About us
In 1979, a non-profit association called “Documentation Center for War Events and Peace Work Sievershausen e.V.” was founded to set up and operate the Anti-War House. Its mission is to “encourage peace work for Christian and humanitarian reasons, to carry out and promote peace work itself” and to work for “international understanding and peaceful coexistence”.
The volunteers and full-time employees in the house have been trying to fulfill this purpose, which is set out in the statutes, under changing conditions ever since and were able to celebrate the association’s 40th anniversary in May 2019.
Our understanding of peace and peace work
As an Anti-War House, we are not – contrary to what the name might suggest – primarily against something, but we are for something, namely peace. Peace as a value, peace as a practice, peace as a utopia! Nevertheless, the name was deliberately chosen by the initiators of the institution in order to permanently discredit war as an apparent means of political conflict.
In our work, Christian and humanistic motives, beliefs and considerations on the value of peace, the object of peace itself, as well as the practical conditions of peace and paths to peace are in constant dialogue.
Peace is tied to conditions that we address in our work and try to convey:
Peace is based on respect for human dignity and respect for and protection of the natural resources of life.
Peace needs a rule-based conflict resolution in which the conflicting parties respect the personal integrity and interests of the other party.
Peace needs justice, not power and strength as a norm of action. This implies the search for just conflict solutions that are acceptable and legitimate for all.
Peace needs freedom with responsibility: Respect for the freedom of others and responsibility in exercising one's own freedom towards fellow human beings as well as the environment and resources are the foundations for sustainable peace.
Peace needs foresight: decisions can have long-term effects. Therefore, peace is not possible in the long term without taking the needs of future generations into account.
At the same time, the issue of peace remains a constant challenge; previous answers must be reviewed and new answers found under constantly changing conditions, such as globalization. Which peace is fair to people and can therefore be called a just peace? How do we achieve peace?
Our understanding of peace establishes a responsibility for peace as a human being, citizen and Christian, which does not end at our own doorstep. Peace must be worked for and committed to. Peace work in this sense includes commitment to peace ethics, peace policy and peace practice.
Peace work thrives on constant curiosity as the key to productive, cooperative interaction with one another and to constructive handling of conflicts that are part of life. If we resolve arguments and conflicts with mutual respect and with the ability to doubt ourselves, conflicts can also help us move forward - precisely because they help us to question what we take for granted and to learn about and develop new ideas. Curiosity also means getting involved with one another, listening to one another, looking for and discovering what we have in common. But also developing together and creating perspectives for living together.
Peace work requires creativity and a sense of reality in equal measure in order to find ways to peace, hope, despite all the sobering confrontation with reality. It requires attentiveness, kindness and the willingness to reconcile, patience, and can only succeed if it is done with joy and confidence, despite all the responsibility.
The Anti-War House Sievershausen as a place of peace as a civil society and political voice
The Anti-War House in the Peace and Nail Cross Center Sievershausen sees itself as a meeting and event location in the middle of Lower Saxony and, as a place of peace for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, promotes social and political debate on issues relating to peace ethics, peace policy and peace practice. Our supra-regional networking and international contacts enable an important bridging function between the local and global aspects of peace work. We support ways of peacefully resolving conflicts and contribute to a culture of peace by addressing the following topics:
Dealing with wars and conflicts, their causes, forms of conflict and consequences
Potential for peaceful conflict resolution
Human rights issues
Advocating for the victims ofViolence and human rights violations
Culture of remembrance and historical awareness: responsibility before history - responsibility for the future
Dealing with xenophobia, anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism
Perspectives on ecological sustainability
We see it as our responsibility and task to get involved in the social and political discussion and to take a public position. In our role as a political and social actor, we see ourselves as an advocate and voice for the realization of opportunities and possibilities for peaceful conflict resolution and the strengthening of civil conflict resolution skills and resources
against the violation of human rights and for people in war and emergency situations
for the creation and preservation of a political and social culture capable of peace
against the destruction of our natural livelihoods and for ecologically sustainable forms of life and economy.
