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 local society of Halle (Saale) developed into a multi-ethnic one during the Second World War. In 1944/45, the proportion of foreigners in the local population was over ten percent. The heterogeneous group of prisoners of war, civilian and forced laborers from almost all European countries had in common that they were regarded as „Fremdvölkische“ by the Nazi regime and thus (in degrees graded according to racist criteria) as people of inferior rights. Their labor was needed so urgently by the war economy that the political and biological dangers assumed in them were accepted by the government and were to be contained by a (graded) repressive everyday regime. Thus, the Nazis themselves constituted the political class of the „fremdvölkische“ (alien) labor force.The project will write a social and everyday history of this alien class on the micro-level of a major German city by pursuing three guiding questions on the basis of a preliminary sketch of the general and local conditions: What specific life risks (i.e., those that distinguished them from the German citizens of Halle and differentiated them among themselves) were members of the alien class exposed to, and how did these risks shape their self-image in local society? What patterns of interaction did the members of the alien class develop among themselves and with the Germans, and to what extent were these social relations shaped by the racist order of urban society institutionalized by the Nazi regime on the one hand, and by everyday practices of foreigners and Germans on the other? Finally, how did these interactions change the urban space, and how did the racist order established by the Nazi regime condense within the social topography of Halle?Thus, in contrast to other local studies on the foreign workers during the Second World War, the research interest of this project is not primarily directed at the policies of the Nazi institutions or the bussinesses towards this class. Rather, the everyday life of a multi-ethnic urban society is to be analyzed from the point of view of the living conditions, social relations, and the agency of the alien class.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants