Lectures and Workshops

Our foundation and the the Institut für Zeitgeschichte München – Berlin have been holding regular “Colloquium on Contemporary History” since 2017. Young historians will present their contemporary historical research project in a lecture and answer questions and comments from the audience in the subsequent discussion. In this series, around six events per year take place in the Forum Willy Brandt Berlin, which are also broadcasted live on the Internet via the Foundation’s YouTube channel. The presentations will then be available as video-on-demand.

Workshop “Cold War Studies”

Together with the Berlin College of Cold War (BKKK), our foundation organizes the one-and-a-half-day workshop “Cold War Studies” once a year in Berlin. The selected participants, after a call for papers (postgraduates, habilitates and post-docs) present their work in the field of cold war studies, comment on their projects and receive further suggestions and feedback through the exchange with those present scientists from the BKKK, the foundation and other institutions.

We welcome a wide range of topics and methodological approaches, in particular from the area of the cultural and social history of the Cold War. The possible spectrum of actors that can be considered is no less broad (e.g. parties, NGOs, social movements, religious actors, ethnic groups, migrants, journalists, artists). Research perspectives that include the “global South” and post-colonial issues, as well as topics related to the politics of history and memory during the Cold War, are also of interest. The call for papers for the next workshop will be advertised in spring 2022.

Expert workshops

In cooperation with the Berlin Cold War College, the foundation also holds roundtables with experts from science, politics and journalism.