Journal of Contemporary History

Oswald Menghin and Armin Dadieu had two things in common: both were academics and Austrian National Socialists who served as political functionaries after the Anschluss in 1938. At the end of the Second World War, they fled Allied justice and thus became ‘Nazis on the run’. This article argues that from this point onwards, we must understand Dadieu and Menghin as agents in the history of flight. We must regard their illegal escapes via Italy and their new beginnings in Argentina in 1948 as part of the great (forced) migration movement and thus as part of research on the history of postwar displacement. Even after their transformation from functionaries to fugitives, both remained part of the (former) Nazi elite. Their postwar biographies lie at the intersection of research on the perpetrators of the Holocaust and scientific migration, and they established loyal, multilayered support networks. After the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht, their wives and lovers, friends and former political associates helped them to reestablish their social lives on the run; the Catholic Church enabled their migration; and Juan Perón's modernization project in Argentina helped them to establish their careers. The local and global assistance that they received from these networks ultimately made both Nazi scholars privileged migrants.

This article explores the underappreciated roles of the International Tracing Service and the United Restitution Organization as vital bureaucratic and legal agents of postwar restitution. Initially focused on humanitarian tracing activities, the International Tracing Service gradually transformed into a central archival and administrative authority within the complex reparations landscape. Concurrently, the United Restitution Organization emerged as a crucial advocate, guiding Holocaust survivors through legal compensation claims. Analysing intersections and tensions between these institutions reveals deeper bureaucratic and ethical challenges in postwar justice. This study contributes significantly to Holocaust historiography by emphasizing how institutional practices shaped collective memory, victim narratives, and broader understandings of justice, agency, and historical repair.

This study analyzes Chinese press perceptions of the Turkish National Struggle (1919–23) and Atatürk's subsequent reforms until his death. Based on extensive analysis of Chinese newspapers and journals from 1923–39, it focuses on the 1930s, a period of intense national crisis in China that saw a surge in interest in Türkiye's successful anti-imperialist and modernization efforts. The research highlights the influence of Atatürk's leadership and reforms on Chinese political and intellectual elites. It reveals two main spheres of engagement: Guomindang (GMD) leaders and military elites viewed Türkiye as a strategic model for state-centered national revival. Simultaneously, intellectuals offered a wider range of interpretations, falling into three categories: epic, leader-centric accounts; legal-nationalist perspectives; and empathetic yet critical analyses. By examining previously unexplored Chinese-language sources, this study offers a pioneering systematic analysis of how Republican-era Chinese intellectuals and media understood the Turkish experience. It makes a significant original contribution to the historiography of Sino-Turkish relations, detailing the instrumental and ideological ways in which Atatürk's Türkiye was interpreted by a nation searching for its own path to modernity and sovereignty.

Existing scholarship on the emergence of Franklin D. Roosevelt's new deal slogan is inconsistent and incomplete. This article constructs a revised history of the phrase by scrutinizing the contradictory stories of its origin. The investigation initially establishes the historical context by examining the phrase's trajectory prior to Roosevelt. It then considers the various accounts of those who have been credited with coining the slogan on his behalf. Finally, the article recovers the indispensable contribution of Charles R. Macauley, who has become the forgotten man in debates over new deal's murky beginnings.

This article examines the significance of respect and equality in international relations, focusing on the 1947 Geneva tariff negotiations between China and the United States. Driven by its interest in China's vast market, the United States aimed to reduce China's tariffs. In contrast, China, newly empowered after the Second World War, sought to assert its great power status and national rejuvenation, prioritizing industrial protection over tariff liberalization due to its underdeveloped economy and dependence on tariff revenues. The asymmetry in objectives led to prolonged and contentious negotiations. Initially, China offered only minimal concessions and delayed agreement. Unable to push China for further tariff reductions, the United States aggressively demanded a reduction on wheat flour tariffs, ignoring China's domestic realities, which resulted in a breakdown of talks and a vigorous Chinese backlash. China felt disrespected by the American failure to negotiate on a reciprocal basis. After 5 months, a limited agreement was reached, with the United States retreating from many of its initial positions. The outcome, falling short of American expectations, highlighted key postwar diplomatic dynamics: the significance of national constraints, the limits of coercion, and the necessity of reciprocity. This case demonstrates that equitable, context-sensitive engagement is crucial for durable international cooperation, benefiting both nations.

