Berghof Foundation: 50 years of conflict transformation

Addressing the
long legacy of
violent pasts
History
memory
reconciliation
One might venture to say that no German
organisation with a mission to build peace and
transform conflict can do so without a firm rooting
in lessons on how to rebuild from a violent past.
When the Berghof Foundation was established in
1971, it was in part a response to knowing about
the devastation that war brings, and the ensuing
responsibility to find better, nonviolent ways. In
his memoirs, the Berghof Foundation’s founder
Georg Zundel writes: “The violent confrontation
of the Second World War, which took place during
my childhood and youth, had a decisive impact on
me. It resulted in my resistance to rearmament,
my involvement in the anti-nuclear movement and
finally the establishment of the Berghof Foundation
for Conflict Research. [...] Our youth today lacks
such experiences. It therefore seems to me to be
of the utmost importance to raise awareness of
the conflicts smoldering in society and to work out
strategies that will make it possible to resolve these
conflicts peacefully.”
It is practically in the Berghof Foundation’s
DNA to engage conceptually and practically with
the role of the past in conflict transformation, even
if it has not always dominated the topical headlines
of our work over the decades. In recent years, from
peace education to peace mediation, it is becoming
apparent just how essential it is to understand the
history of past violence and its representation in the
present in order to peacefully transform conflict.
Writing in 2021, dealing with the past, reconciliation
and, indeed, transitional justice are all highly
differentiated fields of expertise. At their core,
however, the transformational challenge is the
same for all: how to rebuild relationships, and trust,
between individuals, between communities, and
between citizens and their state(s). The remainder
of this short essay therefore highlights some of
the key encounters — the memory of three lasting
relationships — that have affected, and continue to
inspire, our approach.
From 2005 to 2008, the then Berghof
Research Center Director David Bloomfield — from
Belfast, Northern Ireland — shaped a commitment
to practicality, pragmatism and critical distinction.
His seminal report On Good Terms in 2006 talks
about ‘political reconciliation’: “This does not require
forgiveness or mutual love. It begins as grudging
coexistence and, by gradually nurturing basic respect
both for new institutions and for former enemies,
aims to develop the habits of operating the shared
processes and institutions of society and of politics.”
This chimes today, for example, with our work in
Somalia on reconciliation dialogues.
In 2007/2008, Israeli Professor Dan Bar-
On spent time as a guest researcher at the Berghof
Research Center, and instilled the importance of
clear questioning, engagement within each side
in conflict and the painstaking work of trust and
confidence-building. Berghof Handbook Dialogue 11
on transforming war-related identities is dedicated
to his memory. The history textbook of Israeli and
Palestinian parallel memories, Side by Side — a prime
example of peace education, which a team at Berghof
translated into a German workbook — exemplifies
the complexity of historical memories and their
interface with education and peacebuilding. His work
resonates to this day in our approach to biographical
storytelling and history dialogues in the Caucasus.
A final relationship serves to underscore
the transformative potential of being moved by
remarkable stories and people. In 2006, Jo Berry
and Patrick Magee visited the Berghof Center, then
located in the quaint green surroundings of Berlin’s
Dahlem district. Pat Magee, an IRA member, had
planted the bomb in the Grand Hotel in Brighton
that killed Jo’s father, a British Conservative MP,
in 1984. They have opened their encounters and
dialogues of forgiveness to the public, and back then,
a Berghof audience witnessed the remarkable force
of reconciliation in the making: an uneasy, fragile and
powerful example of peer learning.
In the decade beginning in 2021, Dealing
with the Past explicitly makes it to the forefront of
our strategic agenda of practice, education and
research. Whether in Georgia-Abkhazia, Ethiopia,
Somalia, Germany or other settings, our work
on dealing with the past emphasises community
perspectives on justice and reconciliation after
violence, recognising the empathy and strength as
well as the pragmatism and humility required. We
take a keen interest in history dialogues and the role
of history narratives, divisive or uniting, in mediation
and dialogue at the political level.
116
117