Germany - Political Science
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POS 3998 - 2 Credit Hours
May 8 to May 26
Dr. Bruce Anderson
This course is designed to familiarize students with sites important the history of Nazi Germany during World War two. This trip covers two disparate elements and two separate and quite different sites: the Ravensbrueck KZ, near Furstenberg (Havel), Brandenburg, the only concentration camp specifically designed and housing women; and Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, which was to be the focus site of the new Nazi “religion”.The first aim is to familiarize students with the system of camps, their hierarchy and administration, and their use. We will stay “within the wire” at Ravenbrueck KZ, in the old SS accommodations for the matrons (which numbered among them Ilse Koch). Here, we will examine the camp in its three stages: as a detention camp and prison for women “social deviants”, political criminals, and religious offenders (chiefly Jehovah’s Witnesses); through its transition period of labor camp and industrial center, and through its final stages as a death camp. This section of the course will be team-taught by Dr. Anderson and Dr. Matthias Heyl, head of education at Ravensbrueck KZ.The second aim of the trip is to work through issues of displacement: Quedlinburg was a monastery and convent, founded by Henry the Fowler in about 900 AD. It was converted to Lutheranism in the 1500s, and sank into obscurity until rediscovered by Heinrich Himmler, who fancied himself a reincarnation of Henry. Himmler’s interest in the place was focused on making it a center for the new Nazi “religion”, a mish-mash of the occult, old “Nordic” myths, and nonsense of his own invention. Perhaps not incidentally, the ruins of the Langenstein-Zwieberge KZ are nearby: the dead from this camp were cremated at Quedlinburg’s city crematoria. Quedlinburg remains one of the most important extant medieval/renaissance towns in central Europe, preserved as it was during the war (not a bomb dropped there) and then as part of the old DDR, it was never touched by modern rebuilding.
Junior Journey Cost: $1458
Regular Cost: $3458
Deposit Deadline: November 10
Deposit Amount: $350