This article explores the relationship between the United Auto Workers, America's largest industrial union, and the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Contributing fresh perspectives, it presents a focused and detailed account of the union's support for the Civil Rights Movement. The analysis shows that the UAW regarded the public fight for civil rights as a ‘great moral crusade’. It played a significant role in the overlooked Detroit ‘Walk to Freedom’ (1963), a predecessor for the iconic March on Washington (1963) and Selma (1965) campaigns. In the 1950s and 1960s, the UAW also helped sustain the national civil rights coalition. In terms of tackling internal discrimination, however, the union's record was limited. Throughout this period, African-American workers remained disproportionately concentrated in low-paying jobs, hurt by corporate practices and union seniority agreements. Into the 1970s, many Black autoworkers turned to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, not the UAW, to tackle these deep-seated problems. As such, I argue that the union's response to internal civil rights complaints was motivated by a desire to reduce its legal liability as much as by a moral compass. Overall, the relationship between the union and civil rights was complex, especially when the private and public records are contrasted.

This article analyses the relationship between the maritime war, food supply, and popular opinion in Italy during the ‘fascist war’ (1940–3). It does so through a novel case study, focusing on Sicily and Sardinia. Drawing on a rich body of multinational sources – including detailed Italian police, informer, prefectural, and censorship reports – the article demonstrates that the war at sea critically disrupted food supplies to the islands, precipitating a rapid deterioration of civilian support for the regime well before the onset of sustained, large-scale Allied bombing. This challenges the prevailing historiographical narrative that attributes the breakdown of the Italian home front primarily to events from late 1942 onwards. By systematically tracing the links between maritime logistical failures, food shortages, and the erosion of consensus, this study not only integrates three historiographical strands – maritime warfare, the wartime ‘battle for food’, and the dynamics of home fronts – but also proposes a broader methodological framework for examining the impact of maritime warfare on civilian morale in island contexts. The findings suggest that the Italian case may offer wider comparative insights into the social consequences of the maritime war during the Second World War.

This article examines the overlooked phenomenon of displaced persons (DP) who, after postwar resettlement under United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration/International Refugee Organization (IRO) schemes, sought to return to Europe – the ‘returnees’ – to illuminate the frictions between promises and lived realities. It contextualizes the shift from early repatriation to large-scale resettlement in the late 1940s and frames return as a lens on migrant agency within an emerging migration regime and against the background of Cold War constraints. Through case files, it identifies recurring triggers for rejection of resettlement – mismatched and exploitative work, health limitations, family separation, mental distress and unmet expectations – while tracing how migrants mobilized letters, language and appeals to negotiate options in a system that cast them primarily as labour for reconstruction. This study also charts institutional reactions: reluctance to facilitate returns, stigmatizing labels (‘deportee’, later softened to ‘returnee’) and inter-governmental disputes over costs and responsibil-ity despite the relatively small numbers resettled under schemes like ‘Westward Ho!’. These dossiers reveal both migrants' agency and the IRO's learning curve, recasting ‘unsuccessful resettlement’ as a site of contestation, circular movement and adaptation by officials and migrants alike.

On May Day 1987, Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda publicly announced to stop adhering to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after years of following its prescriptions for economic policy reform. Zambian politicians and newspapers assisted by accusing the Bretton Woods institutions of being ‘neocolonialist organizations’ and forcing the country to implement a painful ‘structural adjustment program’ (SAP). Agency seemed to rest exclusively with international financial institutions. However, Kaunda was obviously taking a decision by breaking with the IMF in 1987. Against this background the article asks who was taking actions in formulating, shaping, and finally canceling the SAP in place in Zambia between 1985 and 1987. I argue that the SAPs in mid-1980s Zambia were shaped by a broad spectrum of actors, from the Bretton Woods Twins to Western donor governments, to the Zambian administration and other social forces within the country. Secondly, I refute narratives of SAPs as ‘neocolonial’ impositions, highlighting instead that IMF and Bank had considerable leverage though not complete control over the process. Thirdly, I show that the period in question was a time of ‘global disconnect’ for large parts of the Zambian economy and society, although SAPs were pushing for liberalization and world market integration.

This article explores the emotional regimes and refuges developed by male inmates in Nazi concentration camps (KL), focusing on Dachau, Mauthausen and Sachsenhausen. Drawing on survivor testimonies and memoirs, it argues that the SS imposed a top-down emotional regime designed to dehumanize and control prisoners through emotional repression and behavioural conformity. Inmates internalized and enforced these norms, not only to avoid punishment but also to reclaim agency and masculine identity in an emasculating environment. Emotional control became a survival strategy and a moral imperative, with stoicism and selective apathy valued over vulnerability. However, friendships offered emotional refuge, enabling inmates to express care, trust and pride – emotions otherwise suppressed in camp society. These relationships allowed prisoners to reassert individuality and moral decency, subtly resisting SS efforts to destroy their humanity. The article situates emotional regimes and refuges within broader debates on resistance, arguing that conformity to emotional norms and the cultivation of friendship constituted symbolic and defensive resistance. By examining the gendered dimensions of emotional expression and repression, this study contributes to our understanding of inmate society, survival strategies and the emotional lives of men under extreme conditions.

