Stanford University

Between Hitler, Benes and Tito: Czechoslovak-German and Yugoslav-German confrontations in World War II

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The lecture will address the German occupation policy in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, in Slovenia, and Serbia; including the occupation zones into the German war economy; with the mass murdering by the SS, Gestapo and Wehrmacht of resistance groups; with the problem of collaboration in the ruling class and in the population; with the destruction of the Jews in the Protectorate and in Serbia; with the problem of the figures of the victims; with the preparations of revenge and expulsion, and with the consequences of the total war in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Synopsis

Dividing his lecture clearly into twelve points, Prof. Suppan explains and analyzes the past century’s history of relations between German minorities, particularly in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and the region’s natives. Originally a primarily peaceful coexistence, Prof. Suppan discusses the fact that rivalries started to develop between the two communities in as early as the 1880s. Prof. Suppan adds that World War I also did much to increase ethnic tensions. Moreover, he sees the persecutions that took place from 1914 to 1918 to have really poisoned the relationship between Serbs and Germans. After World War I, Prof. Suppan reveals that the new states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia further suffered in their relationship with Germany over issues such as border setbacks or minority rights. However, when the global economic crisis created mass unemployment, many turned to Hitler. Prof. Suppan argues this was significant to the annexation of both countries by Germany.

These annexations, as Prof. Suppan reveals, were not the result of consistent strategic planning but rather part of Hitler’s ideal of conquest. Prof. Suppan discusses the illegality of many Nazi occupation laws which led to calls for vengeance and retribution as the war neared its end. Prof. Suppan explains the result of the mass lawless displacement of Germans which turned into various settlement agreements. Even so, Prof. Suppan argues that the decrees and resolutions on the subject of the displacement of Germans should be seen as a political reaction to German occupation and led to a great death toll.

Prof. Suppan feels that overall the conflict was one of extreme bloodshed, citing the 40 million deaths that occurred from 1938 to 1948 throughout the entire region to reinforce his point. Moreover, Prof. Suppan engages in the debate on whether the conflict should be branded genocide or ethnocide. Prof. Suppan also argues that the former German settlements in Eastern Europe suffer to this day. He concludes by revealing that historical contradictions still exist between the various peoples. Prof. Suppan argues that to overcome this each side must have a deeper understanding of what they both suffered and perpetrated and must participate in the “spirit of European reconciliation.”

About the speaker

Arnold Suppan is professor of history at the University of Vienna and Chairman of the Historical Commission at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is currently a visiting professor wtih the Forum on Contemporary Europe at Stanford University.

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Arnold Suppan Professor of History Speaker the University of Vienna
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Austria in the Postwar World

German-Jewish Relations Today

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This seminar will focus on the Holocaust as the most important factor in shaping the relationship between all Germans and all Jews, as well as on some of the differences in Germany's relationship with Israel on the one hand and with American Jews on the other hand. Consul General Schütte will also address the situation of Jews in Germany today, based on personal observations and research during his posting at the German Embassy in Tel Aviv, as Deputy Head of Division for Middle East Affairs in the German Foreign Office, during a speaking tour in the U.S., and as a visiting scholar at the American Jewish Committee in New York.

About the Speaker
Mr. Rolf Schütte was born on June 9, 1953 in Goslar, Germany. He studied German and Russian Philology and Political Science at Göttingen University, Germany, at Ohio University, and at the Bologna Center of Johns Hopkins University in Italy. He joined the German Foreign Service in 1981 and served in different functions in the Foreign Office in Bonn and later Berlin (e.g. as Deputy Head of Division for Middle East Affairs and Head of Division for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova) as well as in the German Embassies in Moscow, Tel Aviv and Rome and in the German Mission to the United Nations in New York. Before becoming Consul General in San Francisco he spent a sabbatical year as a Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, the American Jewish Committee in New York and the Institute of European Studies in Berkeley.

This event is jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies.

Philippines Conference Room

Rolf Schütte Consul General Speaker the German Consulate General, San Francisco
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German Universities Discover Competition

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Seminar Description:

A revolution is taking place within the German university system. For the first time in their history, universities are engaged in direct competition with one another. Under the auspices of the so-called "Excellence Initiative," they are competing for almost two billion Euros in extra research funding, and for the prestige of being designated as a "Leading University."

