Mar 28, 2024  
2018-2019 University Catalog 
    
2018-2019 University Catalog [Archived Catalogue]

HIST 204 Berlin Hot, Berlin Cold: Berlin’s Drastic Decade, 1939-1949

College of Critical & Professional Studies

3 credits 45.0 hours
200 level undergraduate course

This course explores Berlin through the interpretive lenses of diary, film documentary and drama, architecture, primary-sourced history, and secondary narrative. Nowhere is this confluence of ideas and structures more dynamic than in World War II and early Cold War Berlin. 1939-1949 Berlin’s grandiose landscapes, self-aggrandizing monuments, cultural edginess and persistence, historical centrality, and international intrigue make the former Prussian capital, former Wilhelmine capital, former Nazi capital, postwar East German capital and postwar Western outpost, a location, symbol, and Cold War prize like no other. How has the physical space of Berlin been conceived and portrayed in the many mediums we will examine? How has Berlin’s role at the center of modern German, European and global history affected the city’s projection of self and power? In turn, how has Berlin’s aggression been addressed by a bewildered and aggrieved world of nations? In what ways have the cinema, literature, military might, diplomatic acumen, and historic rendering shaped and reshaped Berliners’ sense of responsibility, denial, alienation, resilience, and reconciliation? The course is organized around five key developments that each address significant changes in Berlin’s political and cultural life: wartime National Socialism, 1939-1945; postwar, city-wide denazification; May-July 1945 postwar Sovietization; July 1945-June 1948 continued Sovietization of eastern Berlin; the Soviet blockade of, and Western Airlift rescue of, western Berlin.

Prerequisites COMP*102, COMP*102E, COMP*112, or COMP*112H

This course is not repeatable for credit.
This course can fulfill a critical studies elective or free elective requirement.