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The article deals with Czech and German nationalist discourses and practices in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as they relate to tourism in the Krkonoše/Riesengebirge, the highest Central European mountain range between the Alps and Scandinavia. It will discuss the discourses developed in relation to mountain tourism and nationalism (metaphors of battlefields, wedges, walls, gates, and bastions), different symbolical cores of mountains, and practices of tourist and nationalist organizations (tourist trails and markings, excursions, the ownership of mountains huts, languages used, memorials, and the construction of roads). It will examine how these discourses and practices changed from the first Czech-German ethnic conflicts in the 1800s until the end of interwar Czechoslovakia. Finally, it will discuss the Czech culture of defeat in the shadow of the Munich Agreement, which meant the occupation of the Giant Mountains by Nazi Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backchannels (BCs; listener signals such as 'mmhm' or 'okay') are a ubiquitous and essential feature of spoken interaction. They are used by listeners predominantly to support the ongoing turn of their interlocutor and to signal understanding and agreement. Listeners seem to be highly sensitive to the exact realisations of BCs and to judge deviations from typical forms as negative. Very little is known about the use of BCs by speakers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In dialogue recordings of 28 German adults in two groups of disposition-matched dyads (i.e., both interlocutors were either autistic or non-autistic), we found that the ASD group was characterised by (1) a lower rate of BCs per minute (particularly in the early stages of conversation), (2) less diversity in the lexical realisation of BCs and (3) a less diverse and flexible mapping of different intonation contours to different BC types. We interpret these results as reflecting more general characteristics of autistic as compared to non-autistic individuals, namely different strategies in signalling attention towards an interlocutor and less flexible behaviour in social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs the "everyday nationhood" approach to explore how ordinary, ethnically diverse, native-born Germans in Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig understand what it means to be German and whether outsiders can join that group. It puts findings from qualitative interviews conducted in Berlin in fall 2015 and in Dresden and Leipzig in April 2016 into conversation with two large-scale surveys conducted at about the same time. The interviews complicate the surveys' finding that Germanness is now based primarily on language skills, citizenship, and workforce participation, as the respondents indicated that phenotype, ethnicity, and religion act as daily barriers to membership. This highlights the utility of the everyday nationhood approach for identifying how social categories are both understood and enacted through everyday practices of social inclusion and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1935, the Nazi Party promulgated the Reich citizenship law, which, to protect the purity of the Volksgemeinschaft , denaturalized numerous people who perceived themselves as German. Despite this perceived threat to the national body, the Third Reich drafted some mixed-race men to serve in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Traditionally, scholars have focused their studies of mixed-race veterans on the so-called Jewish Mischlinge who served in the Wehrmacht. This article expands the aperture by examining the oral history testimony of Hans Hauck, a Black German Wehrmacht veteran whose wartime experiences present a complex story of a man who claimed to be German despite legal structures and normative ideals about Germanness that excluded him. Drawing on Hauck's oral history testimonies regarding two periods of his military service, I argue that Hauck used his body, symbols, and physical spaces to seek recognition as a legitimate claimant of Germanness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide an overview of the history and sociolinguistic setting of Germans and German in Namibia, which serves as a backdrop for our discussion of two grammatical innovations in Namibian German. German has been actively used in Namibia since the 1880s, having been brought to the country through colonization, and it remains linguistically vital today. Via a questionnaire study, we investigate the expanded use of two grammatical innovations in Namibian German, namely, i) linking elements and ii) gehen as a future auxiliary. We explore various factors that could have contributed to the emergence of these innovations in order to better understand the dynamics of German in multilingual Namibia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a reconsideration of a theme, connecting The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, namely the interplay between moral sentiments and self-interest. Two aspects of the theme are examined. The first consists of an interpretation of the so-called 'das Adam Smith Problem', an issue originally pointed out by nineteenth-century German scholars. The second, building on the insight of Smith on the association of shame and poverty, reports on recent research that seeks to examine how emotions impact the perception of economic interests and behaviour in marginalized groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 'deliberative wave', with increasing uses of deliberative citizen forums, is sweeping the globe. Whereas deliberative citizen forum