Der Freiheitskampf
The National Socialist newspaper "Der Freiheitskampf" was published nearly daily from August 1st 1930 to Mai 8th 1945. In addition to articles from all areas of politics, economics and society, it contained information on dates, events and persons of regional importance in Saxony during the era of the Third Reich and before. Because of its character as official press organ of the NSDAP in the Gau Saxony, the newspaper is suitable to compensate missing historical evidence caused by the systematic shredding of files in spring 1945 and a lack of documents in Saxon archives. This paper presents a joint project of the Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism at the TU Dresden (HAIT) and the Saxon State and University Library, Dresden (SLUB), which aims to enhance the usability of "Der Freiheitskampf" – not only for scientific purposes. The combined digitization of the (nearly) complete source and its deep indexing result in a presentation in an elaborated database (the years 1930 to 1934 are covered at present). This database provides more effective possibilities for answering scientific (interdisciplinary) questions, not only on the establishment of National Socialist rulership in Saxony. The paper also discusses the possible worth of the usage of the newspaper and its representation in a database for purposes of political education.
