New employee in the Contemporary History & Human Rights Section

For many years Rene Wennmacher has been interested in German-Polish relations and cooperation as well as in the history of National Socialism in German-occupied Europe, especially with a focus on the fates in Poland 1939-1945. For this reason, during his studies – Polish as a foreign language and history at the University of Potsdam and at the Uniwersytet Jagielloński in Kraków/Krakow – he completed various activities in German and Polish institutions that deal with the respective culture of remembrance as well as historical-political educational work (including the German Embassy in Warsaw, the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, the Polish Institute in Berlin). In 2020, he was awarded the "If not for those ten" prize by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum for his volunteer work there.

Remembering the victims of National Socialism is a matter particularly close to his heart. He was further trained as an academic volunteer at the Flossenbürg concentration camp memorial for work at museums and memorials and was allowed to set his own content-related focus on Poland in historical-civil educational work.

As a Junior Project Manager in the  Contemporary History & Human Rights Section, Rene Wennmacher will co-shape the educational activities in the Kreisau-Initiative and manage the programmes International Criminal Court (MICC), Roots and Borders and Uprooted.