Jan 17, 2025
Future through Remembrance – United in Peace and Democracy: TUD and the City of Dresden call for participation in the human chain on February 13, 2025
Nora Schmid (Intendantin der Semperoper Dresden), Prof.in Ursula Staudinger (Rektorin der TUD und Anmelderin der Menschenkette), Oberbürgermeister Dirk Hilbert und Bürgermeisterin Annekatrin Klepsch (Beigeordnete für Kultur, Wissenschaft und Tourismus).
On January 17, 2025, Prof. Ursula Staudinger, Rector of TUD Dresden University of Technology who registered the human chain, and the Lord Mayor of Dresden, Dirk Hilbert, shared information about the organizational details and the context of this year's human chain. Together with the Mayor of Culture, Annekatrin Klepsch, and the Semperoper's General Director, Nora Schmid, the stakeholders also presented the current photo motif for the City-Light poster for the human chain.
This year, heeding the call by TUD Rector Staudinger, the human chain will be held under the motto “Remembrance for a future of united in peace and democracy”. The programm related to the formation of the human chain begins on February 13, 2025, at 5:00 pm on Dresden's Theaterplatz. The human chain will begin to form around 6:00 pm. The route is about four kilometers long and runs along Brühl's Terrace, past the synagogue and the Frauenkirche, along the New City Hall and around the Altmarkt, via Postplatz back to Theaterplatz.
Thus, the human chain will protectively encircle Dresden's city center: “For the preservation of peace, freedom, cosmopolitanism and human dignity, the human chain sends a strong signal of unity, vigilance and the unconditional will that we, as a democratic society, take responsibility together. We are sending a clearly visible 'Never Again',” said Prof. Staudinger.
Never again is now – Vigilantly facing the future
Particularly this year, our liberal democratic values are facing unprecedented challenges due to various national and global political events: “Knowledge of our past allows us to look to the future with vigilance. We see how in many regions of the world open and democratic societies are under threat from racism and intolerance, how democratic society is endangered from within by the conceptual appropriation and misuse of words such as democracy, peace and freedom of expression, and how democratic dialog is at risk of being silenced in the face of populist disputes,” said the Rector, who registered the human chain.
Stewards wanted
Volunteers are needed to serve as stewards and to assist those who join the human chain.
Further information: https://tu-dresden.de/tu-dresden/newsportal/news/zukunft-durch-erinnern-ordner-innen-fuer-die-menschenkette-am-13-februar-gesucht
Accompanying events
The human chain is a strong symbol of the solidarity of the people of Dresden. On the one hand, it commemorates the destruction of the city and, on the other, it sends a strong signal of unity in defense of democracy. This year's human chain is part of a comprehensive program marking the 80th anniversary of the destruction of Dresden as a result of the inhuman crimes of the Nazis.
For more information, please visit: www.1945.dresden.de