Berlin will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Peaceful Revolution and the fall of the Wall from 4 to 10 November 2019 with a grand festival that will transform the city into an inimitable open-air exhibition and festival site.

Stories of Berlin’s Path to Revolution will be told at seven original historical sites, each representing key events that took place in the 1989/90 time period.

Large-scale presentations in the form of projections of historical photographs, films and sound installations will invite visitors to immerse themselves in the 1989-1990 era at a number of historical sites, including Gethsemane Church, Alexanderplatz, Schlossplatz, Brandenburg Gate, Kurfürstendamm, East Side Gallery and the Stasi headquarters in Lichtenberg.

In addition to commemorative ceremonies designed to honour the victims of the SED (East German) dictatorship and the division of the city at the former inner-city border, this decentralised city presentation with a multifaceted exhibition and event programme will invite visitors to experience the historical events of the Peaceful Revolution in the form of an on-site “parcours” through time and space: from the beginnings in Central and Eastern Europe, to the GDR-wide protests and the wave of successful escape attempts starting in early summer 1989 all the way to the demonstrations and the fall of the Wall in autumn of that year, and ending with the storming of the Stasi headquarters and the first free elections in the GDR in March 1990. All museums, memorials, associations, educational bodies, initiatives and artists groups are invited to contribute to and participate in this multifaceted programme.

With a programme consisting of seven open-air exhibitions, these themes will link the original historical sites to form a so-called Path to Revolution, along which visitors will be able to enjoy and participate in concerts, panel discussions, eyewitness interviews, readings, film screenings and poetry slams. For this purpose, the team at Kulturprojekte Berlin is looking for individuals who experienced the historical events of 1989 live and first-hand at the various locations in Berlin. In this regard, Kulturprojekte is sending out a call for “who was there?,” who will be invited to tell their stories and speak of their experiences, memories and opinions, thus forming an integral part of the celebrations.

On the evening of 9 November along the so-called Path to Revolution, Berlin will transform into the largest concert stage in the world and the entire city into one big festival site. Berliners and guests from all over the world will celebrate a Festival of Freedom to be held on several stages featuring dozens of internationally known musicians, orchestras and bands drawn from all realms of music. This evening will function as the highlight and conclusion of the one-week celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This project is being carried out by Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH on behalf of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and in cooperation with the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Memorial), Berlin’s Commissioner for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, the Robert Havemann Society and many other partners.