The book begins by situating my key phrase ‘making-good-again’ through contrasting the history of the terms Wiedergutmachung and restitution. I give a brief history of understandings of responsibility and introduce my argument regarding material practice. Part two gives a brief overview of the methods used in the book, situating my approach in relation to jurisprudence and current approaches in law, humanities and their intersections.

Explores the origins of rump states and the reasons why they have been among the most aggressive states of the last 100 years.

The ‘Blockade’ of Leningrad lasted from September 1941 to January 1944. It was one of the most tragic events of the war, especially with the mass starvation of the early months of 1942. Leningrad had been exposed to attack from the west, due to the Red Army’s rapid collapse in the recently annexed Baltic states, and it was potentially threatened by a Finnish attack from the north. The ability of the Russian forces to hold the city was based on other geographical and political factors, including the enemy’s inability to block Lake Ladoga to the east and the unwillingness of the Finnish government to take part. Starvation was the main weapon; the Germans bombarded Leningrad with artillery and aircraft with only limited effect, and little fighting took place inside the city itself. However, once the Germans had achieved their position near Leningrad from the south, it was difficult for the Red Army to mount successful counterattacks from the ‘mainland’, or from within the encircled city. Fortunately, after winter 1941–1942 the Germans were committed to other parts of the Russian front and there was little likelihood Leningrad would fall, but fighting in the surrounding countryside would be deadly for many months. The final end of the blockade came in January 1944, remarkably late in the war.

This chapter examines the legal and social context of employment testing bias and fairness in Germany. Germany’s legal framework emphasizes individual rights and experienced discrimination, rather than scrutinizing testing systems. The Holocaust’s legacy shapes German views on fairness, making “Rasse” (“race”) a loaded term. The chapter addresses demographics, including the large migrant population and debates on sex/gender equality. Key legal protections are enshrined in the “Grundgesetz” (Basic Law) and the General Act on Equal Treatment (“Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz”). A German standard sets quality criteria for selection processes. Regulatory bodies – such as the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency, works councils (“Betriebsrat,” representing employees’ interests in many German organizations), and the Disabled Employee Representative Body – address workplace discrimination, with the Betriebsrat able to veto selection methods. Legal recourse is limited to minor compensation. In summary, although German laws affect other areas of industrial, work, and organizational psychology, their impact on personnel selection science is rather low.

Chapter 6 aims to construct a future-looking theoretical framework for handling cultural objects for which questions of past illegality and/or illegitimacy arise but where a potential claimant – whether an individual, a community, or a source nation – is unable to pursue formal legal proceedings against the current possessor, and the relevant law enforcement agencies cannot equally pursue criminal, administrative, or public law proceedings. Accordingly, the chapter seeks to identify normative principles for dealing with the issue of “restitution” (broadly defined) that operates outside the realm of hard-law norms and institutions. It starts by examining the key aspects of the institutional/procedural and normative principles of the restitution committees established in certain European countries and tasked with the development and implementation of “just and fair solutions” to address Holocaust-era wrongful dispossessions. It then considers whether “just and fair solutions” can be devised for other contexts and, if so, how legalistic ethical reasoning could be adapted for these settings. The focus then shifts to the case study of France and its complex approach to the restitution of colonial-era objects to African source countries. The chapter then examines the various remedial mechanisms that are in operation, or that can be developed, to apply such normative principles to broader contexts of addressing past wrongs, including long-term loans, digital restitution, and the establishment of cross-border trusts to enable the joint custody and stewardship of collections. The chapter, and the book, conclude by addressing the role of such a normative blueprint, aligned with the concept of new cultural internationalism, in moving toward the convergence of law, policy, and markets for cultural property.

This final chapter extends the discussion to the implications of China’s evolving international energy relations, in turn, on its domestic energy transition, the geopolitical landscape, and global sustainability, including international efforts to combat climate change. It also reflects on the ramifications of energy transitions on the international stage in other countries, specifically Japan and Germany. The chapter concludes with a synthesis of the main findings of the book, providing with an overview of how China’s ongoing transition from fossil fuels to renewables, along with geopolitical shifts, is reshaping its interactions with the global energy sector.

