The ‘North and East German Research Association’ (NOFG; originally: North-East German Research Association), founded at the end of 1933, was the largest of those ‘Ethnic German Research Associations’ (VFG) which ‘had been established from around 1930 with the aim of to promote research into regional and ethnic history, as well as regional and ethnic studies, in the German border regions, and to bring together representatives of the subjects involved in this then-flourishing field of research with representatives of the relevant ethnic groups and the Reich authorities interested in matters of ethnic culture.”^[1] It forms part of the general expansion of research capacities in the field of so-called ‘Eastern Studies’ following the transfer of power to Adolf Hitler (1889–1945). At the intersection of national-conservative and ‘völkisch’-influenced views of history and politics, the scholars gathered here, under the Chair of Albert Brackmann (1871–1952), the General Director of the Prussian State Archives and a medieval historian, advocated a revision of the borders established by the Treaty of Versailles and, in doing so, frequently placed themselves at the service of the National Socialist regime.

In this context, the NOFG’s work was primarily aimed at the ‘scientific “defence” against Polish territorial claims’,^[2] and must therefore also be viewed in the context of corresponding efforts on the Polish side.^[3] To this end, translations of Polish specialist literature, as well as maps and statistics on demographic conditions in Eastern Central Europe, were produced. Further means of ‘engaging with the literature of other nations’ included ‘conferences, study trips, the awarding of scholarships, facilitating study visits, providing working materials, support with printing, and the publication of series and journals.’^[4] The publication of research findings and the administration of the organisation were handled by the Berlin-Dahlem Publications Centre – which had been established some time previously and was headed by Johannes Papritz (1898–1992) – and which also collected material on the work of Polish scholars. Furthermore, Brackmann and his deputy, the Sudeten German historian Hermann Aubin (1885–1969), were tasked with coordinating cooperation with the Reich and Prussian ministries as well as the NSDAP, in the spirit of a “unified, politically oriented endeavour”^[5]. The material compiled was made available to various authorities, such as the Foreign Office (AA) and the Reich Ministry of the Interior (RMI), but also to state-sponsored and ‘brought into line’ associations active in the field of ‘ethnic policy’, such as the Bund Deutscher Osten or the Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland, and thus served propaganda purposes: The publications “often walked a fine line between serious discussion and German-centred one-sidedness, indeed, political-propagandistic attempts to legitimise nationalist theories”.[6] Nevertheless, the realisation of the associated objective – “to centralise German research on Poland, to align it with ethno-revisionist aims and to establish a unified research stance towards Poland” – met with “only limited success”^[7]. Beyond this central objective, the NOFG was also responsible for corresponding initiatives regarding the other states of Eastern Central and Northern Europe.

In 1944, the NOFG’s executive committee – comprising Brackmann, Aubin and Papritz – was joined, in name only, by the pre- and early-modern historian Carl Engel (1895–1947) as second deputy chairman. The organisation was managed jointly with an executive committee, newly elected each year, comprising representatives from regional research institutions and associations involved in‘Eastern Studies’, such as the Institute for Eastern European Studies (OEI) in Breslau/Wrocław or the Ostland Institute in Danzig/Gdańsk, many of which had close ties to the Prussian archival system. For example, Walter Recke (1887–1962), who headed the Gdańsk Institute from 1927 to 1939, was also director of the State Archives there from 1929 to 1939. In 1938, an advisory board was also established, comprising representatives appointed on a regional and thematic basis. These included, for example, Theodor Oberländer (1905–1998), who later became Federal Minister for Displaced Persons, and Hans Koch (1894–1959), who later became director of the Institute for Eastern European Studies in Munich. The historical sciences thus dominated the work, which was nonetheless thoroughly interdisciplinary in nature.^[8] In its day-to-day operations, the NOFG was closely integrated with the Publications Office: ‘Its correspondence was handled by the Publications Office; the Publications Office organised its conferences; it managed its finances; and, through its assistants and scholarship holders, it carried out a not insignificant proportion of the academic work on Eastern Europe.’^[9] The editorship of the association’s journal *Jomsburg*, held by Papritz and his deputy Wolfgang Kothe (1907–1984), also fell to the leadership of the Publications Office, which was jointly responsible for the series *Deutschland und der Osten*. Michael Fahlbusch regards the VFG in general, and the NOFG in particular, as a strictly hierarchically organised and highly effective large-scale research consortium (‘brain trust’)^[10], whilst other scholars perceive it as “at best a loose association of researchers”^[11], based more on personal than institutional ties. Given the numerous differing ideological foundations and practical approaches within the Nazi regime’s Ostpolitik, as well as the divergences both amongst the participating scholars themselves and with the official authorities, the stringent interpretation – as presented by Fahlbusch and subsequently by Ingo Haar and others –^[12] to be, at the very least, open to question.

