Dr. Julia Torrie, Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department has received a General Research Grant from the Senate Research Committee to pursue her current project entitled “‘Living like God in France’: The German Forces of Occupation, 1940-44.”
This project examines soldiers stationed in France during the German occupation, 1940-44. Though attracted by the delights of French “civilization,” these soldiers were also responsible for significant brutality in France. Using letters, diaries and photographs alongside official documents, the project explores the experience of occupation from the occupiers’ point of view. The uneasy coexistence of leisure and violence is a central theme of the project, which draws renewed attention to the German side of the occupation, and speaks to larger debates about military occupations and wartime mentalities.
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