it normally evidences and that it should – through a Machiavellian moment – go astride from its own values and rest on strength to grant its existence when confronted to its enemies. (shrink)

Ce récit d'une expérience d' enseignement de la philosophie dans le cadre général de l' occupation allemande, mais dans des conditions et circonstances singulières, tente de restituer l' ambiance d'oppression et de répression. Le lycée ou le collège dut subir les répercussions des événements politiques dramatiques, extérieurs à lui. La philosophie, dans la tourmente, essaya de préserver son identité et sa continuité. L'enseignant était bien placé pour suivre quelques-unes des péripéties de cette survie et pour témoigner des sacrifices que (...) certains y consentirent. Such a narrative of one's own experience of teaching philosophy within the general framework of the German Occupation, but also under unusual strange conditions and circumstances, tries to recapture the atmosphere both of oppresion and repression. Both lycées and colleges were submitted to the repercussions of political dramatic events taking place outside. Philosophy, within such a turmoil, tried to preserve its identity and continuity. The teacher was indeed in the right position to follow some of the peripeteia of such a survival and to evidence sacrifices that a few had to give in to. (shrink)

The early history of German patriotism is complex and illuminates many of patriotism’s potential virtues as well as its dangers. Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, patriotism’s overarching connotation was devotion to the greater good, but whether that greater was local, national, or global varied dramatically. Early uses of patriotism were devoid of national or military connotations and instead denoted local engagement in public projects and willingness to aid to those in need. The patriot moreover worked for (...) enlightened political reform, convinced that good government could convert subjects into citizens. Patriotism also had distinct cosmopolitan connotations, indicating someone who had humanity’s good generally as a goal. In the early aftermath of the French Revolution, acting in the interest of humanity’s development meant supporting the revolutionaries as the best hope for furthering political progress. As the Revolution dissolved into the Terror, German intellectuals hoped that Germany could assume the mantle of progress: being a patriot meant supporting German culture as a means of furthering humanity’s enlightenment. The Napoleonic Wars, however, shifted Germans’ attitude significantly: years of French occupation culminated in patriotism being defined as favoring German culture and unity in the interest of defeating the French. Patriotism’s nationalist connotations from that point intensify significantly. But its early history argues for remembering and revitalizing its potential to unite the local with the global and to promote enlightened civic engagement in the pursuit of political progress. (shrink)

As occupational health management (OHM) and work health promotion (WHP) become increasingly prominent in companies worldwide, little is known about consumers' attitudes towards work health‐related issues. Do consumers consider the health of employees in German companies to be important? Do German companies consider consumers to be relevant stakeholders in voluntary occupational health (OH) and well‐being activities? In the first of two qualitative interview studies, German consumers were asked which actors they consider to be responsible in OH contexts (...) and whether or not they prefer OH‐related product attributes to other socially desirable ones. During a second qualitative interview study with representatives from German companies, suppliers, institutions, and organizations concerned with voluntary and legally mandatory OH, participants were asked about their expectations regarding whether or not consumers are interested in such OH activities. Both studies highlight the difference between the consumers' perspective on OH issues and responsibilities on the one hand and what companies and stakeholders believe consumers think about OH issues and responsibilities on the other. The findings show that consumers can recognize non‐mandatory OH and well‐being activities as elements of their own social responsibility (ConSR), while companies usually do not consider this perspective in their corporate social responsibility (CSR). (shrink)

The labor market is an area with diverse data structures and multiple applications, such as matching job seekers with the right training or job. For this reason, the multilingual classification of European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) is a good example of the central role of ontologies in this area. However, ESCO cannot provide all the details of local labor market needs and does not provide links to other hierarchies of competences. For example, other taxonomies of occupations and skills (...) are widely used in German-speaking countries, but they are not in a state where they are easily accessible for interoperability and reasoning. In this paper, we present a first version of a German Labor Market Ontology (GLMO) that uses ESCO as a top-level ontology for the target domain. This makes it highly interoperable and comparable to existing ontologies by providing details for the regional structures in German-speaking countries. In addition, we present a detailed evaluation of the provided data and applications, as well as an extensive discussion of future work. (shrink)

This is the first translation of Fichte's addresses to the German nation for almost 100 years. The series of 14 speeches, delivered whilst Berlin was under French occupation after Prussia's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Jena in 1806, is widely regarded as a founding document of German nationalism, celebrated and reviled in equal measure. Fichte's account of the distinctiveness of the German people and his belief in the native superiority of its culture helped to shape (...) German national identity throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. With an extensive introduction that puts Fichte's argument in its intellectual and historical context, this edition brings an important and seminal work to a modern readership. All of the usual series features are provided, including notes for further reading, chronology, and brief biographies of key individuals. (shrink)

Systematic entomology flourished as a branch of Natural History from the 1750s to the end of the nineteenth century. During this interval, the “era of Heroic Entomology,” the majority of workers in the field were dedicated amateurs. This article traces the demographic and occupational shifts in entomology through this 150-year interval and into the early twentieth century. The survey is based on entomologists who studied beetles (Coleoptera), and who named sufficient numbers of species to have their own names abbreviated by (...) subsequent taxonomists. In the eighteenth century, 27 entomologists achieved this level of prominence, of whom 37% were academics, 19% were doctors, 11% had private incomes, 19% were clergymen, and 8% were government officials. Many of those with private incomes were members of the European aristocracy, and all but one were European men. The nineteenth century list included 192 entomologists, of whom 17% were academics, 16% were museum curators, 2% were school teachers, 15% were doctors, 6% were military men, 7% were merchants, 2% were government entomologists, 6% had private incomes, 5% were clergymen, 5% were government officials, and 4% were lawyers. The demographics of entomology shifted dramatically in the nineteenth century. Whereas many of the noteworthy entomologists of the eighteenth century were German, Swedish, or French, in the nineteenth century, many more European countries are represented, and almost one-fifth of the noteworthy entomologists were from the United States. The nineteenth century list, like the eighteenth century list, contains no women. By the twentieth century, 63% of 178 noteworthy systematic entomologists were paid professionals, teaching entomology courses in universities, or studying insect taxonomy in museums and government-sponsored laboratories. Only one person on the twentieth century list had a private income, but women (ten individuals) were included on the list for the first time. (shrink)

