Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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The Krelle case – how former Nazis helped dismantle socialism in the GDR
Post-unification, an entire generation of GDR citizens had their qualifications devalued or disregarded in a sinister anti-left purge that was termed the ‘changing of the elite.’ JOHN GREEN reports
January 1991: Students and lecturers at Berlin’s Humboldt University protest over the job assessment procedures and liquidation of former GDR educational institutes. The banner reads, with reference to Marx’s famous quote: ‘Those in the East and the West have only interpreted the Federal Republic differently, the point however is to change it’
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
IN THE wake of Holocaust Memorial Day, it is perhaps useful to be reminded that Germany’s Nazi past is far from overcome.
Since German unification, over 30 years ago, there has been a deliberate and ongoing attempt to rewrite history, with the GDR portrayed as the twin evil of Nazism.
There has been a largely successful attempt to prettify the reputation of the Federal Republic as the country that came to terms with its Nazi past, confronting and dealing with the evil of that period.
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CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history
The cancelled China trip of the German Foreign Minister marks a break with Helmut Schmidt’s China policy and drives Germany further into Washington’s confrontation course, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN
The decision highlights the tension between freedom of expression and the state’s role in shaping historical memory at former concentration camps, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI