Digital documentation makes research findings on National Socialism in Dresden transparent
A research project of the Chair of Computer Graphics at the HTWD, together with the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Research, is developing an innovative method for the digital documentation of historiographical argumentation using the case study of the sites of National Socialist institutions in Dresden.
The Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Research e.V. at the TU Dresden (HAIT) and the Chair of Computer Graphics at the Dresden University of Applied Sciences (HTWD) are researching a new approach to documenting historical research. A digital infrastructure for the documentation of historical data (IDOHIST) is being developed using the mapping of sites of National Socialist rule in Dresden as a case study. With its help, it will be possible in future to trace exactly which source and which historiographical considerations underlie the pre-location of each site marked on the map. What is innovative about this is that uncertainties and considerations that are discarded as incorrect are also documented. For the first time, research results can be digitally recorded via the triad of source – argumentation – result and visualized on a map with various relevant parameters (such as dating, degree of uncertainty).
“The case study of the offices of the up to 90 local groups of the National Socialist Party in Dresden shows the particular difficulties when it comes to drawing on a city map when and where exactly the NSDAP was active in Blasewitz, for example: there are no documents on this in the archives, because in the last months of the war some files were deliberately destroyed and others were lost due to war damage. However, other sources, such as the daily newspapers of the time, have been preserved. These can be used to reconstruct such facts. Thanks to this new approach, future working methods in the historical sciences, in particular the derivation and considerations for each point on the map, will be revealed and comprehensible. This is an important prerequisite for countering historical revisionist efforts, such as the widespread myth of the 'innocent city' in Dresden,” explains project manager Dr. Anne Klammt. The case study is of particular social relevance, as historical research into the Nazi regime is repeatedly attacked by right-wing extremist and anti-democratic groups and the results are denied.