ZEITFENSTER Leipzig vs Leipzig '89

A Time Machine in Your Pocket – ZEITFENSTER. Peaceful Revolution Leipzig Make the city of Leipzig into a virtual museum where past and present meet: - Visit a series of 25 Time Windows and experience some of the important places and events associated with the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig (incl. the Nikolaikirche, Augustusplatz, the Leipzig city centre ring road and the Stasi headquarters at the ‘Runde Ecke’). - Using the augmented reality Time Window Mode, blend historical photographs into the current cityscape as seen through your smartphone or tablet. - Browse through a selection of around 300 pieces of historical source material, including contemporary films and photographs. - Listen to the audio guide and hear a series of concise introductions to different aspects of the background to the Peaceful Revolution. - Find your way to individual Time Windows easily using the navigation system. Organise your journey in time around the subjects that appeal particularly to you. Description Journey back in time to the period of upheaval around the year 1989. Through the use of augmented reality, the city of Leipzig will become a virtual museum where past and present meet. Over a tour of 25 locations associated with the Peaceful Revolution, historical photographs can be called up on a smartphone or tablet. The historical scenes can be blended into a current camera perspective of the Leipzig cityscape, making the changes that have taken place over the intervening years more readily tangible. This is especially striking at locations such as Augustusplatz or the Leipzig market square, which have undergone a notable transformation during recent years. Each Time Window is linked to a particular event associated with the Peaceful Revolution or an aspect of its background history, and the audio guide provides a series of concise introductions to this wider context. A particular highlight of the app is a selection of around 300 pieces of historical source material, including original documents, photographs and historical films. At each Time Window location, you can browse through relevant material – for example, you might be interested in seeing examples of original Stasi documents, watching contemporary television reports or having a closer look at the various forms of protest adopted by the citizens’ movement. The app provides a rich and varied insight into the history of the Peaceful Revolution and brings the events of that time alive for a 21st century audience. You can choose the form your journey into the past will take. You can visit the sites in the immediate vicinity, select your own route round the city or choose a route based around any one of four themes – ‘Historical Context’, ‘Propaganda and Protest’, ‘Peaceful Revolution’ and ‘Between Eras’ – which enable the events of the autumn of 1989 to be viewed in relation to the background, causes and consequences of the Peaceful Revolution. Specialists in the methodology of history teaching based at Leipzig University hope that this innovative approach to the presentation of history will raise awareness of the possibilities of digital learning in this field, and they will be devoting further research to the success of these methods. The app, which is available in both German and English, is aimed at both locals and visitors to the city, and is also appropriate for use in schools. The project was backed by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship. The production of the app was also supported by numerous photographers from Leipzig, as well as Archiv Bürgerbewegung Leipzig e.V., the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (Leipzig Office) and the Saxonian Federal State Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR.

“Leipzig ‘89” is a multilingual audio guide, which leads to 20 original sites of the democratic change in 1989/90, situated in the urban area of Leipzig, where there took place important actions leading to the fall of the SED dictatorship. The GPS-supported city tour explains the particularity, complexity and uniqueness of the entire event Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig. The project’s basis is the stele exhibition “Sites of the Peaceful Revolution”. The steles are made of expanded metal, which was used for border fortifications in the GDR. This fact points out special actions of the political resistance in Leipzig. This exhibition does not only show the most known events like the decisive Monday demonstration on October 9, 1989, the occupation of the Stasi headquarters on December 4, 1989 and the first free parliamentary election on March 18, 1990. It also presents smaller, but not less important actions of the civil rights movement. The city tour shows the chronological and spatial development of the Peaceful Revolution, as well as the change of the city since 1989. It reminds of the power of the democratic idea, which helped the citizens to free themselves from the SED dictatorship. “Leipzig ‘89” presents impressively an important chapter of the German history, as well as the important role of Leipzig as city of Peaceful Revolution. The app makes the events of the Peaceful Revolution visible and audible and also sensually experienceable. GPS-supported maps and route navigation lead the user directly to the different sites. With the help of QR codes on the steles you can download the app directly on mobile devices or call up the respective station on the app. A lot of original photos, documents and contemporary film material completes the information on the steles and the audio guide.