Ettersberg Foundation

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Seat of the Ettersberg Foundation

The Ettersberg Foundation is a non-profit foundation under civil law based in Weimar . The foundation serves German and international scientific research on the emergence, manifestations and overcoming of dictatorships in Europe, as well as supporting initiatives aimed at overcoming them historically. She works on the SED dictatorship scientifically and translates this into political education work. It combines this with the operation of the Andreasstrasse Memorial and Education Center in Erfurt as a place of remembrance of the victims and the overcoming of the SED dictatorship in Thuringia.

history

The idea of establishing the Foundation Etter mountain passes to the 2011 deceased Spanish writer and director Jorge Semprun back the occasion of the award of a former Buchenwald inmate, starting in 1994 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade stimulated, the Etter Mountain, on which the Buchenwald concentration camp and then the Soviet Special Camp No. 2 were established as a point of reference to make the dual experience of dictatorship of the Germans fruitful from a European perspective and to serve the democratic development in Central and Eastern Europe and European integration. In 2002, the then Prime Minister of Thuringia, Bernhard Vogel, set up the Ettersberg Foundation, based in Weimar, as a foundation under civil law.

Mission and tasks

The foundation is dedicated to comparative research on European dictatorships of the 20th century and their democratic transformation. It is intended to contribute to the historical appraisal and comparative analysis of dictatorships of fascist , National Socialist and Communist provenance as well as authoritarian regimes, to work out their mechanisms of rule and the forces that support them, but also the importance of opposition and resistance to authoritarian and totalitarian oppression and the memory of the victims keep up with dictatorial violence. In addition, it should deal with the problems of “coping with” the past, with questions of the transition from dictatorship to democracy and the conditions for stability of free democracy.

The foundation works on the SED dictatorship scientifically and translates this into historical political education work. It organizes international symposia, one-day scientific seminars, workshops and specialist conferences, and publishes their contributions and results in its two series, European dictatorships and their overcoming. Writings of the Ettersberg Foundation and processing compact . It develops exhibitions, carries out student projects and teacher training courses, series of events and an annual student competition on the subject of “Experience of dictatorship and democratic upheavals in Germany and Europe”.

The foundation has been the sponsor of the Andreasstrasse memorial and educational center in the former remand prison of the Ministry for State Security in Erfurt since 2012 . The "Andreasstraße" is a place of remembrance that connects the two themes of oppression and liberation. The place commemorates the victims of the SED dictatorship in Stasi underground detention and at the same time the men and women who dared to occupy a Stasi district administration for the first time here in 1989.

With the sponsorship of the Andreasstrasse memorial and educational site as a place of public and individual remembrance of the victims and the overcoming of the SED dictatorship, the foundation fits in with the remembrance and reappraisal work of the Thuringian Historical Association, which is responsible for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship based on civil society.

Organs and bodies

The executive bodies are the board of directors and the foundation board. The chairman of the board is Jörg Ganzenmüller (Weimar / Jena), board members are Volkhard Knigge (Weimar / Jena) and Christiane Kuller (Erfurt).

Members of the Board of Trustees have been Karl Schmitt (Chairman), Babette Winter (Deputy Chairman), Klaus Dicke, Rainer Eckert , Jörg Geibert , Ulrich Grünhage, Karin Kaschuba , Christina Hloucal, Claudia Kraft , Peter Maser, Franz-Josef Schlichting, since July 2014 . Robert Traba and Herbert Wirkner . Honorary members of the Board of Trustees are Jorge Semprún † and Bernhard Vogel .

The foundation's bodies are the scientific advisory board and the advisory board for processing. The members of the scientific advisory board have been Peter Maser (chairman), Günther Heydemann , Silke Satjukow , Alexander Thumfart , Susan Baumgartl, Harald Biermann, Malte Rolf and Dorothee Wierling since 2012 . Franz-Josef Schlichting (Chairman), Peter Wurschi, Horst Dornieden, Anna Kaminsky, Frank Karbstein, Moritz Kilger, Manfred May, Wolf-Dieter Meyer, Klaus-M have been members of the Advisory Board for Reconditioning since 2013. by Keussler, Matthias Sengewald, Gabriele Stötzer , Ricarda Steinbach and Lolo Richard Völker.