At the end of the Second World War, Allied-occupied Austria and Germany became places of transit for hundreds of thousands of displaced persons (DPs) and refugees, as well as sites of employment for various internationally composed teams of relief workers. Through its analysis of personal documents produced by both United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and Quaker relief workers, administrative correspondence by UNRRA and later the International Refugee Organization (IRO), organizational bulletins, as well as the diary of a DP, this paper shows how DPs themselves played an active part in the postwar rehabilitation of displaced people. Their duties within the camps and their close collaboration with non-DP relief workers highlight various forms of refugee agency. This paper further examines what UNRRA and the IRO gained through their collaboration with DPs, as well as to what extent DPs could themselves benefit from this. Despite the hierarchies embedded in the labour policies of UNRRA, the IRO and the Allied occupation forces, this paper demonstrates that focusing on refugee workers and the diverse ways in which they utilized their skills to administer relief measures and sustain camp life reveals the interrelation between refugee agency and the agency of non-DP relief workers.

The prevailing narrative holds that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed ‘shock therapy’ on Russia during the 1990s. Drawing on evidence from the IMF archives and interviews with key participants, I argue in this article that Russian economists and policymakers, and even more so the conditions of state collapse, shaped the country's post-socialist transition. Foreign assistance was occasionally used as an instrument by Russian market reformers to gain leverage in domestic policy struggles, and the IMF economists in Moscow provided technical knowledge on the workings of a market economy. Regarding the general nature of Russia's rugged transition to capitalism, however, the IMF's influence was minimal. Its demands for fiscal and monetary reform were frequently ignored or only partially implemented. By the mid-decade, the Fund tolerated non-compliance, fearing that greater pressure might politically weaken a Western-friendly government. The article thus reframes Russia's transformation as a process driven primarily by domestic developments and actors, with the IMF serving as a resource for domestic actors rather than an enforcer of an externally imposed agenda.

This article examines the politics of the Mexican power industry between 1949, when the World Bank made its first major loan to a developing country, and 1954, when the loan project came to an end. By analyzing Mexico's largest power company, Mexican Light and Power, it argues that business history is central to understanding development politics and diplomatic relations. On the brink of bankruptcy and incapable of meeting growing power demand, in 1949 Mexlight received a large loan from the World Bank to expand its generation capacity. The article argues that the Bank's involvement with the Mexican power industry should be understood as part of a broader Bretton Woods project to strengthen private enterprise in the developing world. The article advances an understanding of Latin American postwar development premised on willful integration into US economic structures. The article shows how the Bank's project was successful in building infrastructure to expand generation capacity, but it failed at securing private enterprise a space of economic autonomy free from government intervention. Contributing to discussions on developmental states, it argues that Mexico's private power industry expanded by deepening its reliance on government support.

Censuses that question individual population groups on ethnic or religious characteristics often precede ethnic cleansing. Is the 1939 census in Germany an exception? The focus of this article is how Friedrich Burgdörfer, as demographer and head of the Reich Statistical Office, made German Jews countable. The main purpose of the German census of Jews was to count them individually, divided according to their degree of Jewish kinship. In addition, from 1939 onwards, the demographers of the Reich Statistical Office provided decision-makers with the statistical data to statistically verify the self-censuses of the Jewish communities, to record the number of the group to be deported in advance in the case of deportations and to provide verifiable information in the event of changes such as people moving away. In this way, science and politics made resources available to each other in order to make the persecution and killing of German Jews plannable and thus feasible.

This article considers the relationship between Britain and Turkey during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath via the work of the British Council, specifically in its work with the Halkevleri (People's Houses) in Turkey and the Halkevi established in London in 1942. Concentrating on cultural diplomacy, it explores the ways in which the British Council adapted its cultural arsenal to build relations with Turkey – crucial for its strategic status, adamant in its neutrality – with the limited resources available. The article also examines how Turkey received these efforts at cultural diplomacy, whether they were reciprocated, and whether they managed to fill the gap between the aid that was requested and what Britain was willing or able to provide. It considers to what extent psychological rearmament could do military work, to what extent it sought to, and to what extent it could be expected to succeed. Finally, it considers the retraction of generosity and a series of rejected requests in the immediate postwar period as a clarification of the goals and limits of the Council's campaign.