We demonstrate the relationships between occupational demands in German vocational education and training (VET) teacher training, stress symptoms, and different behavioral resilience competencies. Taking into account interindividual differences in resilience competencies, we use a typological approach to identify different types of (trainee) teachers classified by their degrees and configurations of resilience competencies. Our empirical analysis is based on questionnaire data from 131 German vocational trainees and qualified teachers. The results reveal, among other things, that all three resilience competencies—resistance, (...) flexibility, and dynamism—are significantly negatively correlated with the demands of working conditions and workload. Via a latent class analysis, we were able to identify three groups of (trainee) teachers who differed in their resilience competencies to adapt appropriately to different situations and their requirements (“behavioral flexibility”), to recover rapidly from setbacks and to defy the expectations of others (“behavioral resistance”), and to initiate changes as soon as they are necessary or desirable (“behavioral dynamics”). More resilient (trainee) teachers show, among other things, lower values for anxiety as an emotional stress symptom and higher values for job engagement. The findings are discussed with regard to implications for VET teacher training and we stress the need for equilibration on a systemic perspective. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

The defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945 required historians in both countries to reevaluate the past to make sense of national catastrophe. Sebastian Conrad's The Quest for the Lost Nation analyzes this process comparatively in the context of allied military occupation and the Cold War to reveal how historians in both countries coped with a discredited national history and gradually salvaged a national identity. He pays special attention to the role of social, discursive, and transnational contexts that shaped (...) this process to highlight the different courses that the politics of the past took in postwar Germany and Japan. The picture that emerges of German and Japanese historiography and the respective attempts to come to terms with the past is at odds with the conventional narrative that usually praises West German historians and society for having come to terms with their dark past, as opposed to postwar Japan, which is usually regarded as having fallen short by comparison. There was in fact far more critical historiographical engagement with the past in Japan than in West Germany in the 1950s. Reasons for the divergent evolution of the politics of the past in Germany and Japan should not be sought in the peculiarities of postwar national history but rather in an entangled transnational context of defeat, occupation, and the Cold War, whose effects played out differently in each country. These conclusions and others reveal some of the opportunities and special challenges of comparative transnational history. (shrink)

Essays on one of Fichte's best known and most controversial works. One of J. G. Fichte’s best-known works, Addresses to the German Nation is based on a series of speeches he gave in Berlin when the city was under French occupation. They feature Fichte’s diagnosis of his own era in European history as well as his call for a new sense of German national identity, based upon a common language and culture rather than “blood and soil.” These (...) speeches, often interpreted as key documents in the rise of modern nationalism, also contain Fichte’s most sustained reflections on pedagogical issues, including his ideas for a new egalitarian system of Prussian national education. The contributors’ reconsideration of the speeches deal not only with technical philosophical issues such as the relationship between language and identity, and the tensions between universal and particular motifs in the text, but also with issues of broader concern, including education, nationalism, and the connection between morality and politics. Daniel Breazeale is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Tom Rockmore is Humanities Chair Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Peking University, China. Both have authored, edited, and translated many books. Together, they are the coeditors of Fichte’s Vocation of Man: New Interpretive and Critical Essays, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

“Gazeta Urzędowa Tomaszowska” (“Tomaschower Amtliche Zeitung”) was an organ of the Municipality of Tomaszów Mazowiecki. It appeared twice a week from December 1915 to June 1917. The magazine was printed in German and Polish. It contained ordinances and announcements of the occupying central and local authorities, as well as semi-official and private announcements. In total, 160 issues of the magazine were published. The article discusses the content of TAZ, emphasizing the undeniable historical value of the magazine for the history (...) of Tomaszów Mazowiecki during the First World War. (shrink)

У статті проаналізовано особливості соціально-правового статусу поляків Галичини в контексті повсякденного життя періоду 1941-1944 рр. Особлива увага звертається на процес становлення та компетенцію цивільних органів влади, а також проведені ними суворі режимні та легітимаційні заходи. Розкрито вплив німецької окупаційної політики на соціо-психологічні характеристики населення.

Until now it has been impossible to read the full story of the relationship between Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their dramatic rupture at the height of the Cold War, like that conflict itself, demanded those caught in its wake to take sides rather than to appreciate its tragic complexity. Now, using newly available sources, Ronald Aronson offers the first book-length account of the twentieth century's most famous friendship and its end. Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre first met in 1943, (...) during the German occupation of France. The two became fast friends. Intellectual as well as political allies, they grew famous overnight after Paris was liberated. As playwrights, novelists, philosophers, journalists, and editors, the two seemed to be everywhere and in command of every medium in post-war France. East-West tensions would put a strain on their friendship, however, as they evolved in opposing directions and began to disagree over philosophy, the responsibilities of intellectuals, and what sorts of political changes were necessary or possible. As Camus, then Sartre adopted the mantle of public spokesperson for his side, a historic showdown seemed inevitable. Sartre embraced violence as a path to change and Camus sharply opposed it, leading to a bitter and very public falling out in 1952. They never spoke again, although they continued to disagree, in code, until Camus's death in 1960. In a remarkably nuanced and balanced account, Aronson chronicles this riveting story while demonstrating how Camus and Sartre developed first in connection with and then against each other, each keeping the other in his sights long after their break. Combining biography and intellectual history, philosophical and political passion, _Camus and Sartre_ will fascinate anyone interested in these great writers or the world-historical issues that tore them apart. (shrink)

