Australian POW in German Captivity in the Second World War

When history has taken an interest in the Australian POW experience in the Second World War, the focus has been largely on those in Japanese captivity, where suffering was immense and mortality rates high. Popular culture has reinforced the perception that those who fell into German hands had it easy, living fairly comfortable existences punctuated with adventurous episodes, typically in the form of escape attempts. This essay seeks to correct the misperceptions arising from the “Colditz myth” by examining the Australian experience of captivity in Germany, drawing on both Australian and German sources. Two aspects of that experience are highlighted, namely the experience of work, as it was required of the vast majority of POW, and that of the strange phenomenon of “holiday camps”.     

Regimes of truth: Australian combat photography in the Second World War

This paper examines the policies and directions framing the professional practice of Australian combat photographers in the Second World War. It argues that while their endeavours to offer an account of the nation at war were constrained by predictable considerations of politics and censorship, their commitment to truth was also framed and constricted by an array of cultural considerations. The nation’s ongoing engagement with the history of the First World War, the contrasting organisational cultures of the bureaucracies that the photographers served, and Australian culture’s visual inarticulacy concerning death on the battlefield played key roles both individually and collectively in shaping the photographers’ practices and outputs. The paper will trace the operations of these influences and contend that, as a result, the photographers’ visual record of the Second World War, particularly as it related to the death of Australian servicemen, served to conceal rather than reveal the ultimate truth about the Australian experience of the war.     

Treasonous Conduct: Assessing the Wartime Activities,Post‐War Trials and Tribulations of Australian Collaborators in the Second World War*

There has been very little written about the activities of Australian citizens collaborating with the Germans during the Second World War. There are, however, a few instances where Australian citizens were involved in activities in Germany which could be considered treasonous. A number of these were individuals involved in an ill‐conceived military unit created by the Germans from British prisoners of war while there is at least one example of an Australian who allegedly carried out propaganda broadcasts for the Germans. The activities of these individuals and the way the authorities dealt with these cases after the war will be the focus of this article.     

Total War and Genocide: Reflections on the Second World War

This paper draws on the findings of a series of international conferences on the question of “total war” in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries to investigate possible connections between “total war” and the problem of genocide. Both “total war” and genocide appear to have reached a terrible culmination in the years 1937‐1945, raising the question of the connection between the two phenomena. This paper considers the usefulness of concepts such as “total war” and “genocide” as social‐scientific ideal types, before going on to reflect on the state of research on the linkage between Nazi Germany's drive for “total war” and its implementation of policies of genocide.     

论二战时期日本战时军费筹集机制

全面侵华战争爆发后,日本沿用近代以来建立的战时军费筹集体制为侵略战争提供财政支持,形成以临时军事费特别会计为核心的战时军费筹集机制。其主要财源为租税收入、公债收入以及向占领区借款。太平洋战争之前,战时军费筹集主要依靠日本国内金融机构发行公债;太平洋战争爆发后,战时军费筹集的主要财源开始转向对占领区的掠夺。     

Turkey's Application of the Montreux Convention in the Second World War

The primary aim of this article is to examine the policies of the elite in Iran in relation to political parties and organizations that have emerged between 1979 and 2009. It also attempts to argue that the politics of factionalism has proven to be incapable of creating a viable political system. On the other hand, it has been difficult to anticipate the emergence of a system based on party politics in Iran more than three decades after the revolution. The findings of this article demonstrate how determined the elite were in shaping politics in Iran, and will also show that the move away from factionalism to a system based on party politics between 1997 and 2009 faced stiff opposition from the conservative elite. The situation polarized politics in Iran and further increased intra-elite factionalism. This article relies mostly on Iranian primary sources, accessing opinions that have not yet been published or discussed. The focus is on examining the relationship between high-ranking members of the elite and organizations representing different interests within the system that came to existence either before or immediately after the revolution in 1979.     

The Special Operations Executive and Cyprus in the Second World War

Cyprus, together with Gibraltar and Malta, constituted the ‘crown jewels’ of British sea power in the Mediterranean during the Second World War. Being deployed on Cyprus the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force could fight the Germans and Italians in the Southeast Mediterranean, thus inhibiting the continuous supply with troops and war material of the Africa Corps of Field Marshall Ervin Rommel. This article aims to shed light on the activities of the Special Operations Executive on the island. Citing recently declassified files we assess the espionage and propaganda as well as the guerrilla warfare contingencies in case of an Axis invasion of Cyprus. We provide a critical assessment of the British guerrilla warfare strategy, arguing that the SOE and the 25th Army Corps based on Cyprus had not been well prepared to counter aggression due to inter-service rivalries, bad planning and lack of manpower. Besides, the SOE distrusted the Greek-Cypriots and the Turkish-Cypriots to the extent that the training of guerrillas was planned to commence only after a successful invasion and the occupation of the island. Finally, SOE officers considered the Cypriot communists with their anti-colonialist declarations as another threat to be confronted with special operations.     

Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence Activities in Iran during the Second World War

This article deals with the exile of Husayn ibn Ali, ex-sharif of Mecca and ex-king of the Hijaz, in Cyprus (1925–1930). It was not politics, but the adversities of everyday life that shaped the ex-king’s stay in the British colony. Loss of prestige, estrangement, uncertainty about the future, lawsuits, financial problems and the death of his wife contributed to failing health which ultimately led to his relocation to Amman. A special, perhaps unique feature of Husayn’s enforced residence in the island is that the power which exiled him also granted him asylum. This article examines his living conditions, experience with and image in the local community, relations with his sons as well as his dealings with British authorities. In this way the progressive isolation and marginalization of an ex-monarch in exile becomes evident.     

“In the Front Line”?: Internment and Citizenship Entitlements in the Second World War

This paper analyses the experiences of Australian civilian internees of the Japanese in the Second World War and the Australian government's responses to their desires for repatriation, compensation and rehabilitation. It argues that civilian internees stood in awkward relation to understandings about sacrifice in wartime and entitlements to compensation. The dominance of the citizen‐soldier in Australian narratives of war placed civilian internees in an ambiguous position. Civilian internees had not played a direct part in battle but did have direct contact with the military enemy. They had personally suffered privation at the hands of the enemy, but were not military personnel in service of their country. Civilian internees expose the tensions around citizenship and citizenship entitlement attendant upon the elevation of war service as the ultimate sacrifice for one's country.     

New Democracy and Alternative Culture: Jazz in West Germany after the Second World War

The American Forces who occupied Germany in 1945–46 had hoped that popularising jazz music might assist in the redemocratisation of Germans under the age of thirty. The Amerika‐Häuser established by the US State Department to build a cultural foundation for democracy amongst younger Germans, and American Forces Network radio each contributed to the gradual emergence of a West German jazz culture which was marked by a series of jazz festivals and the development of a viable recording industry. However most strata of German society neither understood nor cared about jazz. Jazz became confused with — and diluted by — rock ‘n’ roll. Both were rejected as unwanted “Americanization”. Fewer than ten percent of teenagers acquired any taste for jazz. Its appeal was confined to the more privileged and educated. Hence the jazz culture which did recruit itself from the surviving remnants of the Third Reich did not provide an impetus toward democracy.     

Citizenship,Rights and Emergency Powers in Second World War Australia

In times of war or the threat of war there is a heightened tension between individual rights on the one hand and public safety and the protection of the community on the other. This situation is again facing the democracies at the present time. One aspect of the way tension between these two principles affected the citizenship status and civil rights of certain individuals in Second World War Australia is examined in this article. It focuses on Australian citizens who were deprived of their liberty and interned without trial, for periods varying from a few months to a number of years. In seeking explanations for the denial of one of the basic civil rights of a section of the Australian community, this article examines some formal constructions of nationality, and considers the implications of these constructions for citizenship and civil rights in wartime Australia. ¹ 1 Part of this paper was presented as a work‐in‐progress for the Cultural Citizenship: Challenges of Globalisation Conference at Deakin University, Melbourne, 5‐8 December, 2002. Proceedings, pp. 132‐139.
     

State vs Federal Government in the “Barmaids” Case: Regulating Australia's Second World War Home Front

Australia's National Security Act of 1939 authorised the federal government to make emergency regulations “for securing the public safety and defence of the Commonwealth [of Australia]”. Further, it instructed the government to decide for itself what might be “necessary or convenient” for the “more effectual prosecution of the present war”. 1 This article examines the authorisation of the civilian leadership through one set of emergency regulations, the National Security (Women's Employment) Regulations, and analyses their functioning through one operational decision, the decision to permit women to serve in South Australian hotel bars with the intention of releasing male bar workers for essential industrial or military employment. Managing the home front proved complex. Sectional interests continued to jockey for positions of influence, even in war conditions. In this case, the state of South Australia sought to protect its “rights” against federal control of employment: a contest fuelled by an ideological squabble about what were then known as “barmaids”. I argue that Australia's centrally‐determined national war goals were undermined by its federal sovereignty‐distribution mechanism, which allowed sub‐national elements such as South Australia to impede national policy, and conclude that even with extensive defence powers to draw on, the federal government's war goals were obstructed by non‐war interests.     

Crimes Unspoken: The Rape of German Women at the End of the Second World War

Crimes Unspoken: The Rape of German Women at the End of the Second World War . By Miriam Gebhardt. Translated by Nick Somers (Cambridge: Polity, 2017), pp.vii + 252. £18.17 (hb).