German connections with the Syrian secret services and its repressive regime go back a long way. After the Second World War, Nazi officers from the Wehrmacht and the SS evaded German and international justice and fled to Syria. Among them was Alois Brunner, who, under Adolf Eichmann, was jointly responsible for the deportation and murder of six million European Jews and who lived in Syria under a false name from 1954 onwards, later working as an adviser to the Syrian secret services.

From the mid-1960s onwards, the SED leadership in the GDR began to intensify relations with Syria. The GDR supported Syria by supplying weapons and surveillance technology. The Stasi trained the “political police.” These connections are often described as having shaped the structure of Syria’s security architecture. 

The event is part of the current exhibition “SEDNAYA. The Architecture of Repression and Death in Syria” will shed light on these German connections and links based on the research findings of two academics. Dr Noura Chalati (Berlin) and Thora Pindus (University of Marburg) will provide insights into their work on the connections and intermediaries involved in everything from the support of fugitive Nazis and the establishment of the Syrian security apparatus to the cooperation between the Stasi and the Syrian secret services, and will re-evaluate certain narratives. Dr Elke Stadelmann-Wenz (Head of Research at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial) will chair this event.

The event is being held in cooperation with medico international, the Prisons Museum, the Leibniz Centre for Modern Oriental Studies and the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial. The event will be held in German, with simultaneous interpretation into Arabic.

Registration via the Kontaktformular or via veranstaltungen(at)stiftung-hsh.de