Gareth Pritchard – författare

‘Pritchard masterfully interweaves materials from professional journals, memoirs, interview protocols, diaries, Eastern and Western historical interpretations, as well as a wide range of state and party archives. The result is an impressive and important achievement that belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in the foundation period of East European Communist regimes.’American Historical ReviewThe making of the GDR 1945-53 is a groundbreaking analysis of the Stalinisation of East Germany. Whereas most traditional accounts have explained the creation of the GDR in terms of high politics and of Soviet foreign policy, this book focuses on the social roots of the emerging dictatorship. These were located above all in the traditions of the German labour movement and the history of the anti-Nazi resistance. The GDR was not imposed on the East German people at the point of Russian bayonets; it emerged out of the interaction between Soviet occupation policy and the politics of the East German working class. The making of the GDR 1945-53 also tells a powerful human story, in which the aspirations of antifascists and Socialists were manipulated and ultimately betrayed by Stalinism.Based on extensive research, this book will be of interest to those concerned with the division of Germany, the nature of the GDR, and the whole trajectory of post-war German politics.

This book covers various aspects of the social history of politics on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the period 1945 to 1956. The contributors come from a range of countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the United Kingdom) and comprise a mixture of established historians and younger scholars engaged in pioneering research. The individual chapters are organised into four sections dealing with workers, ethnic and linguistic minorities, youth, and women. In order to enhance the comparative character of the volume, the four chapters contained in each section consider the position of these social groups in, respectively, West Germany, East Germany, Austria, and either Czechoslovakia or Hungary. Major themes include the absence of popular revolutions in the aftermath of World War Two, the re-imposition of social control by post-war elites, the attempt to restore pre-war gender relations, and the failure of Communist parties to win popular support. The chosen time-frame saw most of the decisive developments which set the pattern for the remaining Cold War period and is therefore of key importance for any student of this topic.

Niemandsland is the untold story of the largest and most enduring of the unoccupied enclaves that survived after Germany's invasion and occupation by Allied forces in 1945. Sandwiched between American and Red Army lines, the 500,000 inhabitants were cut off from the outside world and left to fend for themselves in the face of crippling shortages of food, fuel and housing. Gareth Pritchard charts how groups of Communists, Socialists and antifascists came together to form 'antifascist' committees which seized power and set about restoring order, ensuring the supply of food and essential services and hunting down, disarming and arresting fugitive Nazis. This is not only a fascinating history in its own right but it also sheds important new light on the fate of Germany after 1945. Only in Niemandsland do we see what happened when the currents of post-Nazi German politics were allowed to flow freely, unimpeded by Allied intervention.

This new study provides a concise, accessible introduction to occupied Europe. It gives a clear overview of the history and historiography of resistance and collaboration. It explores how these terms cannot be examined separately, but are always entangled.Covering Europe from east to west, this book aims to explore the evolution of scholarly approaches to resistance and collaboration. Not limiting itself to any one area, it looks at armed struggle, daily life, complicity and rescue, the Catholic Church, and official and public memory since the end of the war.