Publications

In the series of publications of the Foundation European Dictatorships and their Overcoming have been published by Böhlau Verlag since 2003 :

  • Hans-Joachim Veen (Ed.): After the dictatorship. Democratic upheavals in Europe - twelve years later. (Volume 1, 2003)
  • The same (ed.): The cut off revolution. June 17, 1953 in German history. (Volume 2, 2004)
  • Ehrhart Neubert , Thomas Auerbach : "It can be different". Opposition and resistance in Thuringia 1945–1989. (Volume 3, 2005)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen (Ed.): Old elites in young democracies? Change, change and continuity in Central and Eastern Europe. (Volume 4, 2004)
  • Henning Pietzsch: Youth between Church and State. History of church youth work in Jena 1970–1989. (Volume 5, 2005)
  • Volkhard Knigge , Ulrich Mählert (ed.): Communism in the museum. Forms of conflict in Germany and East Central Europe. (Volume 6, 2005)
  • Peter März , Hans-Joachim Veen (Ed.): Remember what? Communism in the German culture of remembrance. (Volume 8, 2006)
  • Eva Ochs: "Today I can say yes". Camp experiences of inmates of Soviet special camps in the Soviet Zone / GDR. (Volume 9, 2006)
  • Michael Ploenus: "... as important as daily bread". The Jena Institute for Marxism-Leninism 1945–1990. (Volume 10, 2007)
  • Peter Wurschi: Rennsteigbeat. Young subcultures in the Thuringian region 1952–1989. (Volume 11, 2007)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen, Ulrich Mählert, Peter March (eds.): Interactions between East and West. Dissidence, opposition and civil society 1975 to 1989. (Volume 12, 2007)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen, Ulrich Mählert, Franz-Josef Schlichting (eds.): Parties in young democracies. Between fragility and stabilization in East Central Europe. (Volume 13, 2008)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen, Peter March, Franz Josef Schlichting (Ed.): Church and Revolution. Christianity in East Central Europe before and after 1989. (Volume 14, 2009)
  • Same (ed.): The consequences of the revolution. 20 years after communism. (Volume 15, 2010)
  • Maciej Górny: The truth is on our side. Nation, Marxism and History in the Eastern Bloc. (Volume 16, 2011)
  • Volkhard Knigge, Hans-Joachim Veen, Ulrich Mählert, Franz-Josef Schlichting (eds.): Work on European memory. Experience of dictatorship and the development of democracy (Volume 17, 2011)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen (ed.): Interim balance sheets . Thuringia and its neighbors after 20 years (Volume 18, 2012)
  • Volkhard Knigge (Ed.): Research on Communism and Cultures of Remembrance in East Central and Western Europe (Volume 19, 2013)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen, Volkhard Knigge (ed.): Monuments of democratic upheavals after 1945. (Volume 20, 2014)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen (ed.): The image of the GDR in literature, film and the Internet. 25 years of memory and interpretation (Volume 21, 2015)

In the series of publications of the Foundation Aufverarbeitung Kompakt have been published since 2009:

  • Franz-Josef Schlichting, Hans-Joachim Veen (ed.): The beginning of the end of 1989. Final balance of the GDR dictatorship. (Volume 1, 2009)
  • The same (ed.): "Germany united fatherland" - a balance sheet after 20 years. (Volume 2, 2010)
  • The same (ed.): 50 Years of Building the Wall - Prehistory and Consequences. (Volume 3, 2011)
  • The same (ed.): SED dictatorship in the mirror of literature. (Volume 4, 2013)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen, Julia Landau (ed.): What was the Gulag? History and interpretations of the Soviet camp system. (Volume 5, 2013)
  • Franz-Josef Schlichting, Hans-Joachim Veen (ed.): The popular uprising of June 17, 1953. Causes, actors, consequences - a review after 60 years. (Volume 6, 2013)
  • Same (ed.): From the Great Catastrophe of Europe to the Reunification of Germany - Stages of German Contemporary History 1914 to 1990. (Volume 7, 2014)
  • Hans-Joachim Veen, Peter Wurschi (ed.): “There was something in the air ...” The occupation of the district administrations of the MfS / AfNS in Erfurt, Suhl and Gera. (Volume 8, 2014)
  • Jörg Ganzenmüller, Franz-Josef Schlichting (eds.): The beginning of the epochal change? Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power - a look back after 30 years (Volume 9, 2016)
  • Peter Wurschi (ed.): Günter Bersch: Passion - One picture is not enough. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2018. ISBN 978-3-95462-982-4 .

Exhibitions

Permanent exhibition

The foundation shows the permanent exhibition in its memorial and educational center Andreasstraße :

  • Imprisonment - dictatorship - revolution. Thuringia 1949–1989.

Traveling exhibitions

The foundation presents four traveling exhibitions in different cities in Germany and Poland:

  • "Where injustice is commonplace, resistance becomes a duty" - opposition and resistance in the GDR.
  • The cry for freedom - June 17, 1953 in Thuringia.
  • The Return of Democracy - The Democratic Revolutions in East Central Europe 1989–1991.
  • Poles and Germans against the communist dictatorship. (Together with IPN Krakow)
  • Andreasstrasse on the road - ADHESION, DICTATURE, REVOLUTION

Web links