Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie (Against Oblivion – For Democracy) is a German organization promoting

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

, tolerance and democratic participation, and opposing

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

and right-wing and left-wing

extremism Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied sha ...

. It focuses in particular on the two dictatorships on German soil, the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

dictatorship and the

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

dictatorship of

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. The organization was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. Its activities are supported by the

Government of Germany The Federal Government (, ; abbr. BReg) is the chief Executive (government), executive body of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany and exercises executive power at the Federal level (Germany), federal level. It consists of the Chancellor ...

. The organization was co-founded after the

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

by former SPD chairman

Hans-Jochen Vogel Hans-Jochen Vogel (; 3 February 192626 July 2020) was a German lawyer and a politician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served as List of mayors of Munich, Mayor of Munich from 1960 to 1972, winning t ...

, Annemarie Renger, Jürgen Burckhardt, Manfred Struck and Freimut Duve, who all belonged to the SPD. Its current chairman is

Joachim Gauck Joachim Wilhelm Gauck (; born 24 January 1940) is a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany. During the P ...

(since 2003), the deputy chairmen are Eberhard Diepgen, Bernd Faulenbach and Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen. The advisory council is chaired by Rita Süssmuth, and the Executive Director is Michael Parak. The first chairman was

(1993–2000), who was succeeded by former Bremen mayor Hans Koschnick (2000–2003). Hans Bonkas, an honorary member of Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie, was active in the resistance against both the Nazis and the SED regime and spent seven years in an East German jail, and joined the

Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold The (, , simply in short) was an organization in Weimar Republic, Germany during the Weimar Republic with the goal to defend German parliamentary democracy against internal subversion and extremism from the left and right and to compel the ...

in 1932.Hans Bonkas wurde 90
Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie

References

External links

Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gegen Vergessen - Fur Demokratie Political advocacy groups in Germany 1993 establishments in Germany Organizations established in 1993