German Institute for Contemporary History

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The German Institute for Contemporary History (DIZ) was an institution of the GDR from 1949 to 1971. With various holdings from libraries and collections from the Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism , it was one of the most important institutions for documents and other sources of German contemporary history since around 1871 In 1971 the institute was transferred to the newly founded Institute for International Politics and Economics (IPW).

End of the war in Berlin in 1945 and development until 1949

From December 1, 1928, Eugen Fischer-Baling was the director of the Reichstag library until the end of the war in early May 1945 . On June 18, 1945 he was appointed head of the “remaining administration of the Reichstag” by the Greater Berlin City Administration. He fulfilled this task until his recall on February 28, 1946. His primary task was to bring together the library holdings in destroyed Berlin. These included 8,000 volumes from the cellar in the Reichstag building. This order was expanded to include other holdings on German contemporary history in Berlin when the “Documentation Center for Modern German History” was founded on September 26, 1945. On the same day he was recalled and Karl Kaspar was appointed head of the documentation center. The practical work of the documentation center began on October 24, 1945.

The documentation center was located in the Reichstag Presidential Palace . On March 1, 1946, the documentation center was renamed “Central Office for Contemporary History” and the holdings were relocated to 36 Breite Straße (Berlin-Mitte) . The background to this measure was that there were first disputes among the political forces in Berlin about the concept of this facility. On April 21, 1947, the holdings of the Central Office were confiscated by the Soviet military administration on the pretext that the Central Office was holding 12,000 volumes of a collection of Nazi literature. This involved a move of the inventory to Berlin-Friedrichsfelde in the street Alt-Friedrichsfelde 1–2 on the corner of Rosenfelder Strasse, and the central office was subordinated to the division of the “Central Administration for Popular Education”. The Institute for Journalism , newly founded in February 1946, was located there, and some of its staff and holdings were taken over. Even Karl Wilhelm Fricke had set up this claim in 1972. In a publication by the DIZ in 1966, Gerhard Arnold repeated this claim. Karl Bittel first mentioned this merger in 1956. On February 12, 1947 , the newspaper Der Kurier published a message about the existence of the “Institute for Journalism” , which referred to the address in Friedrichsfelde and named Alfred Weiland as director . The "German Institute for Newspaper Studies", to which the authors referred, was founded in June 1924 and had its premises at Breitestrasse 36 in 1933. In the period from late 1946 / early 1947 Emil Dovifat tried a newspaper science institute at Berlin University to be rebuilt, which was rejected as a competing facility at that time.

As early as April 2, 1947, an article was published in the daily newspaper " T Tages Rundschau" under the heading The Berliners Should Learn Contemporary History . It demanded that the central office should be subordinate to the public education department of the magistrate. In addition, the facility should be attached to the university. But the university belonged to the Central Administration for Public Education of the Soviet Occupation Zone. On February 6, 1948, the facility was reopened under the name "Institute for Contemporary History". In October 1949, the institution was renamed "German Institute for Contemporary History". On October 7, 1949, the DIZ was subordinated to the "Office for Information at the Government of the GDR". Stefan Doernberg stated that the reorganization of the “Institute for Contemporary History” as the “German Institute for Contemporary History” began in July 1949.

Holdings of the DIZ until 1971

Gerhard Hahn states that the holdings of the special collection NS library with 12,000 volumes were preserved until the end of the institute in 1972 and were handed over to the "Branch Library of German and General History" as an institution of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in 1993 . The remnants of the Reichstag library, parts of the library of the Reich Ministry of Post and the Foreign Office existed in the library of the DIZ until the end of the 1960s, but were then transferred to the "Central Office for Scientific Old Holdings" (ZWA) of the German State Library in Berlin Unter den Linden submitted. From 1990 onwards, the “Social Sciences Branch Library” of the Humboldt University in Berlin took over the DIZ's book collections, which the IPW had taken over.

As of April 1946, the “Central Office for Contemporary History” had recorded an inventory of 20,000 volumes of books, including 8,000 volumes from the remainder of the Reichstag library. Furthermore, microfilms of the alphabetical catalog and the real catalog of the library of the Reichstag survived the destruction and other events of the war. In the course of the collections from other libraries and institutions, the central office took over the remainder of the "Institute for Foreign and Borderland Germanness" (Berlin), the newspaper and magazine collection of the "Institute for Newspaper Studies" at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (Berlin) and files of the "Secret State Archives". However, these acquired holdings were not included in the registration of the central office.

