Helmut Bley

Helmut Bley (born February 26, 1935 in Hamburg ) is a German historian for modern and African history at the historical seminar of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University of Hanover (since 1976, 2003 emeritation).

biography

Helmut Bley spent his childhood in Hamburg and because of the bombing raids from 1940 in the Ore Mountains. He experienced the end of the war with his grandparents in Boizenburg on the Elbe. Because the family had been bombed out in 1943, he found shelter with his mother and cousin with their mother in Hamburg. The father was a Soviet prisoner of war until Christmas 1948. During high school he was active as a youth group leader in a choir of the youth movement with choir singing, folk dancing and hiking as well as stays in the country home. According to his own statements, this time has shaped him a lot.

Bley studied education and history at the University of Hamburg from 1954 to 1957 and graduated with the first teacher examination for elementary and secondary schools. He received his doctorate in 1965 after further studies in history, educational science and public law. From 1961 to 1965 he was a research assistant at the historical seminar of the University of Hamburg and from 1968 to 1975 there councilor and senior councilor and responsible for looking after students from the third world in the philosophy faculty. From 1970 to 1972 he was visiting professor at the University of Dar es Salaam , Tanzania . In 1976 he was appointed to a C4 professorship for modern and African history at the University of Hanover.

Scientific offices

In addition to membership of the Senate in Hamburg and Hanover, he was repeatedly chair of the faculty. He also chaired the Association of Africanists in Germany (VAD) since 1975. From 1975 to 2003 he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Institute for African Studies in Hamburg. From 1991 to 1994 he was appointed by the Science Council for the Commission for the Reform of Asian and African Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin . From 1994 to 2006 he was a member of the German Committee of UNICEF and for eight years a member of the board of trustees of the German Foundation for International Development (DSE) for German universities . In 1997 he became a member of the advisory board when the Zentrum Moderner Orient was founded .

Research priorities

African history of the 19th and 20th centuries and the regions of southern and eastern Africa. History of the German Empire and the First World War , as well as the history of the world system since the early modern period .

Bibliography (selection)

African history

“Africa, Worlds and Stories from 300 Years”, 2020 - ready to print for De Gruyter, approx. 480 pages.

“Colonial rule and social structure in German South West Africa 1894-1814”, Hamburg 1968.

“Namibia under German Rule”, London, Chicago 1971, 2nd edition Hamburg / Windhoek 1996.

“Africa and Bonn. Failures and constraints of German Africa policy ”with Rainer Tetzlaff, Hamburg 1978.

"The greater regions of Africa or the borders of the autochthonous", in: Periplus, Yearbook for Non-European History, 1994 pp. 1–15.

"Migration and ethnicity in the social, political and ecological context: The Mijikenda in Kenya 17th-19th century", in: Bade, Klaus J, Migration-Ethnicity-Conflict, Osnabrück 1996, pp 305-28.

"Social-historical conditions of conversion in Africa 1750-1980", in: Klaus Koschorke (ed.), Christians and Spices, Confrontation and Interaction of Colonial and Indigenous Christianity Variants, Göttingen 1998.

With Gesine Krüger, “Surviving in Wars in Africa”, Comparativ, 1998 / issue 2.

With students, "Slavery in Africa", Pfaffenweiler 1991.

“Decolonization, a turning point?”, In: Laurence Marfaing, Brigitte Reinwald, African Relations, Networks and Spaces, Hamburg 2001.

"German Colonial Wars in Africa 1904-1918, an Interpretation", in Hinz, Niesel, Nothnagel, With magic water against bullets, Frankfurt 2006.

Empire and First World War

"Bebel and the strategy of war prevention 1904-1913", Göttingen 1976, 2nd extended edition, Hanover 2014.

“The World During the First World War”, ed. With Anorthe Kremers, Essen 2014.

“The dream of the kingdom? Right-wing radicalism as an answer to failed illusions in the German Empire 1900–1918 ”, in Kundrus, Birthe, Phantasiereiche, Frankfurt 2003.

With Zechlin, Egmont, “Germany between cabinet war and economic war. Politics and Warfare in the First Months of the World War 1914, Historical Journal, Volume 199 Issue 2, 1964. P. 347-458.

With Zechlin, Egmont, “The 'Central Organization for a Lasting Peace' and the Central Powers. A contribution to the political activities of Rudolf Laun in the First World War ”, in Festschrift for Rudolf Laun Hamburg 1962. pp. 448–512.

History of the world system

Specialist editor “Global Interaction” with König, Rüther and Rinke for the Encyclopedia of Modern Times, Stuttgart 2005–2013.

more than twenty articles on "Global Interaction", etc. a. World system theory, global violence, metropolises of the world, Atlantic world, British Empire and a series on the African worlds, free trade imperialism,

"Wallerstein's analysis of the modern world system revisited: The regional perspective - The case of (West) Africa" ​​in: Carl-Hans Hauptmeyer, Darius Adamczyk, Beate Eschment, Udo Obal (eds.). Thinking the world outside the box, Festschrift for Hans-Heinrich Nolte, Frankfurt 2003, pp.95-106

“Africa in the global economic crisis periods of the 20th century”, in: Peter Feldbauer, Gerd Hardach, Gerhard Melinz, From the world economic crisis to the globalization crisis 1929–1999, Vienna 1999.

"Problems of Periodization Using the Example of Africa in the Context of World History", An Essay ", in: Averkorn, Raphaels u. a. (Ed.), Europe and the World in History, Bochum 2004.

"The 20th century from the perspective of an Africa historian", in Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 10 issue 2 2009.

"The world economic crisis of the thirties in the Third World", Work Report Third World Hanover 1986.

“Notes on the Historical Crises of Capitalism”, in Crises Without End, Hannover 2009.

The bias in one's own history makes the rest of the world more strange than it is ”, in: Loccumer Protocols 11/97.

Editor of the series with Leonard Harding: Studies on African History with more than 30 volumes.

Third-party funded projects funded by the DFG , Volkswagen Foundation and GTZ

DFG

The world economic crisis in Africa, case studies of Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Transkei, Wolfgang Döpcke, Katja Füllberg-Stolberg, Uta Lehmann-Grube.

Focus: Militant conflicts in the Third World, the consequences of war and war management in Africa after 1945, Harneit-Sievers: Nigeria, Frank Schubert: Uganda, Gesine Krüger: Namibia, Gerhard Liesegang: Mozambique.

On an everyday and social history of writing and the written form in South Africa, 1890–1930, Gesine Krüger.

Exile experience of the ANC of South Africa, Hans-Georg Schleicher.

Violent Crimes in Southern Africa: Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Salisbury, 1890–1947, Bob Turrell.

Volkswagen Foundation

The Africa policy of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany 1955–1990, Ulf Engel: Federal Republic, Hans Georg Schleicher: GDR and Inga Rost.

Flight and exile in Africa after 1967: on the reaction of international aid organizations; Refugee movements, illustrated by the East African example, Thorsten Meier and Freya Grünhagen.

Voluntary Repatriation of Refugees in Africa: A Comparative Study. Case studies Eritrea and Mozambique, Thorsten Meier and Freya Grünhagen.

Fighters after a long war, demobilization in Eritrea. A historical study of the social history of war and the process of transforming conflict potentials, Hartmut Quehl.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Prof. Dr. phil. Helmut Bley - History Seminar. Retrieved May 19, 2020 . 
2. ↑ DFG - GEPRIS - The exile experience of the ANC in African frontline states and in Great Britain: Effects on the development and shaping of executives and their political profile in South Africa (196o-1994). Retrieved May 19, 2020 .