J.R.R. Tolkien’s pioneering work of fantasy fiction, The Lord of the Rings, was written in a period of twelve years, starting in 1937 during WWII and ending in 1949 a few years after the war ended. However, Tolkien’s experience with war began in 1915, when he entered combat in WWI as a young second lieutenant. Understandably, Tolkien’s war experiences have led many fans and scholars to question to what extent the World Wars influenced his works. In response to these queries Tolkien adamantly denied any connection, stating in the forward to the second edition of LOTR that “The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion.” Despite Tolkien’s flat denial of any connection between his personal war experiences and his fictional world, many critics have dedicated their studies to identifying concrete similarities that exist between LOTR and WWI. Yet, there exists a substantial and entirely ignored connection between Tolkien’s own wartime experience and his writings. More specifically, no significant study exists examining the connection between Tolkien’s depictions of medical treatments in LOTR and his own experiences with wartime medicine. These connections are particularly noteworthy because after the trauma of the Somme, Tolkien spent almost the entirety of the war as an invalid, in and out of war hospitals. Tolkien’s descriptions of medical remedies, which are richly detailed and significant to the plot, are therefore connected to his own experience. Examining each of these remedies within LOTR and linking them to medical practices used in WWI reveals previously unidentified points of correlation.

This thesis engages with the issue of the post-WWII rapes of women in Germany committed by the soldiers of the winning parties that occupied Germany after the war. It asks how female survivors of sexual violence during the occupation of Germany in 1945-1949 experienced social responses towards their violation. It pursues these responses in public and private sphere and explores the effect they had on the survivors and their recovery. A qualitative method of thematic analysis is employed to analyse the material consisting of interviews based on secondary sources, empirical research done by historians and psychologists, and reliable news articles that address the issue under scrutiny.The thesis contributes to Peace and Conflict Studies empirically, by exploring sensitive civilians’ lived experiences in a particular post-war setting and theoretically, through an attempt at analysis based on the theoretical framing of ethical loneliness as developed by Jill Stauffer.It shows that the predominantly negative nature of social responses in both public and private sphere held to the condition of ethical loneliness that was a crucial hindrance for the survivors’ recovery. The issue of silence is found to be especially relevant as it pertains both to social responses and to the survivors’ own attempt at coping with the situation, thereby emerging as a key reason for the lasting experience of ethical loneliness.

This research investigates the children's conditions and their daily routine during WWII. Three individuals' narrative will give us an inside view of what happened in their local community that could correlate to the national level.The focus will be on the children’s family, health conditions, school activities; social activities and their encounter with the German soldiers and refugees. The use of micro and oral historical approach, will not only explore how the children were affected by the war but more importantly to give them voice and not be the forgotten people in the society.

This thesis proposes to link certain consistent themes in the historiography of interwar and wartime Hungary. Hungary's inability to successfully resolve its minority problems led to the nation's dismemberment at Trianon in 1920 after World War I. This fostered a national Hungarian reaction against the Trianon settlement called the revisionist movement. This revisionist "Trianon syndrome" totally dominated Hungarian politics in the interwar period. As Hungary sought allies against the hated peace settlements of the Great War, Hungarian politics irrevocably tied the nation to the policies of Nazi Germany, and Hungary became nefariously assessed as "Hitler's last ally," which initially stained the nation's reputation after World War II. Although some historians have blamed the interwar Hungarian government for the calamity that followed Hungary's associations with Nazi Germany, this thesis proposes that there was little variation between what could have happened and what actually became the nation's fate in World War II. A new interpretation therefore becomes evident: the injustices of Trianon, Hungary's geopolitical position in the heart of Europe, and the nation's unfortunate orientation between the policies of Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia predestined the nation to its fate in World War II. There was no other choice for Hungarian policy in World War II but the Axis alliance. The historian of East Central Europe faces a formidable challenge in that the national histories of this region are often contradictory. Hungarian historiography is directly countered by the historical theories and propositions of its Czech, Serb, and Rumanian enemies. By historiographical analysis of the histories of Hungary, its enemies among the Successor States, and neutral sources, this thesis will demonstrate that many contemporary historians tend to support the primary theses of Hungarian historiography. Many of the arguments of the Hungarian interwar government are now generally supported by objective historians, while the historiographical suppositions of the Successor States at the Paris Peace Conference have become increasingly reduced to misinformation, falsification, exaggeration, and propaganda. The ignorance of the minority problems and ethnic history of East Central Europe led to an unjust settlement in 1919 and 1920, and by grossly favoring the victors over the vanquished, the Paris Peace Treaties greatly increased the probability of a second and even more terrible World War.

