I went to an exhibition at the Deutscher Historisches Museum, called the Road not Taken. It examines seven turning points in German history and asks what might have happened if they’d turned out differently.
They say, “It brings actual turning points face to face with what might have happened if it if it were not for various factors – prevented by accidents, averted by misfires or other kinds of shortcomings -are explored: it is what is known in the philosophy of history as contingency. The course of these events begins in 1989 with the peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic and ends in the year 1848, when Germany first tried to attempt to democratic awakening. The exhibition takes up such topics as “Ost Politik”, the building of the wall, the Cold War, the “Stalin note”, the assumption of power by the National Socialists as well as revolution and democratisation at decisive points – and illustrates that history, by no means had to end as it actually happened.”
See below for a video of an agamograph, contrasting the Chinese government’s violent repression of their student led protests, with the outcome of the mainly peaceful demonstrations against the government of the GDR leading to the fall of the wall.
The GDR had sent an embassy of solidarity to the Chinese government after Tiananmen Square. This is supplemented by exhibits detailing the GDR military code and law prohibiting acting against the citizens of the GDR and others detailing the problem of all civil wars, that the police and army need to arrest or repress their families.
The first three rooms, 1989, 1970 and 1952 were very thought provoking bring to the forefront the issues of democracy, freedom and oppression. The exhibits about the law and reticence of the GDR police/military have massive relevance to today in both parts of Europe but also the USA.
The exhibition also includes a room on the Staufenberg plot, where a plaque includes the inscription,
The liberation by getting rid of Hitler came so close for a moment and then failed in the end. But then I thought, it’s alright like that. The officers who had planned the assassination had never held it against Hitler that he had started the war; now they just held it against him that he lost it. … Germany should be completely defeated.
Marie Jalowicz Simon
The museum also examines the invasion of the Rhineland, the fall of the Mueller government marking the end of the Weimar republic, the revolutions of 1916/18 where there were attempts to retain the Kaiser, and they argue the fatal flaw of poorly defined presidential power was adopted, the Seven Week war that led to the expulsion of Austria from the German federation and finishing with the revolutions of 1848.
It closes on the 22 March 2026, people that share my interests might like to go to Berlin to see this. …