Politics of plunder : post-German property and the reconstruction of East Central Europe after the second world war

Resource Information

The work Politics of plunder : post-German property and the reconstruction of East Central Europe after the second world war represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in European University Institute Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Politics of plunder : post-German property and the reconstruction of East Central Europe after the second world war

Title remainder

post-German property and the reconstruction of East Central Europe after the second world war

Statement of responsibility

Kornelia Kończal

Creator

• Kończal, Kornelia

Contributor

• European University Institute, Department of History and Civilization

Subject

• Communism -- Poland -- History -- 20th century
• Europe, Eastern -- History -- 1945-
• Communism -- Czechoslovakia -- History -- 20th century
• Germans -- Europe, Eastern -- History -- 20th century

Language

eng

Summary

Around the end of the Second World War two processes dramatically changed the socioeconomic landscape of East Central Europe: the expulsion of up to twelve million Germans and the establishment of a new social order inspired by the Soviet model. This project is an inquiry into the interconnectedness between these apparently distinct histories. My aim is to understand how the redistribution of property formerly owned by Germans shaped the postwar reconstruction of the social order in two countries whose territories were comprised of up to one third of the post-German lands: Poland and Czechoslovakia. The specific focus of this study lies in the illegal takeover of property left behind by Germans, attempts to control it and the associated discourse. Studying the destructive and productive effects of plunder offers me the opportunity to reveal how public security, economic stability and redistributive justice were negotiated at various intersecting levels. I show that the illegal property transfers were both an obstacle to the post-war reconstruction as well as an opportunity used by individuals and institutions to accelerate it. In more general terms, this reading highlights the critical role of the legally-opaque property arrangements to be found in any modern socio-economic order

Member of

• EUI PhD theses

Cataloging source

FIE

Date time place

Defence date: 23 June 2017

Dewey number

947.0009045

Dissertation note

Thesis (Ph. D.)--European University Institute (HEC), 2017

Index

no index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

theses

Series statement

• EUI PhD theses
• EUI theses