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Chris Law

Chris Law is a History PhD student. Chris' project title is entitled 'Defending the Nation or Violating Human Rights? The Autobiographical Memory of Former Border Soldiers of the GDR after 1990'.

6 June 2022

Project Title

Defending the Nation or Violating Human Rights? The Autobiographical Memory of Former Border Soldiers of the GDR after 1990.

Academic Supervisors

Names of Additional Advisors:

  • Dr Sarah Bornhorst (Berlin Wall Foundation)
  • Dr Gerhard Sälter (Berlin Wall Foundation)

Project Description

The border regime of the German Democratic Republic (GDR – East Germany) has been the object of severe criticism in the Western world from the 1960s onwards, when it was made the official military doctrine to prevent all forms of illegal border crossings – by shooting at civilians, if need be. Between 1961 and 1989, 101 people were killed, or died in an accident, while trying to illegally escape over the Berlin Wall. In the 1990s in particular, the legal and political questions around the infamous ‘shoot-to-kill order’ at the inner-German border and its consequences were vividly debated. There were at least 131 court proceedings, both against former leading state representatives as well as against former border soldiers. More than 100 people were sentenced to prison terms or fines. However, compared to the wealth of judicial material available, we know comparatively very little about the perceptions of those former GDR border soldiers who were once on duty at the inner-German border and thus asked to act according to the ‘shoot-to-kill order’.

This project is a Northern Bridge Collaborative Doctoral Award, with the Stiftung Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Foundation) as the non-Higher Education Partner Organisation. The project analyses the connection between politics, collective, and individual memory by exploring a collection of life story interviews with former GDR border soldiers. In light of ongoing debates about the shortcomings of the reunification process and the disregard of East German experiences, it will bring the voices of men which have no recognition in debates about the commemoration of the GDR to the fore. The project explores how they perceived their military service, and how their interpretations changed with the judicial scrutiny and political and media debates about the ‘coming to terms’ in reunified Germany.

Chris Law

Qualifications

BA History (Newcastle University, 2013)

MA European History (Newcastle University, 2014)

Research Grants/Funding Awards:

  • AHRC Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (2021-2025)

Conferences and Publications

Conference Papers

  • Mauer im Kopf? East German Border Guards and the Experience of Re-experience (Postgraduate Forum Conference – Newcastle University, May 2022)
  • Where Were You on the Night of 9 November 1989? East German Border Guards and the Experience of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (German History in the North Workshop – Liverpool John Moores University, June 2022)
  • Defending the Nation or Violating Human Rights? The Autobiographical Memory of Former Border Soliders of the GDR after 1990 (27th Postgraduate Research Students Conference - German Historical Institute London, January 2023)
  • Defending the Nation or Violating Human Rights? The Autobiographical Memory of Former Border Soliders of the GDR after 1990 (PhD to Public - Explore: Lifelong Learning in Newcastle, March 2023)
  • 'A Real Soldier's Marriage': The Katherts – Love Against the Backdrop of Division in East Germany (Newcastle University Modern European History Seminar Series, December 2023)

Workshops Organised

Dealing with Distress: Care-Taking Strategies in History and Memory (Newcastle University, May 2022)

Teaching

HIS2307: Germany and Central Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Lectures and Seminars - Newcastle University, 2022-23 & 2023-24)

Publications

  • Law, Chris, 'Book Review – End Game: The 1989 Revolution in East Germany. By Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk', German History 42:1 (March 2024), 143–145, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad067

Other Roles

Course Representative (Newcastle University, School of History, Classics and Archaeology – History PGR, 2021-23)

Memberships

  • German History Society
  • Young Königswinter Alumni (61st Young Königswinter Conference, 2021)