History 341

fall semester 2026

Germany Since Bismarck

Hunt Tooley
htooley@austincollege.edu
2292, SH 108

Office Hours:
In-Office times:
MWF: noon to 12:30
TTH: 4:30-5:00
Zoom Office hours: MWF 1:45 to 2:30
https://austincollege.zoom.us/j/85838848660?pwd=TtG5edDcXrFGp6LSWa2zzaunoNzASJ.1
And by apointment or serendipity

This is a class in the tumultuous history of the central European states we call Germany, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. There are many reasons for studying German history. Since its unification in 1871, Germany has been at the center of European and trends: education and science, the two World Wars, economic upheavals but positive and negative, business and technology. We will be looking at all these aspects of German history in the attempt to make sense of it. And it is important to note that "Germany" does not contain all Germans (or German-speakers). We will also take into account the histories of Switzerland, Austria, and to a lesser extent Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.

CLASS SCHEDULE

Texts to Acquire

Theodor Fontane. Effi Briest

Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men

Anna Funder, Stasiland

Attendance, Late Assignments, and Academic Integrity

You need to come to class. I will do my best to take the roll. Attendance matters, especially this fall. After more than five absences, you run the risk of substantial penalties to your grade. Basically, over six unexcused absences will lower your course grade by a letter.

This course will follow the policies on academic integrity laid out in the Environment and other official college publications. Please read these guidelines carefully; we will follow them strictly. Academic honesty is absolutely essential. This means: no cheating. If you are ever in doubt as to what constitutes plagiarism, please feel free to come by and discuss the question with me, or any other faculty member for that matter. We will also be talking about this when we get to the paper assignments. On the plagiarism issue, just remember: whenever you use someone's words or ideas, you must tell that you have used them.You must give credit where credit is due.

In this course, this includes use of AI in writing your papers. Turnitin has a good AI detector, and I will investigate all instances of AI usage it detects. For our purposes: no AI usage in writing papers. (Note that this does not include studying for tests, getting clarification, etc, though in the current state of AI usage, you can;t believe everything you read.)

For more information about plagiarism, please see this site:
https://www.plagiarism.org/
or any of the many sites that discuss this problem.

There will be a penalty for late papers, usually five points per day.

Exams

For help interpreting my marks on your tests and papers, please see:

Tooley's Exam and Paper Evaluation Shee t

Course Components

Reading Quizzes (averaged, lowest 4 dropped)	15
Midterm Exam	15
Final Exam	25
Documentary Editing Project	10
Annotated Bibliography Project	15
Short Analytical Research Essay or Analytical Biography Essay	20
TOTAL	100

The Hist 341 Research and Writing Assignments

The following section will be determined after our discussion in the first class.

Tentative
Research Paper Process

Tentative
YOU WILL BE WORKING ON three different kinds of research/writing projects this semester.

The Documentary Editing Project
The Annotated Bibliography Project
Analytical Biography Essay

The last one will be of a kind that most folks taking an upper-level history course understand easily, a short term paper of at least 2500 words of text (word count does not include notes).

For more on each of these papers, see German History Research Paper Instructions. See also Tooley's Exam and Paper Evaluation Sheet or here in pdf form.

Due dates are noted for the papers on the schedule.

All papers must be turned in via Turnitin.com

Note on Academic Journals and Web Sources Pertaining to German History

Many journals containing scholarly articles on the history of the German world are available to you. Abell Library carries the major European history journals: The Journal of Modern History, The Journal of Contemporary History, Historical Journal, and The American Historical Review. Also available in Abell are the vital journals for the hisotyr of the German world, Central European History and The Austrian History Yearbook.