Gronau, Mathis Jonathan;
(2022)
Surrounded by Enemies? The Experience of German Minorities in France and Britain between 1914 and 1924.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Abstract
This study aims to analyse and compare the experience of German minorities in France and Britain before, during, and after the First World War. Contemporary accounts, newspapers, but also memoirs will be critically examined according to Alexander von Plato’s theory of Erfahrungsgeschichte or experience history. They help to create a larger theory of the discourse of national identity in the context of a minority and a majority during and after conflict. In a comparative manner, the national predispositions and differing viewpoints not only in France and Britain but also within the individual minority groups are explored. This comparative aspect further allows analysis of the reactions and types of migration that take place under similar but still different circumstances. In order to accurately define the group to be analysed, the concept of ‘ethnic’ Germans was conceived, emerging through the analysis itself, and pertains to one main argument of the thesis. The analysis of immensely differing accounts and individuals demonstrated a discursive hardening of national and, subsequently, ethnic identity. While these individuals could act and move across a ‘permeable’ plane of national identities in their host nations, the conflict led to a hardening and narrowing of those discourses. Suddenly, those who allegedly belonged to a German ethnicity would be treated as such. Therefore, whether German national, self-identified German, or foreign-identified German, these individuals all became ‘ethnic’ Germans. How quickly and with what intensity these discourses narrowed was largely dependent on the international relations of the countries and the connected ideas of cultural or ethnic compatibility. Similarly important, as this thesis looks at the post-war period as well, is the time it took for these discourses to open again and the impact it had on the reconstruction of pre-existing ethnic communities in either country.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Surrounded by Enemies? The Experience of German Minorities in France and Britain between 1914 and 1924 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > European and Intl Social and Political Studs UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > SELCS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10161897 |
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