Events

Wednesday, September 24, 2025, Stadtmuseum Weimar
Public reading and Discussion
Elke Scherstjanoi: “Sieger leben in Deutschland. Fragmente einer ungeübten Rückschau. Zum Alltag sowjetischer Besatzer in Ostdeutschland 1945-1949”
Thursday, September 25, 2025
9:00–9:15: Welcome
Jens-Christian Wagner
9:15–10:00
How did the Occupying Forces Deal with the Consequences of the National Socialist’s Rule? Common Challenges and Different Approaches.
Introduction
Enrico Heitzer / Julia Landau

10:00–11:30: After the Home Front: The End of the War and German Society
Moderation: Alfons Kenkmann
Nazi war propaganda and comprehensive militarization had serious consequences for the German majority society. These became evident in the Allies' confrontation with "post-National Socialist society" at the end of the war. Large sections of German society had supported the Nazi system at all levels. Accordingly, Allied occupation policy focused on the internment of former Nazi officials and all those who, from the Allies' perspective, posed a threat. The panel will present and discuss new insights into society at the end of the war: How did the National Socialist-influenced German majority respond to the Allies and the liberated prisoners and forced laborers? What role did violence play during the long end of the war?
Anne-Christine Hamel/Franz Waurig: Volkssturm, Werwolf and German Society at the End of the War
Janine Fubel: Direct and Indirect Military Operation. The Mobilisation for the Eastern Front in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp 1945
Elke Scherstjanoi: „To Give Communism to these Pigs?” or: Post-War Thoughts of the Eastern Winner
Alexander Querengässer: „You couldn’t take the whole ‘Volkssturmsache’ too serious” – The ‘Volkssturm’ as a NSDAP-Paramilitary Unit and Last Stand

11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.: Break

11:30 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.: In the “Waiting Room”: The Establishment of DP Camps for Liberated Forced Laborers, Prisoners of War, and Camp Inmates
Moderation: Adam Kerpel-Fronius
Liberated – and then? After their liberation, people had one primary goal: to return home. The Allied forces set up so-called DP camps to care for the survivors and organize their return. Together with aid organizations from various countries, efforts were made to implement these plans. But not everyone wanted or was able to return to their former homeland, necessitating the search for new paths. The panel will discuss the organization of the DP camps in a comparative manner. It will also examine the encounters between the liberated forced laborers, prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates and the German majority society.
Rene Bienert: After Liberation of the Concentration Camps: What kind of Challenges didthe Liberators and the Liberated have to face?
Juliane Wetzel: Camps for Jewish DP’s. Zest for Life in the “Waiting Room”
Rene Emmendörffer: Buchenwald Before and After the Liberation – Stories from the Camp from an East-European Jewish Perspective
Andreas Froese: The DP-Camp in Dora in 1945. A Historical Example for a Temporary DP-Camp in the Region of Today’s Federal State of Thuringia
Ines Dirolf: From the World into the Provinces, and from the Provinces into the World – The DP-Camp Seedorf in Western Lower Saxony

1:15–2:15 p.m.: Lunch Break

2:15–3:45 p.m.: The Repatriation of Liberated Prisoners of War, Concentration Camp Inmates, and Forced Laborers to the Soviet Union: Filtration Camps and Camps of the Smersh
Moderation: Ines Reich
Contrary to official propaganda in the Soviet Union, liberated Soviet citizens often faced renewed discrimination and persecution in their homeland. Repatriation was organized through repatriation camps. Intelligence agencies of the Soviet military and the Ministry of the Interior organized the interrogation of the liberated prisoners. Questions of loyalty were posed: Had the liberated prisoners collaborated with the Nazis? At the same time, the liberated forced laborers and prisoners were also specifically questioned about their experiences of Nazi crimes and violence, material that the secret services used for further investigations. The panel explores the functions of Soviet repatriation camps, from returning former prisoners and forced laborers to the Soviet Union – often in the context of labour mobilization, military conscription, or political repression – to investigating their collaboration with the Nazi regime.
Dieter Bacher/ Katharina Bergmann-Pfleger: The Repatriation Camps in the Soviet Occupying Zone in Austria 1945-1953
Sarah Grandke: Making it Through. Soviet DP’s and blocking Forced Repatriations on the Example of the US-Zone
Gero Fedtke: From Ilmenau via Donbass to Kazakhstan. Nikolaj Lavrinovs Memories of Repatriation
Norman Warnemünde: “The Sentence that remained in the Filters” – Soviet Citizens in the Network of the Counterintelligence ‘Smerš’