The processing of the holdings and documents went back to 1871 in individual cases, but otherwise as early as 1918. By September 1946 the library had grown to around 40,000 volumes. There were leaflets and posters from 1914 and a collection of photos. A collection of documents and archive material came from the Rosenberg office . In addition, there were memoranda from Nazi institutions, so-called “sentiment reports” from Gauleiters and secret files from Nazi agencies. There was also a collection of resistance literature from the Nazi era and documents about the Reichstag fire and the associated process. An initial archive of 50,000 newspaper clippings was also available. The newspaper T Tages Rundschau wrote about the holdings of the central office on July 18, 1946:

"In the whole of Germany there is currently no institute that has such extensive material from political life since 1870".

According to its own information, in 1949 the DIZ still had complete newspaper and magazine series from the last 80 years, an archive of newspaper clippings from the last 20 years, systematically sorted according to 8,000 terms, and a bibliographical index of magazine articles with more than 10,000 titles. There was also a collection of around 4,000 posters and leaflets. There was also an archive for pictures, radio and film tapes.

Karl Bittel reported in 1956 that the library now had 60,000 volumes and around 1.5 million newspaper clippings were recorded in folders or card files according to a uniform decimal classification. Users could access materials in this way. In this year 170 newspapers and 450 magazines from Germany and abroad were selected and worked through by the editing department . This includes more than 50 foreign newspapers in nine languages.

Walter Bartel reported in 1959 that the DIZ would capture two hundred newspapers and six hundred magazines, register and forward them for documentation or to the editing department. The collection of newspaper clippings would have reached 2.5 to 3 million, which would have been arranged in 5,400 folders. In a publication by the DIZ in 1961, the size of the DIZ library was given as over 70,000 volumes. The size of the archive for newspaper clippings had reached 2.5 million clippings. In 1966, Gerhard Arnold stated that the DIZ library would contain 45,000 German and foreign-language books. There would also be a Nazi collection of 15,000 volumes. When evaluating newspapers, 105 German-language and 72 foreign-language titles would be recorded. In the case of magazines, there would be 179 German-language and 18 foreign-language titles. The archive for newspaper clippings would have reached 4.5 million. Stefan Doernberg stated that the DIZ library had over 65,000 volumes in 1971. More than 600 periodical publications such as daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, bulletins and the like would be evaluated. The DIZ would also have a large number of bound volumes of newspapers and magazines. The archive of newspaper clippings would have been about six million. After handing over the materials to the IPW, the archive of newspaper clippings reached eleven million by 1990, which were taken over by the “ Center for Contemporary History Research eV ” in Potsdam.

Organization and structure of the DIZ

The DIZ was founded on June 2, 1949 in the form of a GmbH . The registered partners were Karl Bittel, Karl Kaspar, Hans Mahle and Albert Norden . When Kaspar left the DIZ in 1951, Bittel was appointed director of the DIZ in May 1951, which he headed until 1957. Bittel had been a member of the DIZ since 1949 as editor-in-chief of the journal Dokumentations der Zeit (DdZ). In October 1957 Walter Bartel took over the management of the DIZ, which he handed over to Stefan Doernberg in May 1962, who headed the DIZ until it was taken over by the IPW in 1971. Doernberg had been the deputy director of the DIZ since 1961.

In 1949 DIZ wanted to organize West-East talks , whereby scientists and politicians were to be won over. The historian Ulrich Noack from Würzburg , Alfred Weber from Heidelberg and the politician Joseph Wirth from Freiburg im Breisgau should take part in these events . There was only one discussion with Noack on September 8, 1949 in Berlin.

On June 21, 1950, the DIZ acquired Kaspar's newspaper archive. The institute was subordinate to the German Central Administration for National Education (DZVV) , which from 1946 was called the German Administration for National Education (DVV). After the founding of the GDR in 1949, it was subordinated to the Ministry of Popular Education . From April 1, 1951, the Government Information Office took over the regulation of the financing and the authority to issue instructions . Subsequently, in the sixties, the authority for higher education and technical education took over the authority .

The workforce of the DIZ for renaming of the Institute of Contemporary layer came in part from the defunct Institute of Journalism , in whose rooms the Institute for Contemporary History in Friedrichsfelde was confiscated. The head of the institute was Karl Kaspar. At the beginning of 1948 the institute had 31 employees. At the end of 1950 the DIZ employed 74 people. For the month of September 1954, the documents show 147 employees, 68 of whom were entrusted with scientific or editorial work. Of these, eleven employees had a university degree.

