Berlin Freedom Week: Eight Days Celebrating the Power of Liberty

Berlin, the city of freedom, is launching its first-ever Berlin Freedom Week — a vibrant eight-day programme featuring over 70 events. From panels and workshops to cultural encounters and meetings with freedom fighters, the week culminates in the Berlin Freedom Conference on 10 November.

More than 35 years after the fall of the SED dictatorship and the collapse of Soviet communism, autocrats and dictatorships are once again dominating the global headlines. Berlin, the city of freedom, is taking a stand against this with Berlin Freedom Week and giving freedom fighters and prominent democrats from all over the world a stage: Berlin Freedom Week is taking place in the capital for the first time from 8 to 15 November - with more than 70 events at over 30 locations throughout Berlin. The Berlin Freedom Conference on 10 November in the Gasometer on the EUREF campus will be the centrepiece of the event. Numerous international guests are expected to attend, including civil rights activists, researchers, media professionals and politicians. 

Berlin Freedom Week is an offer and an invitation to all Berliners and interested visitors to the city. Museums, embassies, theatres and historical sites offer a variety of formats. The focus is on the special significance of freedom for Berlin as well as the topic in the current global context.  

The patron of the event is the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner. The entire programme of events for Berlin Freedom Week is available here
 

Central highlight: the Berlin Freedom Conference 

A highlight of Freedom Week is the Berlin Freedom Conference on 10 November. Stakeholders from politics, business, civil society and the media will come together at the Schöneberger Gasometer. In keynote speeches and panels, they will discuss how freedom and democracy can be protected and strengthened in times of strengthening autocracies. 

Guests include the Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk, the Russian journalist and civil rights activist Vladimir Kara-Mursa, Ben Hodges, former Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces in Europe, and the Director of the German Economic Institute, Professor Dr Michael Hüther. Speakers from the World Liberty Congress include the President and renowned Iranian journalist and human rights activist Masih Alinejad and the Venezuelan politician and freedom activist Leopoldo López. Tickets for the Berlin Freedom Conference can be booked via this link.

Travelling throughout Berlin: the Berlin Freedom Mobil 

The speakers of Berlin Freedom Week will be on a Berlin Freedom Week Mobil in public spaces. Between 8 and 15 November, the mobile stage will stop for around five hours a day at central and symbolic locations. Guests can expect a varied programme with stage performances, film screenings, audio installations and interactive elements. The centrepiece is the 1:1 replica of the Freedom Bell, which was donated to West Berlin by 16 million US citizens in 1950 and ceremoniously hung in Schöneberg Town Hall. The project is curated and designed by Beier+Wellach, in co-operation with the Ernst Reuter Archive, the Airlift Donation Foundation and the American Jewish Committee. It is sponsored by the German Postcode Lottery. All stations and speakers will be published on the website in good time.

From book to film 

The programme ranges from film and literature, theatre and art to workshops and dialogues: Stories of Freedom" at the Colosseum film theatre will feature ten films and panels with international dissidents. The focus here is on "Women as the voice of freedom". "Who, if not us?" is the screening of a documentary about three women who are fighting tirelessly for a democratic Belarus after the protests of 2020. At the Future Freedom Lab at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, young people will find workshops, dialogues and creative formats that make it possible to experience and shape democracy. The book presentation "Two, Three Blue Eyes" by Victor Schefé at the Tränenpalast provides a literary reference to freedom. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk will read from his book "Freedom Shock" in the conference room of the DDR Museum. The Chinese exile artist Badiucao and the American journalist Melissa Chan talk about art, activism and censorship at the Literaturhaus at "You Must Take Part in the Revolution". Theatre also plays a role in Freedom Week, including at Pfefferberg with the historical drama "The Trial of Hans Litten" about freedom, justice and dictatorship.

Berlin and its history can be experienced first-hand during Berlin Freedom Week, for example on a multimedia tour of the former border strip. At "Autumn '89", the German Historical Museum invites visitors to share their personal experiences during the fall of the Wall.
 

Check out our preview of Berlin Freedom Week in a conversation with Marco Oelschlegel, Director of Conventions at visitBerlin – BerlinConvention Office, in the latest HQ #121 (pages 18-19).

Messages in embassies 

Several embassies are hosting information and dialogue events: At the French embassy, leaders from politics and the tech industry will meet at the "Freedom & Defence Tech Forum". At the Polish embassy, the panel discussion "Security is Freedom" will focus on the role of women as security policy actors. "Nordic Freedom": Guided tours in the Nordic embassies and through an interactive exhibition show how democracy is lived in Danish community culture.  

The letter workshop at Libereco in Mitte aims to send out messages of hope and solidarity: Participants write postcards together with former political prisoners from Belarus to people who are currently imprisoned there.

Especially for journalists

Aspen Germany's International Press Roundtable brings together journalists from all over the world with diverse perspectives to discuss press freedom and journalistic work in times of dwindling democracy. Media representatives and members of parliament are invited to a roundtable discussion by the SED Victims' Commissioner of the German Bundestag. Former members of the opposition from the GDR and international dissidents will enter into a dialogue about the (health) consequences of political repression.
 

Globally recognised congress as the starting point for Freedom Week 

The two-day general assembly of the World Liberty Congress begins on 8 November. The initiative for Berlin Free-dom Week came from this congress; some of the congress participants will also be guests at the Berlin Freedom Conference. The congress will bring together around 200 dissidents and democracy activists from over 60 autocratically governed countries in the Berlin House of Representatives. In doing so, the city is sending a strong signal to the world: those who are oppressed and persecuted elsewhere will have a parliament in Berlin.  

Initiators, media partners and sponsors 

The patron of Berlin Freedom Week is Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner. The first Berlin Freedom Week is being initiated by visitBerlin, the Axel Springer Freedom Foundation and the World Liberty Congress, the Berlin Commissioner for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship and the Robert Havemann Society. Media partners are POLITICO, DIE ZEIT, WELT, Tagesspiegel, Radio3 and WALL; sponsors of the first Berlin Freedom Week are the Deutsche Postcode Lottery, Airbnb, Berliner Sparkasse and Jacob Waitz Industrie GmbH. 

The Berlin Freedom Conference is a joint initiative of visitBerlin, the Axel Springer Freedom Foundation and the World Liberty Congress. It is supported by the LOTTO Foundation Berlin and sponsored by Airbnb and Berliner Sparkasse. 

Published by Meeting Media Company, the publisher of Headquarters Magazine (HQ) – a leading international publication based in Brussels, serving the global MICE industry and association community.