With the last Holocaust survivors quietly passing away, one might also expect to see accountability debates slowing to a trickle. Surprisingly, however, recent years show an upswing in corporate World War II-related atonement debates. Interest in corporate participation in mass atrocity has expanded worldwide; yet what constitutes ethical corporate behavior during and after war remains understudied. This article considers these questions through a study of the French National Railways’ roles during the German occupation and its more recent struggle (...) to make amends. This study demonstrates that ethical business leadership requires taking responsibility for past as well as current decisions. Most executives grappling with complex corporate histories work in isolation, in part because the scholarship on business ethics fails to provide guidance. Without such guidance, corporations often respond to accusations about their pasts with carefully crafted statements and legal strategies rather than deep expressions of moral leadership. To assist in remedying this tendency, this paper simultaneously encourages companies to engage in deeper reflection on corporate history, while urging scholars to help guide corporations through critical ethical conversations. (shrink)

Paris is firing all its ammunition into the August night. Against a vast backdrop of water and stone, on both sides of a river awash with history, freedom's barricades are once again being erected. Once again justice must be redeemed with men's blood.Albert Camus wrote these words in August 1944, as Paris was being liberated from German occupation. Although best known for his novels including The Stranger and The Plague, it was his vivid descriptions of the horrors of (...) the occupation and his passionate defense of freedom that in fact launched his public fame. Now, for the first time in English, Camus at 'Combat' presents all of Camus' World War II resistance and early postwar writings published in Combat, the resistance newspaper where he served as editor-in-chief and editorial writer between 1944 and 1947. These 165 articles and editorials show how Camus' thinking evolved from support of a revolutionary transformation of postwar society to a wariness of the radical left alongside his longstanding strident opposition to the reactionary right. These are poignant depictions of issues ranging from the liberation, deportation, justice for collaborators, the return of POWs, and food and housing shortages, to the postwar role of international institutions, colonial injustices, and the situation of a free press in democracies. The ideas that shaped the vision of this Nobel-prize winning novelist and essayist are on abundant display. More than fifty years after the publication of these writings, they have lost none of their force. They still speak to us about freedom, justice, truth, and democracy. (shrink)

In this article we try to estimate the activity of the banking institution in the General Government which used the pre-war apparatus of The National Bank of Agriculture. The bank was one ofthe largest banks realising the aim delineated by the government of the Second Polish Republic, such as the support of agricultural reform in the mid-war period. German authorities in the General Government used assets of the bank for other tasks. They were eager to use The National Bank (...) of Agriculture and the Polish staff employed in the bank in order to liquidate fast and effectively the mid-war assets of the bank. Leaving The National Bank of Agriculture was also good for Polish staff in the bank. Raising pre-war debts was the only way to guarantee salary and pensions forthe employees of the National Bank of Agriculture and taking care of them in the hard life of occupation. The activity of the National Bank of Agriculture in the General Government was also profitable for a part of debtors as they could pay the pre-war credits earlier. One reason for agriculture farms becoming poorer and even ruined was war actions and the occupation. However, the farmers could save money and gather capital more easily. When they often sold food in secret, they got a large amount of money. In many cases, paying back the pre-war debt was the only reasonable way of getting rid of almost valueless money, although it did not mean that it was done without doubts. In the beginning, many people claimed that they would give it back to whom they had borrowed from. However, after a while the patriotism of farmers who were debtors was overcome by the willingness to have no debts and leave children in a new condition. The period of German occupation and increasing inflation was used for paying back the debt in valueless money, not only by farmers but also by owners of the large mansions such as Earl Adam Branicki. (shrink)

This paper is a fragment of the book “Kaja od Radosława, czyli historia Hubalowego Krzyża”, which was published by Warszawskie Wydawnictwo Literackie Muza in 2006. It will be published by the American publisher The Military History Press under the title “Kaia Savior of the Hubal Cross”. Covering a century of Polish history, it is full of tragic and compelling events. Such historic events as Polish life in Siberia, Warsaw before the war, the German occupation, the Warsaw Uprising, life (...) in Ostaszków, and the rebuilding of Warsaw are included.The hero Kaia is a woman, christened Cesaria, whose father was expelled to Siberia in 1905 for conspiring against the tsar. Kaia spent her early childhood there, and the family lived near the mountain Altaj. A chapter shows how the Polish community lived there, organized their daily lives, etc. In 1922, the family returned to free Poland, the train trip back taking almost a year. This ordeal is highlighted as a series of stops sometimes lasting for weeks because of heavy snow accumulation, the men shoveling a pathway for the train to pass through, many deaths occurring from the frigid cold with the “caboose” used as a mortuary for Poles to be returned to their homeland for burial. Kaia entered the school system, was eventually educated as an architect, and then World War II started. She lived under the German occupation for the first few years, and later became a conspirator by helping the underground movement. She joined the Armia Krajowa in 1942. At considerable risk, her apartment became a meeting place for the conspirators.After Hubal’s death, one of his couriers gave Kaia the Hubal Cross Virtuti Militari. The cross was with her for the ensuing 50 years. During the Warsaw Uprising, in which she was a courier, she carried the cross around her neck. Many times, she had to travel via the Warsaw underground sewer system. Twice, she was wounded. After the Warsaw Uprising collapsed, she went to the east territory to look for her mother. She was captured by the Russian NKVD in Białystok and sent to Ostaszków. An interesting scene describes one of many interrogations: the Russian interrogator asks if she knows about the cross. Her reply causes a puzzled look on his face. The cross was never discovered (she had hidden it in a specially made shoe). Protection of the Virtuti Militari Cross, which at first had been a challenge to Kaia to survive the Uprising and Russian imprisonment, later became a symbol of courage and determination of the Polish people. In 1946, Kaia returned to Poland very ill and weighing only 38 kg (83.6 pounds). Eventually recovering her health, she worked as an architect involved in the rebuilding of Warsaw totally decimated by the Germans.In the Warsaw Uprising chapter, Kaia’s diary is included, and the book relates the scenes and events that she described. One such experience is most moving. It was a quiet moment, i.e. the shooting had subsided. On a warm beautiful August night, she was sitting, enjoying the quiet alone when, a young man sat down next to her. He was a colleague from architectural school. Together, a few months earlier, they had attended a university ball, and Kaia remembered him as always being funny and amusing. Then, she noticed he was missing one eye and part of his chin. He returned her gaze and jokingly said, “I still have one eye left”. And then, he quietly sang a popular song that they had danced the waltz to… “Not to be in love on such a beautiful night is a sin”… Kaia had to be in the same mood as he was and smiled. A few days later, half of his body was covered in ruins…he could not be helped. His death lasted several days, and he is buried in Powązki Cemetery, like many soldiers of the Uprising. (shrink)