From 1950 the DIZ published the first information services. At first these appeared in the form of daily press services for a limited group of users. Since this type of press service did not adequately meet the requirements, one went over to the publication of services according to subject areas. These were expanded in several stages up to 1961 on these topics as follows:

  • Domestic and foreign policy problems in West Germany
  • International issues
  • Domestic and foreign policy problems of the GDR
  • International press reviews (this topic appeared only for a short time and has been taken over by other services)
  • Remilitarization and armament (once a week since January 1956 and later renamed Militarization and Armament )
  • West German Neocolonialism and Problems of the Young Nation-States (published from December 1960)
  • West Berlin - Politics - Economy - Culture (published from January 1961)

From the beginning, a contemporary history bibliography was created, which first appeared as a documentary service for contemporary history in the form of a card index and was published by the Central Office for Scientific Literature at Akademie-Verlag Berlin. Seven issues appeared from 1957. By mid-August 1956, 14,000 index cards had been issued.

With the increasing number of employees and more and more tasks, the premises in Friedrichsfelde became too small. In the Hessische Straße 11/12 (Berlin N4) new rooms were moved from January 1, 1952. There was also a reading room that could be visited by external users. In 1957 about 2,600 people used the reading room, while with foreign visitors in 1958 there were already 4,813 people. In the following years, too, expanded job opportunities had to be sought. In the center of Berlin, the management of the DIZ and its scientific departments were housed in what was then Otto-Grotewohl-Straße 5. The newspaper and clipping archive as well as the reading room at Schadowstrasse 12 were located in the neighborhood.

In 1959 the DIZ consisted of five departments:

  • Library - Archives
  • Proofreading
  • documentation
  • research
  • Edition

The research department was only set up towards the end of 1958 / beginning of 1959 and there were no models or experiences in cooperation with the other departments. From 1961 to 1966, Herbert Bertsch was in charge of the research department, and he was also deputy director of the DIZ in this position.

The research department was divided into three sections:

  • Section I: Problems of ideological diversion and psychological warfare
  • Section II: Problems of the political development of the Federal Republic of Germany with the questions of the party system and the politics and development of the West German parties
  • Section III: Examination of the conceptual foundations and development tendencies of the strategy of the ruling circles in West Germany and their embedding in the global strategy of US politics

In 1963 the DIZ was given the task of concentrating on research for German and international politics. The focus of this activity should relate to the following points:

  • Basic questions of the current politics of the GDR
  • the development in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
  • the relationship between the GDR and the FRG
  • the policy of other states such as the four great powers towards the two German states
  • the most important key problems of international politics with their influences on the development of the GDR and the FRG

To cope with these priorities in the DIZ, three departments were set up:

  • GDR department
  • West German Issues Department
  • International Affairs Department

Bertsch also launched a range forecast in DIZ, the prognostic studies on the strategy and the political activities of the ruling circles of the Federal Republic of Germany should create. At the beginning of 1967 a working group was formed in the DIZ with the task of applying scientific principles in the preparation of the documentation and of improving the information activities for external users. The organizational and profiling work should be prepared in order to build a thesaurus with new equipment . The aim was to store a wide selection of important books and journals on the basis of lists of descriptors .

For this purpose, an information department was set up on December 1, 1969 with the following tasks:

  • to create high-density information media on political and ideological issues as part of a uniform scientific concept
  • The research focus of the work topics of the DIZ should be ensured by means of scientific information
  • Development of models and their testing that were suitable to be generalized for the scientific information about the political-ideological system disputes

In order to work on these tasks, practical experiments to set up topic-related presentation services were carried out as part of the scientific preparation for these tasks of the DIZ, which lasted longer than a year. In this context, means of microfilm technology or electronic storage should be used. The years of work in the DIZ to enforce an original document principle and the concentration on important book and magazine literature should give these tasks the necessary prerequisites.

On July 13, 1971, the newspaper Neues Deutschland published a 16-line message under the heading Institute for International Politics and Economics that the DIZ and the German Economic Institute (DWI) would merge into the new IPW Institute. Stefan Doernberg would also belong to the management of the IPW.

Periodical publications

In 1959, Walter Bartel, as director of the DIZ, described the three main areas in which the DIZ worked:

  • the collection and viewing of contemporary historical information and documentation publications
  • the evaluation of these publications for the daily political and current information
  • the preparation of historical documents for research and teaching as well as for extensive research in the DIZ and their scientific evaluation

The last point was still under construction or development at the time. Based on these main areas of work, the first journal “ Documentation of the Time” was published monthly, and from January 1953 it was published every six months. In the course of the political adjustments, the motto of the subtitle also changed:

  • from 1949 to the end of 1950: Germany archive
  • from January 1951 to June 1955: All-German information archive
  • from July 1955 to March 1972: information archive

The DdZ first appeared in an edition of 3,000 copies and was initially largely sent to West Germany. This was possible because up to 130 West German daily newspapers and around 200 West German magazines, press services and the like were evaluated in the DIZ. When the DdZ was driven out in the GDR, around 7,000 subscribers received the magazine. In 1954, almost 4,000 of them were distributed to West Germany. What was offered to readers in the GDR, especially in the DdZ, was the printing of documents from 1813 and the evaluation of Western European newspapers in German, although some political articles were reproduced that did not contradict the line of the SED. The printing of speeches from the West German parliament was also interesting for the readers of the GDR.