3:45-4:15 p.m.: break
4:15–6:30 p.m.: Guided tour of the permanent exhibition "Forced Labor under National Socialism" with Daniel Logemann (Museum of Forced Labor) and Franziska Mendler

Friday, September 26, 2025
09.00–10.00 Uhr

English version:

Andriy Kohut, Head of the State Archive of the Security Service in the Ukraine (GDA SBU)
Insights for Contemporary Historical Research into the Inventory of the Archive of the Security Service in the Ukraine

10:00–11:00 a.m.: New Sources, New Approaches
Moderation: Olga Danilenko
It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that access to the archives of the Soviet intelligence services became possible. However, not all archival sources are still accessible today. Access to the archives of the security services is once again closed in the Russian Federation – but not in other post-Soviet countries, such as Ukraine, Moldova, or Latvia. There, one can find information on individuals who were subjected to filtration control on suspicion of complicity in the crimes of the Nazi occupation regime, as well as on the personnel of internment camps. Due to the centralized apparatus of the Soviet security services, it is also possible to find copies of the most important orders, which were identical for all former Soviet republics. The panel will provide insights into the holdings of the former Soviet intelligence services in various post-Soviet archives.
Alexander Makeew: The Personnel of the Special Camps: Results of Research and Methodology

11:00-11:15 a.m.: break

11:15 a.m.-3:00 p.m.: Between Security Policy, Denazification, and Punishment: Internment Camps after World War II

The Allies' internment camps after World War II initially served the general function of securing the occupation regime. The removal of National Socialists from influential positions in the state and party apparatus was a related goal. The investigation and prosecution of Nazi crimes was linked to internment, but was not its exclusive purpose. Even though the Allies initially agreed in principle on the necessity of internment, the practice differed fundamentally between the Western and Soviet occupying powers. The panel will highlight parallels and differences in internment practices and examine the consequences of internment in the respective occupation zones.

11:15 a.m.–12:45 p.m.: Security Policy and Denazification
Moderation: Enrico Heitzer
Esther Lindenlauf: Between New Beginnings and Historical Research – The Dachau Camp after the War
Andrew Beattie (per Video): Concepts of Denazification, Demilitarization, Criminal Prosecution, and Re-education in the Context of Allied Internment in Occupied GermanyAndrea Rudorff: The Polish Military Missions Investigating War Crimes and their Cooperation with the Allies on Extraditions
Wolfram von Scheliha: ‘Transitional Injustice’ during the Transition from one Dictatorship to Another: Thoughts for a Comparative Classification of Soviet Special Camps and the Soviet Internment Policy in Post-War Germany

12:45–1:30 p.m.: Lunch Break

1:30–3:00 p.m.: Prosecution
Moderation: Julia Landau
Olga Danilenko: Soviet Prisoners in the Soviet Special Camp in Sachsenhausen
Andreas Weigelt: The Soviet Prosecution of the Murders of “Young Guard”-Resistant Fighters in Krasnodon/Rowenki in January/February 1943
Iryna Kashtalian: Policewomen and Policemen in the Soviet Special Camp No. 2 Buchenwald: New Findings and Open Questions
Kolja Buchmeier: Forced Labor as a Complex of Crimes in Proceedings of the SMAD-Order 201. Early Post-War Justice in East Germany as an Approach to Social History of National Socialism
3:00-3:30 p.m.: break
3:30-4:30 p.m.: Closing Discussion: The End of the War and Internment as a Topic of Political Education: Addressing Revisionist Appropriations of History
Moderation: Ronald Hirte

The period of the long end of the war 80 years ago presents a challenge for political education. What does the history of the liberation of the victims of National Socialism – Jews, Sinti and Roma, concentration camp prisoners, forced laborers, prisoners of war, and political opponents – mean for us today? How can the Allies' treatment of post-National Socialist society at the end of the Second World War be presented without appropriating it for a new narrative of victims with revisionist intent? Historical contexts are often ignored or distorted in this process. One example is the history of the narrative surrounding the “Rheinwiesenlager,” the provisional prisoner of war camps established by the Western Allies at the end of the war. In eastern Germany, meanwhile, the population in the territories liberated by the Soviet army frequently experienced violence and repression. Numerous arrests and the unjust treatment of prisoners marked the emergence of a new dictatorship. What should a conversation about the numerous ruptures at the end of the war look like – one that is fully aware of Germany’s responsibility for the outbreak of World War II?

Kerstin Schulte: End of the War and Internments as Topics of Political Education
Raphael Utz: The Holocaust in School. Educational Policy in East and West after 1945
Alexander Walther: Jewish Survivors and Coming to Terms with the Shoah in East and West

4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.: City Tour "After the War: Weimar under Soviet Military Administration”

Venue

Weimar