Building on the activities of the foundation for research into German ethnic and cultural heritage, the first Ethnic German Research Associations were established from 1931 onwards. The NOFG was founded on 19–20 December 1933 in Berlin – without any intention of publicising its activities – and had been prepared at a meeting at the OEI in Breslau on 1 November 1933. Funding was provided primarily by the RMI, the AA and the German Research Foundation, with grants also coming from regional authorities. Together, the NOFG and the Publications Office accounted for around 50 per cent of the VFG’s total funding. In 1934, the two institutions together received 104,000 Reichsmark from ministerial funds; in 1938, this figure rose to 161,000 RM, of which 35,000 RM was passed on to academics in the form of scholarships and support payments. For the NOFG alone, the upper limit on grants remained just under 40,000 Reichsmark even during the war, whilst the Publications Office ’s funding peaked in 1941 at more than 415,000 Reichsmark, provided solely by the RMI.

The territorial focus was expanded to include the Scandinavian region in 1935/1936, leading to the renaming of the organisation from the ‘North-East German’ to the ‘North and East German Research Association’. On average, a major conference of the Society was held once a year in various locations within the occupied territories, alongside smaller meetings at regional level.

The invasion of Poland placed a particularly heavy burden on the publications office – which willingly provided support – for work vital to the war effort: Maps, statistical studies, population registers and expert reports were produced; archival materials were confiscated; and several staff members were involved in border demarcation commissions. Conference activities, by contrast, were curtailed, particularly as many staff members from the individual institutions were conscripted into military service. Together with the other VFGs and the Publications Office, the NOFG was placed under the authority of the Reich Security Main Office in 1943 and was thus intended to help shape the SS’s Germanisation policy in the conquered and occupied territories.

After the Second World War, little attention was paid to the role of the NOFG for a long time. It was not until 1988 that a comprehensive study on Brackmann and the Publications Office was published,^[13] and in 1999 the entire complex of the Ethnic German Research Associations came under closer scrutiny.^[14] Beyond the generally accepted empirical findings, however, the interpretation of the extent of their involvement with the Nazi regime remains controversial – views range from characterising some of the participating academics as ‘pioneers of the extermination’^[15] to strong doubts about the influence of the research associations.^[16] What is certain is “that academics, not merely in isolated cases but across a broad front, willingly placed their specialist knowledge at the disposal of the Nazi and SS bureaucracy as well as the Wehrmacht”.^[17] In each case, the specific extent of this involvement must be investigated, as has been done in recent years through a series of biographical studies on key figures,^[18] though in many cases this remains to be done.

• Federal Archives, Berlin-Lichterfelde (BArch) R 153: Berlin-Dahlem Publications Office, 1931–1945 (including just under 300 titles relating to the ‘North and East German Research Association’).
• Secret State Archive of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Berlin-Dahlem (GSta PK), VI. Main Department, Rep. 92: Albert Brackmann’s estate (including, in particular, the correspondence volumes of the ‘North and East German Research Association’, Nos. 81–85).

• Martin Burkert: Eastern European Studies in the Third Reich. Part 1: Between Prohibition and Tolerance. The Difficult Balancing Act of Eastern European Studies between 1933 and 1939. Wiesbaden 2000 (Research in Eastern European History 55).
• Michael Burleigh: Germany Turns Eastwards. A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich. Cambridge et al. 1988.
• Gabriele Camphausen: Academic Historical Research on Russia in the Third Reich, 1933–1945. Frankfurt am Main et al. 1990 (European University Publications, Series 3: History and its Auxiliary Sciences 418), pp. 182–212.
• Michael Fahlbusch: Science in the Service of National Socialist Policy? The ‘Ethnic German Research Associations’ from 1931–1945. Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 178–247, 547–590.
• Ingo Haar: Historians under National Socialism. German Historical Scholarship and the ‘Struggle for National Identity’ in the East. Göttingen 2000 (Critical Studies in Historical Scholarship 143), pp. 150–306.
• Ingo Haar: North and East German Research Association. In: Ingo Haar, Michael Fahlbusch, Matthias Berg (eds.): Handbook of Ethnic Studies. People – Institutions – Research programmes – foundations. Munich 2008, pp. 432–443.