From October 1958, the supplement to the DdZ Contributions to Contemporary History appeared quarterly, but it was not a well-founded source edition, but was mainly devoted to the political disputes with West Germany and other capitalist countries. The concept was abandoned as early as January 1961 and the supplement appeared as an independent magazine, Our Time until December 1962. From January 1963 this edition was also discontinued, with other magazines and the DdZ themselves taking on the tasks set.

From 1952 the DIZ set itself the task of publishing a number of sources and studies . As authors of the DIZ should u. a. Georg Baumann, Karl Raddatz , Rudi Goguel and Karl Bittel write contributions. However, this series fell short of expectations in terms of the number of publications and the chronological order, as the DIZ was unable to provide the scientific lead in the necessary research.

In the years 1953 to 1955 the DIZ published three Geschichtliche Zeit-Tafeln , with Karl Bittel and other members of the DIZ writing an introduction. The series Kleine Dokumentensammlung appeared in the DIZ from 1957 to 1962 in 16 titles and was edited by Karl Bittel. The first edition of the titles was generally 20,000 copies. The title The Potsdam Agreement and other documents appeared in 1961 as the most successful title in the series in the 9th edition and reached a total of more than 900,000 printed copies. In addition to Karl Bittel, the authors Dieter Bolduan, Adolf Deter, Johannes Diekmann, Helmut Kunz, Alexander Martin, Helmut Neef and Erich Paterna appeared in this series . This type of realistic documentation, as in the DdZ, met with resistance from the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the SED . But Karl Bittel was able to maintain this line.

From 1955 to 1962, the DIZ in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR published the series of documents on the foreign policy of the GDR government in eleven volumes. From October 7, 1957, the DIZ published three complex series of information on these topics:

  • Domestic and foreign policy problems of the GDR
  • Domestic and foreign policy problems in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany)
  • International issues

This series was later continued by the "Institute for International Relations at the German Academy for Political Science and Law" in Potsdam-Babelsberg . A series of documents on the German policy of the Soviet Union appeared from 1957, of which three volumes were published by 1971. From 1955 to 1961, the DIZ, in cooperation with the publishing house Die Wirtschaft, developed the title Yearbook of the German Democratic Republic , which was supposed to provide information about the annual statistical data of the GDR.

The DIZ dealt with the subject of the Oder-Neisse border for the first time in 1955 with the documentation Oder-Neisse . In cooperation with the Polish Commission of Historians, the title Poland, Germany and the Oder-Neisse border was then published as documentation with a volume of 1067 pages. The development of the GDR, especially as a way of presenting itself to other countries, was to be shown in the yearbook Handbuch der Deutschen Demokratie Republik , which was produced by the DIZ in cooperation with the GDR state publisher from 1961 onwards. The 1964 edition was compiled with contributions from 66 authors and 14 GDR organizations.

From 1964 to 1967 the DIZ gave the series What was when? German history calendar, which was linked to the previous series of the historical time tables and should enable a representation in Marxist representation. The yearbook Die Welt was published by the DIZ from 1965 onwards, which presented an analytical representation of events and international organizations around the world.

From 1961 the series of information on the German question and the West Berlin problem began, which was later renamed to the relationship between the GDR and the FRG and West Berlin . In addition, titles appeared in the DIZ on the subject of West German revanchism and neo-Nazism , which indicated the focus of the work on West Germany in the DIZ. From 1969 at the latest, the information department of the DIZ published the weekly press review and every three weeks the historical information and the biographical information . In addition, an analytical presentation service on literature related to certain topics was published in the DIZ every two weeks. An original document catalog was published every three weeks, which showed all the original documents from sources for the DIZ that were drawn up in the DIZ. The DIZ also published a literature review every three months.

The DIZ library also published a monthly list of the DIZ library's new acquisitions . A publication of all the German-language titles of the bibliography on dissertations in contemporary history appeared annually.

Colloquia

In the sixties the DIZ became the leading institute for the GDR within the Permanent Commission of the Research Institutions of the GDR, the USSR , the People's Republic of Poland and the CSSR on questions of European security. In order to improve cooperation in this area, the DIZ organized international colloquia in the GDR in the following years . The first took place in Berlin in October 1964 under the motto The multilateral nuclear forces of NATO threaten European security . In April 1965 a colloquium followed on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the end of the Second World War on the subject of liberation and a new beginning - May 8, 1945 in Berlin.