Alois Dwenger, writing from the front in May of 1942, complained that people forgot "the actions of simple soldiers.I believe that true heroism lies in bearing this dreadful everyday life." In exploring the reality of the Landser, the average German soldier in World War II, through letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories, Stephen G. Fritz provides the definitive account of the everyday war of the German front soldier. The personal documents of these soldiers, most from the Russian front, where the majority of German infantrymen saw service, paint a richly textured portrait of the Landser that illustrates the complexity and paradox of his daily life. Although clinging to a self-image as a decent fellow, the German soldier nonetheless committed terrible crimes in the name of National Socialism. When the war was finally over, and his country lay in ruins, the Landser faced a bitter truth: all his exertions and sacrifices had been in the name of a deplorable regime that had committed unprecedented crimes. With chapters on training, images of combat, living conditions, combat stress, the personal sensations of war, the bonds of comradeship, and ideology and motivation, Fritz offers a sense of immediacy and intimacy, revealing war through the eyes of these self-styled "little men." A fascinating look at the day-to-day life of German soldiers, this is a book not about war but about men. It will be vitally important for anyone interested in World War II, German history, or the experiences of common soldiers throughout the world. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1287/thumbnail.jpg

At the end of World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, fearing that retreating Germans would consolidate large numbers of troops in an Alpine stronghold and from there conduct a protracted guerilla war, turned U.S. forces toward the heart of Franconia, ordering them to cut off and destroy German units before they could reach the Alps. Opposing this advance was a conglomeration of German forces headed by SS-Gruppenführer Max Simon, a committed National Socialist who advocated merciless resistance. Under the direction of officers schooled in harsh combat in Russia, the Germans succeeded in bringing the American advance to a grinding halt. Caught in the middle were the people of Franconia. Historians have accorded little mention to this period of violence and terror, but it provides insight into the chaotic nature of life while the Nazi regime was crumbling. Neither German civilians nor foreign refugees acted simply as passive victims caught between two fronts. Throughout the region people pressured local authorities to end the senseless resistance and sought revenge for their tribulations in the "liberation" that followed. Stephen G. Fritz examines the predicament and outlook of American GI's, German soldiers and officials, and the civilian population caught in the arduous fighting during the waning days of World War II. Endkampf is a gripping portrait of the collapse of a society and how it affected those involved, whether they were soldiers or civilians, victors or vanquished, perpetrators or victims. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1288/thumbnail.jpg

From Europe to the Nation examines how six influential American journalists - John Gunther, Freda Kirchwey, Arthur Krock, Walter Lippmann, Anne O’Hare McCormick, and Dorothy Thompson - viewed and interpreted for their American audience the series of European events from Hitler’s ascension to power in Germany to the attack on Pearl Harbor. My study describes the interpretative frameworks through which these journalists viewed and explained what happened, namely a shared faith in the superiority of American politics and policies, a belief in the moral supremacy of the “new world” over the “old world,” a view of a racially-stratified world dominated by Anglo-Saxons, and a gendered worldview based on the binary opposites of masculine and feminine. These journalists used different interpretative frameworks in response to different events, shifting, overlapping and eventually coalescing in time. As events in Europe became increasingly dire following the Fall of France and threatened directly the national security of the United States, the interplay of these guiding assumptions prompted the rise to dominance of a shared viewpoint: what was at stake was the future of a West tom between civilization and barbarism. The civilization versus barbarism discourse had a clear propaganda value, in that it was used by journalists to support American participation, if not outright intervention, in the European war. This approach pinpoints the historical process of ideology creation. This ideology was elastic and highly effective, utilized for propaganda purpose not just for American intervention, but also to rally the home-front throughout the war and to legitimize Cold War American foreign policy. This study stresses the importance of recognizing the agency of journalists in the development of the concept because of their critical role as intermediaries between the crises occurring on the other side of the Atlantic and the American public’s understanding of what these events meant for the United States. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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