During the German Empire, colonizers and colonial societies endeavored to integrate the colonies into a national narrative. This was done with the help of the contemporary discourse on Heimat. The same applied to colonial enthusiasts after , who imagined a better Germany, as it were, in the former German colonies. Investigations into the phenomenon of Heimat seldom extend beyond German borders. Even Austria and Switzerland are given short shrift, whereas transnational approaches are lacking entirely with the exception of colonial history.
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The visual history of Heimat has likewise received scant attention from scholars. A divergent leftist or liberal concept of Heimat and a focus on gender-specific issues are marginal features in the historical literature. The German notion of Heimat is perceived as a uniquely German phenomenon, distinctly different from other concepts of homeland throughout the world.
With the exception of nature conservation and environmental protection, [98 ] there are no comparisons to analogous movements in other cultures. Thus, the literature on the German-speaking world sticks to the German concept of Heimat and only concerns itself with the broader phenomenon when linked to a discourse on homeland. This explains why organizations that prominently feature the word Heimat in their names or agendas are being given particular attention. There is general agreement that conservative-chauvinist and racist parts of the Heimat movement should not be underestimated.
To date, there has neither been an investigation of these writings and institutions with respect to their actual political leanings and hence the range of this discourse, nor have there been sufficient studies on the Heimat discourse of the s and s. There is also a dearth of studies on the history of everyday life focusing on the urban, local and regional forms of liberal Heimat movements and their impact, previous research having centered on the antimodern and chauvinist varieties. In this respect, from an overseas perspective the entire nation-state is Heimat.
These distinctions need to be given more attention. Diverse ties to Heimat are important even within a given region. What role did it play for a subnational, political or administrative body such as a federal state in the German Empire? Was there any resistance to it? What happens when a local Heimat discourse does not address its integration in the nation or federal state, rejects cooptation, and tries to evade political instrumentalization?
These aspects need to be analyzed more fully. On the one hand, we need to look beyond the German word Heimat and inquire into the larger phenomenon of homeland as an anthropological concept. On the other, the Heimat discourse needs to be differentiated with regard to its deviations from the norm. As mentioned above, a leftist discussion of Heimat has existed since the nineteenth century. Its points of reference need to be examined as well, such as the relationship between Heimat and region independent of any state borders running through them.
The relationship between locality and globality also needs to be explored more intensely. Do they need the fiction of an unchangeable folk culture and the timeless character traits of a local population, formed by nature and landscape? The specific manifestation of the dominant Heimat discourse — for example, from the late German Empire to the Nazi period — looks different when taking into account liberal and leftist Heimat discourses. The later Nobel Peace Prize winner Alfred Hermann Fried, for example, wrote in a essay on patriotism that a sense of Heimat could help counteract excessive nationalism.
Ubi bene ibi patria — where life is good, i. Another aspect worth investigating is a gender-history perspective. How dear the word is, precisely to the female sex! It is important, furthermore, to link the Heimat discourse to globalization and relativize the nation as its privileged framework.
The question is whether a specific emotional charge and an overemphasis on landscape are the distinguishing features of German Heimat as opposed to other local processes of identity-formation or whether there are other criteria at work. Heimat as an urban phenomenon has been the focus of recent discussion. Furthermore, local processes of identity-building in general are unimaginable without an emotional component and specific aesthetic references to space.
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The emotional appeal of having a homeland hardly appears to be the prerogative of the German-speaking world, as Rolf Petri pointed out in References to modernization processes, similarities to the development of nation-states, the refurbishment of local spaces and the back-to-nature movement all make abundantly clear that the concept of a homeland is by no means something specially German inherent to the concept of Heimat. Locality, writes Angelika Epple, is a promising concept, because ultimately globalization is always embedded locally.
Unlike locality and regionality, Heimat could be understood here as a modern concept linking humans to their living environment and the world. The same applies to the relationship between homeland and nation. The insights and approaches of historical research on the German-speaking world and its concepts of Heimat can serve here as a model for analyzing such processes.
I would like to conclude by returning to the question posed at the very beginning of this essay as to whether Heimat is meaningful as a historical category. Locality, localism, regionality or territoriality would seem more neutral and transferrable. And yet there are arguments for using the German word Heimat outside its immediate context. At the linguistic level alone, the supposed untranslatability of the term should be taken with a grain of salt.
Neither requires an emotional component, which is indispensable to concepts of identity. Territoriality is the overarching category, whereas Heimat or Heimatism is a concept implemented in the modern era, expressing culturally formed and historically rooted manifestations of territoriality in the German-speaking world. Copyright c Clio-online e. Jaeger heimat v1 en Aus Docupedia. The concept of Heimat can be used in conjunction with many phenomena and sometimes seems to have a precise definition.
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The Article will address the concept and its varied meanings and it will also examine the fundamental relationship between individuals with respect to their social and geographic spaces. Lienert and Schirner, Printed by: Heimat is linked here to urban spaces, and the lower photo is in keeping with the socialist concept of Heimat, emphasizing the active creation of space by the working class.
