Projekt

By the late 19th century, Germany had become an integral part of the global economy: a leading industrial nation importing raw goods and expertise from around the world, while exporting chemicals, advanced engineering, and pharmaceutical goods in return. Yet Germany has also been central to the dark side of globalization as a hub for illicit narcotics, as a destination for trafficked sex workers, and as a source of illegal arms exports. This project will rethink Germany's place in the world by examining the history of its "deviant globalization", and how its role in global networks of illicit obscenity, financial fraud, and traffic in humans, arms, and narcotics has evolved over the long 20th century. Beginning in 1904 when Imperial Germany signed its first international convention against traffic in "white slavery", the project will extend into the early 2000s as a re-united Germany, established as a global economic leader, became firmly embedded in international prohibition systems and transnational criminal networks. This research provides a path-breaking view into how we understand modern German history in a global context, but also into how globalization - as it has waxed and waned over the 20th century - has served as a catalyst for international networks of criminality and illicit trade in the center of Europe.

• Dr. Ned Richardson-Little

  Universität Erfurt
  Department of History
  Historisches Seminar
  Erfurt
  

• Arms Intervention: Weimar Germany, Imperial Influence and Weapons Trafficking in Warlord China

• Making the French-German Border. Practices, Conceptions, and Perceptions of Spatial Policing, 1887-1914