Deutschlandfunk Nova radio broadcasts lectures from the symposium "Schicksalsgemeinschaft - Verlorener Frieden in Europa" organized by Foundations of Sparkasse Leipzig.
Leipzig, 3 December 2024. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the Middle East crisis, the symposium "Schicksalsgemeinschaft - Verlorener Frieden in Europa" ("Community of Fate - Lost Peace in Europe"), organized by Foundations of Sparkasse Leipzig on 8 October 2024, examined German and European options for action. Among the guests at the Leipzig symposium were Professor Sir Christopher Clark, Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University; Professor Emeritus Michael Haller, formerly Professor of General and Specialized Journalism at Leipzig University; and Professor Sönke Neitzel, Professor of Military History / Cultural History of Violence at Potsdam University. The lectures by Professors Clark and Haller will be published this week in the Deutschlandfunk Nova academic podcast Hörsaal and broadcast on Sunday, 8 December 2024, on Deutschlandfunk Nova's linear program.
In his keynote speech, "Europe as a Community of Fate? On the Political Use of History," Professor Sir Christopher Clark explained how a shared European history is repeatedly nationalized in the past and present. He presented national explanatory models for the Europe-wide revolutionary movements of 1848 and their current use for political narratives. According to Clark, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his propaganda machine also regularly use historical narratives. He noted that Russia has returned from the revolutionary view of history of the 20th century to a philosophy rooted in the 18th and 19th centuries, which sees the country as a conservative counterpart to the liberal West. The Cambridge professor's lecture will be available on Deutschlandfunk Nova's "Hörsaal" podcast starting on 5 December 2024, at 6 p.m., and will be broadcast on the station's digital linear program on 8 December 2024, at 7 p.m.
Professor Emeritus Michael Haller, Scientific Director of the European Institute for Journalism and Communication Research (EIJK), gave a lecture on "The Media in War" during the symposium. In his lecture in Leipzig, he explained how the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022, as well as the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, have led to an increased need for information among the German population and an increased use of news media. Media outlets regularly face the question of who has the interpretive authority in war reporting - military personnel or journalists. Using historical examples, Haller demonstrates how media have reported from theaters of war in an independent or embedded role. He also raised the question of the extent to which Western media can provide independent reporting on today's conflicts. Haller's lecture will be published on 6 December 2024, at 6 p.m. in the podcast "Hörsaal" of Deutschlandfunk Nova and can be heard on the station's program on 8 December 2024, at 8 p.m.
These and other lectures, as well as the panel discussion from the symposium, have already been extensively documented on the website of the Foundations of Sparkasse Leipzig. The full lecture by Professor Sönke Neitzel on "The Bundeswehr's Military Capability" and the discussion, which, in addition to the speakers already mentioned, was also attended by Sabine Adler, Eastern Europe correspondent for Deutschland Radio and laureate of the 2024 Prize for Freedom and the Future of the Media; Marika Linntam, Ambassador of the Republic of Estonia to the Federal Republic of Germany; and Major General (ret.) Michael A. Hochwart, Commander of the Bundeswehr Army Training Command in Leipzig until 30 September 2024.