The KPD does use the word Heimat, but on the other hand conjures up an urban symbol of Munich with a photograph of the Frauenkirche soon after the war, along with some photos of local tenement buildings. Private collection of J. The picture is colorized, underscoring contemporary notions of the aesthetic and natural character of the scene.
Such scenes are not just typical of German postcards but were common around the world at the turn of the twentieth century. The postcard was an everyday form of communication, not made and sold for tourists alone but popular among locals as well. The postcard shows a typical motif: Dark clouds symbolize threat, the rainbow hope.
The motif combines images belonging to the standard repertoire of Heimat iconography: A young woman in what appears to be traditional costume sits on a wooden fence before a sun-drenched valley free of modern influences.
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The poster reveals that older bourgeois notions of Heimat were still commonplace in the GDR. Bundesarchiv Plak courtesy of the German Federal Archives.
The owl and pine tree suggest a forest. There is no room for modernity in this picture — even in the iconographic models of the Heimatschutz movement from the imperial era are invoked in the GDR. A small village in the midst of a slightly hilly, agricultural landscape with small-scale farms.
Kolonie und Heimat ca. Its aim was to popularize the colonies in Germany and make them attractive as settlement areas. The picture must have been disconcerting at the time, since Heimat was hardly associated with people living in the colonies, much less with African women displaying a dignified and sophisticated middle-class domesticity. Bundesarchiv Bild courtesy of the German Federal Archives. Applegate, Celia, A nation of provincials: University of California Press. Bausinger, Hermann, Heimat in der offenen Gesellschaft. Begriffsgeschichte als Problemgeschichte , in: University of Toronto Press.
Confino, Alon, The nation as a local metaphor: University of North Carolina Press. Konturen und Konjunkturen eines umstrittenen Konzepts , Bielefeld The University of Michigan Press. Palmowski, Jan, Die Erfindung der sozialistischen Nation: Petri, Rolf, Deutsche Heimat , in: Schaarschmidt, Thomas, Regionalkultur und Diktatur: Bastian, Andrea, Der Heimat-Begriff: Probleme regionaler Kultur, Kiel Blunt, Alison, Home and Empire: Photographs of British Families in the Lucknow Album , in: International Library of Human Geography.
Brepohl, Wilhelm, Die Heimat als Beziehungsfeld. Entwurf einer soziologischen Theorie der Heimat , in: Soziale Welt 4, 1, , S. Heimat, National Memory and the German Empire, , in: History and Memory 5, 1, , S. Confino, Alon, On Localness and Nationhood , in: Confino, Alon, Germany as a culture of remembrance: Edwards, Elizabeth, The camera as historian: New German Critique 39, 1 , , S. Weltregionen und neue Globalisierung, Wien The Journal of Localitology 3, , S. European Review of History: Revue europeenne d'histoire 15, 3, , S. Fried, Alfred Hermann, Internationalismus und Patriotismus , in: Kultur und Fortschritt, , Statt einer Einleitung , Heimat: Konturen und Konjunkturen eines umstrittenen Konzepts, Bielefeld Greverus, Ina-Maria, Der territoriale Mensch: Joschke, Christian, La photographie, la ville et ses notables , in: Kossert, Andreas, Kalte Heimat: Kriel, Lize, Heimat in the Veld.
Geschichte und Gesellschaft 41, 2, , S.
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Zur marxistischen Auffassung des Heimatbegriffs , Berlin Festrede gehalten zum Stiftungsfest des Crimmitschauer Volksvereins am Lindenberger, Thomas, Home sweet home: An International Journal 18, 1, , S. Mitzscherlich, Beate, "Heimat ist etwas, was ich mache": Morsey, Rudolf, Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Domestic Germanness and Colonial Citizenship , in: Oberkrome, Willi, Durchherrschte Heimat? Oberkrome, Willi, Deutsche Heimat: The Construction of a Socialist Heimat, — , in: Central European History 37, 3, , S.
Palmowski, Jan, Inventing a socialist nation: Prochaska, David, Thinking Postcards , in: Visual Resources 17, 4, , S. Public History Weekly 5 Heimat - Wiederkehr einer Idee September Heimat - eine deutsche Chronik.
Zuhause in der zweiten Heimat? Europa-Konzepte und regionale Selbstverortung im Elsass, in: A German Dream Hans Krah. Heimat gestern und heute Jos Schnurer. Youth Movements, Citizenship and the English Countryside. Creating Good Citizens, London Anette Schlimm. Konturen und Konjunkturen eines umstrittenen Konzepts Gregor Hufenreuter. Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach Mathias Beer. Regionalkultur und Diktatur Clemens Vollnhals. Frauen der politischen Rechten Organisationen - Agitationen - Ideologien Lora Wildenthal.
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