Central European History appears in response to a widespread demand for an American journal devoted to the history of German-speaking Central Europe. The need for such a periodical has been especially great since S. Harrison Thomson's Journal of Central European Affairs, which published studies dealing with this along with other areas, ceased publication in 1964. The Conference Group for Central European History, after two years of study, voted in December 1966 to sponsor a new journal, Central European History, to meet this need. Together with such periodicals as the Austrian History Yearbook (also published in collaboration with the Conference Group) and the East European Quarterly, which have also been founded in recent years to meet similar needs, Central European History should help fill a serious gap in the ranks of American scholarly periodicals.

The experiences and catastrophes of the second World War fundamentally affected European political attitudes. Particularly intensive was the reconsideration of fundamental problems that went on in the non-communist resistance groups in the Nazi-occupied countries of Europe. What were their political plans? Research on the resistance movements is still in its early stages; however, there is already general agreement that the resistance movements did not fight for a return to prewar conditions, but for a new European society. In particular, as several writers have pointed out, the goal of a democratic federation of all European nations appears repeatedly in the newspapers and proclamations of the Resistance. To describe the ideas of the Resistance on European federation requires a thorough study of the documentary material on the various European resistance movements, with particular attention to those texts concerned with the future relationships of the European states; the following pages are a first report of the findings of such a study.

On August 22, 1866, a month and a half after the disaster of Sadowa, Francis Joseph I of Austria wrote to his mother: “If you have the whole world against you and absolutely no friends, chances of success are few, but we must resist as long as we can, do our duty until the last, and finally perish honorably.” To his council of ministers he put it less dramatically and less plaintively on September I: For a long time to come Austria would have to eschew war in all forms and for all purposes.

A Literature designed to express discontent with political or social conditions, rally public support, and sometimes threaten revolution has as much of a tradition in Germany as in other countries, and it was not the German authors' fault that their efforts remained on the whole without decisive achievements. Until 1918, this genre of literature had been nearly exclusively the preserve of what may loosely be called the political Left. But with the establishment of the republic the forces of the Right appropriated to themselves this time-honored intellectual weapon in their efforts to destroy the hated "Weimar System." Under these circumstances, no responsible independent left-wing journal could afford to do more than criticize the new German state for its shortcomings, and while in this respect some of them were less restrained than others, all of them wanted to reform and strengthen, not overthrow, the republic.

The semi-official Kölnische Zeitung of December 16, 1888, unleashed a violent attack upon Sir Robert Morier, the British Ambassador to Russia. After alluding to his friendly relations with the recently deceased Emperor Frederick, the article stressed Morier's hostility to Germany. This was substantiated by the charge that, in August 1870, he had sent news of the German crossing of the Moselle to the French commander, Marshal Bazaine.

On February 10, 1944, a colorful ceremony took place in the great hall of the University of Munich. The occasion was the official inauguration of Reich Minister Arthur Seyss-Inquart as President of the German Academy. Under swastika banners lining the front of the auditorium sat the General Secretary of the Academy, Dr. Matthias Schmitz; Vice-President Professor Walther Wüst; Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels; and Dr. Seyss-Inquart himself. The organization which Seyss-Inquart had been chosen to head had in nineteen years achieved a predominant position in teaching the German language to foreigners and in promoting German culture at home and abroad. Its world-wide network of schools was particularly strong in southern and eastern Europe.