Beschlussregister. Institutionalisation in the GDR

In the research project "Beschlussregister" ("resolutions registry"), an extensive inventory of files of Jugendhilfe Potsdam (Youth Welfare Service Potsdam) is collected and its contents made accessible for research. For the years 1966 to 1989, the complete registries of resolutions of the Jugendhilfeausschuss (Committee on Youth Welfare) are currently available in their original, unprocessed state. This allows a nearly exhaustive overview of its areas and focus of activity over a period of more than 20 years.

The existing official GDR statistics and historical investigations about institutionalisations and other measures of youth welfare services, as well as specific individual cases, are therefore to be supplemented by a local, temporally broad overview. 

The project's aim is to gather the information from the files in a depersonalised database and to locate main areas which offer a wide fund for further research.

Questions to the registry of resolutions are: Which categories can be identified in motives? Which rationales can be decoded? Which inferences can be made about specific social problem situations? Which conclusions can be drawn about attempts of political repression?

The inventory of files will be systematically reviewed and analysed according to the research question.

The project is funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Federal State of Brandenburg and realised in cooperation with the Union der Opferverbände kommunistischer Gewaltherrschaft e.V..