During the 1930s, the Bank devised a plan to help prepare the nation for war. In contrast to the Treasury, the Cabinet, and the League of Nations, the Bank was the sole defender of exchange control, a policy that involved restrictions on conversions in and out of sterling. Its experts argued that the necessity of wartime finance, diplomatic tensions with France and the United States, and a potential flight from sterling at the outbreak of war all justified the reform of exchange-rate management. Although exchange control was primarily seen as an overly restrictive arrangement, often associated with authoritarian regimes in Germany or Argentina, the Bank’s advisers claimed to understand the technical requirements and the particular needs of a financial sector preparing for war. With its enactment in early 1939, the Bank had effectively abandoned its commitment to restoring the prewar liberal economic order and instead oversaw a new system of governance that continued well into the postwar years.

Many late medieval travellers left us extensive accounts about their experiences, but they often do not differ from each other in significant ways, commonly because they copied from previous sources and followed the same routes, such as coming from Germany, crossing the Alps down to Venice, from there taking the ship traveling along the coast of the Adriatic Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, to reach the Holy Land. German merchants who travelled south to reach the Italian markets were all required to stay in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice. Those who travelled north, often members of the Hanseatic League, found necessary trading centres in the various harbour cities along the coastlines of the Scandinavian cities, the British Isles, and Russia. In a way, we have thus to perceive German medieval travellers as being part of a mass European movement. The motifs for travels were commonly shared: religious desires, economic interests, diplomatic purposes, intellectual curiosity (learning), and professional needs.

Giesela Rühl (Humboldt University of Berlin) explains that during the past two decades, German courts have experienced a dramatic decline in cases. While the causes for the loss remain unclear, it is plausible that German courts are not an attractive means of resolving lower-value claims. Thus, these claims remain unenforced. A number of legal tech companies have entered the German legal services market to mitigate that problem. These companies enforce lower-value claims and are extremely popular with consumers. The legal profession, however, has met all this with skepticism – and at times even with hostility – as some lawyers question whether legal tech companies illegally provide legal services. These discussions have since led to various court cases, as well as the adoption of a new federal law that specifically targets legal tech companies. The chapter critically engages with these developments, outlining the regulatory environment for the provision of legal services in Germany as well as relevant case law and legislation. Overall, the chapter hypothesizes that access to justice in Germany has benefited from legal tech companies but that important problems remain to be addressed.

This chapter assesses the extent to which the emergence of Fridays for Future (FFF) resulted in a politicization of climate change and how this affected climate policy and politics in Germany from 2018 to 2022. We show that the politicization resulted in a situation in which the Merkel government decided to gradually phase out coal-fired power plants as the key climate policy decision of the last few years. While this step was triggered by the EU’s announcement in 2017 that it would adopt stricter emissions standards for large combustion plants burning coal and lignite, FFF increased the pressure on the government to act. The politicization of the issue also resulted in changes to climate politics. The positions of mainstream political parties and their candidates have converged in their positions on climate change and the need for climate action. However, this convergence refers to climate policy in abstract terms and not to the specific policy measures supported by the individual parties. While climate change became depoliticized for a while, geopolitical conflicts are expected to repoliticize it and to have an impact on climate politics and policy.

Research on rap music in Germany has focused on questions of transnationalism, ethnicity and gender. This chapter advances studies of German rap through an analysis of the rap song and music video “Ich bin Schwarz” (I am Black, 2016) by the popular female rap duo SXTN. Drawing on intersectional, feminist, and hip-hop studies scholarship, we conduct a close reading of the visuals, lyrics, and signifying practices that are mediated in the cultural text. We argue that “Ich bin Schwarz” promotes a new version of a self-empowered, humorous, and unapologetic Black female German identity by remixing the popular German music genre Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave), subverting racist and sexist imaginations of Afrodiasporic womanhood, and continuing hip-hop’s political legacy against right-wing extremism in Germany. Ultimately, “Ich bin Schwarz” contributes to a growing body of performances in rap music and larger popular culture that destabilise white-dominated notions of German national identity.