Public History | Completed Projects

Abgeschlossenes Praxisprojekt 
von Studierenden des Masterstudienganges Public History der Freien Universität Berlin/ZZF Potsdam und in Kooperation mit der ZLB und dem BBWA
Mit dem Berliner Chic der 1920er Jahren erhob sich die Hauptstadt der Weimarer Republik zu internationalen Modemetropole. Berlin Chic fragt nach den Gründen dieses Erfolgs.
Die Ergebisse ihrer Forschungsarbeit haben die Studierenden in einem 4-teiligen Podcast veröffentlicht. 

Completed project 
The project provided a deep comparative look at how Americans and Germans have dealt with their difficult pasts, their memory cultures, policies, and current challenges like racism and growing antisemitism.  About 50 scholars and teachers, museum curators and other public historians, people working in foundations and NGOs from the United States and Germany went on two week-long “tours” in 2025.

Completed interview and virtual exhibition project
The project commemorated the non-violent withdrawal of the Soviet armed forces from East Germany in 1994 — a pivotal moment that symbolised the conclusion of the Cold War and stands as a unique occurrence in the annals of armed conflicts. The focus was on the social reappraisal and reuse of the military areas left behind. The project used interviews with contemporary witnesses and experts, as well as a participatory online exhibition, to explore the political, ecological, and cultural memory dimensions of this change. The online exhibition “Neues Land ohne Krieg" was opened on October 15, 2025.

Completed Digital exhibition project
with students of the Master's program Public History (FU Berlin/ZZF Potsdam)

The FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum in Berlin has an extensive collection of historical postcards from and about the Berlin district of Kreuzberg before 1945. In a digiS-funded project entitled ‘The Peter Plewka Collection - Kreuzberg before 1945 in historical postcards’ public history students develloped an online presentation of selected postcards. The students presented the maps they have selected and told the story or stories associated with them.

Students on the Master's programme in Public History (FU/ZZF) have developed an audio walk through Berlin's Volkspark Friedrichhain under the direction of Irmgard Zündorf.

Exhibition project/Multimedia traveling exhibition
(Bad Freienwalde, Berlin, Weimar, Hamburg)
The exhibition explores the uprisings, assassinations and attempted coups in the early years of the Weimar Republic. Eight perspectives illustrate how extremists and separatists brought Germany to the brink of civil war.

Completed associated Research Study
The project "Keibelstraße" examined the former East Berlin headquarters of the Volkspolizei (PdVP) near the Alexanderplatz. The study focused on individual units of the DVP, which conducted investigations of so-called "Republikfluchten".

Completed Website project
with students of the Master's program Public History (FU Berlin/ZZF Potsdam)
Together with a film team, students of the Master Public History program (FU Berlin/ZZF Potsdam) conducted interviews with the "Initiativgruppe Internierungslager Ketschendorf" and created material for a Website, that provide information about the special camp.

Completed PhD project
The project examined the debates on the possible restitution of cultural objects to their countries of origin as part of decolonization and North-South relations between the late 1960s and 1980s.

Four students of the Master Public History programme (FU Berlin/ZZF Potsdam) and a two-person film team from the TH Ostwestfalen-Lippe preserved and digitised the unique history of the GDR History Museum in this completed documentation and interview project. The aim of the project was a virtual tour of the museum.