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James F. Tent

Bio: James F. Tent is an academic researcher from University of Alabama at Birmingham. The author has contributed to research in topics: Denazification & Retrenchment. The author has an hindex of 6, co-authored 12 publications receiving 109 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Tent as discussed by the authors has drawn on declassified documents and interviews with veterans of the Occupation to bring to life the dilemmas American officials faced in balancing the need for a political purge against the need to rehabilitate a disrupted society but also the paradoxes involved in a democracy's attempt to impose its ideals on another people.
Abstract: German society underwent greater change under the four years of military occupation than it had under Hitler and the Nazis. The issue of reeducation lay at the heart of America's occupation policies. Encompassing denazification, restructuring of the school system, university reform, and cultural exchange, reeducation began as an idealistic (and naive) attempt to democratize Germany by making her over in the American image. For this meticulously researched study, James F. Tent has drawn on a wealth of recently declassified documents and on numerous personal interviews with veterans of the Occupation. He brings to life not only the dilemmas American officials faced in balancing the need for a political purge against the need to rehabilitate a disrupted society but also the paradoxes involved in a democracy's attempt to impose its ideals on another people. His book chronicles the dedicated work of many Americans; it also illuminates America's Occupation experience as a whole.

35 citations

Book
01 Jan 1982
TL;DR: Tent as mentioned in this paper has drawn on declassified documents and interviews with veterans of the Occupation to bring to life the dilemmas American officials faced in balancing the need for a political purge against the need to rehabilitate a disrupted society but also the paradoxes involved in a democracy's attempt to impose its ideals on another people.
Abstract: German society underwent greater change under the four years of military occupation than it had under Hitler and the Nazis. The issue of reeducation lay at the heart of America's occupation policies. Encompassing denazification, restructuring of the school system, university reform, and cultural exchange, reeducation began as an idealistic (and naive) attempt to democratize Germany by making her over in the American image. For this meticulously researched study, James F. Tent has drawn on a wealth of recently declassified documents and on numerous personal interviews with veterans of the Occupation. He brings to life not only the dilemmas American officials faced in balancing the need for a political purge against the need to rehabilitate a disrupted society but also the paradoxes involved in a democracy's attempt to impose its ideals on another people. His book chronicles the dedicated work of many Americans; it also illuminates America's Occupation experience as a whole.

33 citations

Book
01 Jan 1988
TL;DR: In this paper, the origins of the Free University, 1944 to 1948, and the founding of the free university, 1948 to 1969, and its consolidation and retrenchment, 1969 to 1983.
Abstract: Preface Abbreviations One: The Origins of the Free University, 1944 to 1948 Two: The Founding of the Free University, 1948 Three: The Consolidation of the Free University, 1949 to 1961 Four: The Free University in Crisis, 1961 to 1968 Five: The Free University and Reform, 1968 to 1983 Six: Retrenchment and Consolidation Notes Sources Index

11 citations

Book
20 Mar 2003
TL;DR: Tent as discussed by the authors describes how Jewish men and women from all over Germany and from all walks of life struggled to survive in an increasingly hostile society, even as their Jewish relatives were disappearing into the East.
Abstract: The ""Halbjuden"" of Hitler's Germany were half Christian and half Jewish, but, like the rest of the ""Mischlinge"" (or ""partial-Jews""), were far too Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis. Thus, while they were allowed for a time to coexist with the rest of German society, they were granted only the most marginal or menial jobs, restricted from marrying Aryans or even leading normal social lives, and sent eventually to forced-labour and concentration camps. More than 70,000 Germans were subjected to these restrictions and indignities, created and fostered by Hitler's morally bankrupt race laws, yet few personal accounts of their experiences exist. In this title, James Tent recounts how these men and women from all over Germany and from all walks of life struggled to survive in an increasingly hostile society, even as their Jewish relatives were disappearing into the East. He draws on extensive interviews with 20 survivors, many of whom were teenagers when Hitler came to power, to show how ""half Jews"" coped with conditions on a day-to-day basis and how the legacy of the hatred they suffered has forever lingered in their minds. Tent provides stories of life beneath the boot-heel of Nazi rule: a woman deemed unsuitable for a career in nursing because the shape of her earlobes and breasts indicated she was not ""racially suited"", a man arrested for ""race defilement"" because he lived with an Aryan woman, and many others. He shows how Nazi discrimination and persecution affected their lives and how such treatment intensified through the later years of the war. Tent's witnesses share experiences in school and problems in the workplace, where the best survival strategy was to find an unobtrusive niche in a nondescript job. They tell of obstacles to personal relationships and they soberly remind us that by 1944 they too were rounded up for forced labour, certain to be the next victims of Nazi genocide. This text demonstrates the lengths to which the Nazis were willing to go in order to eradicate Judaism - a fanaticism that increased over time and even in the face of impending military defeat. The ""Halbjuden"" mostly survived the Holocaust, yet they paid for their re-assimilation into German society by remaining silent in the face of haunting memories. This book breaks that silence and is a testament to human endurance under the most trying circumstances.

