Book Reviews : Die Oder-Neisse-Linie in der deutschen Aussenpolitik. By GEORG BLUHM. (Frei burg : Verlag Rombach, 1963. Pp. 204.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296401700419
• Date: 01 December 1964
• Published date: 01 December 1964
• Subject Matter: Articles

804
Politics in Islam,&dquo; &dquo;The Ideological Foundations of Egyptian-Arab Nationalism,&dquo;
&dquo;Islam, Arabism, and the Political Community in the Middle East,&dquo; &dquo;Radical-
Reform Nationalism,&dquo; &dquo;Nasserism: The Protest Movement in the Middle East,&dquo;
&dquo;Egypt’s Positive Neutrality,&dquo; and &dquo;The Middle East as a Subordinate International
System.&dquo; In the reviewer’s judgment the best of these are those dealing with political
change and the nation-state, and with Egyptian-Arab nationalism.
It is not possible to write about the Middle East in a way that will satisfy all of
one’s colleagues. Professor Binder’s book is no exception to this. Thus it is possible
to challenge his assertion that &dquo;the greatest obstacle to [Syrian-Iraqi] unity is doubt-
lessly Iraq’s Kurdish minority&dquo;; and it is uncomfortable to comtemplate his identi-
fication of Egyptian &dquo;neutrality&dquo; with &dquo;neutralism.&dquo; But all in all, this book is a real
contribution to the growing literature dealing with the Middle East. Every Middle
Eastern specialist owes it to himself to read it.
CARL LEIDEN
University of Texas
Die Oder-Neisse-Linie in der deutschen Aussenpolitik. By GEORG BLUHM. (Frei-
burg : Verlag Rombach, 1963. Pp. 204.)
This book presents an exhaustive, unemotional, and rational analysis of the
&dquo;Oder-Neisse issue&dquo; in relation to the West German Federal Republic’s foreign and
domestic politics. At the Potsdam Conference in August, 1945, the western powers
agreed to Polish &dquo;administration&dquo; of former German territories east of the Oder and
.
Neisse rivers. This arrangement was to be provisional, pending a final peace treaty
with a reconstituted German government. The victorious allies also decreed that
millions of Germans were to be transferred from eastern Europe into the four occu-
pation zones. The Polish government quickly began to move its own citizens into
the Oder-Neisse lands evacuated by the Germans...