Band 302, Heft 3 -

Herodotus and Thucydides were the first to write large-scale and complex histories as “multi-subjective, contingency-oriented accounts” (Christian Meier). In literally inventing a new genre, both authors faced formidable and elementary challenges that scholars have rarely considered in detail. Although epic offered inspiration, they had to figure out how to collect, evaluate, and organize their material, present their narrative, and capture their public's attention. In a fragmented world with conflicting memories, they wrote from a panhellenic perspective; hence they had to create their audiences as well. Although differing in age and background, they were contemporaries, sharing in their time's vibrant intellectual culture. Thucydides explicitly emphasizes the usefulness of history as a “possession for ever”; the same emphasis is implicit in Herodotus. This paper deals with the question of what made history useful, why this was important, what techniques were used to achieve this purpose, how all this affected the historians' reconstruction and narrative of history—and it in turn affects our use of their historical narratives as history. Furthermore, the paper discusses some of the remarkably similar techniques the two authors developed to make their histories interesting and meaningful to their own and future readers. Some of these techniques they borrowed from epic. Others were new devices to structure the narrative, facilitate selection among similar episodes, highlight important aspects, involve the readers in the narrated action, and draw out patterns that engaged them in a dynamic interaction between past and present. Hence the results of this paper's investigation also throw new and intriguing light on the intertextual relations between these two “first historians.”

As the Prussian army under Frederic the Great defeated the French troops in the battle of Rossbach on 5th November 1757, a real military tourism towards Prussia developed after the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. The French public did not recover from the insult which the descendants of the glorious Louis XIV endured in comparison to a king whose star was constantly rising while the aura of France was deteriorating. As a consequence numerous French officers travelled to Potsdam, Berlin and Schlesien to study the secrets of the military successes of Frederic II. They were seeking knowledge for reform programs in order to improve their own armies and intended to restore the lost splendour of the French army and to regain its primary position in Europe. In this context the trip of Hippolyte-Jean-René d'Emskerque, Marquis de Toulongeon, took place in 1786, the last year of the life of the „roi connétable“. The account of this journey and particularly the military expertise constitute a typical example both of the areas that interested the French officers and their comparative analysis of the two military systems. It was difficult for them to regard Prussia as a potential paragon contributing to improve their own army. The Marquis de Toulongeon's travel account illustrates a certain type of the circulation of military knowledge between France and Prussia in the second half of the eighteenth century and the boundaries of an efficient exchange of this knowledge.

The Prussian period of reform, from 1808–1815/18, included the armed forces, which, with the transition to (general) conscription, now rested on a new societal base, and intentionally connected civic rights and obligations. The plausible consequence would have been equality of the burdens, however this was not achieved in either the process of enlisting for the military service or the material requirements. lt was the public sector which compensated for a Iack of infrastructure, as well as accommodation requirements, by making the traditional claim of public quarters. ln turn, the inadequate remuneration led to many lawsuits, which the financially ailing state could do little hinder, Iet alone provide investments to deal with the cause of the problem. As a result, some cities with stationed troops saw them take the initiative and ensure the quartering of ´their´ military in barracks. On the one hand, this was done to stop troops being billeted, while on the other hand secured economic benefits. The private and communal aid came in the form of subsidies, or in some cases retaining fees, with contractually negotiated repayment by the state and recognition of the anticipated and unconstrained fiscal costs of troop maintenance. Thus contours and income of the contributions were defined. This dealt with the unusual, partially discussed and partially practiced, financing of the required infrastructure through equity funds, which took place during the transition from early to high industrialization and led to the search for new ways of procuring funds. That some such corporations emerged before the standardization of company law and were met with considerable interest is proof of the timely approach.

Research of the history of guest workers that had been conducted in West Germany so far has not paid particular attention to the reason why South Korean women migrated to the nation to take care of patients and old men and women between the 1960s and the 1970s. It must be noted that, unlike the case of South and East European nations, South Korea had not officially made an agreement with the West German government for promoting bilateral human exchanges. During the period when guest workers came to West Germany, most of the female nurses from South Korea had already been equipped with licenses for nursing or nursing assistance. In the earlier stage of their migration – i.e. in the late 1950s – South Korean female were sent to nursing schools in West Germany through the mediation of German Catholics. South Korean women migrated to West Germany and worked at its hospitals or nursing homes with an introduction from Catholic priests or nuns who were working to the cause of development aid in South Korea. The opinion of Heike Knortz that foreign guest workers made inroads into the West German job market through diplomatic agreements was partly persuasive in that South Korea and West Germany made an agreement for development aid in 1961. South Korean women's entry into West German nursing schools through the mediation of West German Catholics and the labor of licensed South Korean nurses in the nation, however, had nearly nothing to do with the bilateral development aid. Migration of South Korean female workers was at that time carried out for the purpose of resolving the shortage of care workers in West Germany.