The 4th season of the district historians will present their findings with a series of lectures in the city museum in the fall.

Historical topics related to Wiesbaden will be presented in the form of Sunday matinees. It starts on October 5. The final event will take place on November 23, 2025 with the last lecture.

The lectures start at 11 am and the events end at 1 pm. A glass of sparkling wine will be served after each lecture.

Admission is free

In her lecture, Ingeborg Toth focuses on the President of the Bundestag, Dr. Köhler.

Erich Köhler was born in Erfurt and was managing director of the Federation of the Workers' Party in Kiel until 1933. He joined the German People's Party, Stresemann's party at the time. As he was married to a Jewish woman, he lost all his offices in 1933. After the end of the war, he came to the attention of the Americans. Dr. Köhler became the managing director of the Wiesbaden Chamber of Industry and Commerce in June 1945 and founded the Christian Democratic Union in Wiesbaden in September 1945. Dr. Köhler became the first President of the German Bundestag and lived in Wiesbaden until his death in 1958.

Lecture by Ralf A. Gmelin.

Hans Gmelin, Ralf Gmelin's grandfather, died in the war year 1941 and left behind a pile of handwritten manuscripts. Hans Gmelin lived through two revolutions: The socialist one of 1919, and then the "national revolution", in 1933, in which the National Socialists turned the legal certainty of the Weimar Republic into an arbitrary rule of the mediocre and conscienceless in breathtaking time, which then led to the all-devastating Second World War. Hans Gmelin felt repelled by both revolutions. Since he began writing in 1934, the basic features of early nationalism are already the subject of his thoughts and formulations. Let us take a detailed look at the life and thoughts of a contemporary of the time, from the end of the imperial era to the year of his death in 1941.

Lecture by Gerhard Valentin

They have been dead for over 80 years: Bierstadt children, women and men. Dead through the fault of a criminal regime in the period from 1933 to 1945. On the front lines. In the extermination camps. At home in Bierstadt. People who had their roots in Bierstadt: soldiers, civilians, Jews; also forced laborers and prisoners of war who fate had brought to Bierstadt. The documentary "The Return of the Names" is intended to reacquaint and reconnect people living today with those people who lived among us in Bierstadt and were cruelly murdered, because otherwise the people and their fates would be forgotten forever.

Lecture by Andrea Wecker

Gustav Zander founded the first "Zander Institute" in Stockholm in 1865. These devices enabled passive, active and assisted movements - for example by means of levers, weights, belt systems and rotary axes. Rossel, Schwarz & Co. was founded in Wiesbaden in 1897 and was quickly granted a license to manufacture Gustav Zander's medico-mechanical devices. From 1901, it produced in Mainzer Strasse.

Today, fitness is not just about health, but also about trends - even if it's just the name of a fitness trend: running, hiking, jogging, walking, trimming, marching, Mammut March, walking, trekking, hiking, pilgrimage, trotting, running, cross-country running...

Lecture by Bernd Blaudow

The Thirty Years' War led to the depopulation of large areas of Central Europe. The area around today's Dotzheim was no exception. There were phases in which Dotzheim was deserted. It was not until 35 years after the end of the war (1683) that twelve families were once again documented in Dotzheim. Despite the comparatively small number, we can speak here of the first wave of immigration, which lasted from 1648 to 1683. After that, there were further waves of immigration to Dotzheim. By the time it was incorporated into Wiesbaden in 1928, the town had grown to 6,200 inhabitants. After the Second World War, growth continued at a rapid pace and the population now stands at around 27,000.

Lecture by Carol Falling

Wiesbaden was fortunate for a time to enjoy the talents of three outstanding musicians: the Wiesbaden operetta and film composer Heinz Lewin, the conductor Otto Klemperer and the famous tenor Richard Tauber. They left our city to continue their careers because their lives were suddenly interrupted by the National Socialists, who forced them into exile due to their Jewish origins. What musical successes did they have in Wiesbaden? What did they compose? What was performed? When did they leave Wiesbaden and where did they go? What is the story of their exile?

Lecture by Stanton Falling, Carol Falling, Cornelia Thorspecken, Ninyana Thorspecken-Friebe and Laura Hafner

In a whole series of operas, the composer provides for a children's and youth choir. Until the 1950s, there was no youth choir at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. When Antonín Dvořák's opera The Jacobin, in which a children's choir plays a major role, was to be performed in the 1950s, choir director Dr. Karl Howe suggested the founding of a permanent youth choir, which his wife Margarethe Howe set up and which then appeared on stage for the first time at the premiere of The Jacobin on 17 December 1954. Since then, the youth choir has performed in operas, operettas and concerts every season. Entire generations of children have received professional musical and vocal training over the decades. The members of the youth choir sang their last performance (Verdi's Otello) on May 1, 2018.

Closing event of the performance series.