Frontiers of Empire
Max Sering, Inner Colonization, and the German East, 1871–1945

Connects Germany's colonial adventure in Eastern Europe with the North American Frontier.

Robert L. Nelson (Author)

9781009235365, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 January 2024

332 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.631 kg

'… the book is much more than a biography. Nelson deftly contextualizes Sering by situating him within broader discourses concerning international economics, domestic politics, geopolitics, race, and more.' David Hamlin, Journal of Modern History

How did the homesteads and reservations of the Prairies of Western North America influence German colonization, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Eastern Europe? Max Sering, a world-famous agrarian settlement expert, stood on the Great Plains in 1883 and saw Germany's future in Eastern Europe: a grand scheme of frontier settlement. Sering was a key figure in the evolution of Germany's relationship with its eastern frontier, as well as in the overall transformation of the German Right from the Bismarckian 1880s to the Hitlerian 1930s. 'Inner colonization' was the settlement of farmers in threatened borderland areas within the nation's boundaries. Focusing on this phenomenon, Frontiers of Empire complicates the standard thesis of separation between the colonizing country and the colonized space, and blurs the typical boundaries between colonizer and colonized subjects. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

1. Settler colonialism and how to tell a story: inner colonization and biography
2. The Frontiers of youth: Kaiserreich, part one
3. Career beginnings, eastern interests: Kaiserreich, part two (1883–1897)
4. Settling in: Kaiserreich, part three (1897–1914)
5. The radicalization of inner colonization: world war one, 1914–1918
6. Sering the star: the Weimar Republic, 1918–1933
7. Sering's journey comes to an end: the third Reich (1933–39)
8. The legacy of Max Sering and inner colonization: the second world war and its aftermath
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]