Maintaining order in occupied territories was considered vital to the wider success of the Japanese wartime effort during the Asia-Pacific War (1937–45). Efforts to establish peace in the Philippines after occupation of the islands in January 1942 were impeded by the emergence of widespread guerrilla resistance. The Japanese military employed a variety of pacification and subjugation measures to combat opposition and restore order. Perhaps the most integral of these measures was the imposition of a military justice system to reinforce military rule and facilitate military control over occupied territories. This article examines the system and its evolution in the Philippines between 1942 and 1945, offering the first in-depth overview of Japanese military justice in the islands during the Asia-Pacific War. It demonstrates the dynamic character of military justice, emphasizing a shift from intimidation to conciliation over the course of the occupation, before an eventual radicalization of judicial practices towards the end of the war. The article also reflects on the role of military justice in the widespread violence perpetrated by Japanese forces during the final months of occupation, identifying structural weaknesses and institutional norms as factors shaping a notable increase in the use of force.

Sentimentality – the tendency to be motivated by emotions – was largely discredited in Western culture as an emotional style by the early twentieth century and was mostly associated with women, children, colonized people and the mentally ill. Child psychology also emerged in Europe at the turn of the century, as a scientific discipline dedicated to the rational research, cultivation and treatment of human emotions. Under the influence of psychoanalysis, it established children's tendency to be motivated by emotions as natural and legitimate. With the rise in the importance of scientifically trained professionals within industrializing states and imperial bureaucracies, psychology became crucial for national and colonial attempts to turn sentimental children into rational, socially functional adults. Focusing on the ways early Zionist psychologists and educators envisioned the emotional style of the ‘new’ Jewish child and his (and her) caregivers in mandatory Palestine, the article asks how these professionals constructed the distinctions between the sentimental child and the rational caregiver to promote an emotional style that would fit the needs of this national settlement project. Following scholars like Peter and Carol Stearns, William Reddy, and Benno Gammerl, it seeks to contribute to understanding how emotional styles emerge and what is the human agency in such processes.

For many years, the Allied occupation of West Germany was seen as an unqualified success. Although in recent years scholars have cast a more critical glance at denazification practices, the country's transformation into a liberal, parliamentary democracy continues to be viewed as nothing short of a miracle. But histories of the period tend to focus on elite policymakers: Allied officers, American experts, and German politicians. The views of ordinary Germans are put to one side, as is the fundamental paradox of democratization, namely that democratization is necessarily an undemocratic policy. This paper relies on a host of different sources, from Allied polling to oral histories to German government memoranda, to analyze how and why ordinary Germans engaged with practices of democratization in the postwar years. It hypothesizes that democracy came to mean a hollow set of political rituals to ordinary Germans. While Germans did develop democratic habits, those habits were not filled with democratic meaning, which would take much longer to develop. Ultimately, this article contends that ordinary Germans were content with a ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ approach to democratization, bootstrapping themselves into a democratic habitus in the years after the Second World War.

This article revisits the US transition to peacetime after the Second World War from a bottom-up perspective. While postwar America is often portrayed as a unified society led by returning veterans who seamlessly reintegrated into civilian life, this account obscures the uneven, prolonged, and often exclusionary nature of that transition. Drawing on recent historiography and highlighting understudied groups such as female veterans, veterans of color, conscientious objectors, war brides, prisoners of war, and civilians caught in the machinery of war, the article emphasizes the multiple and often overlapping timelines through which Americans ‘exited’ the war. It also explores the blurred boundaries between wartime and peacetime, especially for those veterans who reenlisted, served in occupation forces, or carried their struggles into the civil rights movement. The article argues that 1945 should not be seen as a clean break but rather as one among many possible endpoints in a much longer process of demobilization and reintegration. In doing so, it not only calls for a more inclusive history of the postwar years but also invites a broader reflection on how national memory elevates some veterans while rendering others invisible.

This article offers a new perspective on Sino–Soviet relations in the mid-1930s by examining how Chiang Kai-shek strategically reshaped Soviet perceptions of his political stance. Against the background that the Nanjing government was pursuing rapprochement with Japan, Chiang recast himself in Soviet eyes from a pro-Japanese leader to a potential anti-Japanese ally. He achieved this by exploiting the fragmented appearance of authority within the Nanjing government, distancing himself from the conciliatory policies towards Japan, and aligning with Soviet interests on key issues such as Xinjiang. Despite actually holding ultimate decision-making power of the Nanjing government, Chiang took advantage of the institutional ambiguity to attribute pro-Japanese policies to Wang Jingwei, President of the Executive Yuan and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other civilian officials. This case study highlights the need to reconsider how foreign relations functioned in Republican China, not only as state-to-state diplomacy between unified actors but as complex interactions shaped by internal divisions and diplomatic manoeuvring. By examining how foreign powers interpreted and responded to China's internal political structure, the article also provides broader insights into the role of strategic ambiguity and perception in international relations.