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Webdocu
"We, too, are stepping down from our role"
Web documentary about the German Drama Theater in Temirtau and the Germans in the Soviet Union between staying and leaving.
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Background article
Agata, Dorota, Iwona, Jolanta
"What luck that we had this kindergarten!" All four say. That was in the early 1970s. Agata and Jolanta now live in Germany, Dorota and Iwona have stayed in Masuria. Lehndorff Castle, the "Pałac", was a place they all felt happy. In those stately rooms they had a feeling of security and comfort, they played among the old oaks, went swimming in the lake. It was a microcosm away from the adult world with its worries and traumas.
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Introduction
Emigration, Forced Migration, and the Iron Curtain
Eastern Europe has been a "migration hot spot" since the late 19th century: Initially as a core area of overseas emigration, then of ethnic forced migration after the end of World War I. Emigration during the Cold War was nearly impossible. Today, many countries in this region benefit from the European Union's Freedom of Movement policy.
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Bildergalerie-Seitenelement
Galerieelemente Instruments and methods
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Important locations in Copernicus’ life
Nicolaus Copernicus rose to fame due to his interest in the stars. But where did he spend his life on Earth? Most of his sites of activity are found in present-day Poland, and many of them also relate to German history.
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Picture gallery
Instruments and methods
At the time of Copernicus, how did astronomers work? Despite being relatively simple, the instruments and methods were constantly improving.
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Introduction
Introduction
Nicolaus Copernicus was cautious about sharing his conviction that the planets rotate around the Sun, and only did so over the course of several decades. He was reluctant to cause a major turning point or revolution – and, initially, his teachings were not seen in this way either.
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Background article
Lembergs’s Coffeehouse Culture Before the First World War
The east Galician city of (Lemberg) Lviv had a lively coffeehouse culture during the Habsburg Empire. Poles, Jews and Ukrainians would gather over pots of coffee and tea. As the First World War approached, however, a growing sense of nationalism could also be felt in these otherwise convivial spaces.
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Biography
Maria Zarębska
When Maria Zarębska was born, in July 1948, the village of Sztynort was still scarred by war. A few Masurian families had remained living there, but most of the inhabitants – like Maria's parents – were newcomers. Everyone was struggling to survive, to get along with each other, to find their way in socialist Poland. For a child like Maria, all this was "normal." The curious girl later became an avid and perceptive chronicler.
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Interview (video)
Nicolaus Copernicus: The state of source material and the history of research
Prof. Dr. Andreas Kühne was the co-editor of the 2019 edition of the Complete Works of Nicolaus Copernicus. In this interview, he describes what we can learn about Copernicus from the available sources and how the figure of Copernicus came to be politicized. He also describes how research into Copernicus could lead to new findings.
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Biography
On foot and by train from Silesia to West Germany
In a report, 24-year-old Hilda J.-S. describes her resettlement from Rohnstock (Silesia) to Rosellen on the Lower Rhine area in the summer of 1946.
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Background article
Prague Coffeehouse Culture around 1900
It would be almost impossible to imagine the rich history of European café culture without the Vienna coffeehouses or the Paris cafés. By contrast, the Czech capital, Prague, tends to be more associated with the consumption of beer. Yet, in the history of that city, the tradition of the coffeehouse played a significant role in the development of public life, not least as a meeting point for its culturally diverse population.
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Introduction
Religious Migrations
What do the Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, the American director Woody Allen and the French chansonnier Charles Aznavour have in common?
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Background article
Russian-German history as migration history
Russian Germans are a global minority. Their history is often characterized by migration within and outside the Russian Empire spanning several generations. In the last third of the 19th century, popular migration destinations included North and South America as well as new settlement areas in Siberia and Kazakhstan. It was here that all Russian Germans were then exiled during and after the Second World War. Since the latest period of resettlement in the 1980s and 1990s, most Russian Germans have settled in Germany.
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Biography
Samuel Fränkel
The Berlin Jew Samuel Fränkel (1773-1833) settled in Warsaw in 1798 as a representative of a large bank. Within a few years and across numerous political breaks, Fränkel rose to become the most important banker in a divided Poland. In doing so, Fränkel always successfully drew on his transnational connections to Jews and non-Jews in Prussia, Austria and Russia.
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Introduction
The Copernican Revolution – a European legacy?
The 550th anniversary of Nicolaus Copernicus’ birth invites us to look at the mark that the astronomer left on the world. And it is also an opportunity to look more closely at how Copernicus has been viewed in the past and how these anniversaries have been treated differently in different periods of history.
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The Copernican network
Despite living in relative isolation, Copernicus maintained a number of significant contacts during his time as a scholar and cleric.
Astronomers from many parts of Europe carried on his work after his death.
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Biography
The Four Lehndorff Daughters
"I lost my home," Vera von Lehndorff once said, "but lost childhood is a better description." When her father was executed on September 4, 1944, she was five years old. Her sister Eleonore, "Nona," was six and a half, and Gabriele was two. Catharina was only 19 days old; she was born in the Torgau prison hospital. The Nazis had taken the girls and their mother Gottliebe into custody, a practice known in German as "Sippenhaft” or “kin liability". It was a traumatic time and was by no means over when the war ended in 1945.
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Background article
The History of the German-speaking Volhynians as Part of a Global Migration History
From the mid-nineteenth century onward, innovations such as steam navigation and the advent of the railroad led to a sharp increase in global migration movements. The German-speaking Volhynians were part of this development, which moved between the ideal-typical poles of voluntary and forced migration and was significantly influenced by the enforcement of the ethnonational principle. This article focuses on the emigration movements of this group from the Russian governorate of Volhynia in the period between the 1860s and the First World War. The subsequent forced migrations of the German-speaking Volhynians are also briefly discussed.
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Background article
The Uprooted Ones – Lemkos in Galicia and abroad
The small, private Museum of Lemko Culture in Zyndranowa is situated on the far periphery of southeastern Poland, yet it is a destination for many travelers, mainly from western and northern Poland, but also from other parts of the country and from abroad. For many, a visit here is connected with questions of identity and with the search for traces of family history. At the open-air museum, visitors can experience, among other things, the farm of the Gocz family and learn a great deal about the life of the villagers.