Please note that this module was available
from 2001 to 2012, but has since been
withdrawn and is no longer available.

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Tutor: Professor Gerd-Rainer Horn

This is an undergraduate final-year 30 CATS Special Subject, which with the addition of a 30 CATS Dissertation can account for half of a student's final-year work. Special Subjects involve the intensive study of a tightly focused set of topics or problems using a large quantity of primary sources. It is, above all, through the Special Subject that students will acquire hands-on experience of the skills involved in working with primary sources.

This module provides students with an opportunity to study a formative period in the history of twentieth century Western Europe from a comparative and transnational perspective. This Special Subject offers students the opportunity for the study of continental European history on the basis of primary sources translated into English.

The experience of fascism and World War II has left an indelible physical and emotional mark on Western European societies. Yet those central years in twentieth century European history are not only remembered for the amount of repression and human suffering. Fascism likewise engendered a tremendous wave of antifascist movements operating in most regions of continental Western (and, of course, Eastern) Europe and affecting all walks of life. This module will provide an in-depth study of this unprecedented European-wide social movement. The geographic focus will be placed on Western Europe. Starting with the experience of Italian and German pre-war antifascist efforts, central attention shall likewise be devoted to the manifold varieties of wartime resistance. This module shall close with an in-depth look at the way in which the hopes for liberation were dealt with after VE-Day. A transnational approach will guide the entirety of this primary source-based Special Subject.