Online Collection »Oral History«

Since its founding, the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF) has produced interviews in many research projects that provide information about life histories, special events, social conditions and working relationships. One focus of the constantly growing collection is on narrative life history interviews about the GDR's past.

Such interviews not only reflect memories of the past, but also the research interests of the interviewees and the social situation at the time of the interview. Therefore, on the one hand, the interviews in the collection provide an insight into the memory of historical events and living conditions, and on the other hand, they form a body of knowledge about contemporary history and contemporary historiography of the past decades.

The ZZF's oral history collection has the task of preserving these interviews and, where legally possible, making them available to contemporary historical research. For this purpose, we cooperate with the Oral-History.Digital project to develop a common infrastructure for storing and researching oral history interviews. For the integration of oral history specific research data into a national and international research data infrastructure, the ZZF participates as a participant in the NFDI4memory consortium, which aims to build such an infrastructure for the historically working humanities.

The collection is currently under construction. The first sub-collections selected for preparation for the online portal are:

    - Bridge Builders and Border Crossers. Contemporary History of the Iron Curtain
    - Domination and self-sense/obstinacy („Eigen-Sinn“) in dictatorship
    - Computer-experts of the GDR
    - The media heritage of the GDR

Further collections are in preparation.

If you have any questions, please contact Olaf Berg at the ZZF.

Cooperation partners:
NFDI4memory and Oral-History.Digital

Zeitgeschichte digital

Online Collection »Oral History«

Since its founding, the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF) has produced interviews in many research projects that provide information about life histories, special events, social conditions and working relationships. One focus of the constantly growing collection is on narrative life history interviews about the GDR's past.

Such interviews not only reflect memories of the past, but also the research interests of the interviewees and the social situation at the time of the interview. Therefore, on the one hand, the interviews in the collection provide an insight into the memory of historical events and living conditions, and on the other hand, they form a body of knowledge about contemporary history and contemporary historiography of the past decades.

The ZZF's oral history collection has the task of preserving these interviews and, where legally possible, making them available to contemporary historical research. For this purpose, we cooperate with the Oral-History.Digital project to develop a common infrastructure for storing and researching oral history interviews. For the integration of oral history specific research data into a national and international research data infrastructure, the ZZF participates as a participant in the NFDI4memory consortium, which aims to build such an infrastructure for the historically working humanities.

The collection is currently under construction. The first sub-collections selected for preparation for the online portal are:

    - Bridge Builders and Border Crossers. Contemporary History of the Iron Curtain
    - Domination and self-sense/obstinacy („Eigen-Sinn“) in dictatorship
    - Computer-experts of the GDR
    - The media heritage of the GDR

Further collections are in preparation.

If you have any questions, please contact Olaf Berg at the ZZF.

Cooperation partners:
NFDI4memory and Oral-History.Digital

Zeitgeschichte digital