enthusiasts claim that they represent appropriate tools to reconnect citizens with politics and demand a stronger empowerment of deliberative citizen forums, critics argue that they will reduce rather than increase democratic legitimacy. This letter sheds new light on the roles of deliberative citizen forums in democratic systems, with a particular eye on disaffected citizens. Drawing on a conjoint experiment with a representative sample of non-participating German citizens, it shows that citizens in general challenge notions of the strong empowerment of deliberative citizen forums. They prefer deliberative citizen forums that are limited to policy advice, collaborate with legacy institutions and include extra provisions (such as a large size or clear majorities). By contrast, disaffected citizens are more open to the empowerment and decoupling of deliberative citizen forums compared to allegiant citizens, but this not imply that they are generally in clear favour of such design features (in fact, they are mostly indifferent via-à-vis empowerment and decoupling). These findings have important ramifications for democratic designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Habsburg Monarchy has often been called a "Europe en miniature." A diversity of political territories and spaces, nations and nationalities, languages, denominations, and churches was typical throughout the 19th century. This article addresses the complexity with a fresh approach. Drawing on the new history of emotion, it combines new perspectives of territories, spaces, and loyalties in order to shed fresh light on nation building processes within the empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 1848, a proclamation of friendship to the Germans sent by the Provisional Government of Milan to the Fünfzigerausschuss (Committee of Fifty) in Frankfurt was rejected by the latter, creating widespread outrage in Italy. Concurrently, a parallel controversy over the possession of South Tyrol arose between the two revolutions. This article provides an exploratory analysis of these two episodes, examining the role they played in shaping relations between the two revolutions, and in influencing the image Italians had of the revolution in Germany. Shedding light on an episode until now overlooked by historiography, this article seeks to contribute to the salient debate on the peculiar relationship between internationalist ideals and nationalist claims during the 1848 revolution. It argues that the disillusioning impact on revolutionary audiences of specific 'episodes of friction', such as those examined in this article,was greater than the 'natural convergence of goals' of the various national revolutions in 1848. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Latin American model of vocational education has been widely portrayed as a homegrown success story, particularly by scholars and stakeholders who are aware of the region's skill deficits, wary of alien solutions, and suspicious of institutional transfers more generally. Is the Latin American model really homegrown? I use a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to trace the model's mores and methods not to the New World but to Central Europe and go on to identify three different transmission paths in the 20th century: imitation by Latin Americans of German origin, descent, and/or training in the run-up to World War II; propagation by West German attachés and advisors in an effort to rehabilitate their country's image in the wake of the war; and adaptation by local employers and policymakers—who received additional support from Germany—at the turn of the last century. The results suggest that institutional importation is less a discrete event or outcome to be avoided than an ongoing process that, first, entails translation, adaptation, and at times obfuscation by importers as well as exporters; and, second, is facilitated by immigrants, their descendants, and diplomats in transnational contact zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article was first conceived as a commemorative address for the centenary of the extinction of the Habsburg monarchy, which occurred in November 1918. It seeks to take a correspondingly broad view, geographically and chronologically, of the factors that occasioned that collapse. It addresses three main themes, structured loosely around three classic historiographical analyses of the monarchy as a whole. The great irony of the last phase of Habsburg rule in Central Europe is that it was undermined by precisely those elements in the politics and society of the region that seemed, on the face of things, to derive most advantage from it. The article concentrates on the long-term dysfunctionality caused by the evolution of the Hungarian and German problems, and by the progressive enfeeblement of dynastic institutions. It also engages more briefly with a countervailing phenomenon, that some of those interests most conspicuously spurned by central government might have been the readiest to rescue it. On the argument presented here, World War I, which finally brought the monarchy low, was a catalyst rather than an independent determiner of that outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I study the effect of taste-based discrimination on the assimilation decisions of immigrant minorities. Do discriminated minority groups increase their assimilation efforts in order to avoid discrimination and public harassment or do they become alienated and retreat in their own communities? I exploit an exogenous shock to native attitudes, anti-Germanism in the United States during World War I, to empirically identify the reactions of German immigrants to increased native hostility. I