Germany's Empire in the East Germans and Romania in an Era of Globalization and Total War

This book puts German policy toward Romania and the German East into a global context. One of the signal events of the twentieth century was Germany's effort to construct an empire in Europe modeled on the European experience outside Europe. The turn to European empire resulted less from the dynamics of capitalist expansion than from a deep crisis in global political and economic order. Confronted with the global economic and political power of the western allies, the Germans turned to Eastern Europe to construct a dependent space, tied to Germany as Central America was to the US. The First World War transformed how Germans thought about international order, empire and the nature of Romanians. The domestic consequences of Germany's eviction from global markets authorized deep interventions in Romanian society to establish a pre-eminent position for the German state inside Romania. David Hamlin embeds occupation and war aims in economic concerns.

Introduction; 1. Constructing interdependence; 2. Alliances; 3. In the shadows of war; 4. Occupations; 5. The economic consequences of the German peace.

David Hamlin is an Associate Professor at the Department of History, Fordham University, New York and author of Work and Play: The Production and Consumption of Toys in Germany 1880–1914 (2006).