RYAN RICHEY
Assignment 1
1. What basically do you want to write about?
I want to write about Germany and obscure or not well known facts about it's history leading up to today and why Germans and Germany is the way that it is. They (Germans) are a distinct people with a special history and they have distinct traits. Not necessarily physical traits but more of their mindset. Maybe about why and how Germany is so powerful after being through so much even to this day. Maybe about their militaristic work and culture, their ethics their ideology, skills, work ethic, etc. Even the history of their children's stories and nursery rhymes and what that reflects or is reflected in them. Or about Germanic law and forms of justice, from the German refusal to integrate with Roman law to Hitlers Kangaroo Court's.
2. What problem would you like to solve?
As far as a problem to solve, maybe the problem is that of compiling information through various sources throughout history leading up to today showing who they are and explaining my ideas on why they are they way they are.
3. What topis would keep your interest over the course of two semesters?
Probably obscure stories and facts about their militaristic history and stubborn ways, their ideology and culture etc. For example: The genocide campaign in German South-West Africa before World War I, and Hitlers original plan to send all the Jews to Madagascar, their stubbornness and unwillingness to adhere and conform to Roman law during the days of the Holy Roman Empire, and stories such as those and others which all effect Germany today.
4. What do you already know the most about?
I already know about stuff during World War II and the the Holocaust and Germany.
5. What would you like to become even more expert at?
I would probably be most interested in and would like to become more of an expert at pre-World War I + II Germany, the reconstruction of Germany and after, the Thirty Years War, maybe all of the Kaisers and Germany’s uniform and militaristic history.
6. What question or topic will require you to use what you have learned in both your emphases?
Probably that of Germany and World War II and the Holocaust and the German South-West Africa genocide. As far as questions that will require me to use what I already have learned in my two emphases, maybe that of the Germany military and why and what the history of being so militaristic is and where is comes from and where it brings them and leaves them today?
7. Can you state a first tentative question you would like to answer?
A. Is having Germany stop their conscription a danger? Because it will make their military a more elite group of soldiers.
or
B. What tales throughout German history can help explain their Militaristic behavior, their sternness, stubbornness, straightforwardness, etc. Or what tales throughout German history can help explain why they are the way they are and why things are the way they are in current Germany?
8. What kinds of resources will you draw on to pursue this topic?
Interviews I have given to Germans, books, documentaries, archives, journals, newspapers articles etc.
So that is assignment one and now my brain is working and the cogs are turning and I will narrow down and figure out exactly what I want to research and write about.
