Hubertus Knabe

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Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial Foundation

Historian, Executive Director

Dr. Hubertus Knabe was born in 1959 in Unna. From 1978 to 1983 he studied history and German studies in Bremen and subsequently worked for two years as a press speaker of the Green party´s parliamentary group in Bremen. He then did his Ph. D. on environmental protests in the GDR and Hungary at the Freie Universität in Berlin and spent two years in Budapest for his research project. From 1987 to 1988 Hubertus Knabe worked as lecturer at the University of Bremen and from 1988-1990 as a study director of the Evangelische Akademie Berlin (West). In 1991, he completed his doctorate with a dissertation on "Possibilities and Limitations of Problem Articulation in Socialist Systems. A Comparative Analysis of Environmental Discussions in the GDR and Hungary ". From 1992 to 2000, Dr. Hubertus Knabe worked as research assistant in the research department of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records in Berlin. From 1993-1996 he was a guest lecturer at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Dr. Hubertus Knabe did an intensive research about opposition movements in the GDR and Eastern Europe and published several studies. On behalf of the German Bundestag he researched the Stasi´s operations against the western world, especially the Federal Republic of Germany. His work resulted in the publication of several books. Since 2001 he has been the scientific director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial Foundation on the site of the former central remand prison of the Ministry of State Security. He continues to publish books on GDR history, the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen memorial and the aftermath of the dictatorship in the reunited Federal Republic of Germany. He also publishes reports from victims of the GDR regime. In the year 2009 Dr. Hubertus Knabe was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.