9 citations


Cited by
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01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: The denazification of feature film legacy of the Third Reich has been examined in this article along a chronological and comparative line, with a focus on the three Allied powers that occupied West Germany from 1945 to 1955.
Abstract: The three Allied powers that occupied West Germany from 1945 to 1955 subjected the feature film legacy of the Third Reich to a process of denazification The origins and implementation of this project are examined here along chronological and comparative lines Part One looks at British and American dealings with Third Reich feature films until 1945 It explores whether general suggestions of ill-prepared occupation plans apply here; what role the wartime “reeducation” debate played in Anglo-American planning efforts; and to what extent British and American plans, partly informed by the perspectives of emigres such as Siegfried Kracauer and Heinrich Fraenkel, confirmed the notion of a dichotomy between a few “political” Nazi features and a large group of “unpolitical” Third Reich features Part Two compares Western Military Governments’ policies from 1945 to 1949: legislation and official regulations; determination of ownership rights to seized films; censorship policies; destruction or shipment abroad of banned films; and the circulation of approved films, often in somewhat cut versions The September 1949 lists of hundreds of cut and banned German feature films are shown to form a legacy of years of Allied purging efforts Part Three concentrates on the Allied High Commission period (1949-1955), when the Western Allies supervised a continuing process of denazification of Third Reich feature film stock Representatives of the former UFI/UFA and other film industry members, many of whom seemed to hold on to the notion of a largely “unpolitical” Third Reich cinema, now aimed for a removal of individual features from the list of forbidden feature films Submissions to and approvals by the semi-official German FSK were often based on drastic cuts The AHC was sometimes internally divided (Harlan, Titanic), but accepted most of the FSK approvals Still, several hundred features remained banned

141 citations

Book
01 Jun 2008
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present trajectories, maps, and lessons from the past of US public diplomacy, including the foundations of US information overseas, and the history of the USIA.
Abstract: Prologue: the foundations of US information overseas 1. Getting the sheep to speak: the Truman years, 1945-53 2. Mobilizing 'the P-Factor': Eisenhower and the birth of the USIA, 1953-6 3. In the shadow of Sputnik: the second Eisenhower administration, 1957-61 4. Inventing truth: the Kennedy administration, 1961-3 5. Maintaining confidence: the early Johnson years, 1963-5 6. 'My radio station': the Johnson administration, 1965-9 7. Surviving detente: the Nixon years, 1969-74 8. A new beginning: the Ford administration, 1974-7 9. From the 'two-way' mandate to the second Cold War: the Carter administration, 1977-81 10. 'Project Truth': the first Reagan administration, 1981-4 11. Showdown: the second Reagan administration, 1985-9 Epilogue: victory and the strange death of the USIA, 1989-99 Conclusion: trajectories, maps, and lessons from the past of US public diplomacy.

122 citations

Dissertation
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, an analysis of the development of new music in occupied Germany from the end of World War Two, on 8 May 1945, until the end in 1946, in terms of the creation of institutions for the propagation of New Music, in the form of festivals, concert series, radio stations, educational institutions and journals focusing on such a field, alongside an investigation into technical and aesthetic aspects of music being composed during this period.
Abstract: This thesis is an analysis of the development of new music in occupied Germany from the end of World War Two, on 8 May 1945, until the end of 1946, in terms of the creation of institutions for the propagation of new music, in the form of festivals, concert series, radio stations, educational institutions and journals focusing on such a field, alongside an investigation into technical and aesthetic aspects of music being composed during this period. I argue that a large number of the key decisions which would affect quite fundamentally the later trajectory of new music in West Germany for some decades were made during this period of a little over eighteen months. I also argue that subsequent developments up to the year 1951, by which time the infrastructure was essentially complete, were primarily an extension and expansion of the early period, when many of the key appointments were made, and institutions created. I also consider the role of new music in mainstream programming of orchestras, opera houses, chamber music societies, and consider all of these factors in terms of the occupation policies of the three Western powers – the USA, the UK and France. Furthermore, I compare these developments to those which occurred in during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, of which I give an overview, and argue as a result that the post-war developments, rather than being radically new, constituted in many ways a continuation and sometimes distillation of what was in place especially in the Weimar years. I conclude that the short period at the centre of my thesis is of fundamental importance not only for the course of German new music, but that in Europe in general.

88 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors compare and contrast the public discourse over memory in Western Europe and North America and conclude that the greater awareness in continental Europe of memory as a political resource and site of contestation has profound implications for elite behavior and mass responses.
Abstract: The author compares and contrasts the public discourse over memory in Western Europe and North America. The greater awareness in continental Europe of memory as a political resource and site of contestation has profound implications for elite behavior and mass responses. It also has the potential to alter the dynamics by which collective and institutional memory is created, recalled, and altered.

86 citations

Book
16 Dec 2013
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared education from the margins to the mainstream and education for peace building: Rwanda in comparative perspective, in the context of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and post-genocide education.
Abstract: 1 Moving education from the margins to the mainstream 2 Colonial schooling 3 Schooling under the Rwandan republics 4 Schooling after genocide 5 Education for peace building: Rwanda in comparative perspective 6 Conclusion

78 citations