I was first taken to Mr Gurdjieff's flat at a time very different from the present. Paris during the war, under German occupation, was in the grip of the ...

The paper reviews for the first time criminal case No.1339 inrespect of Stanislav S. Frize, Professor, Doctor of Engineering and the Head of the General Electrical Engineering Department of the Lviv Polytechnic. From January to August 1945 the researcher was kept in special camp No. 0310 of the People's State Security Commissariat in the town of Krasnodon of the Voroshilovgrad Region. He was put there without any trial and relevant proofs of his guilt towards Soviet law. Frise was accused of (...) teaching electrical engineering and physics at courses for electricians in 1942-1944 under constraint of the German occupation authorities. People's State Security Commissariat bodies regarded the fact as cooperation with the Germans and betrayal of the Motherland, which fell under definitions of Article 54-1a of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. They disregarded complete political apathy of the Professor, his straightforwardness and outspokenness in expressing his views of the events. Having refused to sign an appeal to Stalin, Frize laid himself open to suspicions of anti-Soviet agitation. His lack of knowledge of the Ukrainian and Russian languages and teaching in Polish was considered as sabotage of Soviet power efforts aimed at restoration of education at higher schools. Only testimonies of the Department staff in July 1945 and vigorous activity of his wife Anna Y. Krypiakevych convinced the Soviet punitive system of Stanislav Frize's innocence. (shrink)

Sartre's play Les Mouches ( The Flies ), first performed in 1943 under German occupation, has long been controversial. While intended to encourage resistance against the Nazis, its approval by the censor indicates that the regime did not recognize the play as a threat. Further, its apparently violent and solitary themes have been read as irresponsible or apolitical. For these reasons, the play has been characterized as ambiguous or worse. Sartre himself later saw it as overemphasizing individual autonomy, (...) and in the view of one critic, it conveys an “existentialist fascism.” In response to this reading, it is necessary to attend to the elements of the play that already emphasize duty to society. From this perspective, the play can be seen as anticipating the concern with collective responsibility usually associated with the later Sartre of the 1960s. More than this, the play's apparent “ambiguity” can be found to exemplify a didacticism that is much more complex than sometimes attributed to Sartre. It is not only an exhortation about ethical responsibility, but also a performance of the difficulties attendant to that duty. (shrink)

Though Michel Foucault is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, little is known about his early life. Even Foucault’s biographers have neglected this period, preferring instead to start the story when the future philosopher arrives in Paris. Becoming Foucault is a historical reconstruction of the world in which Foucault grew up: the small city of Poitiers, France, from the 1920s until the end of the Second World War. Beyond exploring previously unexamined aspects of Foucault’s childhood, including (...) his wartime ordeals, it proposes an original interpretation of Foucault’s oeuvre. Michael Behrent argues that Foucault, in addition to being a theorist of power, knowledge, and selfhood, was also a philosopher of experience. He was a thinker intent on making sense of the events that he lived through. Behrent identifies four specific experiences in Foucault’s childhood that exercised a decisive influence on him and that, in various ways, he later made the subject of his philosophy: his family’s deep connections to the medical profession; his upbringing in a bourgeois household; the German Occupation during World War II; and his Catholic education. Behrent not only reconstructs the specific nature of these experiences but also shows how reference to them surfaces in Foucault’s later work. In this way, the book both sheds light on a formative period in the philosopher’s life and offers a unique interpretation of key aspects of his thought. (shrink)

The importance of Hegel to the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, both to her early philosophical texts and to The Second Sex, is usually discussed in terms of the master-slave dialectic and a Kojève-influenced reading, which some see her as sharing with Sartre, others persuasively describe as divergent from and corrective to Sartre's. Altman shows that Hegel's influence on Beauvoir's work is also wider, both in terms of what she takes on board and what she works through and rejects, and (...) that her reading of Hegel is crucially inflected by two additional circumstances that Sartre did not entirely share: the experience of her first serious study of Hegel as a noncombatant in Paris during the German occupation and her earlier direct exposure to an eccentric, idealist reading of Hegel as developed by the group Philosophies in connection with surrealism and the artistic avant-garde. Altman also explores the afterlife of Hegel's influence on Beauvoir on second-wave feminism in the United States and Europe, and suggests continuing relevance to feminist theory today. (shrink)

