A jubilee is the perfect time for a critical stocktaking, and this essay uses the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Central European History (CEH), the leading American journal of the history of “German-speaking Central Europe,” to explore the changing representations of women and gender in this journal since its founding in 1968. The declared aim of CEH was, according to the founding editor, Douglas A. Unfug, to become a “broadly rather than narrowly defined” journal that covers “all periods from the Middle Ages to the present” and includes, next to “traditional approaches to history,” innovative and “experimental methodological approaches.” As Kenneth F. Ledford, the third CEH editor (after Unfug and Kenneth D. Barkin), wrote in 2005, the journal should simultaneously reflect and drive “the intellectual direction(s) of its eponymous field.”

This clearly written, well-researched monograph analyzes the shop-flooractions, strikes, and general insurgency of German chemical workers during andafter World War One, proving, once again, that reports of labor history'sdemise are premature. Patton's work suggests that we still have much tolearn from an anatomy of militant working-class behavior. In the classic manner,Flammable Material surveys the overall economic and industrial contextof rebellion while also offering a detailed comparative study of conditions,organization, and activity in specific companies—in this case, the fourbiggest concerns, Bayer, Höchst, Leuna, and BASF. Simultaneously, the bookmoves beyond traditional labor history (at least of the dominant German variety)by adopting the perspective “from below” as opposed to from insidetrade unions and socialist parties. Moreover, Patton criticizes assumptions thatoften crop up even in the field of the new labor history. Indeed, his study wasmotivated by his dissatisfaction with explanations of the oft-noted volatilityof chemical workers from 1918 to 1921. He challenges, first, the notion thattheir actions were “wild” or spontaneous, showing that they weredriven by long-festering, well-articulated grievances and steered by shop-floorleaders and organizations. He disputes, second, the assumption that chemicalworkers were apolitical. To understand both the curve and content of workplacesolidarity and militancy, he argues, the historian must consider the impact ofpartisan politics on chemical workers, on the one hand, and their intenseconcern with the balance of power between employees and management, on theother.

In July 1923, the Munich chapter of the Social Democratic Security Troop (Sicherheitsabteilung, hereafter Socialist SA) staged a Festspiel in a suburban woods. The skit’s sylvan setting belied its combative leitmotif, echo of a wider German environment racked by occupation of the Ruhr, hyperinflation, unemployment, and threatening ultraright organizations. The drama aimed to convince its Social Democratic audience to join or support the Security Troop. In the opening scene, a “leader of the SPD” lamented proletarian disunity. As he resolved to quit politics, the “goddess of freedom” materialized and urged him to keep up the fight. To demonstrate that the masses were on the move against reaction, she pointed to a sky blanketed with flags born by members of the Security Troop.1 Four male mortals stepped forward: a former Independent Socialist, a Young Socialist, a Communist, and a “lumpenproletarian.” The Socialist exhorted the Communist to join the SPD but, instead, he lambasted its bureaucratic bosses and called for a council republic. Suddenly, the lumpen’s passivity aroused the group’s distrust. Unmasking him as a Nazi, they chased him offstage. As the Social Democrats went off to a meeting, the wife of the SPD leader told of her sacrifices for a husband and son who devoted themselves to the party. Yet she proclaimed her willingness to suffer “for the sake of proletarian freedom.” The men returned, disgusted that Nazis had busted up their conclave.