German-Czech Textbook Commission

By assuring regular scientific and didactic analysis of history textbooks on both sides, the commission aims to improve the content of textbooks, render them more compatible, and ultimately work towards establishing better communication between German and Czech people. The commission meets yearly alternating between Germany and the Czech Republic. There is an academic conference every two years hosted by each country in turn, and in the years in between a small annual meeting is also held by each country in turn.

In December 2010 the workshop took place at the Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig. Among other things, the commission reviewed how much progress had made on the current project, a German-Czech teachers’ manual on shared history. Commission members have participated in creating this manual that is being developed by the German Collegium Carolinum in Munich. The commission decided that the requirements needed for a shared German-Czech textbook could not be met, especially when compared to the German-Polish history textbook that is currently being developed by the GEI. The commission therefore agreed that a teachers’ manual would be a more suitable and future oriented project.

The commission also had the chance to review their last academic conference that had taken place in December 2009 at the Thüringer Institut für Lehrerfortbildung, Lehrplanentwicklung und Medien (ThILLM) in Bad Berka (Institute for Teacher Training, Curriculum Development and Media, Thuringia). This 11th German-Czech textbook conference dealt with the subject ‘History Lessons, Historical Awareness and Cultivating History in the Czech Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany’ [see report].  The report will be published in Czech soon. The next conference is expected to take place in early 2012 where the commission will discuss ‘History Lessons Between mass Media, Textbooks and Teaching Materials’.

The History of the Commission

The discussion of German-Czech textbooks was launched in 1967 at the initiative of the UNESCO commissions from the ČSSR and the Federal Republic of Germany. In the same year, a conference took place in Braunschweig. The main topics discussed were the Reformation and the Hussite movement, as well as the renaissance of national feelings up until 1848. Following the repression of the “Prague Spring” in 1968, the conferences were broken off. At the initiative of two pioneers of German-Czech understanding, Professor Ferdinand Seibt and Professor Hans Lemberg, the History Commission for the Sudetenland regions addressed the topic of textbooks at two conferences in 1976 and1977 in order to “fill the gap” until official meetings became possible again. During this era of so called ‘normalisation’ in the CSSR, Czech and Slovak academics were only able to take part at these conferences if they were exiles living in the ‘West’. The results of these conferences are published as volume 28 of the Institute’s series.

It took another decade, until 1987, for the trilateral contacts to resume between Czechs, Slovaks and Germans. At a textbook conference in Prague in 1988, problems concerning the portrayal of shared relations during the 19th and 20th centuries in Czechoslovakian and German school textbooks were discussed. One year later, a conference in Braunschweig dealt with the Czech, Slovak and German national movements. At a third conference in Prague in 1990, “The Epoch of Imperialism, World War, and Revolution in Both Countries (1871-1918)” was examined.

Due to the personal and organizational restructuring which occurred as a consequence of the dissolution of the ČSFR, talks did not resume until 1994 (now in the form of a purely German-Czech partnership). At a fourth conference in 1994, which took place in Braunschweig and a fifth one 1995 in Prague, the chronological revisiting of German-Czechoslovak relations were resumed. The topics included “German-Czechoslovakian Relations until the Mid-Thirties,” and “Czechs, Germans, and World War II”. Following this conference series, it was decided to follow up on questions pertaining to “The Nation-State in School Textbooks.” Two conferences have dealt with this topic so far. The question addressed at the 1997 conference in Braunschweig was: “The Nation - Awakened, Born, Overcome, Destroyed, Revived…or simply Constructed? School Textbook Historiography and its Assessment of the Nation-State.” The seventh German-Czech school textbook conference, which took place in Prague in 1999, was entitled “Is the Nation Finally at Rest? Czechs and Germans Reflect on their Relationship toward the Nation-State.”

In September 2000, the Czech section of the Cooperative German-Czech Commission for School Textbooks was institutionalized. The Czech Minister of Education appointed several professors from the Charles University in Prague, and pedagogues from Pilsen to this commission. In 2002, the German-Czech Textbook Commission held its formal foundation meeting in Dresden after 35 years of joint work. The subject for the first joint conference under new auspices, the 8th German-Czech textbook conference in Podebrady, was ‘The Period of National Socialism in History Lessons’. The conference talked about similarities between the daily life of the Czechs and the Germans in the GDR at that time and the various relationships between Czechoslovakians and GDR citizens, as well as about the problem of bringing this part of history nearer to today’s pupils. This was also the first time that the commission focussed on a research field that was not directly connected to a history of conflict. 

After a special request from the Czech side who were looking for possible synergy effects for lessons in literary and artistic school subjects, the topic ‘Parallels, Connections and Opposites in the Cultural Development of Czechoslovakia and Germany, 1918-1945: Examples and Suggestions for Interdisciplinary Teaching Projects’ was presented in Bautzen in 2005. Franz Kafka and his circle, for instance, show that this is also a very interesting subject for the German side as well. 

The 10th German-Czech textbook conference in October 2007 in Pardubice marks the (temporary) end in this chronological ‘run through’ the shared past of our two countries. The conference on ‘Landmark Years 1968/1989: Political and Social Movements, Aims, and Results in a German-Czechoslovakian-European Comparison’ [see report]. The conference is already available in German and will be published in Czech shortly.