Reiner and Elisabeth Kunze Foundation: New ways of memory opened!

Reiner and Elisabeth Kunze Foundation: New ways of memory opened!

The website of the Reiner and Elisabeth Kunze Foundation has recently been online and offers comprehensive information about its foundation purpose, the foundation couple, the foundation archive, the foundation team, as well as current projects, events and publications. This is reported by the University of Passau . The foundation is dedicated to the work of the renowned poet Reiner Kunze, who has enriched the cultural memory through its literary contributions. A central concern of the foundation is to secure historical documents and objects and thus make the values of freedom, liberal democracy tangible.

In October 2023, the bilingual hiking exhibition "I married the Czech language. Reiner and Elisabeth Kunze" opened in the university library. In the coming summer, more precisely in the period from May 2025, the exhibition will be shown for the first time in the Czech Republic, in the Moravian State Library in BRNO. In the meantime, the exhibition is reopened on March 9, 2025 in Greiz, in the presence of the Minister of Culture for Thuringia, Christian Tischner.

Current projects and plans

From 2019 to 2022, comprehensive digitization work of the foundation archive was realized at the Chair for Computational Humanities at the University of Passau. In addition, the foundation plans to establish a research and practice laboratory that deals with living environments in dictatorships and democracies. A central educational offer from the laboratory will focus on human rights in the formation of teachers. At the same time, stories are to be brought to life in order to counter totalitarian company designs.

Another planned step is to convert the homes of the founder couple in Obernzell-Erlau into an exhibition and documentation house. This will help to pass on the commitment of the founders and the treasures of their life story.

data protection and digital services

The website of the Reiner and Elisabeth Kunze Foundation is not only a source of information, but also an example of contemporary data protection. The page uses SSL and TLS encryption to ensure confidentiality. The user data is processed under the strict requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Among other things, those affected can request information about their stored data and have it corrected or deleted if necessary, as described in detail on the Official website

Contact options are available for inquiries by email, telephone or fax, whereby the data collected is saved in accordance with the guidelines until the deletion. The website also uses Google Analytics to analyze user behavior, whereby IP-anonymization is active to further ensure data protection.