Joint Event with the DHMD: On Freedom Today—The End of Illusions?

In cooperation with the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden, the Mercator Forum on Migration and Democracy (MIDEM) hosted an evening discussion focusing on the different conceptions, aspirations, and experiences of freedom in the Czech Republic, Poland, and (East) Germany—both before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Selected experts analyzed key historical turning points, political upheavals, and influential stakeholders:
What impact did the suppression of the Prague Spring or the Solidarność movement have? How did these experiences shape the development of different concepts of freedom and understandings of the state after 1989? To what extent does the transition period in the East Central European states differ from that in reunified Germany?
And where do these countries stand today—with regard to issues of security, nationhood, Western democracy, and their relationship to Putin’s Russia? What role does right-wing populism play in the current debate on freedom—and have we perhaps already reached the end of political illusions?