The colloquium from June 14th to 16th, 1965 in the conference hall of the Cecilienhof Palace , which took place under the title The Potsdam Agreement and the Problem of European Security , was larger . International guests from Belgium, Bulgaria, the CSSR, France, Yugoslavia, Canada, Poland, Romania, Hungary, the USSR and the USA attended the colloquium.

When the institute's twentieth anniversary came in 1966, the DIZ organized a colloquium on the subject of the German question and the future of Europe , to which guests from the socialist countries were invited. The last DIZ colloquium took place on March 27 and 28, 1969, which the DIZ organized with the German Institute for Military History and to which guests from the countries of the Warsaw Pact were invited. The theme of the colloquium was NATO Development and Policy .

Contemporary history as a subject of the DIZ

In the first edition of the DdZ in 1949, Karl Bittel tried to establish the DdZ's working method by drawing on old traditions. The chronicler Johann Philipp Abelin made the demand in 1627 in a chronicle of the time events Theatrum Europaeum :

"A true description of all and everyone's stories, as have happened in Germany every now and then"

- Johann Philipp Abelin

The standard of description should be applied to Wilhelm von Humboldt , as he formulated it in his work On the task of the historian of 1822:

"The historian can, when he has set out the events of a period in their natural sequence, be content to leave the judgment to the reader alone"

- Wilhelm von Humboldt

With this recourse, Bittel tried, after Siegfried Prokop , to find his own method of representing contemporary studies . With this claim and the resources available, the DdZ magazine was able to convey a picture of contemporary history in the early GDR . Leopold von Ranke mentioned in 1838 that a newspaper could become a source of contemporary history in relation to the Prussian State newspaper . This newspaper was supposed to become an archive for contemporary history, adding the note for contemporary history .

In 1956, Karl Bittel established the subject of contemporary history in his book Zeitgeschichte als Wissenschaft. He cited Friedrich Engels that Karl Marx had tried to explain a piece of contemporary history with the journal Politico-Economic Revue .

As a method of depicting contemporary history, the so-called complex documentation method was developed under Bittel in the DIZ . The current events and topics of the day should be documented in their fundamental historical context. The events should be shown in their origin of the prehistory, in the precisely documented fact , in the most diverse consequences and as far as possible in the individual stages of the development process. He also taught this method at the Institute for Journalism in Leipzig and presented it in September 1952 in Leipzig at the Theoretical Conference of the Institute for Journalism (in the series for journalistic training , in issue 7, Berlin 1953, pp. 125f).

In the GDR there was no scientific basis for a contemporary history discipline among historians until 1958 . Rather, because of the lack of released documents, contemporary history was judged derogatory by some historians as newspaper history . In contrast, newly trained historians such as Stefan Doernberg did not consider the requirement for documents as the basis for contemporary history to be a prerequisite. This demand was then devalued as "file fetishism". At a workshop on contemporary history in January 1959, Doernberg again narrowed down the discipline "contemporary history":

Contemporary history is part of the latest history. Strictly speaking, the term 'contemporary history' is not scientifically exact

The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the SED decided in August 1957 that a commission for contemporary history should be formed at the Institute for History in the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin . Walter Bartel was appointed chairman of the commission. It was not until January 30 and 31, 1959 that the commission's first working meeting took place on the subject of problems in contemporary history teaching, research and journalism .

Until 1989 there was a general opinion among historians of the GDR that contemporary history began in 1945. Gabriele Metzler attributed this beginning of 1945 in the DIZ as a point in contemporary history to the fact that the historians of the GDR had not dealt with the history of Weimar and the Nazi regime until then. On the other hand, the historian Winfried Schulze also states for West German historiography:

In this respect, almost 70 years after the seizure of power, contemporary history can certainly only begin in 1945, in keeping with the definition of contemporary history used by Jäckel as the "contemporary history of the historian investigating it"

Eberhard Jäckel pointed out in 1975 that West German contemporary history research mostly paused in 1945 and only recently crossed this threshold, while on the other hand the East German concept of contemporary history meant the period since 1945 from the beginning .

Karl Bittel as director of the DIZ had given a description of contemporary history in 1956, with which contemporary history at the open transition can be understood in such a way that

"Contemporary history is never a closed historical past, but a living present that is constantly continuing into the future"

- Karl Bittel

Fonts

Although the DIZ appeared as publisher in publications, the author or the head of an author collective or the editorial team were sometimes named. The historian Siegfried Schwarz , who worked at the DIZ, stated in a publication in 1998 that the titles and headings e.g. B. in the DdZ had an exaggerated character, which vividly showed the hard confrontation in the Cold War for future generations . However, he also admitted that at certain times the West German side did not only fight with foil . This observation is also partly to be found in the books of the DIZ.