use two measures of assimilation efforts: naming patterns and petitions for naturalization. In the face of increased discrimination, Germans increase their assimilation investments by Americanizing their own and their children's names and filing more petitions for US citizenship. These responses are stronger in states that registered higher levels of anti-German hostility, as measured by voting patterns and incidents of violence against Germans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the link between genes, psychological traits, and political engagement using a new data set containing information on a large sample of young German twins. The TwinLife Study enables us to examine the predominant model of personality, the Big Five framework, as well as traits that fall outside the Big Five, such as cognitive ability, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the underpinnings of political engagement. Our results support previous work showing genetic overlap between some psychological traits and political engagement. More specifically, we find that cognitive ability and openness to experience are correlated with political engagement and that common genes can explain most of the relationship between these psychological traits and political engagement. Relationships between genes, psychological traits, and political engagement exist even at a fairly young age, which is an important finding given that previous work has relied heavily on older samples to study the link between genes, psychological traits, and political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers the first large-scale analysis of the interlinked dynamics of integration and belonging based on perceptions of "ordinary" German-speaking migrants in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our analysis draws on a corpus of over a thousand letters from the North American Letter Collection held at the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha in Germany. Through computer-assisted text analysis, framed by research on transnationalism and immigrant integration, we explore patterns in integration and identities over time. We show how the migrants continuously redefine their identities vis-à-vis their homeland and the host society, and their letters thereby shape the image of the United States and the homeland for their recipients. Our analysis establishes more comprehensively than have previous historical and social science studies that integration into a host society is a non-linear process. Immigrant identities are influenced less by the time they have spent in the receiving country than by critical political events that affect both the country of origin and that of destination. Such events can reactivate migrant's identifications with their homeland. Immigrant networks filter this dual process in that they can facilitate migrants' integration while also reminding them of people and places left behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To characterise German vitamin and mineral supplement users differentiated by their motives for supplement use. Design: Data were obtained from the German National Nutrition Monitoring (2010/11) via two 24 h dietary recalls and a telephone interview. Motive-based subgroups of supplement users were identified by factor and cluster analysis. Sociodemographic, lifestyle, health and dietary characteristics and supplement use were examined. Differences were analysed using X2 tests, logistic and linear regression models. Setting: Germany, nationwide. Subjects: Individuals (n 1589) aged 18-80 years. Results: Three motive-based subgroups were identified: a 'Prevention' subgroup (n 324), characterised by the motive to prevent nutrient deficiencies; a 'Prevention and additional benefits' subgroup (n 166), characterised by motives to prevent health problems and improve well-being and performance; and a 'Treatment' subgroup (n 136), characterised by motives to treat nutrient deficiencies or diseases. Members of the two prevention subgroups had a higher Healthy Eating Index score and tended to be more physically active than non-users. Those in the 'Prevention and additional benefits' subgroup supplemented with a greater number of micronutrients. Members of the 'Treatment' subgroup tended to be older and have a lower self-reported health status than non-users, and supplemented with a smaller number of micronutrients. Conclusions: The majority of supplement users take supplements for preventive purposes and they are more health conscious than non-users of supplements due to their concerns about developing health problems. Those supplementing for treatment purposes may have underlying health indications and may be more likely to benefit from supplementation than those supplementing for preventive purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 1945, German Breslau was transformed intoUr-Polish Wrocław at Stalin’s behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and salient narratives of identity as shaping forces, which include the suppression of German culture under Communism, prevalent intermarriage between Germans and Poles, and the city’s qualified reinvention as “multicultural” after Polish independence in 1989. Together with the group’s relatively small numbers, these narratives play out in their hybrid approach to ethnicity, often invoking blended cultural practices or the ambiguous geographical status of the Silesian region, to avoid choosing between “national” antipodes of “German” and “Polish.” The results follow Rogers Brubaker’s insight into ethnicity as an essentializing category used to construct groups where individual self-perception may differ; and the concept of “national indifference,” previously applied to rural populations. It also suggests we might better approach circumscribed “minority” identities such as these, by seeing them as a form of “sub-culture.