To mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, 29 young people from 12 European countries met on 29 May at the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Berlin, CHB, to re-negotiate a number of historic Parisian peace treaties from a modern perspective. In a series of role plays, the participants were not allowed to represent their own nationality, but instead exchanged roles from victor to loser and vice-versa. What resulted from the complex re-negotiations was a series of new peace treaties.
About the film
The documentary film Frieden neu verhandeln (Germany 2014, Dir: Dániel Kresméry, engl., 25 min.) follows the negotiations, the protagonists and organisers as well as the experiences and the results. What is the shape of Europe after the new peace treaties? What did the young negotiators learn about the significance of history and from their change of perspectives? After the film screening Volker Weichsel (from the magazine Osteuropa) will be in discussion with historian Prof. Gerd Krumeich (University of Düsseldorf) and two of the negotiators Nathalie Rose Straker (UK) and Milán Botond Fehér (Hungary) about the alternative results of the treaties agreed, differing national narratives and their significance for our self-consciousness. The event will take place in English and German.
Partners
The project Frieden neu verhandeln is supported by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung and the Gemeinnützige Hertie-Stiftung. Partners include the British Council, Institut français, the Italian Cultural Institute Berlin and EUNIC Berlin. The role plays were organised by planpolitik.