Bocholt City History Discussion Group: "Forbidden Treatment of Germans with Prisoners of War and Forced Labourers 1939-1945".

Dr. Rüdiger Gollnick gives a lecture at the Media Centre on the topic of "Forbidden Treatment of Germans with Prisoners of War and Forced Labourers 1939-1945 - On Research in Gestapo Files in the Rhineland Department of the NRW State Archives

On Thursday, 9 February 2023, the City Archive and the Adult Education Centre (VHS) once again invite you to the Bocholt City History Discussion Group. The guest will be the educationalist and regional historian Dr. Rüdiger Gollnick from Bocholt. He will speak on the topic of "Forbidden Treatment of Prisoners of War and Forced Labourers by Germans 1939-1945" and present the results of his research in Gestapo files in the Landesarchiv NRW Abteilung Rheinland.

With the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, with further campaigns of conquest and with the offensive against the USSR on 22 June 1941, millions of "foreigners" were forcibly brought to Germany. Here they mainly had to fill the gaps for the German men who had been drafted for military service, in agriculture, mining, heavy industry, and later in all sectors: Men and women. These people worked and met German women and men in their everyday working lives, and in some cases lived together with them. This resulted in contacts and relationships that were extremely regulated and forbidden by the Nazi state for racial reasons and were severely punished.

Dr Rüdiger Gollnick worked for many years as a research assistant and lecturer at the Gerhard Mercator University in Duisburg. For over forty years he has worked at the interface of religion, education and philosophy as well as in the spectrum of regional history of the Lower Rhine. His book on the topic "Verbotener Umgang von Deutschen mit Kriegsgefangenen und Zwangsarbeiter/Zwangsarbeiterinnen 1939-1945, an zahlreichen konkreten Fällen dargestellt" was published in 2022.

The discussion group will begin on Thursday, 9 February 2023, at 6.30 p.m. in the Media Centre (Alter Bahnhof), Hindenburgstraße 5. Registration with the VHS Bocholt-Rhede-Isselburg is requested; participation is free. After the lecture, the VHS and the City Archive invite you to a discussion with the speaker. The Bocholt City History Discussion Group takes place in cooperation with the Gesellschaft für historische Landeskunde des westlichen Münsterlandes e.V. (Society for Historical Regional Studies of the Western Münsterland).