Between National Socialism and expert internationalism: Karl Strölin and transnationalism in urban planning, 1938–45

This essay examines the transnational activities of National Socialist experts, focusing on the endeavours of the burgomaster of Stuttgart, Karl Strölin. In 1938, Strölin became president of the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning (IFHTP), one of the most distinguished international expert institutions for European and North American urban planning. The article discusses his belief that promoting an international convention on the protection of urban populations would contribute to German diplomacy in the initial period of the Second World War. Then it investigates the IFHTP president’s efforts to transform his institution into an outlet for National Socialist ideas against the background of the German advance through Europe. A final section deals with Strölin’s attempts to transform the IFHTP into a forum for evaluating urban reconstruction policies in the last year of the war. This biographical study shows how it was possible to juggle the logics and expectations of seemingly contradictory spatial and political realms during and after World War II. National socialist politics and ideology exacerbated the tensions between local, national and international affiliations, but at the same time never fully permeated the mechanisms of expert internationalism. By revealing how Strölin navigated between local ambitions, the demands of domestic foreign policy and the ethics of expert internationalism in three markedly different projects, this essay contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the cross-border activities of National Socialist professionals in (occupied) Europe.     

Between east and west: Glass beads from the eighth to third centuries bce from Poland

The study analyses the chemical composition of 57 glass samples from 40 beads discovered at 20 archaeological sites in Poland. The beads are dated to Hallstatt C–Early La Tène periods (c.800/750–260/250 bce ). Analyses were carried out using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). Two groups were distinguished among the glasses based on the MgO/K₂O ratio: high-magnesium glass (HMG), five samples; and low-magnesium glass (LMG), 52 samples. The former were melted with halophyte plant ash, the second with mineral soda. These glasses were produced in the Eastern Mediterranean (more likely in Mesopotamia or Syro-Palestine than in Egypt) and transported in the form of semi-products to secondary glass workshops in Europe. Some of the white opaque glass was coloured and opacified in Europe.     

UNIVERSITY GEOGRAPHY INSTRUCTION WITHIN BUNTEP: A DREE PROGRAM IN NORTHERN MANITOBA

The BUNTEP programme has established itself as a successful innovator and purveyor of higher education to a hitherto neglected segment of the Canadian mosaic the isolated lndian reserves of northern Manitoba. BUNTEP comes at a time, however, when the reserves isolation from the outside world is breaking down. Combined with the stresses imposed by the post-war nuclear settlement policy of the government and the stresses of the population explosion, the formerly isolated bands are confronting challenges they are ill-equipped to meet. Television (which reached some reserves as recently as December 1977). the telephone, airplanes, motorboats, snowmobiles, and all the convenience goods sold at the local Hudson's Bay Company stores are steadily undermining whatever traditional culture is left. It is hoped that BUNTEP, and the successful graduates of BUNTEP, may provide these isolated communities with a means of coming to terms with the increasingly intrusive greater Canadian society.     

A Falling Out: The Relationship Between Oliver Wendell Holmes and Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt is often credited with founding and shaping the modern American presidency. With his appointment of Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Supreme Court of the United States, Roosevelt also set in motion a force that would transform the judiciary. However, it did not go as Roosevelt had planned. Holmes' refusal to conform to Roosevelt's desires in Northern Securities Co. v. United States demonstrated that Holmes was his own man and not Roosevelt's instrument. The decision brought an abrupt halt to what had been becoming a close friendship between the two men. Over the years the rift deepened. The bitterness that grew between them reflected more than a difference of opinion over law and economic principles; it reflected the type of disillusionment that comes only when a friend fails to live up to expectations.