Eine Stadt im Krieg

A city at war

Bremen 1914-1918. 110 years since the beginning of World War 1.

"Suddenly, as if overnight, the spectre of a people's war between the great European nations emerged. - A world war. Does anyone know what that means?" asked the Bremen Bürgerzeitung on July 28, 1914, explaining soberly and precisely: "Compared to a modern world war, all previous wars look like harmless quarrels. Not only because of the immensely larger masses of soldiers and the perfection of the tools of murder, but above all because of the effect of war on the life of society."
Five days later, on August 1, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II proclaims general mobilization. The state of siege comes into force and the military takes over the supervision of public order; in Bremen, the Deputy General Command of the IX Army Corps in Hamburg Altona has supreme command.

How does the war inscribe itself into the everyday life of the city? What hopes, expectations and fears do people associate with the war? How does the war change their actions? How do they shape, experience and suffer on the "home front"? How do the relationships between men and women change as a result of the separation, the experiences on the front and the "home front"? What does the feminization of the city mean? The reading invites the audience on a journey through time. Places, people and events, developments and conflicts from a hundred years ago are made visible and made to speak through surviving documents: the nailing of the Iron Roland next to the New Town Hall, the collection of "love offerings" for the soldiers or the trench with officers' stand "Zum Stillen Frieden" on the Stadtwerder are examples of the mobilization of the "home front". The "Volksgemeinschaft" on the stage and the Bremen theater scandal in September 1914, the prisoner of war camp in the harbor and the reactions of the population to the "enemy soldiers", the diary pages of a cathedral preacher, the protests in front of the food commission, the letters between Anna and Robert Pöhland and much more show how the war is omnipresent in the city and permeates all areas of life in Bremen.

Cast

Scenic reading from the series "From the Files to the Stage". Cooperation bremer shakespeare company and University of Bremen, Department of History.

Set-up text/scene: Peter Lüchinger. With: Peter Lüchinger, Sofie Miller, Petra-Janina Schultz, Markus Seuß.