"Weimar: A Rendezvous with History": The University of Erfurt is taking part!

Propaganda, enlightenment, myths, interpretations of history: the relationship between truth and lies shapes history and our present. In the age of fake news, AI and growing authoritarianism, the struggle for freedom of expression, freedom of the press, academic freedom and artistic freedom is becoming the litmus test of democracy. The festival does not confine itself to a single era: it spans the spectrum from antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment and National Socialism to the GDR and the digital present. As in the previous year, the main venue and festival centre is the “mon ami Youth and Cultural Centre” at Goetheplatz 11 in Weimar.

Programme strands to listen to and take part in:

• Main programme: Panels, readings and discussions at mon ami, including topics such as AI and history, hate speech and conspiracy theories, as well as myths and repressed truths in German family histories.
• Youth Festival: Making its debut in the programme is the “History Games Lab”, featuring two panel discussions on teaching history through games, as well as analogue and digital board games to try out. There will also be a pub quiz on Saturday evening.
• Film screenings with discussions: nine films on the theme – including recent releases and classics, fiction and documentaries. Some will be preceded by introductions, whilst others will be followed by post-screening discussions.
• Days of History: collaborative events with partners across Weimar, including the Museum of Forced Labour under National Socialism, the Bauhaus University Weimar, the Ettersberg Foundation, the Alliance against Right-wing Extremism and the Other Music Academy.
• “Rendez-vous zu Gast in…”: Even in the weeks leading up to the festival, there will be guest events in Buttstädt, Erfurt, Jena and Gera, organised in collaboration with the State Agency for Political Education, the ‘Historians for a Democratic Society’ initiative (hist4dem) and other local partners.

This year’s guests include, amongst others, the journalist Theo Koll, who will open the festival with a talk entitled “Is the truth dying?”; former Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann, who will discuss “Truth and Lies in Politics”; author Rebekka Endler, in conversation about distorted images of women; and historian Jörg Baberowski, in discussion about the crisis of liberal democracy and the public sphere. Andrzej Kacorzyk (Deputy Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum) and Jens-Christian Wagner (Director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation) will speak about AI-generated fakes in Holocaust remembrance. In addition, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” will present its portal for researching the NSDAP party files.

You can find the detailed programme on the event website.