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Trauma registries are a crucial component of trauma systems, as they could be utilized to perform a benchmarking of quality of care and enable research in a critical but important area of health care. The aim of this study is to compare the performance of two national trauma systems: Germany (TraumaRegister DGU ®,TR-DGU) and Israel (Israeli National Trauma Registry,INTR) in a retrospective analysis. Method: Patients from both registries treated during 2015-2019 with an Injury Severity Score (ISS) ≥ 16 points were included. Patient demographics, pre-hospital care, hospital treatment, and outcome were compared. Results: Data were available from 12,585 Israeli patients and 55,660 German patients. Age and sex distribution were comparable, and road traffic accidents were the most prevalent cause of injuries. The ISS of German patients was higher (ISS 24 versus 20), more patients were treated in an intensive care unit (92% versus 32%), and mortality was higher(19.4% versus 9.5%) as well. Conclusion: Despite similar inclusion criteria (ISS ≥ 16), remarkable differences between the two national datasets were observed. Most likely, this was caused by different recruitment strategies of both registries like trauma team activation and the need for intensive care in TR- DGU. More detailed analyses are needed to uncover similarities and differences between both trauma systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes involved in late bilinguals’ production of morphologically complex words were studied using an event-related brain potentials (ERP) paradigm in which EEGs were recorded during participants’ silent productions of English past- and present-tense forms. Twenty-three advanced second language speakers of English (first language [L1] German) were compared to a control group of 19 L1 English speakers from an earlier study. We found a frontocentral negativity for regular relative to irregular past-tense forms (e.g., asked vs. held) during (silent) production, and no difference for the present-tense condition (e.g., asks vs. holds), replicating the ERP effect obtained for the L1 group. This ERP effect suggests that combinatorial processing is involved in producing regular past-tense forms, in both late bilinguals and L1 speakers. We also suggest that this paradigm is a useful tool for future studies of online language production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many welfare states have embraced choice and market mechanisms since the 1990s. With respect to welfare users, it has been argued that this led to a change from citizens to consumers. This paper challenges this observation and discusses changes of welfare user roles in the German welfare state. The main argument rests on the assumption that user roles are much more complex and include claimants and coproducers in addition to citizens and consumers. Based on this heuristic model of multiple user roles, empirical evidence for user roles in pension insurance, health care and schools is presented. Indeed, we observe a shift towards consumers in many fields of welfare provision, but German users are still largely addressed as claimants and citizens. Moreover, they are acting as active co-producers, entitled claimants, subversive consumers and needy patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zeroing in on private garden plots, the article discusses the manner in which Germans portrayed themselves in relation to displaced persons (DPs) – former foreign workers, Allied prisoners-of-war (POWs), and concentration camp inmates – in immediate post-Second World War Hanover. Challenging the notion that a coherent narrative of German victimization truly emerged only in the 1950s, the article reveals how German gardeners already articulated loudly a discourse through which they sought to depict themselves as decent, hard-working sufferers, while portraying displaced persons as immoral and dangerous perpetrators. The plots of garden owners, as foci of German yearnings for Heimat, came particularly under threat. Germans cherished such sites, not only because they provided the opportunity for procuring additional sustenance amidst a post-war world of scarcity, but because they symbolized longings to inhabit a peaceful, productive, and beautiful space into which the most turbulent history could not enter, and upon which a stable future could be constructed. Only with the removal of DPs could Germans claim for themselves the status of victims, while branding DPs perpetrators, and reaffirm past patterns of superiority and inferiority in both ethical and racial terms. In so doing, Germans could realize the innocence integral for achieving Heimat and establish democratic stability after 1945. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Having described the countries of the “numerous peoples of the Slavs,” the late twelfth-century chronicler Helmold of Bosau added, “If you consider Hungary as a part of Slavania, as some would suggest, because it does not differ by customs or by language, the area of the Slavic language extends so far that a proper estimate is quite lacking.” These few words indicate how clearly local the chronicler's horizon was—the farther away from Wagria, the fuzzier his information. At the same time, though, Helmold made plain that the Slavic language was for him an essential element of what Slavania was. As a parish priest at the forefront of missionary and settlement activities, Helmold wrote a chronicle that is a unique source of information for intercultural interactions between Germans and Slavs during the high medieval colonization period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines pitch range production in the read speech of female German second language (L2) learners of English of moderate to advanced proficiency. The study set out to identify to what extent the learners deviated from or adopted the language-appropriate pitch range values of the target language. Two potential ways in which the learners could deviate from or approximate the target were recognized: (a) by globally expanding their pitch range or (b) by adjusting their pitch range in a position-sensitive way that is linked to the phonetic realization patterns of underlying high and low tones at different points in intonation contours.Results showed that the L2 speakers produced pitch range values that were often language appropriate or approximated the target, although some deviations from the target were also identified. Deviations and target approximation were found to be position sensitive; that is, L2 learners were found to adjust their pitch range differently at the beginning as compared to later parts of intonational phrases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article studies the employment effects of one of the largest forced population movements in history, the influx of millions of German expellees to West Germany after World War II. This episode of forced mass migration provides a unique setting to study the causal effects of immigration. Expellees were not selected on the basis of skills or labor market prospects and, as ethnic Germans, were close substitutes to native West Germans. Expellee inflows substantially reduced native employment. The displacement effect was, however, highly nonlinear and limited to labor market segments with very high inflow rates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article looks at the emergence of Latvian nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century from the intercultural perspective of postcolonial theory. The writings of early Young Latvians, and the reaction to them from the dominant Baltic German elite, show that the emergence of a modern Latvian nationalism is to a large extent due to postcolonial mimicry, as described by Homi Bhabha. Attempts to imitate German cultural models and to develop a Latvian high culture lead to hostile reactions from the German side, which, in their turn, lead to increasing consolidation of Latvian nationalism. Since the Baltic German elite increasingly legitimized its rule in terms of cultural superiority, the Young Latvians' alliance with the Russian Slavophiles led it to treat the Latvian nationalists as culturally inferior and partly Asiatic, like the Russians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By 1911 it was clear that multiethnic Austrian Social Democracy could no longer resist the currents of ethnic nationalism that had already fragmented most of the late Habsburg political scene. The exit that year of most Czech Social Democrats to form their own party, along with Austrian Germans' insensitive reactions, signaled that workers were not immune to nationalism. The relevant historical literature has either viewed workers' nationalism as the product of elite manipulation and "bourgeois" influence, or, more recently, has questioned the extent to which nationalism actually resonated with ordinary people at society's grassroots. Jakub Beneš's article attempts to avoid the oversimplifications of both approaches and calls for more precise engagement with workers' own discourse. To this end, it highlights an important dimension of working-class political culture—socialist popular literature—in which proletarian authors articulated increasingly ethnic nationalist positions of a class-specific sort. Examining this influential but neglected genre illuminates how and under what circumstances workers found meaning in nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty years and a day after Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, Hanover county administrator Helmut Janssen declared to an assembly of East Prussian expellee leaders that Germany was still destined to recover all of the territory it had possessed in 1937. One day, he claimed, the roughly twelve million ethnic Germans expelled from the lost eastern territories and eastern Europe in the wake of the war would return home. Although by 1965 this political goal seemed “further away than ever before,” he repeated an expellee declaration of March 1960, which pledged that all expellees “still want to return to the Heimat [homeland]—now, in the future, and forever.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the lessons drawn by German constitutional scholars from the breakdown of the Weimar Republic, and how this traumatic experience became a starting point at the end of the 1930s for a new conception of democracy both liberal and robust (or “defensive”). Emigré constitutional scholars devised three distinctive versions of this “democratic robustness”: an “anti-extremist” (which originated in Weimar legal antipositivism); a “militant democracy” (first exposed by Karl Loewenstein); and a “constitutional dictatorship” (Carl J. Friedrich, Frederick W. Watkins). At the heart of each one lies a decisive debate with Carl Schmitt, even if implicit or diffracted. By reconstructing these debates one can appreciate to what extent postwar constitutional democracies have incorporated Schmitt's ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Studies that investigated complex actual eating behaviours of the general population and their relation to cardiometabolic risk markers are sparse. We aimed to identify