Dr. Kaiser's lecture provides an overview of the Initiative process and a report on the preliminary results of the competition. He also offers an initial appraisal of the Initiative from the perspective of a former university president.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Gert Kaiser is President of the Science Center, North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, Germany and a former rector of the Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf. He is currently the Max Kade Visiting Professor in the Department of German at the University of California, Davis.

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Gert Kaiser Visiting Professor, Department of German Speaker University of California, Davis
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Taiwan and the New U.S. Strategic Environment

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This is a CDDRL's Special Event within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Dr. Jaushieh Joseph Wu arrived in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 2007 to assume his responsibilities as Taiwan's chief representative to the United States.

Representative Wu began his government career in 2002 as Deputy Secretary-General to President Chen Shui-bian, a position he held until May 2004. From 2004 to April 2007, Representative Wu was the chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, a ministry-level organization that coordinates and implements Taiwan's policies toward the People's Republic of China.

Prior to his government career, Representative Wu held a number of academic positions at his alma mater, National Chengchi University, including the chairmanship of the First Division of the Institute of International Relations, an adjunct research fellowship at the Election Study Center and an adjunct professorship in the Department of Political Science.

Dr. Wu received his undergraduate education at National Chengchi University in Taipei. He did his graduate work in political science at the University of Missouri in St. Louis in 1982, obtaining a master's degree in Political Science, followed by a Ph. D. in the same field from Ohio State University in 1989. His areas of specialization include Taiwan's political development, cross-strait relations, international relations, and Middle East politics. Among Dr. Wu's academic publications, he has authored Taiwan's Democratization: Forces Behind the New Momentum (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1995), and edited Divided Nations: The Experience of Germany, Korea, and China (Taipei, Institute of International Relations, 1995) and China Rising: Implications of Economic and Military Growth of the PRC (Taipei, Institute of International Relations, 2001).

Oksenberg Conference Room

Joseph Wu Representative Speaker Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, D.C.
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FSI welcomes new faculty

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The Institute welcomes five new full-time faculty and two distinguished visitors in the current academic year. The latest additions represent consolidation of ongoing programs, such as those in homeland security and international relations and expansion of its research agenda into Asian comparative healthcare and issues in contemporary Europe.

Below are brief profiles of FSI's new faculty, all of whom have offices in Encina Hall.

Martha Crenshaw--FSI Senior Fellow, CISAC

Formerly a professor of government at Wesleyan University, Martha Crenshaw has a distinguished record of scholarship and policy engagement in the area of terrorism studies. Her early work on the National Liberation Front in Algeria 30 years ago made seminal contributions to the understanding of terrorist psychology and organizational structure, themes that are helping to animate the agenda for future research in the field. Her work with the U.S. Department of State and the intelligence community in the wake of 9/11 has played an important role in a major Department of Homeland Security grant she brought to Stanford this year.

Karen Eggleston--FSI Center Fellow, Shorenstein APARC and CHP/PCOR

Karen Eggleston joined Stanford from Tufts as an Asian comparative healthcare scholar whose work focuses on health systems and design incentives, especially in lower- and middle-income countries. She has co-authored Welfare, Choice and Solidarity in Transition: Reforming the Health Sector in Eastern Europe with esteemed economist János Kornai, which has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, and Hungarian. Her current research examines the Chinese healthcare system and how ownership factors affect hospital performance.

Siegfried S. Hecker--FSI Senior Fellow, Professor (Research), Management Science and Engineering, and Co-director, CISAC

Director emeritus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, material scientist Sig Hecker became CISAC's co-director in early 2007. His research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapons policy and international security, nuclear security, including nonproliferation and counter terrorism, and cooperative nuclear threat reduction. Over the past 15 years, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials.

Josef Joffe--FSI Senior Fellow, Forum on Contemporary Europe, and the Marc and Anita Abramowitz Fellow, Hoover Institution

A journalist-scholar and publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, Joe Joffe is in residence at Stanford during fall quarter. His work focuses on U.S.-Europe relations, and is noteworthy for its ability to bridge the worlds of journalism, academics, and policy analysis. He serves on several editorial boards and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. His work has been acclaimed through a number of awards, including Germany's Theodor Wolff Prize.