[1] Irmtraut Eder-Stein, Kristin Hartisch: Introduction. In: Ibid.: Publikationsstelle Berlin-Dahlem 1931–1945. Fonds R 153. Koblenz 2003 (Findbücher zu Beständen des Bundesarchivs 92). URL: invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/main.xhtml (12 February 2021).

[2] Corinna Unger: Eastern Studies in West Germany. Research into Eastern Europe and the German Research Foundation 1945–1957. Stuttgart 2007 (Studies on the History of the German Research Foundation 1), p. 54.

[3] On the ‘Western idea’ (myśl zachodnia) as the counterpart to Eastern European studies, see Roland Gehrke: The Polish ‘Western idea’ up to the re-establishment of the Polish state after the end of the First World War. The Origins and Justification of Polish Territorial Claims against Germany in the Age of Nationalism. Marburg 2001 (Materials and Studies on East Central European Research 8); Jan M. Piskorski, Jörg Hackmann, Rudolf Jaworski (eds.): German Research on the East and Polish Research on the West: The Tension between Academia and Politics. A Comparative Study of Disciplines. With an afterword by Michael Burleigh. Osnabrück, Poznań 2002 (German Research on the East and Polish Research on the West 1).

[4] BArch R153/6: Scope of responsibilities and mutual relations of the Ethnic German Research Associations and publication offices, as well as the Berlin administrative office (draft), March 1942.

[5] Scope of responsibilities and mutual relations of the Ethnic German Research Associations (note 4).

[6] Camphausen: Scholarly Historical Research on Russia, pp. 201ff.

[7] Unger: Research on the East in West Germany (note 2), p. 54.

[8] For a fundamental discussion of this aspect, which is controversial in its interpretation, see Willi Oberkrome: Volksgeschichte. Methodische Innovation und völkische Ideologisierung in der German Geschichtswissenschaft 1918–1945. Göttingen 1993 (Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 101).

[9] BArch R153/1519: Annual Report of the North and East German Research Association and the Publications Office 1938/39, p. 1. Emphasis in the original.

[10] Fahlbusch: ‘Science in the Service of National Socialist Politics?’, pp. 19–27.

[11] For example, Hans Böhm: ‘The Magic of a Construct. Notes on M. Fahlbusch’s “Science in the Service of National Socialist Politics?”’. In: Geographische Zeitschrift 88 (2000), No. 3/4, pp. 177–196, here p. 193.

[12] Haar: Historians under National Socialism.

[13] Burleigh: Germany Turns Eastwards.

[14] Fahlbusch: ‘Science in the Service of National Socialist Politics?’

[15] Based on Götz Aly, Susanne Heim: Architects of Extermination. Auschwitz and the German Plans for a New European Order. Revised new edition. Frankfurt am Main 2013 (first published 1991). Going beyond this in the examination of specific contributions to the policy of extermination, see Fahlbusch: Science in the Service of National Socialist Politics? and, above all, Haar: Historians under National Socialism.

[16] For example, Burkert: ‘Eastern Studies in the Third Reich’, who seeks to identify a position as either victim or opponent. Largely in agreement with this is Christian Tilitzki: ‘Architects of Extermination?’ New Contributions to the Controversy over ‘Eastern Studies’ and Politics in the Third Reich. In: Yearbook for the History of Central and Eastern Germany 47 (2002), pp. 301–318.

[17] Böhm: *Magie eines Konstruktes* (note 11), p. 194.

[18] See, as two instructive examples among many, Christoph Nonn: Theodor Schieder. A Bourgeois Historian in the 20th Century. Düsseldorf 2013 (Publications of the Federal Archives 73); Eduard Mühle: For the People and the German East. The Historian Hermann Aubin and German Eastern Research. Düsseldorf 2005 (Publications of the Federal Archives 65).

Martin Munke: North and East German Research Association (NOFG). In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2015. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32801 (as at 12 February 2021).