In an autobiographical account the author, born in 1922, describes his childhood and school years in Lublin, then briefly presents the experiences of his generation during the German occupation, devoting more space to the period 1944–1947 he spent in Soviet camps deported as a soldier of AK (Home Army).Upon his return to Poland he embarked upon professional work in publishing industry and academic study. He left Poland in 1959 resuming a teaching career at several of American universities, and (...) publishing a significant number of studies and novels. He considers freedom to be the key to his success. (shrink)

This article traces the career arc of Dutch psychoanalyst Joost A. M. Meerloo by examining his biography and his psychology of interrogation and confession. His life story, particularly his experiences during the German occupation of the Netherlands and his escape to England during World War II, shaped his views on these issues, as well as his rise to prominence as an expert on these topics in the United States. His psychoanalytic perspectives on interrogation and confession, including false confession, (...) reflected the zeitgeist of the First Wave of Cold War interrogation tactics and related scholarship. His career as a scholar of interrogation faded with the study of distinct interrogation tactics used by communists during the Korean War, the emergence of experimental social psychology, and a growing cohort of scholars who rejected his psychoanalytic views in favor of more contemporary approaches. For these reasons, his work remains undervalued, increasing the risks that today’s scholars will fail to recognize his larger contributions and his warnings about vulnerability and psychologists’ roles in military interrogations. The article reviews the rise and fall of the career of Joost A. M. Meerloo as a scholar of Cold War interrogation, including his contributions and his unheeded warnings about vulnerability and psychologists’ roles in military interrogations. (shrink)

The idea of the article was suggested by Lotman’s theory about two basic mechanisms of social behaviour — fear and shame. The presented paper aims at highlighting two other mechanisms of such kind — guilt and repentance. The novella Isaac (1960–61) by Antanas Škėma, the Lithuanian writer in exile, is about a Lithuanian patriot who kills a Jew called Isaac during the years of German occupation. The author’s fundamental conception implies that the real perpetrator of crime is not (...) a separate individual but the crowd representing the values of the society. Škėma’s interpretation of history demystifies the moral system in the inter-war Lithuania and proves it to be a collection of futile signs that fail to prevent society from falling into mass psychosis and following primitive impulses. The other Lithuanian novel, Leonardas Gutauskas’ Šešėliai (Shadows) written in 2000, focuses on the tense relationships between Lithuanians and Russians, suggesting that there are several moral systems determining the concepts of guilt-repentance. The Christian agricultural society embodies the ethics of individual responsibility. The domination of the Russian ethic code is associated with the separation of Churches and the strengthening of the Orthodox Church. A moral system based on harmony and aiming to reconcile the guilty and the innocent comes across as a sought ideal. Both novels discussed exemplify different modes of a liberating society. The first one is an account of the society’s effort to become free of the guilt complex and rethink its history. The second one articulates theguilt of the Russian nation against Lithuanians and fights russophobia at the same time. (shrink)

From November 16, 1945 tilt ]anuary 8, 1946, the Flemish wing of the UDB, a newly founded political party, published a newspaper in Dutch «De Nieuwe Wereld».An analysis of articles and columns indicates the options the UDB intended to follow : rather leftist but rejecting the traditional party system and religious adherence as a lawful issue for political discussion and action, solliciting people's union as an acquisition earned during World War II by opposing the German occupation.Presumably due to (...) financial shortcoming, the newspaper subsisted only two months. (shrink)

Most Americans believe what our media tell them, that Israel is a nation under attack by Palestinians. That is a lie. The truth is that Israel is a nation bent on driving Palestinians from their land through economic hardship, confiscation, humiliation, intimidation, and by killing them. Israel has maintained a brutal and illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for decades, not unlike the German occupation of Europe during World War II.

The paper deals with the unnoticed and sweeping activities of German scientists and university disciplines in the context of German occupation policy and plannings of plundering cultural assets as war pillage during the First World War. It exemplarily shows the case of palaeontologists in occupied Belgium: Their main project was the famous excavation site of skeletons of the dinosaur Iguanodon in the small town Bernissart. After a new excavation between 1915 and 1918 they planned, with the support (...) of occupation authorities, the transportation of dinosaur skeletons into German natural history museums and collections as war pillage. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse the particular phenomena of COVID-19 pandemic shaming. We examine Sartre’s account of the undifferentiated other in the experience of ‘the look’, and his insistence on shame as a foundational relational affect, in order to give a robust theoretical frame to understand how pandemic shaming circulated both online and offline, in targeted and diffuse manners. We focus on two features of pandemic shaming. First, we draw attention to the structural necessity of an audience in acts of (...) pandemic shaming, where the shamer acts on behalf of a community of others, the audience, to perform and enforce a set of standards, values or norms. We turn to the we-experience and collective emotions literature and discuss how the shamer believes themselves to be ‘speaking’ on behalf of a community who share their outrage along with their values. Second, we discuss how the presumption of a collective emotion was frequently mistaken in acts of pandemic shaming, where shaming frequently led to shame backlashes, where the audience revealed themselves not to share the emotion and values of the shamer, consequently shaming the shamer. We argue that Jean-Paul Sartre’s voyeur example is usefully illustrative of the tripartite structure of (1) shamed, (2) shamer and (3) shamer of the shamer that occurs in iterative processes of pandemic shaming, which are accompanied by shaming backlashes. We conclude by reflecting on the socio-historical context for Sartre’s accounts of shame and ‘the look’, namely the German occupation of Paris and Sartre’s experience of the French Resistance movement, and how these yield a particular socio-historical framing that makes evident how the extraordinary pseudo-wartime conditions of COVID-19 rendered atmospheres of distrust and suspicion prevalent. (shrink)