Phillip Lipscy--FSI Center Fellow and Assistant Professor, Political Science

Just completing his PhD in government at Harvard, Phillip Lipscy joins Stanford as a jointly held appointment in political science and FSI. His research focuses on international relations in Asia with particular attention to the domestic sources of foreign policy conduct. He is a comparativist with training in international relations, a rarity in the field of contemporary Japanese politics. He is bicultural, having grown up in Japan, and his foreign policy interests encompass the entire East Asia region.

William Howard Taft IV--The Warren Christopher Visiting Professor of International Law and Diplomacy, FSI and the Stanford Law School

Will Taft will be in residence at FSI and the Law School during the 2007-08 academic year as a visiting scholar and teaching Contemporary Issues in International Law and Diplomacy and Foreign Relations Law. Taft has held several private and public positions, including appointments at the Federal Trade Commission, Office of Management and Budget, and U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In 1981, he became general counsel to the Department of Defense followed by an appointment as the Deputy Secretary of Defense in 1984. Taft also served as U.S. ambassador to NATO and the U.S. Department of State's legal advisor, the highest legal position in the department. Taft is currently counsel in the office of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson.

Alejandro Toledo--FSI Distinguished Payne Lecturer, CDDRL

Having overcome extreme childhood poverty, Alejandro Toledo became the first Peruvian president of indigenous descent to be democratically elected in 500 years. During his presidency, the Peruvian economy registered one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America. The central aim of his presidency was the fight against poverty through health and educational investment. Toledo will be in residence at CDDRL during the 2007-08 academic year. His work will be showcased in a series of talks, workshops, and other activities as part of his Payne lectureship.

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Leaders, Accountability and Foreign Policy in Non-Democracies

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Jessica Weeks is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, the 2007-2008 Zukerman Fellow and a pre-doctoral fellow at CISAC, and the Teaching Assistant for the CISAC Honors Program. Her dissertation, "Leaders, Accountability, and Foreign Policy in Non-Democracies" studies how different levels of domestic accountability affect leaders' decisions about international conflict. Additional research investigates the effectiveness of military interventions, and the escalation and resolution of international military crises.

Jessica graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Political Science from The Ohio State University in 2001, and received an MA in International History and Politics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Jessica L. Weeks Speaker
Seminars
Conflict Resolution

Save the Date: 'Ethnicity in Today's Europe' Conference - November 7-9 at Stanford University

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"Ethnicity in Today's Europe" November 7, 2007- November 9, 2007 Stanford University Sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center and the Forum on Contemporary Europe

RELATED PRESIDENTIAL LECTURE

Partha Chatterjee - Director and Professor of Political Science, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta; Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York

PANELISTS

Leslie Adelson - German Studies, Cornell University

Rogers Brubaker - Sociology, UCLA

Salvador Cardús Ros - Sociology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Carole Fink - History, Ohio State University

Alec Hargreaves - French, Florida State University

Kader Konuk - Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan

Saskia Sassen - Sociology, Columbia University

Bassam Tibi - International Relations, University of Göttingen, Germany

Zelimir Zilnik - Filmmaker

CONFERENCE STATEMENT

Headlines today blaze with stories about the fate of Europe. There is a sense, both in Europe and around the world, that a sort of "tipping point" has been reached. A recurrent theme is the question of demographics. For instance, how are European social welfare systems going to cope with an aging population? What role will immigrants from outside Europe's borders, both recent and less recent, play in European society? What will be the impact of immigration between the member states of the European Union? What place will Europe's growing population of Muslims have in twenty-first century Europe?

As the ongoing process of unification redraws Europe's borders, as the populations of major European cities become more and more diverse, the question of ethnicity is at the forefront of many of the most important debates on the continent. On the one hand the long history of European national and ethnic identities is at play, as is the legacy of colonialism. On the other, a significant recent upswing in the movement of peoples around the globe has changed the face of Europe, often literally. Movement, of course, from outside Europe's borders into European states. But also, and crucially, movement within the space between Portugal and the Urals. Such movement certainly responds to a number of economic and social needs. At the same time, European conceptions of citizenship, equity, and nationhood often exist in tension with the realities of changing ethnic populations.

