Germany has an international reputation to be a world champion at Cutting from his past. In this case, be exceeded in the truest sense of the word, boundaries. This is inevitable and useful.
The Name sounds a little bit bulky: the Federal Foundation for the reappraisal of the SED dictatorship. And bulky, the is sometimes, this is the 1998 resolution of the German Bundestag founded the institution employs. After all, it comes to coping with a nearly 44 years of Communist dictatorship, which began without a pause for breath after the Nazi dictatorship in 1945 and it was only after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 ended.
Your name, the Foundation of the Socialist unity party of Germany (SED) owes. It was created in 1946 on the territory of the Soviet zone of occupation (SBZ) of the forced unification of the social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD). The founding was a largely involuntary act, in that part of Germany, in 1949, the German democratic Republic (GDR) was proclaimed, but in reality, from the first day of a dictatorship on the Soviet model.
Information in 14 languages
“Remembrance as task” – so, in short, the “Federal Foundation for the reappraisal” referred to an Institution understands its task. It is a question of, “to promote the comprehensive reappraisal of the causes, history and impact of dictatorship in the SBZ and the GDR, to accompany the process of German unity, and on the reappraisal of dictatorships on an international scale to participate”. So it is on the German – and English-speaking Homepage. In addition, there is information in 14 other languages.
“We were oppressed,” says the photographer Harald Hauswald, one of the photos of the exhibition “the East”
A first, cursory glance at the Online sites can be quite confusing – so diverse is the spectrum of the Foundation. “Full of East – life in the GDR”, for example. This is the title of a photo exhibition, which was shown at the beginning of the year in Berlin and in the Form of a Poster-Sets-of-school and out-of-school educational work of the Foundation can be ordered. The everyday life scenes from a vanished country come from Harald Hauswald, the supplementary texts by the historian and Director of the DDR Museum, Stefan wolle.
In search of personal happiness
This kind of rather unspectacular view of the unfree East Germany, can sometimes communicate even more about the essence of a dictatorship as some academic or sociological debate. The Foundation for the reappraisal regularly invites to speak to witnesses of the time and posterity on topics such as “the fall of the wall – damn long?”. These are projects of young people to the history of the “anti-fascist protection rampart,” as the inner-German border in the SED-called Jargon.
Where in the Logo of the Foundation for the reappraisal is a hole, were in the case of the DDR-flag, Hammer, circle and ears wreath
However, despite the wall and the barbed wire, the lack of freedom to travel, and luxury goods 17 million people in the GDR tried to find your own personal happiness. The SED claimed omnipotence had its limits. How fragile the System was, in the end, it showed in the speed-of-peaceful Revolution of 1989. At that time, a dictatorship, on 7 sank. October had celebrated their 40-year-old state of existence. A year later, the Germans celebrated their black-and-red-Golden reunion.
To illuminate the GDR, from all perspectives, the 360-degree view of the car is typical of the work of the Foundation, one of whose driving forces is the last and only freely elected foreign Minister of this country: Markus Meckel. In Germany, the long extruded up to the Nazi dictatorship had “a lot of problematic consequences,” he says. Therefore, if we had been aware of the importance of rapid and comprehensive reappraisal of the GDR past. “For the whole country”, adds the social Democrat.
The last GDR foreign Minister, Markus Meckel
Stasi in the East and in the West
Thus, Meckel alludes to the in the West of Germany still encountered opinion, the East German dictatorship was just an East German theme. A finding that is particularly true for the mega-topic of the Stasi. Because the Ministry of state security informed of distrust embossed focus mainly on the own population, but also the declared class enemy on the other side of the inner German border in the visor. Him as exploiters and warmongers to discredit belonged to the Standard Repertoire.
How far the Stasi’s Arm reached into the West, was most blatant in the case of the spy Günter Guillaume. He had succeeded, to the personal representatives of the Federal Chancellor, Willy Brandt (SPD) to ascend. The unmasking of high-ranking Stasi officers triggered in 1974 in the old Federal Republic, a government crisis and led to Brandt’s resignation. Thus, the power brought to the commander-in-chief of the SED dictatorship, of all things, a man, and had with his policy of detente, the East-West rapprochement in Germany and Europe.
Stasi spy Günter Guillaume (l.) was one of the closest Confidant of Willy Brandt, who resigned in 1974 as a Federal Chancellor
Who Erich Honecker was?
Young people don’t know today, who was the Nobel peace prize laureate, Willy Brandt, or the SED and state leader Erich Honecker, regrets, Markus Meckel. Thus, it is important “to know our exciting past in order to understand ourselves better,” says the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Foundation for the reappraisal. When you look back it goes to him but also “to cope with current issues and challenges”.
The fragility of democratic societies there is a conflict of almost 30 years after the end of the East-West-still or again, on the rise of left – and right-wing populist movements and parties across Europe. Also, why is Meckel holds the reappraisal of the SED dictatorship for a task, the “always new”. This task, the national Foundation has been dedicated since its founding with numerous partners at home and abroad. According to international many of their events and publications.
The SED Chairman Erich Honecker (left) and the head of the Ministry for state security (Stasi), Erich Mielke
Mines: “dissidents.eu” and “kommunismusgeschichte.de”
Is one of the major points in 2018 and 50 years after its crackdown on the Prague spring. Unique, the image band is likely to be “museums and memorials to the victims of the Communist dictatorships”, in the 119 memorial sites in 35 countries around the world documented. True treasure-the biographical dictionary of “dissidents are pits.eu” Opposition and resistance in Eastern Europe, as well as the 2017 on the occasion of the 100. Anniversary of the Russian October Revolution unlocked the Portal “kommunismusgeschichte.de”.
Two of the many elaborate projects with which the Federal Foundation for the reappraisal of the SED dictatorship is trying to “promote public awareness about the Communist reign of violence”, as it says on their Homepage. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary will take place on Wednesday (17. October) in Berlin, a ceremony with Federal President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The peaceful revolutions of 1989 will be honoured even by the highest authority as what they are: outstanding events in the German and European democratic history.