Steffen Werther

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SS-Vision und Grenzland-Realität. Vom Umgang dänischer und „volksdeutscher” Nationalsozialisten in Sønderjylland mit der...

THIS DISSERTATION EXAMINES the implementation of the SS's Greater Germanic idea in the Danish borderregion of South Jutland. Its focus is on how Danish and ethnic German (volksdeutsche) national socialists, organised in their respective Nazi parties, dealt with the SS's crusade on behalf of a supranational racial vision. The study traces why the two groups reacted so negatively to the SS's ideology - despite the SS's power, despite the Greater Germanic promise of high racial prestige, and despite shared service in "Germanic" units of the Waffen-SS. The study makes it clear that the fate of the Greater Germanic idea cannot be understood simply in terms of Realpolitik. Rather, the conflicts between the SS and its collaboration partners must also be understood as a clash between racial and völkisch concepts of community.

Steffen Werther is a researcher and teacher in history, educated in Germany and Denmark. He is affiliated with the Department of Gender, Culture and History at Södertörn Högskola, the Department of History at Stockholm University and the Center for Balticand East European Studies. This is his doctoral dissertation.