Eberhard Dähne Papers

Period  1940-2010
Total size   8 m.
Consultation Not restricted

Biography

Born in Freienwalde, Brandenburg, Germany 1938, died in Frankfurt am Main 2010; alone, at the age of fifteen, he left the German Democratic Republic; went to Kiel to study agricultural science and became involved in the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), becoming chairman in 1961; as a member of the SPD active in the Socialist Youth organization 'Die Falken' (The Falcons); the SPD and SDS split because of divergent views on the perspectives of left wing policy in Western Germany 1961; expelled by the SPD 1962; settled in Marburg and became a close colleague of Wolfgang Abendroth 1963; participated between 1966 and 1968 in an unsuccessful initiative to establish an alternative leftist SPD; founded the Institut für Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung (Institute for Scholarly Social Research) in Marburg 1968; was active in Marburg in the local branch of the Deutsche Kommunistische Partei (DKP, German Communist Party) and various trade unions; got his Ph.D. in philosophy 1972; staff member of the Institut für Marxistische Studien und Forschungen (Institute for Marxist Studies and Research) in Frankfurt am Main 1973-1989; specialized in municipal government and published the standard work Gemeindeleute about red and green alternatives in the community politics in the Federal Republic of Germany; left the DKP 1989; city councilor in Frankfurt am Main 2001-2006 as a representative of the Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS), although he was not a member of this party.

Content

Personal documents 1940-1992; correspondence 1982-2010; documents on the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund and his studies in Kiel and Marburg 1960-1968; documents concerning the Institut für Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung (ISF) in Marburg 1967-1993; documents concerning the Deutsche Kommunistische Partei (DKP), especially on the Marburg section and the Westend district in Frankfurt am Main 1972-1990; documents concerning the project ‘Frankfurt Arbeit und Leben (FAUL) 2000’ 1987, the history of Hessen 1990-2000, the regional economic development of Thüringen 1994-1998, the common strategy of government, employers organizations and trade unions ‘Bündnis für Arbeit’ 1995-2000, and the historiography of the revolution year 1968 2007-2008; declarations by and press clippings on the SPD-politician Herbert Wehner 1946-1997.

Arrangement

A preliminary list is made in 2011; objective was to make a rather quick description of the Eberhard Dähne papers for our website; time lacked to make a detailed description of the whole archive; the method of Dähne was to make small files on a lot of topics in large partly cut up recycled envelopes; about 5.5 m. of the 8 m. papers is detailed or roughly described while the other 2.5 m. is checked but not described because content and topics were too unclear or too detailed. We hope in future there will be time to make more detailed desriptions of the files.

Processing information

Preliminary list made by Bouwe Hijma in 2011