We repeatedly express our opinions on selected issues at public events, in our publications and to the media. We can strengthen our voice by appearing together with partners and working in networks to define common positions. This applies in particular within the Action Community Service for Peace (AGDF), but also within the initiative 'Church for Democracy - against Right-Wing Extremism' (IKDR) in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover or at the local level in the Lehrter 'Alliance against the Right'. Partners for our remembrance work are the Bergen-Belsen Working Group and the Remembrance and Future Network in the Hanover region. Since 2014, together with the Evangelical Lutheran St. Martin's Parish, we have been a member of the worldwide reconciliation community of the Cross of Nails in Coventry.
Other decidedly ecclesiastical and ecumenical aspects of our work include our participation in the Action Group for Justice, Peace and the Preservation of Creation, and we participate in the preparation and implementation of the annual ecumenical forums. In 2010/2011 there was intensive collaboration at various points in the regional church's preparation for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Jamaica at the end of the Decade to Overcome Violence, including collaboration on the regional church's working materials and the organization of a peace festival. There is regular collaboration at peace services in the Market Church in Hanover.
For many years we have had our own stand at the Protestant and Ecumenical Church Days.
Representatives of the Sievershausen Documentation Center on War Events and Peace Work appear publicly as discussion participants or as impulse providers for third parties.
The Chronicle of Sievershausen Encouragement
When the plan was made in 1988 to erect a monument of thanks for living humanity in front of the Anti-War House, for all those who helped those persecuted during the Nazi dictatorship, the idea of a Sievershausen Peace Prize was born at the same time as an encouragement for people who, as individuals or in groups, are committed to peace and human rights in modern times. The date for the "award ceremony" was to be December 10, the day on which the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was implemented in 1948.
According to Klaus Rauterberg, the initiators initially viewed this first peace prize as an "attempt," but one that should be repeated at least once. The most important partner in supporting the peace prize, endowed with a total of 4,500 DM in its first edition, was the Action Group Service for Peace from the start. In the following years, the Sievershausen Documentation Center for War Events and Peace Work Association also received support from the Evangelical Lutheran Church District of Burgdorf and from Sievershausen citizens and business people.
1988 The thematic focus of the first call for entries was the commemoration of the victims of the November pogroms on the 50th anniversary of November 9, 1938. The first recipient of the Sievershausen Peace Prize, which was only given the name Sievershausen Encouragement in the call for entries for 1992, was Gerhild Birmann-Dähne from Zeitlofs, who won the Peace Prize for her photo exhibition "House of Eternal Life" about the remains and traces of Jewish cemeteries "somewhere and nowhere in Germany and Israel".
In 1990, at the time of the unification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR, the fight against racism and xenophobia was the focus of the Peace Prize. Once again, there were several award winners, including the Cabana group from the eastern part of Berlin, which had set up a meeting place for foreigners in the Protestant Bartholomäus congregation to counteract the isolation of foreign citizens, and the German section of Amnesty International.
In 1992, the focus was on reconciliation and understanding between Germany and the peoples of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The war in the crumbling Yugoslavia increasingly influenced the work of the Anti-War House and also the choice of award winners; this year, the Suncokret group (Croatia) and with it the Dutch peace activist Wam Kat were awarded the prize.
In 1994, the debate about deserters and conscientious objectors came into focus, still a hot topic in political discussions in German society almost fifty years after the end of the Second World War. Ludwig Baumann, the chairman of the Federal Association of Victims of Nazi Military Justice, was at the head of those honored for his long-term commitment to former Wehrmacht deserters and those who undermine military strength. The Berlin Peace Library/Anti-War Museum hosted an exhibition on the same topic, "Destruction and Redemption."
In 1996, the problem of arms exports and the contamination of large parts of the world with landmines was addressed. Jesuit priest Jörg Alt was honored for his work as coordinator of the "German Initiative for the Prohibition of Landmines."
The Federal Congress of Development Action Groups (BUKO) was honored for the "Stop Arms Exports" campaign.
In 1998, mediation and civil conflict resolution were the topic, and not just because of the war on our doorstep. Prize winners included the German branch of Peace Brigades International, the KURVE educational and meeting center (Wustrow), the Halle Peace Circle, Father Sava Jancic and the monks of the Serbian Orthodox Decani Monastery in Kosovo, who have repeatedly striven for the peaceful coexistence of Serbs and Albanians and offered their Albanian neighbors protection from persecution by the Milosevic militias within the monastery walls.
