AKENS - Researching National Socialism in Schleswig-Holstein
AKENS is a group of historians, lay researchers and historically-minded persons. The group has about 180 members in Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, other parts of the federal republic and abroad (as of winter 2016).
AKENS was founded in 1983 in Kiel, the capital of the federal German state Schleswig-Holstein, and has been a registered Verein since 1994. It was launched due to the need to intensify the research of the national socialist regime in Schleswig-Holstein and to acquaint local projects with one another. AKENS offers a forum to everyone interested in a historical discussion of the NS regime to present results and discuss research questions.
AKENS advocates research of National Socialist rule in Schleswig-Holstein. This includes the preceding history and the consequences for the time after 1945. The state of research about the National Socialist years in Schleswig-Holstein is extraordinarily bad, since the political and historical discussion with National Socialism was systematically neglected, obstructed or even made impossible up to a short time ago.
AKENS supports a diametrically opposed position and demands in particular:
- long term research projects about National Socialist rule in Schleswig-Holstein with the participation of independent historians
- uninhibited source access and a restructuring of the state archive
- the setting up of local exhibitions and memorials about National Socialist rule in Schleswig-Holstein
AKENS conducts events and seminars about subjects relating to the history of Schleswig-Holstein. AKENS views its work as a contribution against neo-Nazism, xenophobia and racism.
INFORMATIONEN zur Schleswig-Holsteinischen ZEITGESCHICHTE
This magazine which is published by AKENS in German is the center piece of the Verein's work. It is published one time a year with 160 to 300 pages and enjoys a high reputation with research institutions, libraries and archives in Germany and abroad.
Subscribing to the INFORMATIONEN
The magazine is sent for free to members of AKENS, libraries, archives and research institutions etc. in Germany and abroad.
Non-members may subscription to the Informationen - please ask at
(The printing of the magazine is made possible through a financial grant by the ministry of culture of the state Schleswig-Holstein.)
Membership in AKENS
Members of AKENS will receive besides the magazine for free the membership letters which include announcements for events, notes on activities of AKENS (e. g. excursions), information on new publications, etc.
Membership dues
People with income: Euro 25.00 per year;
unemployed people, students, people in military or civil national service: Euro 12.50.
Hartmut Kunkel, IBAN: DE22 2001 0020 0219 5372 06, BIC: PBNKDEFF (Postbank Hamburg).