Associated research project

The project reconstructed the history of the Liebknecht Portal from newspaper articles, eyewitness reports, literary depictions, construction files and planning sketches – from the appearance of the workers’ leaders in front of the Palace entrance to the presentation of the balcony scene in the GDR’s interpretation of history.

Twitter-Project (2013/14)
Project coordination at the ZZF: Dr. Hans-Hermann Hertle

From 19 August to 12 November 2014, the tweets, wherever possible in real-time, told the breathtaking events on the road to the peaceful revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall: a. o.from the massive emigration of East German citizens and the problems of the diplomats in the overcrowded West German embassies in Prague and else where, the swelling citizens' protests and demonstrations in East Germany, up to the super-GAU in the history of the press conferences on 9 November 1989, the breakthrough of the Berlin Wall and the two days after.

Container exhibitions October and November 2010 | Berlin
Completed Coolaborative Project of the ZZF with the Public History Master`s program (FU Berlin/ZZF Potsdam)

Container exhibitions provided information on the history of migration using the example of Berlin. The Network Migration, a platform of academics and practitioners in the field of migration and integration, was instrumental in realising this collaborative project on the fiftieth anniversary of the recruitment agreements with Turkey.

Online-Dokumentation
www.reiseland-brandenburg.de/erinnerungsorte
Completed Collaborative Project: ZZF Potsdam in cooperation with TMB Tourism Marketing Brandenburg GmbH

Thirty-two places of remembrance in Brandenburg from the period of the Nazi dictatorship from 1933 to 1945 and the SBZ/DDR dictatorship from 1945-1989/90 were presented in short information texts by scientists from the ZZF Potsdam.

2.-3. Dezember 2019 | Bochum
Ziel des Workshops war neben dem gemeinsamen Austausch zwischen den verschiedenen Studienangeboten die Entwicklung konkreter Impulse für die (Weiter)entwicklung derselben.

Exhibition project - information stelae
Open to the public since October 2017

Fourteen information steles at selected locations on the grounds of the Waldsiedlung Wandlitz provide information about why the settlement was built on this site, which politicians inhabited it and who supplied it. The end of the Waldsiedlung in the course of the peaceful revolution in 1989 and its new use as a rehabilitation facility are also addressed. In addition to the brief texts on the panels, interested visitors have the opportunity to access further information on the Internet via embedded QR codes.

Completed Collaborative Project
Open Air Permanent Exhibition since April 10, 2019 and Internet portal www.grenze-potsdam.de
Project manager at ZZF: Prof. Dr. Frank Bösch, Dr. Hans-Hermann Hertle, Project editor at ZZF: Florentine Schmidtmann

At the ZZF Potsdam, a professionally sound documentation was created for the section of the Berlin-Brandenburg Wall north of the Glienicke Bridge for the period 1945-1990, which is relevant in terms of contemporary history and at the same time highly interesting for a broad public. The public can participate in the results of the documentation through a permanent exhibition on site: A history trail with eight stelae between Glienicke Bridge and the post tower of the Nedlitz water border crossing at the end of Bertinistrasse - can be visited year-round since April 2020.

May 11 to November 10, 2019 | Museum Ephraim-Palais, Berlin

The Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam, and the Municipal Museum Berlin have preparied a joint exhibition on East Berlin in the Ephraim-Palais in the Nikolaiviertel. It provided new perspectives on the former metropolis of East Germany. The social and cultural dimensions of urban life in East Berlin were the heart of the exhibition.

May 12 - November 9, 2016 | Museum Barnim Panorama, Wandlitz

The exhibition provided insights into the political style and lifestyle of the GDR’s leadership elite and documented the consequences for the region of the forest settlement and the security regime associated with it. Furthermore, on the grounds of the former Waldsiedlung, information shafts were erected, which provide information on the history of the Waldsiedlung, which was established from 1958 and used by the SED’s top functionaries until early 1990.

Completed documentation and interview project
Project start: February 2020

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 project. One focus of the work was on the biography of Hans-Peter and Gisela Freimark, whose museum in Perleberg, Brandenburg, has housed a wealth of objects documenting the political system but also everyday life in the GDR since 2006. The aim of the project was a virtual tour of the museum.

Processing Time: 2018 | Potsdam

Together with the public relations department of the Brandenburg Landtag, the Public History section wrote texts for the pupil calendar 2019/2020 on the topic of "Friedliche Revolution". It explained both the Cold War and the SED dictatorship.

May 27, 2015 until February 2016 | Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

The ZZF, in collaboration with the German Historical Museum, developed the exhibition and a catalogue of the same name. From the linguistic shifts to the dramatic changes in the world of work, from consumerism via the reciprocal perceptions of East and West Germans to the cultural upswing after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the exhibition provided insights into the everyday, cultural and experiential world of a German society in transition during the first half of the 1990s.