Life risks, social relations and topography of the "alien" class in the urban society of Halle (Saale), 1939-1945

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Patrick Wagner
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 492500739

The starting point of the project was the observation that during the Second World War the Nazi regime constituted the heterogeneous group of prisoners of war, civilian and forced laborers from various European countries as a "fremdvölkische" (alien) class strictly separated from the "Volksgemeinschaft" by a system of norms and practices based on racist criteria. At the micro level of the central German city of Halle, where this class made up more than ten percent of the population in 1944, the project writes its social and everyday history. Firstly, it examines the specific life risks to which the members of the class were exposed and how these risks shaped their (self-)positioning within the multi-ethnic urban society. Secondly, it reconstructs the interaction patterns of the members of the "fremdvölkische" class with each other and with the Germans and, thirdly, asks how these interactions and thus the structures of the ethnic order established by the Nazi regime were reflected, reproduced, but also broken through in the city’s topography. The research carried out has shown that the project can meet the expectations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants