Volunteering in Local Communities between Late Socialism and Liberal Capitalism: The History of Volunteer Fire Departments in Germany and East Central Europe, 1980-2000

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Lindenberger
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 314977196

Organized voluntary engagement for the common good of the local community was and is a constant feature in modern societies since the 19th century, and across very diverse political regimes. Using the venerable institution of Voluntary Fire Departments (VFD), this comparative project in contemporary history aims at exploring the practice, and relevance of volunteering during late state socialism and the transformation to democracies and market economies in small medium sized cities and their surrounding rural areas (district towns) in Germany and East Central Europe. The following questions are addressed: 1) What was the role of VFD under late socialism? 2) How did VFD with all their traditions and continuities of voluntary service interact with the political ruptures and societal transformations around 1989/1991)? How did voluntary firefighters perceive themselves and how were they perceived by other local actors in these processes? Did VFD as nuclei of local sociability contribute to maintain and stabilise the cohesion and identity of communities, including social markers of difference such as gender, ethnicity, and class, in a time of radical change, and how were they in turn affected by these changes themselves? 4) How did VFD organisations get involved in inter-communal, including international, cooperation on the grass root level before, during and after the changes of 1989-91? The historical comparison and the areas of investigation are defined by two commonalities: (1) VFD were established and existed almost uninterruptedly as part of municipal self-governance since the 2nd half of the 19th century, as it was typical for Germany and the Habsburg Empire. (2) They came under communist rule after 1944/45 and experienced its erosion and final breakdown during the late 1980s and early 1990s, followed by - however highly diverse - processes of transformation towards liberal capitalism. Local case studies in (East) Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Vojvodina (Serbia) will provide empirical data and be set within the larger institutional and political contexts on the national level. Research will be based on archival records and include the extensive use of oral history interviews. Regional workshops, one international expert seminar, and one international conference, complemented with presentations at national and international conferences, will serve as seminal milestones of the project's work programme. Project results will include a comprehensive project volume, two monographs ensuing from two PhD theses, and four articles in international and national peer-reviewed journals. To realize the research programme the funding of a team of one postdoc researcher and two doctoral candidates directed by Thomas Lindenberger, ZZF Potsdam, and Philipp Ther, Unversity of Vienna is applied for within the D-A-CH cooperation of DFG and FWF.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Partner Organisation: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Philipp Ther