This article examines self-disparaging representations of “the German man” in humorous middle-class visual and textual publications of the 1840s. Considering contemporary notions of German national character and the emergence of contradictory masculine ideals, the analysis traces the dual representation of the German man as either an emasculated philistine or a hypermasculine quixotic hero. Based on this analysis, it argues that just as a German national movement was acquiring unprecedented political potency, a highly gendered sense of German national ineptness was widespread among the German bourgeoisie. Both the philistine and the quixotic German were cast as inadequate in the face of a corruptive, feminized modernity that was unfairly advantageous to the French. These findings underscore how gender and national stereotypes in nineteenth-century Germany were mutually destabilizing and repeatedly negotiated, profoundly shaping contemporaries’ understanding of the world changing around them.

The difference between the representation of German femininity in the 1920s and the 1930s is striking: while glamorous flappers with bob haircuts ruled the beginning of the interwar period, its end is characterized by serious and earnest—and often longhaired—young women. Rather than taking the obvious route of relating this change to the political changes in Germany, most importantly the rise of the Nazis, this article argues that the changing representation of interwar femininity in Germany was always embedded in a transnational, transatlantic process. The transformation of flappers into humble girls started well before the Nazis came to power and was fueled by a wide variety of voices, from communist to bourgeois actors.

The Wehrmacht's stunning victories in the first three years of the Second World War produced a euphoric response among Nazi leaders. Suddenly, the East became a vast expanse of nearly limitless possibilities, and creating a new racial order topped the list. Although most historians have focused on the Volksdeutsche, the regime also planned to settle veterans after the war's conclusion to serve as model Germans, farmers, and a “living wall” to defend the East. As the war dragged on into 1942 and these men continued to fight, the regime turned to disabled veterans to garrison the East. The SS designed a racial selection process that proved too restrictive to generate enough applicants and, during 1943 and 1944, settlement officials revised standards. In the process, contingency, constrained practices, and contested ideology all cast the boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, able-bodiedness, and disability as much more malleable than Nazi propaganda projected.

In 1525, Prussia became the first territory to enact the Reformation when its leaders issued a new church order based on the teachings of Martin Luther. As this article makes clear, these were not native Prussians instituting reforms but rather German clergymen, many of whom had travelled to Prussia because their marriages had provoked persecution in the Holy Roman Empire. To illuminate the intertwined phenomena of marriage, migration, and church reform in Prussia, this article compares the journeys of two German clergymen who travelled to Prussia and led the Reformation there: Paul Speratus, a Swabian preacher, and Albrecht of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order. Although they came from different social strata and their journeys to Prussia were distinct, the leitmotif of marriage animates their embrace of the Reformation and their paths to Prussia.

To a large extent, master surveys of the Federal Republic's history have failed to weave into their narratives the rise of female emancipation or challenges to male domination. This article addresses the reasons for this failure, as well as the implications of its reversal. It analyzes the role of women activists during West Germany's “1968,” underlining the gender bias of common narratives of the West German Sixties. The addition of feminist agency to West German history necessarily changes the definition of “success” in the Westernization narrative of the Federal Republic, and also the way in which we define generations and engage in public forms of commemoration.

Die Emanzipation der Frauen und die Infragestellung männlicher Dominanz spielen in den Überblickswerken zur Geschichte der Bundesrepublik nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Warum dies so ist, und welche Folgen eine Umkehr dieser Tendenz hätte, ist Thema dieses Aufsatzes. Am Beispiel feministischer Aktivistinnen des westdeutschen “1968” wird aufgezeigt, wie geschlechtsspezifisch verzerrt die gängigen Narrative der Protestbewegung und des Wertewandels in den 1960er Jahren sind. Sobald wir die Narrative der westdeutschen Geschichte mit feministischer “agency” zusammendenken, verändert sich notwendigerweise die Definition von “Erfolg” in der “Erfolgsgeschichte” der Bundesrepublik. Zudem werden die Kategorien des “Westens” und der “Verwestlichung”, der “politischen Generation” und des “Generationskonflikts” als geschlechtsspezifische Konstrukte erkennbar, die bislang eine männliche Perspektive in der Geschichtsschreibung wie in der öffentlichen Erinnerungskultur privilegiert haben.

By 1849 the kindergarten spread across the German Confederation as an alternative space of revolutionary politics and protest. I argue that the kindergarten worked alongside the barricade as a key location to protest traditional forms of state and religious authority and cultivate a new humanity that centered on women's gendered labor and children's education. For the founder of the kindergarten Friedrich Fröbel and his supporters, the classroom was a garden for the future in which educators and children alike could “perform utopia.” For female revolutionaries, the kindergarten provided a forum to make political claims in ways not open elsewhere. This article provides insight not only into the history of Central Europe in the Age of Revolutions, but also into the histories of emotions, gender, and education. I argue that historians should examine how ideas of “utopian hope” have been utilized in moments of upheaval to create new spaces of opposition.

Seven specialists in Central and East Central European history have come together to discuss the state of the field of gender studies in their subfields. Much emphasis is placed on thinking about how the current political situation in the 2020s is affecting what historians do, what is taught in the classroom, and how it relates to the larger political environment. This forum is based on the 2026 American Historical Association (AHA) Central European History Society (CEHS) presidential panel of the same name. The contributors collaborated to produce a forum accessible to non-specialists and for use in the classroom. It serves as a resource for anyone interested in the historiography of gender studies for the region, which includes the lands east of France and west of Russia.

The aim of this article is to make clear that, although men largely dominated the institutions of the Holy Roman Empire, beyond these constitutional institutions we can find many examples of women's agency. In particular, women of noble and princely families assumed political roles, both in relation to territories and to the empire as a whole. While it would not be correct to reinterpret the Holy Roman Empire as a “realm of ladies,” it seems clear that the empire, as a communicative context and dynastic network, was constituted with the participation of elite women, and that women were important for the ritual perpetuation of the constitution of the empire. In short, it was not only law and the constitution and the actions of men that held the empire together, but also the actions of women, who helped shape networks and politics just as they influenced the transfer of knowledge and culture.

Through the examination of a criminal trial that took place in Vienna in January and February 1968, this article explores postwar Austria’s treatment of pornography. It argues that the 1950 law criminalizing pornography in Austria was a product of the Second Republic’s consensus-driven politics and emphasis on international obligations under a 1923 international treaty against obscenity. The spectacle of the presiding judge berating defendants on trial in 1968 sparked public outrage and calls for legal reform. The Austrian government strove to liberalize the country’s obscenity laws but soon abandoned these efforts. Through a comparison to Denmark and West Germany, the article suggests that the failure of legislative reform in Austria resulted from an emphasis on political consensus and on international law, as well as the terms of the debate over pornography after the 1968 trial, focused on restraining judicial power rather than artistic liberties and free speech.