dietary patterns within a nationally representative sample of 4025 German adults by factor analysis based on validated dietary history interviews. Furthermore, we evaluated associations of the derived dietary patterns with abnormalities clustered within the metabolic syndrome and related metabolic markers by logistic regression models and ANCOVA. A high adherence to the ‘processed foods’ pattern reflected a high intake of refined grains, processed meat, red meat, high-sugar beverages, eggs, potatoes, beer, sweets and cakes, snacks and butter, whereas a high adherence to the ‘health-conscious’ pattern represented a high intake of vegetables, vegetable oils, legumes, fruits, fish and whole grains. For subjects in the highest compared with those in the lowest quintile of the processed foods pattern, the occurrence of abdominal obesity was 88 (95 % CI 31, 169) % higher, hypertension was 34 (95 % CI − 4, 86) % higher, hypertriacylglycerolaemia was 59 (95 % CI 11, 128 ) % higher and the metabolic syndrome was 64 (95 % CI 10, 143) % higher when adjusted for age, sex, energy intake, socio-economic status, sport activity and smoking. Furthermore, subjects in the highest quintile had statistically significantly higher uric acid concentrations and lower folate concentrations (P for trend < 0·05). In contrast, subjects in the highest quintile of the health-conscious pattern had a 30 (95 % CI 10, 46) % lower occurrence of hypertension, higher folate concentrations and lower homocysteine and fibrinogen concentrations (P for trend < 0·05). These data strengthen the findings from non-representative studies and emphasise the importance of healthy overall food patterns for preventing metabolic disturbances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Coexistence of tics and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has important clinical and scientific implications. Existing data on the co-occurrence of tic disorders, Tourette Syndrome (TS), and ADHD are largely derived from small-scale studies in selected samples and therefore heterogeneous. The Nordbaden project captures the complete outpatient claims data of more than 2.2 million persons, representing 82% of the regional population in 2003. Based upon the number of diagnosed cases of tic disorders, TS, and ADHD, we determined 12-months administrative prevalence rates as well as rates of co-occurrence. Both tic disorders and ADHD were diagnosed most often in the age group 7–12 years (any tic disorder: 0.8%; ADHD: 5.0%). With increasing age, the administrative prevalence difference in favor of males disappeared, with tic disorders being somewhat more frequently reported in females than males in the age groups above 30 years. The highest rate of ADHD co-occurring with tic disorders was found in adolescents (age 13–18 years, 15.1%). Tic disorders were observed in 2.3% of patients with ADHD. Administrative prevalence rates of tic disorders and TS were substantially lower compared to rates found in community-based epidemiological studies, suggesting that a large number of cases remain undetected and untreated under present conditions of routine outpatient care. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present study investigates the syntactic competence of bilingual Portuguese-German returnees who have lost regular contact with their L2 (German). The main criterion which distinguishes the participants is the age of input loss. This allows their division into two main groups: speakers who lost German input during early childhood (between ages seven and ten) and speakers who were eleven or older when they moved away from the German environment. Focusing on verb placement in main and embedded clauses, the available data show strong evidence of the existence of a stabilization phase following the acquisition period. The speakers who lost L2 input earlier than age eleven show significantly more syntactic deficits than the other speakers. However, the observed attrition effects seem to be the result of insufficient L2 activation, rather than the expression of undergoing competence loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fin-de-siècle Prague, a provincial capital city in the Habsburg empire, was a site of Czech-German nationality conflict. In 1902 it was also home to the largest exhibition of Auguste Rodin's art outside France during his life. Due to the nationalism that enveloped Czech culture and politics, the Rodin spectacle was no mere display of modernism. National activists in the Manes Association of Visual Artists, including Stanislav Sucharda and Jan Kotěra, designed the Rodin exhibition to advance Czech cultural maturity through cosmopolitan art and to convince foreigners of the Czech nation's singularity, unity, and progressiveness. Ultimately, though, the events surrounding the exhibition of Rodin's works in Prague projected Czech disagreement over the meanings of folk heritage and western progress for national identity. Still, the blending of modern display and cultural diplomacy strengthened French-Czech relations and in small but significant ways helped secure Czechoslovakia's creation at the end of World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the need of Treaty of Lisbon to be ratified to iron its conflicting provisions with the German Constitution or Basic Law and to concur with the European Union provisions in Germany. Accordingly, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany declares the Treaty to be compatible to its Basic law, which governs all Germans. However, the Court found that the implementing legislation is incompatible to the Basic Law, and appears to have a new cornerstone of jurisprudence affecting individual rights based on the decided cases.

