Christian Kehrt – författare

The history of the Cold War has focused overwhelmingly on statecraft and military power, an approach that has naturally placed Moscow and Washington center stage. Meanwhile, regions such as Alaska, the polar landscapes, and the cold areas of the Soviet periphery have received little attention. However, such environments were of no small importance during the Cold War: in addition to their symbolic significance, they also had direct implications for everything from military strategy to natural resource management. Through histories of these extremely cold environments, this volume makes a novel intervention in Cold War historiography, one whose global and transnational approach undermines the simple opposition of "East" and "West."

The history of the Cold War has focused overwhelmingly on statecraft and military power, an approach that has naturally placed Moscow and Washington center stage. Meanwhile, regions such as Alaska, the polar landscapes, and the cold areas of the Soviet periphery have received little attention. However, such environments were of no small importance during the Cold War: in addition to their symbolic significance, they also had direct implications for everything from military strategy to natural resource management. Through histories of these extremely cold environments, this volume makes a novel intervention in Cold War historiography, one whose global and transnational approach undermines the simple opposition of “East” and “West.”

Im Februar 1962 traf eine Sturmflut die Stadt Hamburg. 315 Tote, 20.000 Evakuierte und ueber 60 Deichbrueche schockierten nicht nur die Stadt Hamburg, sondern auch die junge Bundesrepublik. Niemand hatte mit einer Naturkatastrophe gerechnet. Risikobewusstsein und Katastrophenschutz in modernen Gesellschaften stellen daher zentrale Themen des Bandes dar. Der Band untersucht die Hamburger Sturmflut von 1962 in umwelt-, technik- und zeithistorischer Perspektive. Er liefert damit eine vertiefte Auseinandersetzung mit der Hamburger Sturmflut, die bislang kaum Thema der Geschichtswissenschaft war, obgleich es sich um ein Schluesselereignis der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik handelt. Der Band behandelt nicht nur die Hamburger Sturmflut selbst, sondern kontextuiert diese mit Sturmfluten im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, der Holland-Flut von 1953 sowie methodisch-konzeptionell ausgerichteten Beitraegen zum Mensch-Natur-Verhaeltnis. Zugleichen machen die Beitraege des Bandes ueber eine umwelthistorische Perspektive hinaus deutlich, welch zentrale Bedeutung die Analyse der Rolle der Technik im Kontext von Naturkatastrophen hat. Schliesslich wird im Band offensichtlich, wie wichtig zeitgeschichtliche Kontexte fuer das Verstaendnis der Hamburger Sturmflut sind. Im Fokus stehen dabei die Rolle der Bundeswehr, die Helmut Schmidt zur Hilfe rief, sowie die bundesdeutschen Debatten um den Zivil- und Katastrophenschutz. Damit eroeffnet der Band neue zeithistorische Perspektiven und liefert wichtige Impulse fuer eine Zeitgeschichtsschreibung, die bislang Naturkatastrophen nicht beachtet hat.>;This volume addresses environmental and technological dimensions of the Hamburg storm flood of 1962, a key event of contemporary German history that still lacks any systematical consideration. Our articles provide new insights into risk awareness and disaster control of modern societies, with a particular focus on the role of technology in the context of natural disasters, and questions of disaster control by the armed forces, offering new approaches for historical disaster research as well as contemporary history. The relations of nature-technology and society will be systematically addressed, while also dicussing new concepts such as "environmental coherence" or forms of resilience in urban and rural contexts. This German case study also shows that the experiences of the Second World War were still present in the perception of the storm flood. In order to embed this key event into a larger framework of coastal societies and their changing attitudes towards risk, nature and technology, we have included additional historical case studies about storm floods in the 18th and 19th century and comparable events in the Netherlands in 1953.>