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Gesellschaft Zur Rechtlichen Und Humanitären Unterstützung
The Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung (GRH; ) is a German historical negationist organisation consisting of former employees of the East German secret police, the Stasi. It was led by the last Stasi chief, Wolfgang Schwanitz until his death in 2022. History In Germany the organisation is best known for its attempt to portray the Stasi in a positive light and for trivializing or denying the political repression in East Germany. It has become widely known in Germany for massively disturbing memorial ceremonies or other forms of public events relating to political repression in East Germany. GRH has also been accused of harassing victims of the East German regime, journalists, and politicians. GRH has been described by historian Hubertus Knabe, the Director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, as an "aid association for state criminals."Knabe 2008 p. 277ff See also *HIAG (Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1989-1119-324, Wolfgang Schwanitz
The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv (BArch) (, lit. "Federal Archive") are the national archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952. They are subordinated to the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media (Claudia Roth since 2021) under the German Chancellery, and before 1998, to the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany), Federal Ministry of the Interior. On 6 December 2008, the Archives donated 100,000 photos to the public, by making them accessible via Wikimedia Commons. History The federal archive for institutions and authorities in Germany, the first precursor to the present-day Federal Archives, was established in Potsdam, Brandenburg in 1919, a later date than in other European countries. This national archive documented German government dating from the founding of the North German Confederation in 1867. It also included material from the older German Confederation and the Imperial Chamber Court. The oldest docum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Revisionism (negationism)
Historical negationism, also called historical denialism, is falsification or distortion of the historical record. This is not the same as ''historical revisionism'', a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterpretations of history."The two leading critical exposés of Holocaust denial in the United States were written by historians Deborah Lipstadt (1993) and Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman (2000). These scholars make a distinction between historical revisionism and denial. Revisionism, in their view, entails a refinement of existing knowledge about an historical event, not a denial of the event itself, that comes through the examination of new empirical evidence or a re-examination or reinterpretation of existing evidence. Legitimate historical revisionism acknowledges a 'certain body of irrefutable evidence' or a 'convergence of evidence' that suggest that an event – like the black plague, American slavery, or the Holocaust – did in fac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a Socialist state, socialist "workers' and peasants' state". The Economy of East Germany, economy of the country was Central planning, centrally planned and government-owned corporation, state-owned. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the Soviets, its economy became the most successful in the Eastern Bloc. Before its establishment, the country's territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the Berlin Declaration (1945), Berlin Declaration abolishing German sovereignty in World War II. The Potsdam Agreement established the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, Soviet-occupied zone, bounded on the east b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive police organisations in the world, infiltrating almost every aspect of life in East Germany, using torture, intimidation and a vast network of informants to crush dissent. The function of the Stasi in East Germany (the GDR) resembled that of the KGB in the Soviet Union, in that it served to maintain state authority and the position of the ruling party, in this case the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). This was accomplished primarily through the use of a network of civilian informants (called Unofficial collaborator, unofficial collaborators) who contributed to the arrest of approximately 250,000 people in East Germany. It also had a large elite paramilitary force, the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, that served as its armed wing. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Schwanitz
Wolfgang Schwanitz (26 June 1930 – 1 February 2022) was a German intelligence official, who was the last head of the Stasi, the East German secret police. It was officially renamed the "Office for National Security" on 17 November 1989. Unlike his predecessor, Erich Mielke, he did not hold the title "Minister of State Security", but held the title of "Leader of the Office for National Security". Following the German reunification, he was active as an author of works that sought to portray the Stasi in a positive light. Karl Wilhelm Fricke: Geschichtsrevisionismus aus MfS-Perspektive'', Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, 2006 Career in East Germany Early developments Schwanitz was born in Berlin. He became a member of the Free German Youth when the German Democratic Republic was founded. In 1950, he became a member of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship (), and in 1953, of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling East German communist party. He worked for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hubertus Knabe
