Dr Patrick Sandmann, a native of Mönchengladbach, has been researching the history of political persecution in Cologne since moving there. In 2024, in the wake of the COVID-19 crackdowns, he expanded the Cologne Documentation Project to cover the entire German-speaking world.
A recent decision by the Saxon Higher Administrative Court (OVG) marks a severe shift in German administrative practice, raising fundamental constitutional and rule-of-law concerns. A young woman in Saxony has been denied admission to her…
On July 20, 1932, Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen, backed by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, dealt a decisive blow to interwar German democracy: the so-called Preußenschlag (Prussian Coup). By executive decree, the caretaker democratic…
When the judiciary of a democratic state holds suspects like Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, Rüdiger von Pescatore, Michael Fritsch, Johanna Findeisen, Maximilian Eder, or Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss behind bars for four years without a legally binding…
“When a society stops talking to each other, civil war follows.” — Charlie Kirk (1993–2025) Exactly one year ago today, a political assassination sent shockwaves through the Western world: Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old American activist…
When Heinrich Mann completed his novel Der Untertan (The Loyal Subject / Man of Straw) in July 1914, he had no idea how rapidly reality would overtake his work. The outbreak of World War I…
The role of the two major Christian churches in the Third Reich remains one of the most intensely debated chapters of modern German history. Long dominated by the narrative of ecclesiastical resistance, an unvarnished look…
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907–1944) is one of the best-known figures of the German resistance against National Socialism. As an officer in the German Wehrmacht, he became the leading organizer of the assassination attempt…
Following the defeat in the First World War, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles imposed severe military constraints on the newly formed Weimar Republic: a professional army capped at 100,000 men, an officer corps restricted to…
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) remains one of the most significant theological and ethical voices of the 20th century, whose insights into human nature and political systems continue to resonate profoundly today. A German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and…
Vienna/St. Petersburg, February 2026. What began as a diplomatic rupture has evolved into an unprecedented case of state-sponsored pressure. Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl now faces a legal process unique in the history of…
Hugo Junkers (1859–1935) is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant engineers in German history. Yet while his name remains inextricably linked with the legendary “Aunt Ju” (Ju 52), one dark chapter of his…
While the Nazi total state attempted to forcefully align the entirety of youth through the Hitler Youth (HJ) and the League of German Girls (BDM), an organic counterculture formed in the working-class districts of major…