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In this paper, we estimate the effects of mandatory military and alternative community service by exploiting the post‐cold war decrease in the need for soldiers causing a substantial number of potential conscripts not to be drafted into the German military. The study is based on retrospective survey information for 655 men from the 1970 to 1984 birth cohorts collected in 2009/10 and after, using previously unavailable information on degree of fitness in the military's medical exam as a control variable. We test for the effects of mandatory service on wages, employment, volunteer work, marriage/partnership status, and satisfaction with various aspects of life. Whilst many estimates are not statistically significant, for the younger birth cohorts 1976 to 1984, we find some evidence of a lower hourly wage due to mandatory military service, which shows a negative point estimate of −15% with a large confidence interval of between −30 and −0.2%. This interval estimate is consistent with previous findings for the United States, Denmark, and the Netherlands. However, we also find statistically significant estimates for both military and alternative community service to increase participation in volunteer work, a hitherto rarely explored effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Second World War, in 1941–1944, Nazi German troops held the frontal responsibility of the Arctic front in Finnish Lapland. In this paper, we present the first zooarchaeological study of the wartime faunal remains from German military camps in Lapland. This illustrates the supply situation of both the German soldiers and their multinational prisoners. The official military supply was substantially supplemented with local food sources, namely, with the local semi‐domesticated reindeer that dominates the bone assemblage. Bones of cattle, ovicaprines, and pig occur in lower numbers and appear to represent the German long‐distance supply chain stretching from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean. The remains of reindeer and wild species remind of the close interactions with locals and of the prisoners' hunting activities to supplement their meager diet. Even if the reindeer bones dominate both the soldiers' and prisoners' faunal assemblages, there are notable differences in the body parts, with bones from meatier portions always found in the soldiers' food waste. Besides highlighting a tension between the military supply and everyday demands, the faunal remains can draw attention to wider anthropological questions that reach beyond the information available in historical documents, such as adaptations into an alien northern environment. This emphasizes the importance of zooarchaeological analyses of recent past faunal materials from superficially familiar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influence of transversal reinforcement on the crackin behaviour of reinforced concrete slabs under service load In the framework of a research project at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, experimental and theoretical studies were conducted to observe the influence of reinforcement on the crack and deformation behaviour of reinforced slabs in the serviceability limit state. Besides experimental investigations on the influence of reinforcement bars, arranged perpendicular to the direction of tensile stress, on cracking in reinforced concrete strips, tests on concrete slabs with inclined reinforcement mesh subjected to uniaxial and biaxial bending load were also conducted. Overall, the evaluation of the test results showed a significant influence of the perpendicular and skewed arranged reinforcement bars on cracking behaviour of reinforced concrete slabs under particular conditions. On the basis of preliminary mechanical considerations, test results and additional numerical parameter studies, an approach to calculate the crack spacing and the crack width in concrete slabs, based on the classical crack model and with taking the influence of arbitrary reinforcement direction into account, was developed. The following article presents selected contents of the conducted investigations and summarizes the essential results of the research project. The focus is on experimental investigations on slabs under uniaxial bending load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physics, experimental setup, and analysis of results involved in Walther Bothe and Peter Jensen's mistaken 1941 measurement of the capture cross section for thermal neutrons by carbon are examined. Their experiment, while well‐conceived and executed, was corrupted by the presence of unappreciated impurities. This erroneous measurement was crucial as it prompted a decision by German military administrators to abandon graphite as a possible moderator for a nuclear pile in favor of heavy water, a decision which set their program back irreparably. In early 1941, Walther Bothe measured the cross‐section for capture of thermal neutrons by graphite as part of the wartime German nuclear program. The graphite contained impurities, which resulted in a large cross‐section and its rejection as a moderating material. This paper analyses the experiment and speculates on the nature of the impurities that may have been involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The last 10 years have seen an increase in the number of suicides in the US Armed Forces. Accordingly, the topic of suicides in the German military has received a lot of attention in media and science alike.Methods: This study retrospectively examined all suicides (N = 107) committed by active, nonretired German military personnel from 2010 to the end of 2014, analyzing archived medical records. In a second step, these data were compared to a representative German Armed Forces survey conducted in 2012 (N = 1,549).Results: The following risk groups for suicide were identified: male (OR = 9.6), single (OR = 7.8), aged over 45 years (OR = 4.0), short period of service (<2 years; OR = 2.7), and low level of education (OR = 2.2). Surprisingly, military personnel with little experience in deployments abroad (<2 missions) showed double the risk (OR = 2.0) compared to those who had been deployed more than once.Discussion: Multiple robustness checks show that being single, aged over 45 years, and having obtained a low level of education exhibit the most robust effects on suicide risk.Conclusion: Efforts should be made to develop and evaluate risk group-focused prevention programs. We conclude, that further studies should be initiated to show differences of risk groups between lethal and nonlethal suicidal behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B Militant attacks persist and MINUSMA suffers more losses. b Mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) killed nine Mali soldiers during November in central and southern areas, the military said on December 4th. The claim added that JNIM militants torched an army motorcycle and seized military equipment. The German military has been in Mali since 2013, with a presence of up to 1,400 soldiers as part of the MINUSMA mission, mostly based near Gao in the north. [Extracted from the article]

