He was long regarded as the outstanding personality in the twentieth-century Protestant Church: Otto Dibelius (1880 – 1967). But what is missing is an overall picture of the leading theologian and “virtuoso power politician” and his work, especially during the National Socialist era, complains the Berlin history professor Manfred Gailus. An international Dibelius conference from
Shattering the continuum of history: mastering which past?
Geoff Eley
Coming to terms with the past will always be a work in progress. As an active resource of images and assumptions, history will always be debated and fought over, even while fashioned into provisionally persuasive or authoritative versions. This has been classically true for the Germanies of the years since the 1960s. Where are those grounds of disputation now?
Mehr lesenBook Review: Matthias Grünzig, Für Deutschtum und Vaterland.
Doris L. Bergen
Für Deutschtum und Vaterland is an unusual and unusually important book. Its author, Matthias Grünzig, is a journalist, but the meticulous and resourceful research makes the book a significant contribution to historical scholarship. Its topic is the past—specifically the history of the Garrison Church in Potsdam from the end of World War I to its
Fierce Culture Wars Over Three Construction Projects in the German Capital Region
Manfred Gailus
Three historically significant architectural projects in the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region are exemplars of a problematic cultural policy with an unmistakably restorative and in part explicitly religious-political tendency.
Mehr lesenHitler’s Return – Nightmare or Daydream?
Michael Daxner
There are worse places to live in Germany. The old residential town of Potsdam became a city of oscillating political significance, a conservative center of Prussia, a reactionary hotbed of the Republic of Weimar, a city of Nazi self-representation, and a headquarter of Soviet and GDR state security, prisons and secret services. After the unification
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The reconstruction of the Garrison Church in Potsdam, which began in 2017, is intended – according to the project’s supporters – not least to create a place of learning about German history here. In August 2019, the chairman of the scientific advisory board of the Garrison Church Potsdam Foundation said: „The Garrison Church must show
Why the Reconstruction of a Potsdam Church Is a Political Issue
Philipp Oswalt
Since 2017, the Garrison Church in Potsdam, southwest of Berlin, has undergone reconstruction with federal funds under the patronage of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The Garrison Church is a symbol of Prussian militarism and since 1919 a symbolic location for German nationalistic, antidemocratic right-wing forces.
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