Hubertus Knabe (born 1959) is a German historian and was the scientific director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, a museum and memorial in a notorious former Stasi torture prison in Berlin. Knabe is noted for several works on oppression in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe, particularly in East Germany. He became involved with green politics, and was active in the Alliance '90/The Greens. Early life and career Knabe's parents fled East Germany in 1959, and Knabe was born that year and grew up in Unna, North Rhine-Westphalia.Hubertus Knabe '''' His father was the noted ecologist [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deutschlandfunk
Deutschlandfunk (DLF, ''Broadcast Germany'') is a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany, concentrating on news and current affairs. It is one of the four national radio channels produced by Deutschlandradio. History Broadcasting in the Federal Republic of Germany is reserved under the Basic Law (constitution) to the states. This means that all public broadcasting is regionalised. National broadcasts must be aired through the national consortium of regional public broadcasters ( ARD) or authorized by a treaty negotiated between the states. In the 1950s, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) began broadcasting its Deutschlandsender station on longwave. In response to this, the then- Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk applied for a licence to operate a similar longwave service on behalf of the ARD. This was granted in 1956 and operated as Deutscher Langwellensender ("German Longwave Station"). On 29 November 1960, the federal government under Konrad Adenauer created ''Deutsch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Spiegel
(, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner, a British army officer, and Rudolf Augstein, a former ''Wehrmacht'' radio operator who was recognized in 2000 by the International Press Institute as one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes. is known in German-speaking countries mostly for its investigative journalism. It has played a key role in uncovering many political scandals such as the ''Spiegel'' affair in 1962 and the Flick affair in the 1980s. The news website by the same name was launched in 1994 under the name '' Spiegel Online'' with an independent editorial staff. Today, the content is created by a shared editorial team and the website uses the same media brand as the printed magazine. History The first edition of was published in Hanover on Saturday, 4 Januar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial
The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial () is a museum and memorial located in Berlin's north-eastern Lichtenberg district in the locality of Alt-Hohenschönhausen, part of the former borough of Hohenschönhausen. It was opened in 1994 on the site of the main political prison of the former East German Communist Ministry of State Security, the Stasi. Unlike many other government and military institutions in East Germany, Hohenschönhausen prison was not stormed by demonstrators after the fall of the Berlin Wall, allowing prison authorities to destroy evidence of the prison's functions and history. Because of this, today's knowledge of the functioning of the prison comes mainly from eye-witness accounts and documents sourced from other East German institutions. The prison was depicted in the 2006 film ''The Lives of Others'', in 2017 TV series '' The Same Sky'', in 2018 Amazon Prime series '' Deutschland 86'', and in the 2020 series '' The Defeated''. It is a member organisat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HIAG
HIAG () was a Advocacy group, lobby group and a denialist veterans' organisation founded by former high-ranking Waffen-SS personnel in West Germany in 1951. Its main objective was to achieve legal, economic, and historical rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS. To achieve these aims, the organisation used contacts with political parties, and employed multi-prong historical negationism and propaganda efforts, including periodicals, books, and public speeches. A HIAG-owned publishing house, Munin Verlag, served as a platform for its publicity. This extensive body of work, 57 book titles and more than 50 years of monthly periodicals, has been described by historians as revisionist apologia. Always in touch with its members' Nazi past, HIAG was a subject of significant controversy, both in West Germany and abroad. The organisation drifted into open far-right extremism in its later history; it disbanded in 1992 at the federal level, but local groups continue to exist into the 21st century. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waffen-SS
The (; ) was the military branch, combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. With the start of World War II, tactical control was exercised by the (OKW, "High Command of the Armed Forces"), with some units being subordinated to the (Command Staff ''Reichsführer-SS'') directly under Himmler's control. It was disbanded in May 1945. The grew from three regiments to over 38 division (military), divisions during World War II. Combining combat and police functions, it served alongside the German Army (1935–1945), German Army (''Heer''), ''Ordnungspolizei'' (Order Police), and other security units. Originally, it was under the control of the (SS operational command office) beneath Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. Initially, in keeping with the raci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Negationism In Germany
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a more general sense, the term ''history'' refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past. Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians strive to integrate the perspectives of several sources to develop a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
