This thesis on Marquard von Lindau has three principal aims. First, to elucidate the central writings of a significant late medieval intellectual, whose works were widely disseminated in his own time but have received little consideration by modem scholarship. Second, to locate Marquard within the intellectual history of his period on a series of central issues. Third, to illuminate the social and cultural history of Germany in the second half of the fourteenth century. In consequence, it also represents an attempt to draw together different strands of recent historical and literary scholarship.

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Die Konzertlandschaft im Deutschen Kaiserreich wurde neben den zahlreichen Opern- und Sinfonieorchestern vor allem durch die vielseitigen Darbietungen der Militärkapellen bei verschiedensten Anlässen geprägt. Dabei zeigten sich die Musikkorps als vielseitig einsetzbare Formationen und konnten einen spezifischen Beitrag zur Musikkultur leisten. Die Militärorchester hatten durch ihr konzertantes Wirken die Möglichkeit, großen Einfluss auf das musikkulturelle Profil innerhalb einer Region zu nehmen. Diese und andere Aspekte können am Beispiel der „Turnhallenkonzerte“ zu Arolsen aufgezeigt werden. Militärkapellmeister Hugo Rothe konnte sich bei diesen Konzerten sowohl durch seine Programmauswahl als auch durch die Zusammenarbeit mit vielen nationalen und internationalen Gastsolisten auszeichnen. Diese Ergänzung zum militärmusikalischen Tagesgeschäft (Paraden, Zeremonielle) war eine notwendige Facette, die sich besonders aus einem eigenen künstlerischen Ehrgeiz heraus zur musikalischen Selbstverwirklichung – sowohl für den Dirigenten als auch für die Orchestermusiker – entwickelte. Auf diese Weise konnte musikalische Volksbildung durch Popularisierung verschiedenster Werke sowie durch ein speziell zusammengestelltes Repertoire erfolgen, was sich anhand des umfangreichen Nachlassmaterials von Militärkapellmeister Hugo Rothe veranschaulichen lässt. / Apart from numerous opera and symphony orchestras the concert scene in the German Empire was characterized above all by the wide-ranging performances of the military bands for various occasions. In this context military bands were variedly useable formations and made a specific contribution to musical culture. Through such musical activities it was possible, that military bands had a big influence on the profile of musical culture. These and other aspects can be illustrated by the „Turnhallenkonzerte“ of Arolsen. At these concerts military bandmaster Hugo Rothe distinguished himself by both his program selection and the cooperation with many national and international guest soloists. This supplement to the everyday business (parades, ceremonies) was a necessary facet, which was particularly developed from an own artistic ambition for musical self-realization – both for the conductor and the musicians. In this way musical national education was possible by the popularization of various works and by a specially composed repertoire, which can be exemplified by the extensive material of military bandmaster Hugo Rothe.

The objectives of this research are to investigate, in Chapter I, how other researchers, both contemporaries of the National Socialists and modern researchers, have represented National Socialism as being fundamentally more than a political movement. The aim is to examine and identify the strengthens and weaknesses of previous interpretations and to offer a further contribution to the suitability of classifying National Socialism a religion.  Chapter II identifies and explores religion as a model for social organisation, outlines the important factors shaping this model and investigates where National Socialism as a religion would be located on such a model.  There is now a growing interest in re-interpreting twentieth-century movements as something fundamentally more than simple political extremes.  The contribution that this chapter makes to this growing interest is the building of a unified foundation from which the analysis of other twentieth-century movements, such as Fascism and Communism, can be reassessed.  Because the definition of religion, and the understanding of the civil and political variants of religion that this study identifies is not limited to local, regional or national boundaries, it provides a valuable starting point for further research projects concerned with the construction of identity and organisation post-Enlightenment. This study has chosen to use National Socialism as the object of the definition because it was the most radical and highly documented of the three ‘new politics’ of the twentieth-century. Chapter III analyses current trends in discussing the success of National Socialism. The purpose of this will be to demonstrate the shifting understanding of why National Socialism was successful and to negotiate with the weaknesses of existing approaches. After documenting current research weaknesses, this chapter introduces a theory that will challenge these paradigms. Chapter IV analyses the iconographic record of National Socialism in relation to the definition of religion proposed in Chapter II. By highlighting the iconographic record as evidence of the nascent National Socialist religion, this chapter investigates the self-perception of the National Socialists based on their understanding of the future that they wanted to create.

This thesis examines constructs of Österreichertum promoted by Austrian conservatism in the years 1918-38. It is an interdisciplinary examination of political discourse, as well as of intellectual and literary formulations of Austrian identity. It considers why, in the majority of cases, the idea of Austrian nationhood was rejected in the inter-war era, and explores the Austro-German synthesis of identity that acted as a substitute for an independent national consciousness. The work focuses on the personality and politics of Ignaz Seipel; the Ständestaat regime and Vaterländische Front; the Heimatschutz and the legitimists; and literary and historical constructs of Austrian identity. Among these last constructs can be found those few publicists of the period who affirmed the existence of an Austrian nation. Their ideas did not bear fruit until after World War II, when Austrian political leaders took the country on the path to independent nationhood.

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The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a differentiated reassessment of the cultural history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which has hitherto been hampered by critical approaches which have the objective of denouncing rather than understanding East German culture and society. Approaches such as these rely on schematic black-and-white oppositions, e.g. the dichotomy of conformity and dissidence, and present the East German cultural public spheres in a top-down way as a closed space in which a supposedly monolithic and deceitful Party ideology dictates what can be said or written. In order to reconceptualise these oversimplifying models, this thesis analyses public discourses from below, focusing on case studies of three public intellectuals with very distinct profiles: Wieland Herzfelde (1896-1988), Erich Loest (1926-2013), and Peter Hacks (1928-2003). Based on published as well as archival sources, this thesis examines their contributions to the plurality of public discourses in East Germany, concentrating on the 1950s as the most heavily contested decade of German division and the Cold War, both of which put great pressure on intellectuals. Whereas research has traditionally regarded these three intellectuals as having either a dissident or a conformist profile, this thesis argues that their attitudes were too ambiguous and the dilemmas they faced too complex to be reduced to such a clear-cut, schematic template.