Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig

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Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV
purpose Processing of the GDR history
founding May 1991
Archive management Saskia Paul
Seat House of Democracy Leipzig
Website archiv-buergerbewegung.de

The Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV . (ABL) was founded in May 1991 by former active members of church grassroots groups and various opposition groups in the GDR. The archive primarily collects personal testimonies from the GDR opposition and the parties and associations that came into being from 1989/90.

history

The archive was founded in the summer of 1990, when the historian Klaus Roewer came to Leipzig to do his doctorate on the opposition movements in Leipzig. Here he met civil rights activist Uwe Schwabe , whereupon the idea arose to systematically collect materials from the opposition movements, initially in Roewer's private apartment. The “Markus Library”, which was founded in 1988 parallel to the Berlin Environmental Library, forms the basis of the holdings . This library was used by opposition activists under the direction of the parish priest Rolf-Michael Turek as an organizational center. Opposition publications could be viewed here. From September 1989 onwards, the activists collected specific materials relating to the Monday demonstrations , particularly about arrests.

In May 1991 Roewer and Schwabe founded the “Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV” with other former opposition members from Leipzig.

The archive has been funded by the City of Leipzig and the Saxon Memorials Foundation since 1999, and individual projects have also been funded by the Federal Foundation to Process the SED Dictatorship and the Saxon State Chancellery .

In 2014 the Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV was the winner of the German National Prize .

Stocks

Holdings of the OJ

The aim of the archive is to collect, preserve, develop and make accessible to the public, personal testimonies and sources on the GDR opposition and the parties and groups that came into being in 1989/90. The regional focus is on the former GDR district of Leipzig. In total, the stocks cover more than 220 running meters.

The majority of the archive holdings represent the document collection, which includes pamphlets, documents from opposition groups, diaries and eyewitness reports. There is also an extensive collection of samizdat scripts in the archive's depot.

In addition, the archive has a collection of 12,000 photographs that document oppositional behavior, subcultures of the GDR and various demonstrations (especially the Monday demonstrations ).

The archive also has a video and audio collection (including interviews with contemporary witnesses) as well as a collection of posters and newspapers. A thematically appropriate reference library with around 2,500 books is available to users.

Since 2016, digitization measures have been taking place step by step for reasons of preservation .

Since 2019, the holdings of the ABL (together with the holdings of the Martin Luther King Center Werdau and the Großhennersdorf Environmental Library) have been made gradually researchable in an online database.

job

The archive also offers various educational opportunities, particularly in the form of traveling exhibitions . These are passed on from the archive to educational institutions (including universities, schools, museums, memorials, etc.) free of charge.

Several political education courses are offered to school classes and seminar groups every year. In addition, an employee of the archive has been organizing the Stolpersteine project in Leipzig since 2005/06 .

Projects (selection)

Exhibitions (selection)

Awards

  • German National Prize 2014

Publications

  • "Rotstift - media power, censorship and the public in the GDR", published by the Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV, is the brochure accompanying the archive's traveling exhibition of the same name from 2014. Funded by the Free State of Saxony / funding guidelines 25 Years of Peaceful Revolution.
  • "We only have the street" - the speeches at the Leipzig Monday demonstrations in 1989/90. A documentation. Published by Achim Beier and Uwe Schwabe on behalf of the Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV. - Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle (Saale), 2016.
  • Rainer Eckert: Opposition, Resistance and Revolution. Resistant behavior in Leipzig in the 19th and 20th centuries. Published by the Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV Printed with the kind support of the Federal Foundation for the Processing of the SED Dictatorship. Mitteldeutscher Verlag 2014. ISBN 978-3-95462-343-3
  • Thomas Mayer: Heroes of German Unity: 20 portraits of pioneers from Saxony. Published by the Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig eV and the Saxon State Commissioner for the Stasi documents. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig, 155 pp., 2010. ISBN 978-3-374-02801-6
  • Thomas Mayer: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution: 18 portraits of pioneers from Leipzig. Series of publications by the Saxon State Commissioner for Stasi Records, Volume 10. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig, 152 pp., 2009. ISBN 978-3-374-02712-5
  • Friends and enemies: documents on the prayers for peace in Leipzig between 1981 and October 9, 1989 / ed. by Christian Dietrich and Uwe Schwabe. With a foreword. By Harald Wagner. - Leipzig: Evang. Verl.-Anst., 438 S., 1994
  • Enrico Heitzer: "Some of them are picking up on history.": Youth resistance in Altenburg / Thuringia 1948 to 1950. Ed. Uwe Schwabe and Rainer Eckert. Metropol Verlag, Berlin, 228 pp., 2007.
  • Yvonne Liebing: All you need is beat: Youth subculture in Leipzig 1957-1968. Edited by Uwe Schwabe and Rainer Eckert. Forum Verlag Leipzig, 150 pp., 2005. ISBN 3-931801-55-1
  • Andreas Pausch: Conscientious objection in the GDR: ... the only possible and justifiable concession to the people. Edited by Uwe Schwabe and Rainer Eckert. Books on Demand, Norderstedt, 195 pp., 2004. ISBN 3-8334-1558-4

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Opposition Archives Saxony. Retrieved June 15, 2020 .