Irmtrud Wojak

Irmtrud Wojak (* 1963 ) is a German historian . From the end of March 2009 to November 2011 she was founding director of the NS Documentation Center in Munich .

Life

Wojak studied history , social and economic history and political science at the Ruhr University in Bochum . She did her doctorate with a thesis on German Jewish and political emigration to Latin America during the Nazi era, also in Bochum. She then did several research stays at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington . She then worked as a research assistant and deputy head of the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main .

In Frankfurt she created the exhibition “Auschwitz Trial. 4 Ks 2/63. Frankfurt am Main ”and completed his habilitation with a biography about Fritz Bauer . She was then head of research and a member of the management team at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen .

Her main research interests are

• History of National Socialism and the Holocaust
• Exile research
• History of the Federal Republic, especially the legal processing in the post-war period

Founding director of the NS Documentation Center in Munich

Wojak was appointed founding director of the planned NS Documentation Center in Munich in 2009. According to media reports, in May 2011 there were violent disputes between individual Munich city councilors, the center's board of trustees and Wojak over the name of the planned center. Wojak spoke out against a name that contained the abbreviation "NS". The board of trustees of the planned center and several contemporary witnesses had made similar statements. The center had been planned by the city of Munich from the beginning under the working name "NS Documentation Center". Munich City Councilor Marian Offman emphasized that not all contemporary witnesses had spoken out against the acronym. Wojak is said to have indirectly accused Offman of playing off contemporary witnesses against each other. In April 2011, the Lord Mayor Christian Ude announced disciplinary steps as a result of this, while the City Councilor Marian Offman, who is also Vice President of the Israelite Community of Munich, demanded an apology from Wojak. Wojak also saw it as a party-political dispute.

At the end of October 2011, Wojak was released from her duties as director of the NS Documentation Center because she had not presented a conclusive concept for the exhibition in the NS Documentation Center. Their communication style was also criticized. She also didn't work with her team. Wojak, on the other hand, initially emphasized that she had no opportunity to explain her concept because it was presented on October 7th due to an illness without her. In mid-November there was finally an agreement and a joint press release between Wojak and the City of Munich, which spoke of "lasting differences of opinion" between Wojak and the advisory bodies on the "orientation, content and function" of the planned center due to which a separation occurred.

Honors

• 2014: For her biography of Fritz Bauer's life, Wojak was the first German historian to be appointed a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University .

Publications (selection)

• Fritz Bauer 1903–1968. A biography , Munich 2009
• Eichmann's memoir. A critical essay , Frankfurt am Main 2001
• Exile in Chile. German-Jewish and political emigration during National Socialism 1933–1945 , Berlin 1994
• Irmtrud Wojak and Susanne Meinl (eds.) On behalf of the Fritz Bauer Institute: Genocide and War Crimes in the First Half of the 20th Century , Frankfurt / Main: Campus-Verlag 2004, ISBN 3-593-37282-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Irmtrud Wojak in the catalog of the German National Library
• The NS Documentation Center needs a new boss , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung October 28, 2011

Individual evidence

1. ^ "NS Documentation Center Munich": Fierce dispute over an abbreviation , Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 31, 2011
2. ↑ With or without "NS"? , Deutschlandradio Kultur , April 5, 2011
3. ^ Johannes Löhr: Disciplinary steps against Wojak , Münchner Merkur , April 5, 2011
4. ↑ Joint declaration by the city and PD Dr. Wojak  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release NS Documentation Center Munich  
5. ^ NS Documentation Center: The director disembarks . Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 17, 2011, archived from the original on September 19, 2018 . 
6. ↑ [1]