From 1939 to 1945, Georg Werthmann worked tirelessly to preserve the Catholic military chaplaincy of the German armed forces from Nazi Party interference. He and the men who worked under him valued their service as integral to the Catholic German soldiers in need of spiritual help; they also viewed the war in which they were engaged as a crusade against Bolshevism, an enemy to be beaten at any cost. The article focuses on the reactions of Werthmann and select chaplains and seminarians to two military regulations concerning the chaplaincy, and on their understanding of Bolshevism, revealing that Nazi and Catholic ideologies shared significant commonalities that encouraged their wartime service.

This article questions Norway's role as peace promoter during the Manchurian crisis in the early 1930s. It appears that Norway's attitude towards Japan was more ambiguous and less consonant with the anti-war, anti-Japanese stand hitherto assumed on the basis of Norway's performance in the League of Nations. Norway's foreign ministry was mainly interested in Norway's practical and security needs, and fairly indifferent to events unfolding in the Far East, unless these affected Norwegian economic and political interests. For Norwegian diplomats and senior officials Japan was a civilised state and an important commercial partner. Favourable disposition towards Japan led the foreign ministry in 1934 to appear to acknowledge the ascendance of Emperor Pu Yi in the puppet state Manchukuo. This created considerable embarrassment in diplomatic and political circles.

This article, which is part of a wider project, ‘Experiences of Communist Modernisation in a Bulgarian Muslim Village, 1945–2005’, examines the assimilation of Bulgarian-speaking Muslims in the Rhodope Mountains in the 1970s. By analysing communist efforts to ‘modernise’ Bulgarian Muslims, it sheds light on the relationship between modernity and the views of the communist state on such cultural categories as ‘nation’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘gender’ and ‘religion’. It argues that this particular campaign was not simply the latest chapter in an ongoing effort by the Bulgarian authorities to assimilate such populations, but should rather be seen as a specific response by the communist regime to ideas of modernity. Despite national and patriotic elements, the aim of the communist assimilation campaign was to introduce ‘modernity’ and ‘civilisation’ to the whole of Bulgarian society, especially those living at the social, cultural and political peripheries. In Bulgaria, as elsewhere in communist eastern Europe, gender and ethnic policy merged. Gender equality was one of the essential aims of the modernisation programme, but for the communist modernisers introducing gender equality among ethnically marginal groups, such as the rural Muslim group of Pomaks, was even more important. ‘Emancipating’ Muslim women was more significant than the ‘struggle against religion’ or the ‘fight for national homogeneity’.