Concentration Camp Memorials as theatres of block confrontation. Antifacist entanglements in times of the Cold War

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jens-Christian Wagner
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 540556906

The way society dealt with National Socialist crimes in divided Germany was characterized by mutual accusations until the end of the Cold War. The interpretation of the East-West conflict as a radical age can be understood primarily through an analysis of the systemic competition in the field of historical-political appropriations of Nazi crimes in East and West Germany. Important stages for this were the concentration camp memorials in Eastern and Western Europe that had been established since the 1940s. For divided Germany, the concentration camp memorial in Bergen-Belsen in the old Federal Republic and the Buchenwald National Memorial in the GDR are examined in this project as points of crystallization in the politics of remembrance. The opposing historical narratives of anti-fascism and anti-communism decisively shaped these memorial sites. State-official commemoration is contrasted with an analysis of the (self-)representation of groups of persecutees of both concentration camps, both in divided Germany and in (European) foreign countries. Commemoration of various Nazi persecution groups had to be fought for, in part against considerable social and state resistance. Focusing on the groups of actors of inter- and transnationally active survivors‘ organizations with associations in Europe, the USA and Israel, the German systemic conflict is placed in a European and global debate on Holocaust remembrance. Methodologically, the latest research on transnational cultural transfer and the approach of a "histoire croisée" (Werner/Zimmermann) will be taken up. A monograph (PostDoc) on the topic "Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen in the Cold War" will be realized as well as the organization of an international workshop about concentration camp memorials and antifascist politics of history at the University of Jena. Based on the results of the workshop, the project leader and editor intend to publish a journal on the intertwined history of Holocaust remembrance in concentration camp memorials.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Daniel Schuch