Elizabeth Wiskemann by Field Geoffrey;

Author:Field, Geoffrey; [Field, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2022-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

Instead, it was another offer from Chatham House that determined her next major project, and this drew her back to the relationship between Germany and Eastern Europe. Financed by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the project focused on Germany’s eastern borderlands and the consequences of the Potsdam settlement. Between the wars, Chatham House had commissioned a study of the consequences of the border changes resulting from the First World War, and this was to be a sequel. More directly, however, pressure for the project came from Hugh Seton-Watson, Christopher’s brother, a leading scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe and a Chatham House board member. In 1952 Stalin had put forward a proposal for a reunited, neutral, and demilitarized Germany which both Adenauer and the West firmly rejected, although it was not unattractive to sections of the Social Democratic party and some West German intellectuals. Stalin’s death the following March brought further uncertainty as his acolytes began to struggle over the spoils of power. If a final peace with Germany and the issue of reunification were ever taken up, Seton-Watson wrote to Cleeve in July 1953, the social situation in these frontier lands would be central to all discussions:

The proposed study is not of German reunification, but of Germany’s eastern frontier. It is conceivable – I certainly wouldn’t put it higher – that the unification of the Soviet zone with the Federal Republic may become a practical possibility in the next six months or year. But, if so, the problem of united Germany’s eastern border will become not less, but more important. It is simply fantastic that so little is known of this subject in this country & [the] U.S. There is hardly a problem in world affairs today of greater basic importance – and I say this after some thought.116

There was Board resistance to taking up the idea in view of the political sensitivity of German reunification, the Potsdam frontiers, and the politics of the German expulsions from Eastern Europe. To these concerns Seton-Watson responded: “As for the political aspect predominating, this was always the case. I have stressed the need to study the social and economic development of Polish-annexed and Czech-held ex-German territories because they form a very large part of the essence of the political problem.”117 Some members thought that an edited book of essays might be preferable, others expressed doubts about Wiskemann.118 But Seton-Watson was unpersuaded and (supported by Doreen Warriner) pushed for her as sole author. Whoever was chosen, he insisted, must:

1) have personal experience of all three countries; 2) know well the 20th century history of all three; 3) know all three languages; 4) fully appreciate the interdependence of political and economic questions in this region. Miss Wiskemann possesses most of these qualifications – first class under 1) and 2), at least fair under 4), I am not sure how good under 3)…Personally I hope that she will consent to handle it all.119

In truth, there were few candidates better qualified for the task, for

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