Inhalt

Welcome to the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (BKGE)

Discover more about the Institute, the focus of its work, its projects, publications and events.

You can also obtain further information about the Federal Government Funding, supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM), and the Immanuel-Kant Scholarship.

1989-2014: 25 Years of BKGE in Oldenburg

The BKGE was founded in 1989. It was only a few months later that the Iron Curtain fell, and the Brandenburg Gate border crossing was reopened. Circumstances were developing in a way that would change Germany and Europe fundamentally – a development that could not have been foreseen even earlier that year.

The establishment of the BKGE in the 1990s coincided with the growth of political and scientific cooperation between Germany and its neighbouring states in Eastern Europe. European unification and the enlargement of the European Union into Eastern European continuously provided new incentives to conduct research on German history and culture within Eastern Europe. These processes furthered the possibilities of joint work in this field, with the goal of researching and presenting the past, as well as preserving common cultural heritage. These factors have formed the basis of our work here at the BKGE and its numerous national and international partner organisations.

You can read about the BKGE and its “work, projects and publications” in our brochure from October 2014.

ONLINE-ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE CULTURE AND HISTORY OF THE GERMANS IN EASTERN EUROPE http://ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/

Our Online-Encyclopedia is a joint project between the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and the BKGE.

Explore the online encyclopedia and its wide-ranging articles about the culture and history of the Germans in Eastern Europe in which we guarantee trustworthy, up-to-date and scientifically sound information.  

It is our goal to publish 600 encyclopedia entries in collaboration with numerous partner organisations and researchers from Germany and abroad. The encyclopedia is being developed in cooperation with the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

The encyclopedia is sponsored by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media.