  • Georg Baumann, corporate Atlantic pact. The international capital links in West Germany , Berlin 1952
  • Karl Bittel, From the Potsdam Agreement to the Four Power Conference - The Way to a Peaceful Solution to the German Question. With documents , Berlin 1953
  • Karl Bittel, Atlantic Pact or Collective Security in Europe , Berlin 1954
  • Historical time - panel 1945 - 1953. The struggle for national unity and for a peace treaty with Germany , Berlin 1954
  • Historical time - blackboard. German Democratic Republic. The redesign in Germany since 1945 , Berlin 1954
  • Historical time - panel III. Free all-German elections. German Saar. Europe 1954/55. Source material for studying contemporary history , Berlin 1955
  • Karl Bittel, Die Feinde der Deutschen Nation: on the German policy of the imperialist Western powers - with map sketches and documents , 5th edition, Berlin 1955
  • Rudi Goguel and Heinz Pohl, Oder-Neisse - a documentary , Berlin 1955
  • Documents on the Foreign Policy of the Government of the German Democratic Republic , Volumes 1 to 12, Berlin 1955 to 1966
  • Documents on the German policy of the Soviet Union , Volumes 1 - 3 (reporting period 1945 to 1965), Berlin 1957, 1963 and 1968
  • Handbook of the People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic , Volume 1, Berlin, from 1957
  • Fritz Koehler, Three Just Claims. The metal workers' strike in Schleswig-Holstein , Berlin 1958
  • Heinz Sander, Historical Timeline of the German Democratic Republic. 1949-1959 , Berlin 1960
  • Klaus-Dieter Hoeft, On the Agricultural Policy of German Imperialism from 1933 to the Present , Berlin 1960
  • Poland, Germany and the Oder-Neisse border , Berlin 1959
  • Yearbook of the German Democratic Republic 1961 , Berlin 1961
  • Herbert Bertsch, Who is in the Bundestag in Bonn? - a documentary analysis of the 1961 federal elections , Berlin 1961
  • Herbert Bertsch, CDU / CSU unmasked , Berlin 1961
  • Klaus-Dieter Hoeft: The Bonn Dilemma: The Politics of West German Imperialism in Crisis. Berlin 1963
  • Peter Klein, Coexistence, Relaxation: (1961 to 1963) - Documentation , Berlin 1964
  • Herbert Bertsch, The FDP and German Liberalism (1789-1963) , Berlin 1965
  • Dieter Mühle, Ludwig Erhard - A Biography , Berlin 1965
  • Stefan Doernberg: Brief history of the GDR. Berlin 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969
  • GDR - 300 questions, 300 answers , 6th edition, Berlin 1965
  • The West German parties 1945-1965. A manual , Berlin 1966
  • Peter Klein, Die UNO: small reference work , Berlin 1966
  • Lothar Below, The division of Germany and the road to reunification: a documentary summary with the National Council of the National Front of the GDR , Dresden 1966
  • German history calendar , Berlin 1966
  • Stefan Doernberg: Potsdam Agreement - Selected Documents on the German Question 1943–1949. Berlin 1966, 1970, 1971
  • Werner Otto, Gerhard Roßmann (Ed.): 20 Years of the SED - Timeline of important consultations and documents with the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED, Berlin 1966
  • Collective of authors under the direction of Gertraud Liebscher: The collapse of the colonial system and the upswing of the national liberation movements: small reference work. Berlin 1967
  • Gertraud Liebscher (general editor), The Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement - Documents , Berlin 1968
  • On the German policy of the anti-Hitler coalition (1943 to 1949) , compiled and introduced by Eberhard Heidmann and Käthe Wohlgemuth, Berlin 1968
  • German reality. Documentary summary on the division of Germany and the relations between the two German states , Dresden 1968
  • Alexander Martin, Security and Peaceful Cooperation in Europe - Documents 1954-1967 , Berlin 1968
  • Friendship - cooperation - assistance. Basic treaties between the socialist states , Berlin 1968
  • Anti-fascists in leading positions in the GDR , Dresden 1969
  • Rudolf Graf, 20 years in the GDR. 20 Years of German Politics: Documents on Politics and Politics of the GDR in the Struggle for Peace and Security in Europe , Berlin 1969
  • The Atlantic Dilemma - Aggressiveness and Crisis of NATO, 1949-1969 , Berlin 1969
  • Heinz Sander, Landsmannschaftliche Revanchismus in West Germany , Berlin 1969
  • Siegfried Schwarz, Martin Winter, Counterrevolution under the European flag , Berlin 1969
  • Peter Klein, Stefan Doernberg: Where is Europe going? Current aspects, history, perspectives of the problem of European security. Berlin 1970
  • Security and peaceful cooperation in Europe. Berlin 1976

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The remaining administration of the Reichstag was subordinate to the magistrate of Berlin. Gerhard Hahn mentions it as the "remaining administration of the former Reich Ministry of Finance", which existed as an office from January 31, 1946 to December 4, 1946. See: Gerhard Hahn: The Reichstag Library in Berlin - a mirror of German history. Düsseldorf 1997, p. 509 FN 37.
  2. ^ Gerhard Hahn, ibid, p. 519.
  3. ↑ In the text on Berlin's Chronicle from the Berlin Senate on March 1, 1946, it said: “The Central Office for Contemporary History in Berlin is founded as a municipal institute”.
  4. ^ Gerhard Hahn, ibid, p. 526 FN 9.
  5. ↑ Gerhard Hahn, ibid, pp. 530-531.
  6. ^ Stefan Doernberg: 25 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History 1946 to 1971. In: Documentation of Time. Volume 23, 1971, pp. 4-13, here: p. 4.
  7. ^ A b Siegfried Schwarz: A GDR magazine with an all-German claim - "Documentation of Time" 1949–1955. In: Germany Archive. Volume 31, 1998, pp. 783-790.
  8. ↑ Michael Kubina: From Utopia, Resistance and Cold War - The untimely life of the Berlin councilor communist Alfred Weiland (1906–1978). Hamburg 2001, p. 189.
  9. ↑ Michael B. Klein, on the other hand, claimed in his published dissertation in 1999 that the DIZ emerged from a summary in July 1947 with an “Institute for Newspaper Studies” (see: Institute for International Politics and Economy of the GDR in its founding phase 1971 to 1974. Berlin 1999, p. 74 FN 218).
  10. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke: A center of GDR research. In: Germany Archive. 5th vol., 1972, pp. 802-805, here: p. 803.
  11. ^ Gerhard Arnold: 20 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Documentation of Time, Issue 350 , Volume 18, 1966, pp. 36–37, here: p. 36.
  12. ^ Karl Bittel: Work and tasks of the German Institute for Contemporary History in Berlin. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft, Issue 6, Volume 4, 1956, pp. 1253–1255, here: p. 1252.
  13. ↑ Bernd Sösemann: Emil Dovifat - studies and documents on life and work. Berlin 1998, p. 449.
  14. ^ Christian Härtel : Streamlines - Wilfrid Bade - A career in the Third Reich. be.bra-Verlag Wissenschaft, Berlin 2004, p. 46.
  15. ↑ Michael Kubina, ibid, p. 187.
  16. ↑ Gerhard Hahn claimed, however, that the name was changed to DIZ in July 1949. See: Gerhard Hahn: The Reichstag Library in Berlin. Ibid, p. 533.
  17. ^ Stefan Doernberg: 25 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. Ibid, p. 4.
  18. ↑ a b Gerhard Hahn, ibid, p. 535.
  19. ^ Gerhard Hahn, ibid, p. 528.
  20. ↑ Gerhard Hahn, ibid, pp. 528-529.
  21. ↑ "Central Office for Contemporary History" - Rich factual material is made accessible to the public. In: Daily review of July 18, 1946.
  22. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke: A center of research into the West. In: Germany Archive, 5th year, 1971, pp. 802–805 - Fricke cited the information, the number of newspaper clippings being 500,000, while Hahn gave only 50,000.
  23. ^ Siegfried Prokop : Karl Bittel as a publicist and contemporary historian in Berlin. In: Siegfried Bock et al .: Helsinki 1975 - opportunities used and opportunities missed: Contributions to a scientific conference in honor of Prof. Dr. Stefan Doernberg on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Berlin 2000, Pankower lectures series No. 21, pp. 57–61, here: p. 59.
  24. ^ Karl Bittel: Work and tasks of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Journal of History, Issue 6, Volume 4, 1956, pp. 1253-1255.
  25. ^ Walter Bartel: From the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, Volume 73, 1959, Issue 2, pp. 121–124.
  26. ^ DIZ: 15 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Our time: Contributions to history after 1945. Volume 1. Berlin 1961, pp. 435–437.
  27. ^ Gerhard Arnold: 20 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Documentation of Time, 1966, Issue 350, Volume 18, pp. 36–37.
