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.
When the “Patriotische Union” (popularly labeled the Reuß Group or “Reichsbürger” movement) was raided in December 2022, the German government declared it had dismantled an imminent terrorist threat. Yet, as the subsequent trials drag on,…
The case of former police commissioner Michael Fritsch is one of the most significant examples of how the German state in the 2020s began to prosecute its own civil servants for criticizing government measures. On…
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has sent shockwaves through the political establishment with a scathing attack on current media policies and the structures of Germany’s public broadcasting system (ÖRR). In a provocative statement, Schröder compared…
Political persecution in the GDR was not a marginal phenomenon, but a central pillar of power maintenance for the SED regime. While the overt physical violence of the early years was later replaced by more…
The term sounds like a relic from a dark era, yet the “hochnotpeinliche Befragung” (extraordinary painful interrogation) was a fixed, legally codified component of the German judicial system for centuries. Under the pretext of seeking…
For many families, questions about the fate of their ancestors during the National Socialist era remain unanswered for decades. Silence within the family or lost documents make the search difficult—yet today, the research possibilities are…
It is a development that shakes the foundations of Swiss neutrality and European freedom of speech: Jacques Baud, a former Colonel of the Swiss Armed Forces and a veteran of the Strategic Intelligence Service, has…
George Orwell’s novel 1984 is far more than mere science fiction; it is a sharp and terrifyingly precise analysis of the mechanisms of political persecution and totalitarian rule. Published in 1949, the work serves to…
The Carlsbad Decrees represent one of the most significant instruments of political persecution in German history. Following the Napoleonic Wars and influenced by the French Revolution, liberal and national movements emerged in the German states.…
Uncovering the past of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is a significant and often emotional step for those affected and their descendants. The Ministry for State Security (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi, operated an…
The German Democratic Republic (GDR), while presenting itself as a progressive socialist state, maintained power through an extensive system of political persecution that touched nearly every aspect of life. From 1949 until its collapse in…