In 2000 there was only one award-winning organization, and the topic of former Yugoslavia was still a popular issue. The prize winner was a joint youth project by the towns of Burgdorf (Hannover region), Rheden (Netherlands) and Cheb (Czech Republic), who worked with young Bosnians in Fojnica in central Bosnia on the cultural and social reconstruction of the small town that had been heavily fought over during the war.
In 2003 our work focus on remembrance and reconciliation again determined the theme of encouragement. This year's Peace Prize winner was Jürgen Kumlehn from Wolfenbüttel, whose main job is at the Neu-Erkerode Diaconal Institutions. He compiled the history of the Jews of Wolfenbüttel and presented it in a book that was published this year.
In 2006, the Sievershausen Encouragement was announced for a successful and convincing contribution to practical peace work in the Caucasus. Taita Junusova was selected as the winner and honored by Rupert Neudeck in an impressive laudation.
In 2008, the problem of child soldiers was our main focus. Around 300,000 boys and girls are constantly abused as soldiers around the world. The MADAM project from Sierra Leone was encouraged, which is successfully working to rehabilitate former child soldiers from the civil war with the support of BREAD FOR THE WORLD.
In 2010, the young radio journalist María Isabel Gámez from the Cabañas department in El Salvador was supported. Most recently, she was head of the news department at Radio Victoria. For her station, she reported on environmental crimes in mining, social grievances, human rights violations and corruption.
In 2012, the Sievershäuser Ermutigung 2012 was awarded to the Christian grassroots community Bread & Roses and the Diaconal Migration Work for people with unclear residence status DiaMiPA, initiatives that are committed to the rights of people without papers in an outstanding way. People who fled from intolerable conditions in their home countries and find themselves in equally intolerable conditions here.
In 2014, the forumZFD was awarded to an organization that successfully and exemplary advocates for civil, non-violent conflict resolution on a national and international level. The award is also intended to remind us that military operations, arms exports and the logic of war do not create peace.
2016 AMICA e.V. from Freiburg was honored for its committed advocacy for women and girls who suffer from trauma in war and conflict zones and are supported in processing this and leading self-determined lives again.
The Sievershausen Encouragement 2018 is for initiatives and individuals who distinguish themselves through concrete contributions and/or a special journalistic profile in the area of reporting on conflicts, conflict management or peace processes.
Journalism has a special responsibility in confusing times. The selection of topics, the way they are presented and the presentation of the facts have a decisive influence on our image of the world. The subject area of conflict and peace is particularly susceptible to propaganda, sensationalist journalism and media trends. A differentiated and long-term journalistic perspective is required in order to adequately accompany conflict and peace processes and thus strengthen our understanding of complex issues.
The Culture Counts Foundation from Weinstadt near Stuttgart is being honored for a network of projects in which committed reporters, photographers and peace educators produce good, in-depth reports from crisis and conflict regions, prepare them didactically (together with the Berghof Foundation) and make them available for the educational sector. A magazine published by them - MUT Magazine for Solutions - brings together information and reports on various topics from conflict regions and is distributed in large numbers as a supplement to reputable newspapers. An exhibition by the initiative called PEACE COUNTS was also on display in the rooms of the Anti-War House.
The jury emphasized in its justification that the activities of the Culture Counts Foundation are impressive due to their diversity, their wide reach and their solution-oriented approach, which does not leave one baffled by the complexity and injustices in the world, but encourages peace work.
"Constructive journalism" with its claim to go beyond describing problems in reporting and to research solutions in a targeted manner makes an important contribution to painting a differentiated and realistic picture of a globalized world. This form of peace reporting opens up new perspectives and provides impetus for a constructive approach to dealing with crises and conflicts by showing how people can work together for peace, reconciliation and practical conflict resolution even under the most difficult conditions. At the same time, the variety of formats produced, from print and online reports to radio and television documentaries to the creation of didactically prepared peace education materials, ensures a high level of public impact.