Les textes de Merleau-Ponty qui traitent explicitement de la guerre sont tous écrits en 1945 ou postérieurs à cette date ; ils sont contemporains de l’engagement marxiste de l’auteur qui, avec Sartre, a fondé Les Temps modernes. La Phénoménologie de la perception, dont les premiers linéaments sont lisibles avant 1939 et qui paraît juste après la guerre, est écrite pendant l’occupation allemande ; il est intéressant de regarder si la guerre n’est pas présente dans ce livre et comment elle (...) l’est dans une philosophie de la sensibilité apparemment heureuse, tant qu’elle paraît servir de fondement et de cadre à une philosophie de l’histoire, mais aussi tragique quand l’histoire semble exiger une théorisation qui prend le pas sur la philosophie de la perception. Merleau-Ponty a-t-il réussi une synthèse? Ou ne reste-t-il de son ambition de traiter de l’histoire comme il traitait de la perception qu’une philosophie divisée, dont on peut suivre les clivages presque en chaque proposition et dont l’échec est déjà perçu par les contemporains du phénoménologue, marxiste ou non? Merleau-Ponty ’s texts dealing explicitly with war were all written in 1945 or a few years after : they are contemporary to the Marxist involvement of the author who founded Les Temps modernes with Sartre. The Phenomenology of perception, whose first outlines can be traced as far back as before 1939, and which is published immediately after the war, was written during the German occupation of France : it is interesting to wonder whether war is not yet present in this very book whereas it is already there in a philosophy, only apparently happy, since it seems to ground and frame a new philosophy of history, but it seems also quite tragic an approach when history seems to demand a theorization overstepping the philosophy of perception. Did Merleau-Ponty succeed in writing some kind of synthesis? Or does it only remain of his ambition to deal with history as if he were dealing with perception only a torn philosophy whose splits may be followed almost throught every proposition and whose failure is already perceived by the phenomenologist’s contemporaries, whether they be Marxists or not? (shrink)

The traditional German policy was to “push to the East”. After signing a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and the Red Army entered the Polish territory on September 17.The German occupation was marked by terror and executions. A resistance movement was developed, and along a secret government and underground army came into being. It was organized by officers who were not taken prisoners of war and by main political parties. (...) The German retaliation—arrests, tortures, concentration camps—did not deter the Poles from joining the patriotic conspiracy.For about five years, the nation waited for a proper moment to fight the occupants. For the city of Warsaw, it seemed that the good time was the middle of the summer of 1944. The Germans were retreating on all fronts, and the Red Army was on the suburbs of Warsaw, on the right bank of the Vistula. It was expected that it would help the insurgents.The Uprising was intended to last a few days. It ended after more than two months, when the Home Army had no more bullets, and the population—no more food. An honorable surrender was signed with the Germans, by virtue of which the insurgents were treated as allied soldiers rather than bandits to be executed, as was the case at the beginning of the Uprising. (shrink)

This paper is a fragment of the book “Kaja od Radosława, czyli historia Hubalowego Krzyża”, which was published by Warszawskie Wydawnictwo Literackie Muza in 2006. It will be published by the American publisher The Military History Press under the title “Kaia Savior of the Hubal Cross”. Covering a century of Polish history, it is full of tragic and compelling events. Such historic events as Polish life in Siberia, Warsaw before the war, the German occupation, the Warsaw Uprising, life (...) in Ostaszków, and the rebuilding of Warsaw are included.The hero Kaia is a woman, christened Cesaria, whose father was expelled to Siberia in 1905 for conspiring against the tsar. Kaia spent her early childhood there, and the family lived near the mountain Altaj. A chapter shows how the Polish community lived there, organized their daily lives, etc. In 1922, the family returned to free Poland, the train trip back taking almost a year. This ordeal is highlighted as a series of stops sometimes lasting for weeks because of heavy snow accumulation, the men shoveling a pathway for the train to pass through, many deaths occurring from the frigid cold with the “caboose” used as a mortuary for Poles to be returned to their homeland for burial. Kaia entered the school system, was eventually educated as an architect, and then World War II started. She lived under the German occupation for the first few years, and later became a conspirator by helping the underground movement. She joined the Armia Krajowa in 1942. At considerable risk, her apartment became a meeting place for the conspirators.After Hubal’s death, one of his couriers gave Kaia the Hubal Cross Virtuti Militari. The cross was with her for the ensuing 50 years. During the Warsaw Uprising, in which she was a courier, she carried the cross around her neck. Many times, she had to travel via the Warsaw underground sewer system. Twice, she was wounded. After the Warsaw Uprising collapsed, she went to the east territory to look for her mother. She was captured by the Russian NKVD in Białystok and sent to Ostaszków. An interesting scene describes one of many interrogations: the Russian interrogator asks if she knows about the cross. Her reply causes a puzzled look on his face. The cross was never discovered (she had hidden it in a specially made shoe). Protection of the Virtuti Militari Cross, which at first had been a challenge to Kaia to survive the Uprising and Russian imprisonment, later became a symbol of courage and determination of the Polish people. In 1946, Kaia returned to Poland very ill and weighing only 38 kg (83.6 pounds). Eventually recovering her health, she worked as an architect involved in the rebuilding of Warsaw totally decimated by the Germans.In the Warsaw Uprising chapter, Kaia’s diary is included, and the book relates the scenes and events that she described. One such experience is most moving. It was a quiet moment, i.e. the shooting had subsided. On a warm beautiful August night, she was sitting, enjoying the quiet alone when, a young man sat down next to her. He was a colleague from architectural school. Together, a few months earlier, they had attended a university ball, and Kaia remembered him as always being funny and amusing. Then, she noticed he was missing one eye and part of his chin. He returned her gaze and jokingly said, “I still have one eye left”. And then, he quietly sang a popular song that they had danced the waltz to… “Not to be in love on such a beautiful night is a sin”… Kaia had to be in the same mood as he was and smiled. A few days later, half of his body was covered in ruins…he could not be helped. His death lasted several days, and he is buried in Powązki Cemetery, like many soldiers of the Uprising. (shrink)

