There and Back Again | The Willy Brandt Seminar on Excursion to Berlin

This post was automatically translated from the German original at
Hin und wieder zurück | Das Willy Brandt Seminar auf Exkursion nach Berlin.

by students of the seminar and Frank Wolff

Boom – torn away from the seminar and off to the train station: this is how the excursion to Berlin began for the students of the Willy Brandt Seminar due to a bomb alert in Osnabrück’s Lok district. Most of them still caught the planned train, and ultimately everyone arrived in Berlin on time. There, over three days (18.6.-20.6.), the core part of the first Willy Brandt Seminar took place with the theme “Willy Brandt and the Unifying Europe in a Divided World,” which is part of a new cooperation between the NGHM and the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation in Berlin. 

On Wednesday morning, the students met Frank Wolff at the Willy Brandt Forum, who first guided them through the exhibition. Following this, they worked on various sources about Willy Brandt. When examining his texts from the 1940s, the government declaration of 1969, or his speech before the European Parliament in 1973, it quickly became clear: Willy Brandt was a visionary of Europe.

Already during his exile in Norway, he had developed his idea of the “United States of Europe,” which was to secure peace after the Second World War and bring the individual countries together. With these impressions, the students visited the neighbouring Konrad Adenauer Forum in the afternoon. Guided by the site director and curator Doreen Franz, they learned about defining moments of Adenauer’s chancellorship at many media stations in the newly conceived exhibition “Democracy. Freedom. Europe.” In a reconstructed 1963 Lincoln Continental X-100, they could experience Adenauer’s journey together with John Kennedy and Willy Brandt on the occasion of Kennedy’s Berlin visit in 1961. 

Thursday morning began with a reflection on this exhibition visit. The criticism expressed regarding the linear presentation of Europe inspired them for the overarching task: the conception of a Europe module in a hypothetical exhibition about Willy Brandt. Through intensive work, various themes subsequently emerged: Willy Brandt’s visions for the territorial configuration of Europe, the development of a European spirit and the expansion of rights of existing institutions, but also his implementation of these visions as well as criticism thereof. For the presentation of these themes, the students designed the idea of a triple helix with three rotating strands – working title: “Rolling Pin.”

In the further course of the seminar, the goal was then to work out some thematic fields as examples. As inspiration, the students therefore also visited the “Experience Europe” exhibition of the European Commission in Berlin, which impressed mainly through its intensive use of media, but also raised questions due to its limited historical depth. Under the annual motto “Willy Gives Courage,” an enriching panel discussion on the topic “Courage to Resist. Women in the Fight Against National Socialism” took place in the evening at the Willy Brandt Forum. Niels Schröder and Andreas Wilkens presented their research on two women who fought against National Socialism in Germany and in exile: Hilda Monte and Tony Sender. Sophie Nübling also focused attention on Gertrud Meyer, Brandt’s partner in Lübeck and during exile in Norway, and presented her active work against the Nazi regime.

The last day of the excursion was once again characterised by productive and creative work phases in the Forum. At the end, there were concrete results regarding the aspects and contents of the conceived exhibition module. After a closing round, everyone set off for home – this time also without further complications. It was an intensive and impressive three days in Berlin and a good start for the new cooperation of the NGHM.