  28. ^ Stefan Doernberg: 25 Years of the German Institute for Contemporary History 1946 to 1971. In: Documentation of Time, Issue 8, Volume 23, Berlin 1971, pp. 4-13.
  29. ^ Kurt Metschies: Walter Bartel, stations of his life. In: Siegfried Prokop, Siegfried Schwarz: Contemporary history research in the GDR - Walter Bartel (1904-1992) - A threatened life. Potsdam 2005, pp. 34–66, here: p. 59.
  30. ↑ Doernberg named Paul Wandel and Bruno Kaiser as additional shareholders , see: Stefan Doernberg: 25 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Documentation of Time, No. 8/1971, p. 4.
  31. ^ A b Stefan Doernberg: 25 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Documentation of Time, No. 8/1971, p. 5.
  32. ^ Karl Bittel: Work and Tasks ... Ibid, p. 1255.
  33. ^ Helga A. Welsh, German Central Administration for National Education (DVV), in: Martin Broszat (Ed.), SBZ-Handbuch, Munich 1990, pp. 229–238
  34. ↑ Michael Kubina, ibid, p. 192
  35. ^ Karl Bittel: Work and Tasks ... Ibid, p. 1254 and FN 5.
  36. ^ Walter Bartel: From the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Zentralblatt für Libraries, Volume 73, 1959, Issue 2, p. 124.
  37. ^ Walter Bartel: From the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, Volume 73, 1959, Issue 2, p. 122 and p. 123.
  38. ^ Stefan Doernberg: 25 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Documentation of Time, No. 8/1971, p. 11.
  39. ^ Walter Bartel: From the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Zentralblatt für Libraries, Volume 73, 1959, Issue 2, p. 121.
  40. ↑ Siegfried Schwarz, ibid, p. 783
  41. ^ Siegfried Schwarz, ibid, p. 785
  42. ^ Karl Bittel, Work and Tasks ...., ibid, p. 1254
  43. ↑ Siegfried Prokop, Karl Bittel as a publicist ..., ibid, pp. 60 and 61
  44. ^ Stefan Doernberg: 25 years of the German Institute for Contemporary History. In: Documentation of Time, No. 8/1971, p. 9.
  45. ↑ Stefan Doering, 25 years ..., ibid, p. 9
  46. ↑ Siegfried Prokop, Karl Bittel as a publicist ..., ibid, p. 59
  47. ↑ Siegfried Prokop, On contemporary history teaching and writing in the GDR with special consideration of the Humboldt University (1949-1975), in: Forschungsfeld DDR-Geschichte - Colloquium on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Prof. Dr. Rolf Badstübner , Pankower Lectures Heft 15, Berlin 1999, pp. 9–15, here: p. 10
  48. ↑ Walther Peter Fuchs (ed.), Leopold von Ranke, Das Briefwerk, Hamburg 1949, pp. 294 and 297
  49. ↑ Karl Bittel, Contemporary History as Science - Lesson on the Political Necessity and the Scientific Prerequisites for Research and Teaching of the Present, in: Scientific Supplement to the Forum, No. 7 from May 1956 (16 pages)
  50. ^ Karl Bittel, Contemporary History as Science, ibid, p. 7
  51. ↑ Karl Bittel, Zeitgeschicht als Wissenschaft, ibid, p. 12
  52. ^ Siegfried Prokop: "I'm a contemporary historian, who is more in historical research?" - On the life and work of Walter Bartels. In: Siegfried Prokop, Siegfried Schwarz (ed.): Contemporary history research in the GDR. ibid, pp. 11–33, here: p. 27.
  53. ^ Hans-Dieter Schütte: Contemporary history as politics - Germany and block political perspectives of the SED in the conceptions of Marxist-Leninist contemporary history. Bonn 1985, p. 44.
  54. ↑ Hans-Dieter Schütte, ibid, p. 18
  55. ↑ Siegfried Prokop, Ich bin Zeitgeschichtler, ...., ibid, pp. 26–27
  56. ↑ Heinz Heitzer, "Zeitgeschichte" 1945 to 1958 - its foundation as a special discipline of the history of the GDR, in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft, 35th year, issue 2, 1987, pp. 99–114, here: p. 100
  57. ^ Gabriele Metzler, Introduction to the Study of Contemporary History, Paderborn 2004, p. 25
  58. ^ Winfried Schulze, Introduction to Modern History, 4th revised and updated edition, Stuttgart 2002, p. 41
  59. ↑ Eberhard Jäckel, Concept and Function of Contemporary History, in: Eberhard Jäckel, Ernst Weymar, The Function of History in Our Time, Stuttgart 1975, pp. 162–176, here; P. 172
  60. ↑ Karl Bittel, Contemporary History as Science, ibid, p. 5
  61. ^ Siegfried Schwarz, ibid, p. 790