Bursaries
Student members
of the German History Society are invited to apply for financial
support to attend the Society's own regional conferences
and Annual General Meeting. Applications should
only be made where all alternative avenues of financial support
have already been exhausted; the Society will consider contributing
up to £50 towards travel and accommodation expenses.
Postgraduate
students who are members of the Society may also apply for a sum
of up to £400 to assist with travel and accommodation
expenses on research trips. Again, all other avenues of financial
support must have been exhausted. In the case of applications
for research trips, the application must include a detailed budget
for the trip and a statement of the aims and objectives (no longer
than 300 words).
Applications
for both funds must be accompanied by a brief statement from the
postgraduate's supervisor, and be submitted to Kay
Schiller. Applications & accompanying letters of reference
should be sent by email (and NOT by post).
Payments from
this fund can be made in sterling only, and are entirely at the
discretion of the committee of the Society. No correspondence
will be entered into where applications are refused.
German
History Society Essay Prize 2004
The winning essay
Suicide at the end of the Third Reich
Christian
Goeschel (Darwin College, University of Cambridge).
The Third Reich culminated in a massive suicide wave. The present
article traces the origins of the suicide wave, which took place
in the spring of 1945, in a general feeling among Germans that
everything was coming to an end, and analyses its background with
reference to Nazi propaganda, the Nazi cult of death, and the
Allied occupation of Germany and its aftermath. It will ask whether
the suicide wave also sheds light on the extent to which German
society as a whole had developed an ideological commitment to
the Nazis. Many Germans felt a complete breakdown of norms and
values, an anomie, which cannot be reduced to the breakdown of
the Third Reich. To many people who committed suicide, politics,
war and everyday life were not perceived as separate things, but
came together in a tremendously difficult time. The history of
suicide at the end of the Third Reich sheds new light on the decline
and fall of the Third Reich and the difficult transformation of
German society from a fascist system into a post-fascist society.
The
2005 Essay Prize Competition will follow the same format as that
of the 2004 Competition. The rules are as follows:
Conditions
1.
The GHS, in association with the RHS, will award a prize of
£500 to the winner of an essay competition.
2.
The essay can be on any aspect of German History, including the
history of German-speaking people both within and beyond Europe.
3.
Any postgraduate registered for a degree in a university in either
the UK or the Republic of Ireland is eligible to enter the competition.
4.
The text of the essay must not exceed 10.000 words.
5.
Two hard copies of the essay must be submitted to the office of
the RHS, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E
6BT by 15 June along with details of the author's name,
address (including e-mail address), institutional affiliation
and degree registration.
6.
The essays submitted will be read by a jury of three historians,
two nominated by the GHS and one by the RHS. (The two societies
reserve the right to nominate additional jurors if this is considered
appropriate.)
7.
The jury reserves the right not to award a prize in any particular
years.
8.
The decision of the jury is final.
9.
The jury will announce its decision by 31 October.
10.
The prize will be presented to the winner at the Annual General
Meeting of the GHS.
11.
The essay will be considered for publication in GERMAN HISTORY.
12.
The competition will run a trial period of three years from 2003
- 2005.
