Association for Hamburg History

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Association for Hamburg History V.
(VHG)
purpose "Promotion of scientific research and the dissemination of knowledge of Hamburg's history"
Chair: Rainer Nicolaysen
Establishment date: April 9, 1839
Number of members: approx. 1,100
Seat : Hamburg
Website: vfhg.de

The Association for Hamburg History (VHG) is a history association founded on April 9, 1839 , which is open to both specialist historians and historically interested laypeople. The association's office and library are located in the State Archives of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg .

history

Rainer Nicolaysen is the current chairman of the Association for Hamburg History

The VHG was founded on April 9, 1839 on the initiative of the Patriotic Society of 1765 by the citizens of Hamburg. The first chairman of the association, which 62 people joined on the day it was founded, was historian and Senate archivist Johann Martin Lappenberg until 1865 . The number of members rose to 242 by the end of the year.

From 1937 on, Kurt Detlev Möller was the first chairman of the archives councilor and later brief head of the Hamburg State Archives . Möller swore the association in a lecture on the hostility to the Jews. He sent a form to the 18 remaining Jewish members in which they were asked to confirm their “Aryan” origin. Möller came under public criticism after 1945. This did not happen because of his anti-Semitism , but because in a publication about the capitulation of Hamburg he spoke of the Reich Governor and Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann , who was in office throughout the Third Reich and who was jointly responsible for all crimes in Hamburg, and the entire National Socialist leadership of Hamburg in his post-war presentation The Last Chapter. History of the capitulation of Hamburg "with a mild representation" of guilt and responsibility partially acquitted. This process led to the impeachment of Kurt Detlev Möller from his position as State Archives Director by the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The Association for Hamburg History stood by its chairman and left him in his post until 1957. The association only commemorated its then excluded Jewish members in November 2007 during an extraordinary general meeting.

The VHG celebrated its 175th birthday on April 9, 2014 with a ceremony in Hamburg's town hall . The New York historian Volker Berghahn, who grew up in Hamburg, gave the lecture . From April 2014 to March 2015, a touring exhibition entitled "Anchored in the city - 175 years of the Association for Hamburg History" was shown in several public places in Hamburg.

In 2019 the association has around 1143 members, including the historians Frank Bajohr , Hans-Werner Goetz , Joist Grolle , Rainer Hering , Franklin Kopitzsch , Wolfgang Kopitzsch , Hans-Dieter Loose , Angelika Schaser and Barbara Vogel . The current chairman is Rainer Nicolaysen . Dirk Brietzke is the deputy chairman . The Association for Hamburg History is one of the few German history and antiquity associations in Germany that can boast a young department.

Various articles and presentations have appeared on the history of the association itself.

The VHG is a member of the general association of German history and antiquity associations . The Lappenberg Medal has been awarded by the association since 1864.

Working groups and club activities

Library Committee The library of the VHG comprises around 13,000 volumes (as of 2020) on the history of Hamburg , its districts and neighboring regions as well as the Hanseatic League . The library committee has the task of administering the library, taking in new books, cataloging and signing them, organizing the holdings, deciding on new purchases, accepting donations (e.g. from household liquidations) and repairing damaged books. Exchange partnerships exist with a number of institutions in and outside Hamburg to exchange new publications. The numerous duplicates that arise from donations are offered to the club members in a book flea market. The holdings of the club library have not yet been recorded in the union catalog of the Hamburg libraries. The books can be viewed and borrowed on site in the club rooms in the State Archives.

Historical Excursions Committee The Historical Excursions Committee maintains knowledge of Hamburg's history and researches it in excursions and tours. These tours or trips are each prepared and guided by two members of the committee and, depending on the topic, supplemented and supported by knowledgeable experts. The spectrum ranges from theme-related walks and bike tours, museum tours to multi-day round trips through northern Germany or abroad.

Working group "Young Association" In order to counter the foreseeable obsolescence and decline in membership, the VHG went in 2013 to recruit members specifically among students (among other things, membership fees are waived for members up to the age of 28). The "younger" members (around 14–40 years old) meet regularly for regulars' evenings following museum tours and lecture events. The recurring events include the colloquium "From BA thesis to dissertation ", self-organized museum visits and training courses, and participation in pub quizzes . According to a study published in 2016, at this point in time a good 200 of the 1,100 members belonged to the “Young Association” working group.

Memory Working Group From 2007 to 2017 members of the VHG met to report, discuss and write down their personal memories on various topics. During this time, the work of the working group resulted in several books that deal with topics such as "Living in Hamburg", "School days in Hamburg" or "Eating and drinking in Hamburg" .

Stolperstein research group From 2013 to 2017, a group consisting mainly of association members researched the biographies of Nazi victims for whom Stolpersteine ​​had been laid in Hamburg's Grindel district in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. In cooperation with the Hamburg Stolperstein Initiative, the Hamburg State Center for Civic Education and the Institute for the History of German Jews , the biographies and research results collected were published in the Biographical Search for Traces series.

Publications

One of the main fields of activity of the VHG is the editing and publication of writings on the history of Hamburg.

The main publication is the annual journal of the Association for Hamburg History (ZHG). Articles, research reports and reviews are published in the journal . The membership magazine Tiedenkieker - Hamburgische Geschichtsblätter , which is also published annually, contains smaller articles on people, institutions and events from Hamburg's history, as well as news from club life. The predecessors of the Tiedenkieker were initially the messages of the Association for Hamburg History (MHG), which were replaced in 1926 by the Hamburg History and Home Papers (HGH). Both ZHG and Tiedenkieker and its predecessors can be researched using a full-text search in the holdings of the Hamburg State and University Library .

In addition to the periodicals, the ZHG also publishes scientific research literature and special publications in loose succession. The series Contributions to the History of Hamburg has been published since 1969 with 68 volumes to date (as of 2020). The Hamburg Life Pictures have been published in 25 volumes so far. Both series have been supported by Wallstein Verlag in Göttingen since 2018 .

Chairperson

literature

  • Peter Gabrielsson: "... instead of a historical commission". On the cooperation between the State Archives and the Association for Hamburg History. In: Hans W. Eckardt (ed.): Between administration and science. Contributions to the past and present of the Hamburg State Archives (= contributions to the history of Hamburg. Vol. 26). Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-923356-08-0 , pp. 23-35.
  • Joist Grolle, Ina Lorenz : The exclusion of Jewish members from the Association for Hamburg History. A long silent chapter of the Nazi era. (With biographical appendix). In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History, Vol. 93 (2007), pp. 1–145. ( online )
  • Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Ed.): Spätes Gedenken. A history association remembers its excluded Jewish members (= Hamburgische Lebensbilder Volume 21). Ed. Temmen, Bremen 2009, ISBN 3-8378-2000-9 .
  • Renate Hauschild-Thiessen: 150 Years Association for Hamburg History. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History, Vol. 76 (1990), pp. 1–11 ( online ).
  • Sebastian Husen: Father-city history in the republican city-state. Studies on the development of the Association for Hamburg History (1839-1914) (= publications of the Association for Hamburg History. Volume 45). Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-923356-89-7 .
  • Hans-Dieter Loose : Continuity and Change. The last 50 years of the Association for Hamburg History. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History, Vol. 74/75 (1989), pp. 1–21 ( online ).
  • Rainer Nicolaysen (Hrsg.): 175 years association for Hamburg history. Documentation of the Senate reception at the Great Festival Hall of Hamburg City Hall on April 9, 2014. Hamburg 2014-
  • Gunnar B. Zimmermann: Middle-class worlds of history in a modern metropolis. The Association for Hamburg History from 1912 to 1974. E-Dissertation Hamburg 2018 ( online )
  • Gunnar B. Zimmermann: Civil history worlds in National Socialism. The association for Hamburg history between persistence and self-mobilization (= contributions to the history of Hamburg. Vol. 67). Wallstein, Göttingen 2019, ISBN 3-8353-3391-7 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Ed.): Spätes Gedenken. A history society remembers its excluded Jewish members. Bremen 2009, p. 9.
  2. ↑ See Kurt Detlev Möller: The last chapter. History of the capitulation of Hamburg. From the Hamburg catastrophe in 1943 to the handover of the city on May 3, 1945. Hamburg 1947.
  3. ↑ Peter Reichel, Harald Schmid: From the catastrophe to the stumbling block. Hamburg and National Socialism after 1949. Munich et al. 2005, p. 38.
  4. ↑ For information on the history of the club, see the club website
  5. ^ The VHG library
  6. ^ Hannah Hufnagel: The young association for Hamburg history. How an association wins young members. In: Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 152 (2016), pp. 553–557, here: p. 553.
  7. ↑ Remembrance project Stolpersteine ​​in Hamburg . Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  8. ^ Digitized holdings of the ZHG from 1841 at the Hamburg State and University Library
  9. ↑ Digitized holdings of the Tiedenkieker from 2010 at the State and University Library Hamburg.