Thomas Lutz (born 1957 in
Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...
) is the head of the
Memorial Museums Department of the
Topography of Terror Foundation in Berlin, and active in Holocaust education and research at the national (German) and international level.
Life
Thomas Lutz studied after the
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
in 1975 at the Paul-Gerhard
Gymnasium in Laubach (Oberhessen) History, Political Science and Sport in Marburg until 1981. In 1983 he took the second state examination in Benshaim in order to become a teacher at secondary schools.
As alternative service for
Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP)
The Action Reconciliation Service for Peace is a German peace organization founded to confront the legacy of Nazism.
The Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (German: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, or ASF) was founded in 1958 by the syn ...
Thomas Lutz supervised visiting groups at the Memorial and Museum
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
.
Since 1984 he has been working in the Berlin office of
ARSP on the newly founded
Memorial Museums Department which coordinates the work of memorial sites, especially those with a focus on recognition and documentation of
Holocaust victims
Nazi Germany discriminated against and persecuted people on the basis of their race or ethnicity (actual or perceived), religious affiliation, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and, where applicable, mental or physical disabilities. Di ...
.
His assignment also includes the counselling of governments, parliaments and
non-governmental-organisations as well as a diverse educational work and public relations.
Since 1992 he has been working in the same capacity for the
Topography of Terror Foundation in Berlin.
Thomas Lutz is chairman of the international board of the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation. He is also the manager of the Working Group Concentration Camp Memorials in Germany.
The federal commissioner for culture and media appointed him in the expert body for advising on the financial allocation in the context of the federal memorial site stock.
On an international level he co-founded the International Committee of Memorial Museums in Remembrance of the Victims of Public Crimes (ICMEMO) as International Committee of the
International Council of Museums (ICOM) in 2001 in Barcelona. He is vice-president of the ICMEMO.
Since 2000 he has been one of the German delegates of the
Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF) to which currently 33 countries are contributing. He was twice chairman of the foundation of Memorials and Museums Working Group of the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), until January 2013 known as the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research or ITF, is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1998 wh ...
(IHRA).

As participant of the International Forum Mauthausen he is advising the
Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior on the remodelling of the
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp memorial.
He is also in the board of trustees of the
ARSP.
Lutz wrote his dissertation about the development of the permanent exhibitions that have been funded by the federal memorial site stock since 2000. Thereby he examined the museological development and the constructive educational work (Technische Universität Berlin, Fakultät I, Prof. Hanns-Fred Rathenow und Prof. Dr. Volkhard Knigge, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena).
The focus of his historical research is the history of the 20th century in Germany concentrating on the incurrence conditions and history of the
National Socialism (NS) and the political offenders committed during this period in
German-occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly military occupation, militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the governmen ...
.
Publications
In addition to the publication of the Memorial Sites Journal, which is printed four times a year and the editorial supervision of the Online Memorial Sites Forum including a daily press overview in the area of memorial sites, Thomas Lutz published numerous books and essays.
Literature
* Thomas Lutz: Stasi = Gestapo?: in: Stasi-Dossier der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, online: http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-geschichte/stasi/
* Thomas Lutz, Monika Hölscher, Viola Krause (ed.): Geschichte und Geschichtsbilder. Der Erste und Zweite Weltkrieg. POLIS 57, Hessische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, Wiesbaden 2016
* International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (ed.); Thomas Lutz, Corry Guttstadt, Bernd Rother, Yessica San Román (ed.): Bystanders, Rescuers or Perpetrators? The Neutral Countries and the Shoah, IHRA-series, vol 2, Berlin 2016, 336 S.
* Elke Gryglewski, Verena Haug, Gottfried Kößler, Thomas Lutz, Christa Schikorra (Hrsg.): Gedenkstättenpädagogik. Kontext, Theorie und Praxis der Bildungsarbeit zu NS-Verbrechen, Berlin 2015, .
* Thomas Lutz: Die Entstehung, Entwicklung und gesellschaftliche Bedeutung des „Zeitzeugen"; in: Dagi Knellessen und Ralf Possekel im Auftrag der Stiftung EVZ (Hg.): Zeugnisformen. Bericht, künstlerische Werke und Erzählungen von NS-Verfolgten, Reihe Bildungsarbeit mit Zeugnissen, Band 1, Berlin 2015, S. 45-56.
* International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (Hrsg.), Thomas Lutz, David Silberklang, Piotr Trojanski, Juliane Wetzel, Miriam Bistrovic (Mitherausgeber): Killing Sites - Research and Remembrance, IHRA-series, vol 1, Berlin 2015, .
* International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (Hg.); Thomas Lutz, Corry Guttstadt, Bernd Rother, Yessica San Román (Mitherausgeber): Bystanders, Rescuers or Perpetrators? The Neutral Countries and the Shoah, IHRA-series, vol 2, Berlin 2016, .
* Stiftung Topographie des Terrors (Hrsg.), Thomas Lutz (Kurator): Das Gesicht des Gettos. Bilder jüdischer Photographen aus dem Getto Litzmannstadt 1940–1944. Ausstellungskatalog (deutsch/englisch), Berlin 2010, .
* Thomas Lutz: ''Zwischen Vermittlungsanspruch und emotionaler Wahrnehmung. Die Gestaltung neuer Dauerausstellungen in Gedenkstätten für NS-Opfer in Deutschland und deren Bildungsanspruch'' Technische Universität Berlin: Berlin, 2009.
Universitätsbibliothek der Technischen Universität Berlin, Digitales Repositorium.
' on opus.kobv.de, 28 May 2010.
* Dietmar Sedlaczek, Thomas Lutz, Ulrike Puvogel, Ingrid Tomkowiak (Ed.): ''"minderwertig" und "asozial". Stationen der Verfolgung gesellschaftlicher Außenseiter'' Chronos Verlag: Zürich 2005, .
* Verena Radkau, Eduard Fuchs, Thomas Lutz (Hg.): ''Genozide und staatliche Gewaltverbrechen im 20. Jahrhundert'' Studien Verlag: Innsbruck, Wien, München, Bozen 2004, .
Notes
External links
GedenkstaettenForumWorldmap of Memorial Sites for Victims of the Nazi-CrimesDissertation; Library of Technische Universität Berlin(2 PDF Files; 18 MB)
Fellowship - The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lutz, Thomas
German historians of the Holocaust
1957 births
Living people
German political scientists