A Breath of Valkyrie on the Baltic Sea. Nationalism and Romanticism in the Literature of East Prussia What do a knight of the Teutonic Order, the Song of the Nibelungs and Hermann the Cheruscan have in common? They were all intended to legitimize the founding of the German Empire in 1871, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. This was a "unification from above" for which Prussia waged...
Biography A diary as a companion during his escape in 1936 Fritz Lamm describes his escape from the Nazi persecution of Jews from Stettin via Switzerland and Austria to Prague in his previously unpublished diary.
Biography A diary report of deportation and arrival Joanna Konopińska recounts her deportation by the Germans during World War II and her arrival in Wroclaw after the end of the war in 1945 in her moving diary “Tamten wrocławski rok”.
Biography Artist and Art Figure Monika Hunnius is generally known as a Baltic German author. She, however, saw herself as a musician – and was part of a network of musicians that extended all over Europe, to which Julius Stockhausen, Johannes Brahms, and Clara Schumann belonged as well.
Musical rendition Ein Lied geht um die Welt (A Song Goes Around the World) / Die tote Stadt op. 12 – Glück, das mir verblieb (The dead city – Joy, that remained to me) Hans May (music), Ernst Neubach (text) / Erich Wolfgang Korngold (music), Paul Schott (text) / Richard Resch (tenor), Lutz Landwehr von Pragenau (piano)
Picture gallery Emil Orlik Emil Orlik (1870–1932) was one of the most famous and versatile Czech artists of the turn of the century. He was known primarily as a graphic artist and draftsman whose artistic work ranged between realism and art nouveau. His extensive oeuvre includes drawings of famous contemporary musicians and composers – whom Orlik also liked to show practicing their art.
Background article From a distant land to my native Ukraine The letters of Hanna Pastukh represent the plight of a young woman who was taken from her native Ukraine in 1943 and forced to work as a laborer in Germany until1945. Through writing letters, she tried to maintain a connection to her home and family.
Image database Image catalogue of the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association In the online database of the Image Archive you will find the previously inventoried and digitized image materials from the collections of the Herder Institute as well as additional image sources from joint indexing and digitization projects with cooperation partners. Further analog and digital...
Background article Max Sering and Max Weber The age of imperialism unleashed a new way of thinking about the Prussian Eastern Provinces and their inhabitants in the German Empire, based on colonial patterns. Among other intellectuals, Max Weber also propagated a colonial image of Poles in both culturalist and racist categories.
Background article National Socialist policy and everyday school life in Budapest The “Wiener Volksgruppenabkommen” (Vienna Ethnic Group Agreement) of 26 August, 1940 enabled the unhindered spread of National Socialism in Hungary and meant that the German “Volksgruppe” (ethnic group) in Hungary, which had now been brought into line with Germany’s politics, was able to open its own schools and educational institutions. These were intended to shape the ideology of young people in accordance with the National Socialist “Third Reich”. The following article provides an insight into everyday school life in Budapest between 1940 and 1944.
Background article On the Road to the “New Eastern Lands” During the First World War, the German Empire had far-reaching plans for expansion in Eastern Europe. The Baltic states in particular were destined to become a German settlement colony known as the “Neues Ostland” (new eastern lands). With hindsight, some of these plans appear as forerunners of National Socialist conquest policy.
Interview (video) Pandemic and Migration in Eastern Europe Copernico asked: What role have epidemics and pandemics actually played in history, especially in Eastern Europe? How were they combated in the past? What impact did they have on the course of history? What role do they play, for example, in the context of human migration movements?
Background article Summer 1941: Jews from the Baltic States flee for their lives The long shadow of the past. Only a few Jews from Lithuania and Latvia managed to escape the Holocaust in the Baltics. Here are some of their accounts and the reasons for their difficult escape.
Background article The Changing Landscape of Place Names The Republic of Poland has a turbulent history – as do its many place names. Hardly any town or village has only one, which makes the matter very complicated, especially for historical research.
Introduction The National Opera in Central and Eastern Europe Today it is the passion of a select few music lovers – but in the 19th century, opera was a major social event, an expression of national consciousness, or even the musical declaration of national independence. But how did this happen? What role does the national opera play in Eastern Europe? And what makes an opera a national opera?
Background article The “Polish Economy” and the “German Pig” The end of the First World War marked a turning point in the power relationship between Poland and Germany. But did traditional images of superiority and inferiority also change? Caricatures provide an interesting lens through which to answer this question.
Wroclaw in aerial photographs from the interwar years The exhibition takes a look at the Wroclaw of the interwar period – a major city, pulsating with life and highly dynamic in terms of its urban development.
![B.,v. [d. i. Max von Blaese]: Kapitalbedarf, Wirtschaftseinrichtung und Ertragsanschlag für einen in Kurland neu zu gründen Bauernhof mit 20 ha Gesamtfläche, Berlin 1916](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_d2/public/externals/79b5dc4ecd088cbe4fbe9734e92459ea.jpg?itok=OhN3BPGp)