In both World Wars, the German armies enacted a prostitution policy in all the occupied territories of Western and Eastern Europe. Through a comparative study, this article uses archival research in Poland, France, Belgium and Germany as well as existing studies in five languages to examine the continuities and discontinuities in German prostitution policies between the Western and the Eastern territories during both wars. In exploring the question of continuity, we consider the interaction of local authorities with occupation forces and how prostitution policies in Western and Eastern countries differed from the German 'home front'. Strong continuities existed between the First and Second World War, including a severe backlash against the abolitionist trend in Europe and the extension of regulatory controls beyond the prostitutes to include other 'suspect' women, often justified by concerns over the spread of venereal diseases and public morality and health. Despite these continuities, prostitution policies were even more regressive during the Second World War, with the racial ideology of Nazism as the main trigger for the brutalisation of prostitution policies. German authorities pushed the system to greater extremes, overseeing its evolution from control to terror. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Es spricht erneut für seine Arbeitsökonomie, seine Einsatzbereitschaft, seine Kenntnisse und seine wissenschaftlichen Fähigkeiten, dass er bereits im Jahr 1963 die mündliche Prüfung zu seiner viel beachteten, gelesenen und zitierten Dissertation "Untersuchungen über die Scherfestigkeit gestörter wassergesättigter Schluffe" ablegte. Die mit seiner Dissertation bereits bewiesene bodenmechanische Akribie wendete er nun auf die bautechnischen Eigenschaften tropischer und subtropischer Böden an und teilte seine Erkenntnisse in einer bedeutenden Zahl von Veröffentlichungen den Fachkollegen in einer Zeit boomender Entwicklungshilfeaktivitäten mit. Mit seinem Namen eng verknüpft sind z.B. die Prüfung der Durchlässigkeit von Deponie-Basis-Abdichtungen in situ, die Entwicklung der Bentokies-Dichtung, seine Untersuchungen zu Kombinationsabdichtungen und die Erforschung der Risssicherheit und der Selbstheilungseigenschaften von mineralischen Dichtungen. [Extracted from the article]

Es fehlt die Erörterung, warum gerade Laue 1945 in Farm Hall interniert wurde. Während er gefühlt jede noch so kleine Veröffentlichung Laues bespricht, werden etwa die Münchener "Religionsgespräche" über die Relativitätstheorie nur in einem Satz erwähnt. Mit der Entdeckung der Interferenzerscheinungen beim Durchgang von Röntgenstrahlen durch Kristalle wies Laue 1912 die Wellennatur der Röntgenstrahlen und die atomare Gitterstruktur von Kristallen nach. [Extracted from the article]

Die Diskussion um das Hygienekonzept an der Schule schlug hohe Wellen. 271 Posts in drei Stunden - mehr als damals bei Prügel-Kevin oder beim Läusebefall in der 2c. Der Einwurf des Zynismus-Beauftragten des Schulelternbeirats (ich), die katastrophalen Zustände in den Schultoiletten würden das Coronavirus vermutlich von selbst abtöten, wurde ignoriert. Die Besorgnis verlagerte sich schnell auf das Thema "Alkohol in Kinderhand"; die ernsthaft vorgeschlagene Alternative: ein Flächendesinfektionsmittel auf Basis quartärer Ammoniumverbindungen. [Extracted from the article]