On July 13th, the forestry student council, together with the Heinrich Cotta Club, the Young Forestry Network and the StuRa of the TU Dresden, organized an information evening on the subject of "Fascism in the forest". More than 200 interested guests were present in Tharandt, and many listeners also tuned in to the specialist lectures online. The great interest and the lively discussions show how topical the topic is and that it is important to take responsibility for cosmopolitan and clearly democratically oriented teaching and practice in the forest sector.

The lecture by Dr. Niels Franke classified the activities of forest institutions during the National Socialist era from a scientific perspective and, through original reports, gave a clear impression of the cruel actions of forest administrations and foresters during this time.

Against this historical background, in the second lecture by Henry Lewkowitz, the question of the practice of current culture of remembrance in Germany and especially in Saxony was taken up. This is an indispensable basis for dealing with the current appropriation of forest and nature conservation issues by right-wing extremist groups and parties. We are convinced that this evening provided an important impetus for forestry schools and organizations, but also for all other actors, to be aware of the special responsibility for necessary political commemoration debates today.

None of the organizers in Tharandt are responsible for the stickers that appeared unnoticed during the information evening. We expressly distance ourselves from them and refer to the statement of the responsible WHAT department with the following link: https://www.stura.tu-dresden.de/aktuelles/230719_statement_what .

It is important to the Department of Forest Sciences at the TU Dresden to stand up for a democratic, cosmopolitan and modern self-image among the forestry university members by supporting events like this one. We see it as our duty not only to optimally prepare the foresters of tomorrow for the diverse tasks and complex professional challenges, but also to shape them in the long term, also against the background of worrying extremist tendencies in society, through our self-image described above.

The speakers:
Henry Lewkowitz, chief project consultant for the Human.Nature.Society project, board member of the Network Islamophobia and Racism Leipzig e.V., Show Courage e.V. and the Erich-Zeigner-Haus e.V. 

Dr. Niels Franke, historian, communication scientist and private lecturer for cultural studies at the University of Leipzig with a focus on the topics of homeland, right-wing extremism and forest history; former head of the archive on the history of nature conservation in Germany, and current head of the scientific office in Leipzig.