Democracy cannot be taken for granted - it needs to be defended. In times when cultural spaces are under attack and places of remembrance are under threat, we need more than quiet hope. In this series, we are bringing together voices that oppose the right-wing extremist and anti-democratic attacks on our pluralistic society. In the first two lectures, we ask ourselves what right-wing extremism looks like today, what characterizes it and how its linguistic strategies work. In the last two lectures, we will look at specific examples: How does the extreme right attack theaters, (queer) archives and memorials? From subtle codes used to spread far-right messages to open attacks on cultural institutions - here we will make visible what works behind the scenes. Let's take a stand together for our democracy.

Lectures

10.09. 19:00 Literary Center
free admission
Right-wing extremism today: ideologies, narratives and cultural struggles
by Patrick Wielowiejski, Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte

Right-wing extremism shapes our present - in parliaments, on the internet, on the street. It is visible in cultural forms of expression as well as in acts of terror and violence. While public perception often focuses on extreme events or clear symbols, research defines it more broadly: as a network of ideologies of inequality, authoritarian ideas of rule and the rejection of democratic principles. The lecture explains key academic terms and uses symbols, codes and rhetoric to show how right-wing extremist messages are disseminated - often in a culturally compatible form. From a cultural studies perspective, not only ideology and strategy, but also the role of affects and imaginations as driving forces of right-wing extremist mobilization will be discussed. The results of ethnographic research on homosexuality in the AfD will be presented as an example. The aim is a differentiated understanding that covers ideological foundations and cultural manifestations in equal measure.

02.10. 19:00 Literary Center
Ticket prices: VVK 11/7 € AK 12/8 €
The German Democratic Reich
by Volker Weiß, historian & journalist

"Left-wing Nazis", "intellectual civil war" and the "German Democratic Reich" - the New Right uses provocative terms to stage its current battle for sovereignty of interpretation. In his analysis Das Deutsche Demokratische Reich (Klett-Cotta 2025), historian and journalist Volker Weiß shows how history and language are appropriated and reinterpreted by the right and used as a weapon against democratic values. The aim is to delegitimize liberalism and shift political coordinates. In an interview, Weiß dissects the methods and strategies of the AfD and right-wing extremists in Germany and around the world and identifies the contradictions in the ideological grand project.

03.11. 19:00 WERKRAUM
free admission
Taking a stand as a theater - experiences from Brandenburg (keynote speech & discussion)
by Daniel Ris, director of neue Bühne Senftenberg

02.12. 19:00 Museum Friedland
free admission
The memory of Nazi terror in the sights of the right: Examples from the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial and the queer community in Munich (reading & discussion)
by Albert Knoll, historian

Right-wing populists are increasingly trying to influence democratic cultural institutions and are threatening institutions that deal with the history and situation of vulnerable groups. Places that commemorate the Nazi era in particular are confronted with attacks or deliberate disruptions to their work. Albert Knoll, long-time employee of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial and board member of the Forum Queeres Archiv München, has been researching the victims of homosexual prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp for over 30 years and fights for the rights of gays and lesbians. In his lecture, he will use concrete examples to show how memorial work and institutions of the queer community are under threat from the right and how the institutions are fighting back.