This article reports on an investigation of changes in the grammatical competence of Germans living in the Netherlands. The participants (N = 52) were asked to give their judgments on the grammaticality of infinitive clauses in German. The judgments of this group were compared to those of a control group that lived in Germany and did not have contact with Dutch. The results revealed significant changes in the participants' L1, which indicate transfer from the cognate L2, Dutch. Furthermore, it could be demonstrated that L2-induced changes can occur after a relatively short period of time, at least in the case of cognate languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a self-paced reading task, the present study investigates how highly proficient second language (L2) speakers of German with English as their native language process unambiguous wh-subject-extractions and wh-object-extractions in German. Previous monolingual research has shown that English and German exhibit different processing preferences for the type of wh-question under investigation, due in part to the robust case-marking system in German ? a morphosyntactic feature that is largely absent in English (e.g., Juffs and Harrington, 1995; Fanselow, Kliegl and Schlesewsky 1999; Meng and Bader, 2000; Juffs, 2005). The results revealed that the L2 German speakers utilized case-marking information and exhibited a subject-preference similar to German native speakers. These findings are discussed in light of relevant research regarding the ability of L2 speakers to adopt native-like processing strategies in their L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss aspects of national identity in the performance style of the German rock band Rammstein from the perspectives of imagery, vocal style and the textual content of their songs. Investigation into Rammstein's music reveals transformations of signifiers from earlier German performance styles and earlier textual themes that the band use as a means of relocating notions of German identity into their own performances. The adoption of national German signifiers enables Rammstein to establish connections between the band and the growth of national awareness among German youth who follow them. In this way, marketing and promotion of notions of a new national German identity to generations unaware of the origins of neo-romantic, national German signifiers in Rammstein's music supports a successful commercial enterprise that, I argue, runs close to boundaries existing between national and nationalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the experience of ethnic German women from Romania deported to the Soviet Union after World War II, with a particular focus on gender and ethnicity. A major source for the article is oral histories taken from six women all but one of whom were from the area around the city of Brasov in the central Romanian region of Transylvania. The gendered nature of their experience and treatment as women and Germans during the deportations and forced labor under totalitarian Communism is a particular focus.

The article focuses on German antifascist refugees in the U.S. and the public debate on "what should be done with Germany after Hitler" during the period from 1941-1945. The debate became so intense in the U.S. in 1943-44 that competitive organizations were created to influence public opinion and official postwar planning. The German refugees fought on both sides in the crossfire of opinion.

The article underlines the issues and concerns raised by Germans on the issue of religious slaughter. In this work, the author studied the importance of slaughtering in the context of religious beliefs and the history of opposition to such practices in Germany. He also examined the context and themes of campaigns against religious slaughter in the 1980s and manifested the racist element and xenophobic rhetoric of this practice.

