Contemporary European History March 1995 [antikvár]

Restitution and Democracy in Germany after Two World Wars Using new sources, this article examines Germans' political values, 1923-53. Germans in the 1920S could be 'democratically' assertive, lobbying for their views. But most rejected the interest-group competition and compromise central to liberal democracy, with those accepting democracy as political process generally preferring plebiscitary democracy. But most identified equitable outcomes as the sole criterion of legitimacy and rgected democracy when outcomes pro ved unsatisfactory. After 1945 Germán elites, chastened by the Nazi débácle, began accepting liberal-democratic values, strengthening West Germán democracy. But most citizens, disliking conflict and compromise, simply redefined democratic as 'produring equitable outcomesThis evidence suggests Germán democratisation was gradual, complex, and contingent. Economists in War-time The employment of a separate category of economists alongside other government civil servants goes back no further in Britain than 1939, apart from a few individuals such as J. M. Keynes or William Beveridge in the First World War. In the Second World War economists played a major part, of which the public remained largely unaware, and were much more at home than other administrators in a regime so different from a markét economy. They dominated the planning of what was virtually a command economy, and took the lead in preparing for the economic management of the economy once peace was restored. The Development of NATO's Nuclear Strategy NATO nuclear strategy debates during the Cold War oscillated between two main themes: on the one hand, the theme of pure nuclear deterrence, to dissuade the Soviet Union from launching any attack whatsoever on NATO territory; on the other hand, the theme of a mixed conventional and nuclear deterrence, whose proponents argued that a conventional defence against minor or even medium-sized aggression was necessary as an all-out nuclear response was not credible in such circumstances. Western planners increasingly doubted that the USSR would deliberately start a world war. Moscow might, however, start a war with the aim of a limited conquest, in the hope that NATO would not dare respond with nuclear escalation. NATO found a compromise between the two above strategic themes by mainly focusing on how to convince Moscow that it had miscalculated: in case of a Soviet attack, NATO planned to use sub-strategic nuclear weapons to force the Soviet Union to terminate the aggression, unless it wanted all-out world war.