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Dossier: Commemorating Liberation

On 8 May 1945, 75 years ago, Friedeburg, Keitel, and Stumpff ratified the declaration of surrender of the High Command of the German Armed Forces to the Allied Forces and the Red Army. For many, however, the war ended too late: millions of people died of hunger, persecution, torture, forced labour, in the concentration camps or in exile. This dossier offers different perspectives on liberation, a retrospective look at extermination, persecution, and war, but also on reckoning, reparations, and the politics of remembrance. In addition, the dossier addresses current and future remembrance work.

Content on this topic

The “Red Light” of Yugoslav Par­tisan Pho­to­graphy

: Essay 06.05.2020

The 75th anniversary of the liberation from fascism is a time to remember one of the largest…

Roger Griffin: Fascism has an existential dimension

: Video 06.08.2019

Excerpt from an interview with Roger Griffin, Professor of Contemporary History at the Faculty of…

Ber­lin, May 1945—­Valery Fam­in­sky

: News 30.04.2020

In Valery Faminsky’s photos, people encounter one another as humans, not as victors and defeated.

Short Memor­ies

: Comment 30.04.2020

How it got this way: fragments from German post-war history

75 Years Since Liberation – Antifascist Struggles Back Then and Today

: Video 07.05.2020

How do we remember fascism in Europe? What does it mean for our struggles today?  On the occasion…

Un­der the Ban­ner of Polit­ical In­stru­ment­al­iz­a­tion

: Comment 29.04.2020

Remarks on the current handling of World War II in Poland

The Lost His­tory of An­tifa

: Essay 29.04.2020

75 years after the triumph over Nazism, we look back to when socialists gave birth to Antifa.

Telling Real­istic His­tor­ies

: Comment 16.04.2020

Resisting National Socialism in a computer game: “Through the Darkest of Times”

Con­cerned Cit­izens for Hitler

: Essay 13.02.2020

The old elites were not the only ones to support Hitler—it was also the bourgeois centre