Wanderausstellung #ChallengingDemocracy – Von Helmut Schmidt bis heute

In the organizer's words:

#Challenging Democracy - From Helmut Schmidt to today

How do we master globalization, digitalization and climate change? How can we make our lives and economies more sustainable and society more socially just? And how do we counter those who offer overly simple answers to these complex questions? Democracy challenges us every day. At the same time, preserving it means making use of the freedom and opportunities it offers us all.

Exhibition builds a bridge from the past to the present

Helmut Schmidt was Federal Chancellor in times of upheaval. These changes posed problems for politics, society and the economy alike. People were already passionately discussing many of the issues that concern us now 50 years ago. Solutions had to be negotiated then and still have to be today: In parliament, at the kitchen table, on the street, with heart and mind, persistently and willing to compromise, with visionary strength and pragmatic action. Democracy requires all of this - and all of us.

What's it all about?

On approx. 120 square meters, in nine stations, with over 100 photos, documents and historical film footage, a model railroad and a hamster, we invite you to see for yourself the political and social debates of the 1960s to 1980s. Who was arguing and how:

• Finite resources and energies of the future: how sustainable is democracy?
• Rearmament and peace policy: What protects democracy?
• The social question and economic policy decisions: How social is democracy?
• Emergency laws and the Red Army Faction: What threatens democracy?

A biographical station is dedicated to the person of Helmut Schmidt. We show important stages of his political and private life, take a look behind the scenes of political staging and explore the many images of Schmidt that continue to have an impact today.