Hubertus Knabe is a German historian, human rights activist and the scientific director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial is a museum and memorial located in Berlin's north-eastern Lichtenberg district in the locality of Alt-Hohenschönhausen, part of the former borough of Hohenschönhausen...

, a museum and memorial in a notorious former Stasi

Stasi

The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...

 torture prison in Berlin. Knabe is noted for several works on oppression in the former communist states of Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

, particularly in East Germany. He early became involved with Green politics, and was active in the Green Party

Alliance '90/The Greens

Alliance '90/The Greens is a green political party in Germany, formed from the merger of the German Green Party and Alliance 90 in 1993. Its leaders are Claudia Roth and Cem Özdemir...

 in Germany.

Knabe's parents fled East Germany in 1959, and Knabe hence was born and grew up in West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

. His father was the noted ecologist Wilhelm Knabe

Wilhelm Knabe

Dr. Wilhelm Knabe is a noted German ecologist, pacifist, civil servant, politician and a co-founder of the Green Party in Germany. He served as one of three speakers of the Greens at the federal level from November 1982 until December 1984. He also served as the 1. Speaker of the party in the...

, a co-founder and former chairman of the German Greens. Hubertus Knabe was active in the peace movement, and in 1978, he founded a committee in support of Rudolf Bahro

Rudolf Bahro

Rudolf Bahro was a philosopher, political figure and author who was a noted East German dissident and who became a leader of the West German party The Greens...

, a German philosopher imprisoned in East Germany. Because of his political activities, he was declared persona non grata

Persona non grata

Persona non grata , literally meaning "an unwelcome person", is a legal term used in diplomacy that indicates a proscription against a person entering the country...

 in East Germany between 1980 and 1987.

Hubertus Knabe served as press spokesman of the Green Party in Bremen

Bremen

The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...

 from 1983. He obtained a doctoral degree in history at the Freie Universität Berlin.

From 1992 to 2000, he worked in the research department of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives

BStU

The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives is a federal government agency of Germany that preserves and protects the archives and investigates the past crimes of the former Stasi, the secret police and intelligence organization of the communist German Democratic Republic . Since March 2011,...

.

In 2001, he was appointed scientific director of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial.

Hubertus Knabe is committed to a consistent work on coming to terms with the Communist crimes committed on German soil: "Not until the Communist dictatorship is as firmly in mind in Germany as the criminal regime of the National Socialists will we really have succeeded in coming to terms with the legacy of Stasi Minister Erich Mielke

Erich Mielke

Erich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist politician and Minister of State Security—and as such head of the Stasi —of the German Democratic Republic between 1957 and 1989. Mielke spent more than a decade as an operative of the NKVD during the rule of Joseph Stalin...

".

Hubertus Knabe has called for a more outspoken anti-communism

Anti-communism

Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 in German society, and has particularly called upon the SPD

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 party to identify with its anti-communist tradition as part of its democratic legacy. He has pointed out that social democrats were the first victims of the communist dictatorship in East Germany. Every democrat is an anti-communist, according to Knabe.

Publications

• (under the pseudonym "Klaus Ehring") Schwerter zu Pflugscharen. Friedensbewegung in der DDR. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1982, ISBN 3-499-15019-0 (with Ulrich Mickan, under the pseudonym "Martin Dallwitz")
• Aufbruch in eine andere DDR. Reformer und Oppositionelle zur Zukunft ihres Landes. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, ISBN 3-499-12607-9
• Umweltkonflikte im Sozialismus. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen gesellschaftlicher Problemartikulation in sozialistischen Systemen. Eine vergleichende Analyse der Umweltdiskussion in der DDR und Ungarn. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-8046-8791-1
• West-Arbeit des MfS. Das Zusammenspiel von „Aufklärung“ und „Abwehr“. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86153-182-8
• Die unterwanderte Republik. Stasi im Westen. Propyläen, Berlin 1999. paperback edition: ISBN 3-548-36284-2
• Der diskrete Charme der DDR. Stasi und Westmedien. Propyläen, Berlin 2001. paperback edition: ISBN 3-548-36389-X
• 17. Juni 1953. Ein deutscher Aufstand. Propyläen, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-549-07182-5
• Stätten der DDR-Diktatur. Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, Forschungs- und Gedenkstätte Normannenstraße, AlliiertenMuseum, Deutsch-Russisches Museum Karlshorst, Erinnerungsstätte Notaufnahmelager Marienfelde, Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie u.a.. Jaron, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89773-225-4
• Der verbotene Stadtteil. Stasi-Sperrbezirk Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Jaron, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89773-506-7 (with Peter Erler)
• Tag der Befreiung? Das Kriegsende in Ostdeutschland. Propyläen, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-549-07245-7
• Die Täter sind unter uns. Über das Schönreden der SED-Diktatur. Propyläen, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3549073025
• Gefangen in Hohenschönhausen. Stasihäftlinge berichten (editor). List Taschenbuch, 2007, ISBN 978-3548607412
• Honeckers Erben. Die Wahrheit über Die Linke. Propyläen, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-549-07329-2