November, 9 2018 – September, 29 2019

During the 1918/19 Revolution, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg played a central as two districts whose population were very much involved in the fight for peace, freedom and bread. In addition to more prominent subjects such as the occupation of the Vorwärts newspaper building in January 1919 or the establishment of the first Workers’ Council in the Knorr-Bremse AG factory, in this special exhibition, the FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum also took a closer look at topics that are less generally well-known in our collective memory. These included the peace movement, attending to the wounded following the fights that ensued at the city’s makeshift barricades and the role of working-class women in the run-up to and during the Revolution.

The topics were located, both in digital and analogue form, on a city plan that is laid out on the museum floor in the permanent exhibition “ortsgespräche” (a wordplay in German between local call/talking about places). Using their own smartphone or with a tablet provided by us on loan, visitors could walk across the district, as it were, and at certain marked spots could see and listen to the events that happened before and during the Revolution.

Eye-witness reports, letters, diary entries, films or historical postcards provided a detailed insight into the revolutionary happenings.

Action Room Revolution

Accompanying the Peace, Freedom, Bread! Exhibition, the FHXB Museum was presenting an action room on the second floor. Together with the visitors, we have been examining there more recent and future revolutions in relation to the 1918/19 Revolution. School pupils have been producing revolutionary newspapers and posters in the museum printshop and these have been shown in the Action Room. Parallel to this, the visitors, together with the Institut für Widerstand im Postfordismus (Institute for Resistance in Post-Fordism), have collectively researched into future revolutions and produced their own revolutionary postcards. A research area with books, newspapers and information brochures allowed visitors to take a more in-depth look at the exhibition theme. 

The exhibition was part of Berlin’s thematic winter on 100 Years of Revolution – Berlin 1918/19 and was funded by the LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin.