Ostforschung in general describes since the 18th century any German research of areas to the East of Germany. Since the 1990s, the Ostforschung itself is a subject of historic research, while the names of institutes etc. were changed to more specific ones. For example, the journal „Zeitschrift für Ostforschung“ was renamed to „Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung“. Traditional Ostforschung has been discredited by modern German historians. Ostforschung studies were aggressively anti-Polish, and reflected tensions of Polish-German relations, while its publications were of questionable value

Ostforschung was also the name of a multi-disciplined organization set up before World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 by Albert Brackmann

Albert Brackmann

Albert Brackmann was a leading German historian associated with the Ostforschung, a multi-disciplined organisation set up to co-ordinate German research on Eastern Europe....

 and several other historians and anthropologists to co-ordinate German research on Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

, mainly the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

. The research conducted by this organization, as well as the Ahnenerbe

Ahnenerbe

The Ahnenerbe was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History." Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, the Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan...

, was instrumental in the planning of ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....

 and genocide

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

 of local non-German populations (see Generalplan Ost

Generalplan Ost

Generalplan Ost was a secret Nazi German plan for the colonization of Eastern Europe. Implementing it would have necessitated genocide and ethnic cleansing to be undertaken in the Eastern European territories occupied by Germany during World War II...

) and settlement of German colonists in order to Germanize Central and Eastern Europe.

Literature

• Burleigh, Michael. Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich.
• Auf den Spuren der Ostforschung; Eine Sammlung von Beiträgen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft zur Bekämpfung der westdeutschen "Ostforschung" beim Institut für Geschichte der europäischen Volksdemokratien, Leipzig 1962

External links

• Johann Gottfried Herder-Forschungsrat
• Herder-Institut
• Die "sudetendeutsche Geschichtsschreibung" 1918-1960 http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=613
• Deutsche "Ostforschung": Oldenburger Historiker befassen sich kritisch mit ihrer Wissenschaft http://www.uni-protokolle.de/nachrichten/id/54711/
• Zentrum gegen Vertreibung: „Was ist Bohemistik?“ http://www.bohemistik.de/index.html
• Bund der Vertriebenen: Überregionale Kultur- und Wissenschaftseinrichtungen
• Albert Brackmann u. die Publikationsstelle Dahlem