The conference "Ethnicity in the New Europe" at Stanford will address this topic in an interdisciplinary manner. Participants will focus on the question: "What's new about the situation in Europe today?" Bringing together scholars from different disciplines, the conference will provide a historical perspective together with contributions addressing economic, social, cultural, and political issues. Some themes that may be discussed include: how the current situation mirrors or departs from the past; the role of the media in portraying the interaction between different groups; the different perspectives of specific populations within Europe; whether Europe's diversity is best described under the rubric of ethnicity, nationality, race, or some other term; similarities and differences between European nation-states with regard to diversity within their borders. Above all, participants will use their own disciplinary perspective to assess what is at stake in the interaction between peoples in Europe as the twenty-first century gets underway.

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Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race

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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, here is the story of the entire postwar superpower arms race, climaxing during the Reagan-Gorbachev decade when the United States and the Soviet Union came within scant hours of nuclear war--and then nearly agreed to abolish nuclear weapons.

Rhodes reveals how the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s led ailing Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to conclude that Reagan must be preparing for a nuclear war. In the fall of 1983, when NATO staged a larger than usual series of field exercises that included, uniquely, a practice run-up to a nuclear attack, the Soviet military came very close to launching a defensive first strike on Europe and North America. With Soviet aircraft loaded with nuclear bombs warming up on East German runways, U.S. intelligence organizations finally realized the danger. Then Reagan, out of deep conviction, launched the arms-reduction campaign of his second presidential term and set the stage for his famous 1986 summit meeting with Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the breakthroughs that followed.

Rhodes reveals the early influence of neoconservatives and right-wing figures such as Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz. We see how Perle in particular sabotaged the Reykjavik meeting by convincing Reagan that mutual nuclear disarmament meant giving up his cherished dream of strategic defense (the Star Wars system). Rhodes' detailed exploration of these and other events constitutes a prehistory of the neoconservatives, demonstrating that the manipulation of government and public opinion with fake intelligence and threat inflation that the administration of George W. Bush has used to justify the current "war on terror" and the disastrous invasion of Iraq were developed and applied in the Reagan era and even before.

Drawing on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants, and on a wealth of new documentation, memoir literature, and oral history that has become available only in the past ten years, Rhodes recounts what actually happened in the final years of the Cold War that led to its dramatic end. The story is new, compelling, and continually surprising--a revelatory re-creation of a hugely important era of our recent history.

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Alfred A. Knopf
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The Spirit of Democracy

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Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of political science, and sociology by courtesy, and coordinator of the Democracy Program at CDDRL. He is a specialist on democratic development and regime change and on U.S. foreign policy affecting democracy abroad. His research examines comparative trends in the quality and stability of democracy in developing countries and post-communist states, and public opinion in new democracies. As a core member of the scientific team of the East Asia Barometer, he is investigating attitudes and values toward democracy in eight East Asian political systems. His research and policy analysis also address the relationship between democracy, governance and development in poor countries, particularly in Africa. In the past two years he has served as consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development and was a contributing author of its report, "Foreign Aid in the National Interest." He is also co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He is now lecturing and writing about the challenges of post-conflict state-building in Iraq and other countries. He also recently served with a group of Europeans and Americans who produced a report on "Transatlantic Strategy for Democracy and Human Development in the Broader Middle East," published by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Diamond has written extensively on the factors that facilitate and obstruct democracy in developing countries and on problems of democracy, development, and corruption, particularly in Africa. He is the author of Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria. His recent edited books include Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (with Marc F. Plattner and Daniel Brumberg), Political Parties and Democracy (with Richard Gunther), The Global Resurgence of Democracy and The Global Divergence of Democracies (both with Marc F. Plattner), Consolidating Democracy in Korea (with Byung-Kook Kim), and Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea (with Doh Shin). Among his other 20 edited books are the series Democracy in Developing Countries (with Juan Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset); The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (with Andreas Schedler and Marc F. Plattner); and Democratization in Africa and Democracy in East Asia (both with Marc F. Plattner).

Diamond has lectured in more than 20 countries on problems of democratic development. He taught sociology at Vanderbilt University from 1980 to 1985 before joining Stanford and the Hoover Institution. He was a visiting scholar at the Academia Sinica (Taiwan, 1997-98) and a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Bayero University (Kano, Nigeria, 1982-83). He received all of his degrees from Stanford University, including a BA in 1974, an MA in 1978, and a PhD in sociology in 1980.

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

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Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Larry Diamond Senior Fellow Speaker Hoover Institution and CDDRL
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