This article attempts to bring together the life, situation, and philosophical work of the Czech phenomenologist Jan Patočka in order to present his conception of philosophy and sacrifice and to understand his action of dissent and his own sacrifice as spokesman for Charter 77 in light of these concepts. Patočka philosophized despite being barred from teaching under the German occupation and under the communist regime, even after he was forced to retire and banned from publication. He also refused (...) the official philosophical categories of communism and, what is more, criticized the very manner in which its ideology allowed it to function. Against the destruction of moral and political life by communist and liberal regimes alike, he outlined the necessity of a “life in the idea” that would be responsive to the notion of sacrifice. Such a position of distance from the things of the world which remains anchored among them is meant to respond to dissatisfaction with the world as it is found and is the very movement of human freedom. Taken together, these three aspects of his philosophical practice made him a dissident, a role he took on more completely when, as part of the Charter 77 movement, he publicly opposed the state, in a course of action that led to his death. (shrink)

The Rockefeller Foundation helpedestablish two health research institutes inFrance during the German occupation and Vichyrule. These institutes were the precursors ofthe Institut National de Santé et de laRecherche Médicale (INSERM), the Frenchequivalent of the National Institutes of Healthin the United States. This essay rescues theseinstitutes from oblivion, and examines theirorigins and their significance.

This paper introduces a hermeneutical approach to graphic novel representations of punishments inflicted on women accused of collaboration with the German occupant during the French purge in 1944- 1945. Since the study aims to determine to establish links between graphic novels and the evolutions of the historiography of the Occupation and Liberation of France, it includes a historiographical component. Drawing on other cultural medias who have dealt with this theme (novels, movies, poems, songs), the aim is also to (...) identify the meaning given by artists to their portrayals of shorn and assaulted women. The paper eventually introduces a broader philosophical reflection on the emancipation from authoritarianism. It is the study’s contention that graphic novelists are offering a feminist discourse and are using the theme of shorn and assaulted women during the liberation as a reminder of the late emancipation of women from male domination. (shrink)

In the history of Western perceptions of Jews and the ‘Jewish problem’, the First World War marks a period of change which was, among other things, influenced by the course of the war on the Eastern Front. The German occupation of large parts of Russian Poland in 1915 brought the difficult conditions of Eastern European Jewry closer to public attention in the West, not only in Central Europe, but also in neutral states. For the Scandinavian writers who travelled (...) to occupied Poland in 1916 and 1917, the direct encounter with East European Jewry was a new and often disturbing experience. Their travelogues represent an illuminating and, so far, unused source for Scandinavian perceptions of Jews in Eastern Europe, focusing on the ‘ghetto’ as the physical embodiment of Eastern Jewish life. Analysing these accounts, the present article discusses the different depictions of Warsaw’s Jews thematically and identifies three interwoven perspectives of the ‘ghetto’: as a site of extreme poverty; as a foreign element in Europe; and as an archetype of Jewish life in general. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE BODY AND THE BLOOD: SACRIFICIAL EXPULSION IN A UREVOIR LES ENFANTS Diana Culbertson Kent State University In Scene 6 ofthe screenplay ofAu Revoir Les Enfants the students are at morning Mass and Father Jean is reading the Gospel: "Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh ofthe Son ofMan and drink his blood, you will have no life in you." A student with the curiously (...) ironic name of Boulanger ("baker") faints. François comments to his younger brother Julien, "There's nothing to eat... we can't have breakfast before communion." In the back of chapel sit three new students—Bonnet and two other Jewish boys disguised as Christians, protected from the Gestapo by the monks, but prohibited because of their religious identity from Eucharistie communion. Food as scarcity, as plenitude, and as life functions as the signifier ofvalue and of every victim in Louis Malle's unforgettable portrayal of the loss of innocence in the occupied France ofhis childhood. Access to food was access to life in community—both religious and political—and the exchange offood, for what could not be consumed, plunges the small school society into its death. The cause ofthe dissolution of the school society is a failed sacrifice. The farewell to childhood which the title ofthe film suggests is Julien's entry into the world ofviolence and victims, ofmimetic rivalry, ofsacrificial expulsion, and societal destruction. The angle ofperception (Julien Quentin is Malle's quasi-autobiographical alter-ego) lures viewers out their own innocence and shocks theater audiences once again with the implications of all Final Solutions. Three concentric levels identify the communities in dissolution represented in Malle's portrayal: France under the occupying military force, the school administrators and staff, and the pupils in their charge. At each level the Diana Culbertson47 mimetic conflict is at a different state ofsocietal crisis. At the highest level, the German occupation troops and their collaborators represent a moment of Violence Triumphant, a Monstrous divinity who can impose control over the group by terrorizing everyone. This persecutory violence, which has co-opted the judicial system, drives the community of French people into (at least outward) submission and passivity. When the Monster requires victims, the community must consent to offer them. The persecutor's need for victims in this film has its own demonic rationale: "... to rid France of strangers, of Jews," says Müller, the Gestapo officer in one of the final scenes. When persecutory violence is resisted, however, when someone refuses to offer the designatedvictim for expulsion, the unity ofthe submissive society dissolves. Those who will not conform may suffer the violence of those who find their private well being in an alliance with public persecution. Father Jean, director ofthe school where Malle's scenario takes place, is one ofthe instruments ofresistance. Only the other instructors and staff are aware ofhis activities in the French underground. The audience is admitted to his dangerous secret, even as it observes the contrasting immaturity of the students, especially Julien, who cannot bear to leave his mother and is still wetting his bed. When he asks his older brother, "What is a Jew?" he is given the alimentary explanation: "Someone who doesn't eat pork." In this cultural situation, the Jew is more frequently someone who doesn't eat. Quentin's half truth is only one side ofa more ominous reality. Father Jean, aware of that reality, first appears in the film to introduce Bonnet, the "new classmate" and to show the boy his dormitory bed. As the director leaves, the schoolboys display their own societal dynamics, resuming their customary internecine, frenzied battles and rivalries. They throw pillows; they mock the outsider, focusing their ridicule on his name. Later in a classroom scene, they will hiss, "Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet...."—an apt thematic detail with its allusion to wine and its liturgical translation into blood. In the morning Boulanger leads the attack against the stranger, slipping an icicle behind Bonnet's shirt collar. At recess games disintegrate into private quarrels. Their small brutal society is a microcosm of the larger world of which the schoolboys are apparently innocent but which they are grooming themselves to live in without remorse... (shrink)