The methods used by the Nazis to control elements of German society have been the focus of intense historical debate. This paper attempts to analyse the implementation of Sippenhaft(family liability punishment) after the 20 July 1944 assassination plot against Hitler. Sippenhaftwas advocated for use against the families of the conspirators involved in this plot and also against members of the armed services. Consequently, its implementation became the personal domain of the Reich leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, as well as local army commanders, army courts and the Nazi party itself. This article will argue that the inadequacies of its imposition were largely compensated for by its effectiveness as a device of fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the consequences of commercial warfare and military occupation of Germans in the Hanseatic cities in Northern Germany between 1795 and 1814 to reveal the diverse and pluralistic nature of warfare during the Napoleonic era. It is stated that the popular frustration with French rule combined with the militarization of patriotic rhetoric has ultimately mobilized the Hanseatics against imperial dominion and represented a significant shift in traditional republican patriotism. It is noted that the experiences of war did not imply the rise of modern nationalism as a new form of political allegiance. The cities in northern Germany such as Hamburg and Bremen have been ignored with the academic studies of military campaigns and international relations.

The article focuses on the relationship between Germans and Indians. It discusses some books related to Indians wherein it mentions that authentic Indians were victims of an imperialist government, superior to their white oppressors and others. It mentions that racial difference was not a barrier for becoming Indian even during the racist regime of Germany.

Objective The study aimed to evaluate the dietary vitamin B6 intake and determine the vitamin B6 concentration in blood samples of German vegans.Design and setting Cross-sectional study with 33 examination sites all over Germany.Subjects Ninety-three vegans (50 females) with a mean (±standard deviation (SD)) age of 43.7±15.7 years who took no vitamin supplements.Methods Dietary intake was assed using a semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire. Erythrocyte aspartate aminotransferase activity coefficient (EAST-AC) was calculated as the ratio of stimulated (pyridoxal 5′-phosphate added) to unstimulated activity in blood samples that were provided after an overnight fast.Results Mean±SD vitamin B6 intake was 2.83±0.98 mg day−1 and mean±SD protein intake was 56.6±21.7 g day−1. Of the participants 4% showed vitamin B6 intakes lower than daily recommended intakes for Germany, 16% showed EAST-AC >1.85, and a further 58% showed EAST-AC of 1.5–1-85. Moderate vegans were affected to a lesser extent than strict vegans. None of the established confounders was a significant predictor of EAST-AC. In logistic regression analyses the contribution of nutriments and cereals to pyridoxine intake was the only predictor of EAST-AC classified as ≤1.85 and >1.85, respectively.Conclusions In spite of the high total intake of vitamin B6, an adequate concentration in blood samples could not be realised for a majority of the participants. Due to the health implications of a marginal pyridoxine status, vegans should be encouraged to include foods with a high bioavailability of pyridoxine, such as beans, lentils and bananas, in the daily diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on territorialization, transnationalism, and multiculturalism in Kazakhstan, a country which has over 100 ethnic groups. The history of German settlement and Korean migration in their respective kin-state and host-state is presented. Data shows German and Korean attitudes about homeland, nationality, community of belonging, stigma, socioeconomic factors, and ethnicity.

The present study investigated whether German speakers compute grammatical gender on the basis of gender-marking regularities. To this purpose two experiments were run. In Experiment 1, participants had to assign the definite article to German nouns in an online task; in the second experiment, participants were confronted with German nouns as well as nonwords in an untimed gender assignment task. In the online experiment, which required the repetition of a visually presented noun with its corresponding definite article as fast as possible, reaction times show that the assignment of the definite determiner to a noun is not facilitated by gender-marking regularities. In an offline gender assignment task, however, participants profited from gender cues during gender assignment to nonwords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to analyze the nature of the German minorities in the Czech Republic and Poland. In order to achieve this goal, the relationship between Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic and Poland with the Bundesrepublik Deutschland forms an essential intellectual backdrop to the main theme. As for the minority populations themselves, in many ways, the situation of Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland between 1945 and the late 1980s was very similar. Both groups suffered as ethnic minorities in states whose ideological premises purportedly placed notions of class above those of ethnic identification.

Explores the place of gender and sexuality in Germans' discussions about coming to terms with their Nazi past. Central themes in discussions of masculinity during and after Nazism highlighted in the film "Das Wunder von Bern"; Integration of sexual contact with indigenous women into German men's wartime experience; Contribution of freedom from the suspicion of homoeroticism to the appeal of images of postwar male groups.

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