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5th of September to 14th of October (daily from 10:00 to 18:00)
"The Suspicious Saxophon - Degenerate Music in the NS-State"
An exhibition by the musicologist Dr. Albrecht Dümling
One year after the exhibition “Degenerate Art” took place in Munich, the Reich’s Propaganda Music Festival “Degenerate Music” was held in Düsseldorf during May 1938. It focused on the themes of “degeneration” and “Racial mixture”, claiming that this corruption has also taken place within the realm of music. It showed a negative stance towards what was considered modern music, with heavy emphasis on the genres of Jazz and compositions made by Jewish musicians and artists. Jazz was considered the embodiment of “Jewish-Negro Infiltration” which is why the exhibition poster depicts a black saxophone player with a David Star.
In 1988 the Berlin musicologist Dr Albert Dümling would reconstruct the exhibition, which would be revised 20 years later in cooperation with the Düsseldorf design agency “Drasdo”. Many up to then unknown sources would be integrated in the now revised exhibition.
In accordance with the 1938 exhibition, more illustrations regarding “Jewish Theater with Jazz Rhythm” will be shown which explains the exhibition title, “The Suspicious Saxophone”. Audio guides as well as monitors with excerpts from NS news reels give the guests an audio-visual experience.
2nd of July to 30th of August 2010 (daily from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm)
"What used to be the Law… - Soldiers and Civilians on trial in the Court of the Wehrmacht"
An exhibition by the Memorial Trust for the Murdered Jews of Europe
About 30.000 people in Germany and the occupied territories were sentenced to death via the Wehrmacht Court. The accusations would range from desertion, treason and mutiny. Over 20.000 were executed. The court decisions imposed by the German Military Court were first nullified by the Bundestag between 1998 and 2009.
The exhibition “What used to be the Law…” provides for the first time a comprehensive view of the arbitrary verdicts made by the Wehrmacht Court. Terms such as "maintaining discipline”, “social parasites” or “biologically inferior” were used to ‘justify’ death sentences.
The presentation sketches the lives of 16 ‘convicts’ and shows five portraits of Judges who imposed these court decisions. The exhibition also reveals how some of these Judges were allowed to continue practicing their professions after the war whereas those wrongly accused would have to wait till the end of the 90’s in order to be rehabilitated again.
The exhibition in the documentation center exposes the unjust nature of these legal practices. At the same time, it also shows that a few brave judges made use of loop holes in the law in order to enforce a milder sentence.
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