Focusing in particular on the German-Soviet war in the East, this article explores variations in patterns of sexual violence associated with armed forces in Europe during and immediately after World War II. Besides soldier violence perpetrated against civilian populations, a significant role was also played by irregular forces: most notably, by partisan guerrillas and civilian vigilantes. Ethnic nationalist partisan forces perpetrated especially brutal sexual violence against women and girls of “enemy” nationalities. Likewise, after liberation civilian reprisals were fairly common (...) throughout Europe against so-called “sexual collaborators”—that is, against women excoriated for providing “sexual comfort” to the enemy during the German occupation. (shrink)

The article approaches the work of Van Breda and De Waelhens with respect to the question of how philosophical thought relates to the problems arising in natural life. Van Breda’s main contribution to philosophy is related to the exceptional natural skills he showed in his rescuing of E. Husserl’s Nachlass and his founding of the Husserl Archives in Leuven. It is lesser known that he also brought E. Husserrs widow to Leuven and rescued her from deportation by the German (...) occupation of Belgium during World War II. Extensive excerpts from Malvine Husserl’s private correspondence demonstrate her admiration for and gratitude towards Van Breda. This correspondence also gives us a good idea of her daily life during the seven years that she spent in Leuven, her strong character, and the reasons behind her conversion to Catholicism. Less anchored in natural life than Van Breda, De Waelhens nevertheless claimed that philosophy’s main task is to shed light on the problems of bodily human existence in its social dimensions and its relation to a linguistically-structured world. This led De Waelhens into a study first of Heidegger, then to Merleau-Ponty, Hegel and Marx and, finally, to psychoanalysis. But his entire work remained dedicated to a reflection on the relation between “philosophy and natural experiences‘. He understood this relation in strongly dialectical terms: philosophy must give natural life a better understanding of itself in order to allow it to play the role of a critical counter-balance to philosophical speculation. The article concludes with some of the author’s personal reflections on what philosophy can and cannot do in order to improve natural human life. (shrink)

Written from September 1939 to January 1941, Simone de Beauvoir’s Wartime Diary gives English readers unabridged access to one of the scandalous texts that threaten to overturn traditional views of Beauvoir’s life and work. The account in Beauvoir’s Wartime Diary of her clandestine affair with Jacques Bost and sexual relationships with various young women challenges the conventional picture of Beauvoir as the devoted companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, just as her account of completing her novel She Came to Stay at a (...) time when Sartre’s philosophy in Being and Nothingness was barely begun calls into question the traditional view of Beauvoir’s novel as merely illustrating Sartre’s philosophy. Most important, the Wartime Diary provides an exciting account of Beauvoir’s philosophical transformation from the prewar solipsism of She Came to Stay to the postwar political engagement of The Second Sex. Cast in the crucible of the Nazi Occupation, Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics reflects dramatic collective experiences, such as joining the tide of refugees fleeing the German invasion in June 1940, as well as the courageous reaffirmation of her individuality in constructing a humanist ethics of freedom and solidarity in January 1941. (shrink)

It is well documented that the language skills of preschool children differ substantially and that these differences are highly predictive of their later academic success and achievements. Especially in the early phases of children’s lives, the importance of different structural and process characteristics of the home learning environment (HLE) has been emphasized and research results have documented that process characteristics such as the quality of parental interaction behavior and the frequency of joint activities vary according to the socio-economic status (SES) (...) of the family. Further, both structural and process characteristics are associated with children’s language development. As most of the studies focus on single indicators or didn’t take the dynamics of parenting behavior across age into account, the present paper aims to investigate the associations of different characteristics of the home learning environment as well as their potentially changing impact on the language skills of 2-year-old children. Using data of 2.272 families of the infant cohort study of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), longitudinally assessed process characteristics (sensitivity in the sense of maternal responsivity to the child’s behavior and signals in mother–child interaction; maternal stimulation behavior which goes beyond the child’s actual level of action and development; frequency of joint picture book reading) and structural characteristics (mother’s education, equivalised household income, parental occupational status) were considered. Language skills (vocabulary and grammar) of the children at the age of two were measured by a standardized and validated parent report instrument (child language checklist). Results showed that (1) all three process characteristics of the home learning environment (HLE) are associated with the family’s SES; (2) across three assessment waves nearly all process characteristics predicted children’s vocabulary and grammar skills with some process-specific changes across waves; (3) despite separate direct effects of nearly all HLE-process characteristics in each wave, the amount of explained variance in a joint model including the HLE facets from each wave is hardly higher than in the separate models; and (4) socioeconomic background predicted both language facets of the children in each model even when controlling for the assessed process characteristics of the home learning environment. (shrink)