How much of the 1930s is in the 1950s?

Heinz Bude in conversation with Anselm Doering-Manteuffel

In the series Vergiftete Verhältnisse - Gespräche zur Gegenwartskunst, Heinz Bude will be discussing contemporary historical analogies between the period of German totalitarianism and the early years of the Federal Republic with Anselm Doering-Manteuffel on May 10 at 6 pm at the research station on Lutherplatz. What ideas of the pre-war period still influenced the decade of the first two documenta exhibitions? The case of Werner Haftmann shows how far the poisoning of the past reached into the young Federal Republic. However, the fifties were not only in continuity with the pre-war period in terms of personnel. Ideas about community, the Occident and the understanding of time that guide the plot represent continuations that run counter to the narrative of the break with the past in today's retrospect. They are also the background against which the actions of individual characters first become understandable. In conversation with Heinz Bude, Anselm Doering Manteuffel talks about the unchanging systems of order that linked pre- and post-war Germany. But what is the relationship between the shared principle of illiberality and the art show in Kassel?

Anselm Doering-Manteuffel held the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History and was Director of the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Tübingen from 1991 until his retirement in 2016. In his research, he focuses in particular on the German history of the 20th century and the social history of ideas guiding action, which illustrates the connections between structure, political-economic power and ideological orientation.

Location: TRACES Forschungsstation, Lutherplatz