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"Why should I care?"

The multimedia permanent exhibition on Mannheim's Nazi dictatorship

What changes when a dictatorship destroys a democracy? And how can democracy take root again?

The MARCHIVUM interactive multimedia exhibition "Why should I care?" describes historic events in Mannheim during the Nazi dictatorship. It also broadens the perspective by looking at what came before and after the dictatorship and considers the fate of victims and perpetrators alike.

Opening hours: Tue, Thu-Sun 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Wed 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Mon closed, open every bank holiday except December 24 and 31
The water tower flagged with swastika flags.
A female and a male visitor sit in front of the huge screen showing Mannheim and especially the Neckarstadt in ruins.
A woman stands in front of one of the various stations.
Looking over the shoulder of a blonde young woman at a screen with an actor. In this room, perpetrator and victim biographies are presented in videos.
A visitor sits in the left half of the room, and on the wall is the writing "Where you burn books, you also burn people in the end". On screens next to it, one can read the word "Coordination" (Gleichschaltung). In the right half of the room, children can be seen running across a schoolyard. A swastika flag waves on the wall, the screen next to it informs about "Education and Youth under National Socialism".
The year 1940 can be seen on the timeline on the left and the information text in the centre. On the far right the art installation about the murdered Jews swimming around in an ocean.
On the left, a large drawing of people of all ages and ethnicities in front of the water tower; in the back, three screens showing many small images in a mosaic way.
A man in the front and a woman in the back stand in the quiz arena of the game "Democrady"
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"Why should I care?" asks the "how" and "why" questions about our own history in order to develop an understanding that our free and democratic society cannot be taken for granted and that we must all defend it against anti-democratic tendencies.

The exibition starts by looking at the Weimar Republic. The first German democracy guaranteed comprehensive freedoms and equal rights to its citizens. At the same time, it faced many challenges and was the breeding ground for the rise of the Nazi party.

The 1933 "seizure of power" and the speed with which the Nazi dictatorship took over are presented using various immersively presented biographies. Other key topics are the exclusion and persecution of the Jewish population and other political and ideological opponents, as well as events on the "home front" in Mannheim during the Second World War.

Impressive media installations address topics such as the Nazi concept of "Coordination" (Gleichschaltung), book burning or the fate of individual emigrants. Victims of the Holocaust are commemorated in a seperate room. Digital timelines and knowledge stations in all areas of the exhibition help to put historical events in context.

The end of the exhibition looks at the approach to dealing with a Nazi past. A collection wall navigates Mannheim's post-war decades up to the present. The interactive quiz "Democrady" invites you to participate in a dialogue about democratic values, and the "MARCHIVUM declaration" allows visitors to literally enrol in the exhibition.

A special bunker area creates a thematic link between the exhibitions on the history of the city and the Nazi era. It is dedicated to the MARCHIVUM building and uses complex projection mapping to tell its story as well as that of the other bunkers in Mannheim from their construction to the present day.

Go to our info flyer here.

Public Guided Tours

We regularly offer guided tours through our exhibition. In addition, private group tours can be booked. More information about our guided tours can be found here.

Note

Individual media stations with visual, audio and film sequences address emotional, cognitive and physical stimuli. Light and sound effects may possibly trigger physical reactions in sensitive and health-challenged individuals. Children under the age of 10 should visit the exhibition accompanied by an adult.

Exhibition team

  • Head of Project
    Prof. Dr. Ulrich Nieß in collaboration with Silvia Köhler
  • Curator
    Karen Strobel, Sebastian Steinert, Stacey Spiegel, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Nieß, Dr. Christian Groh, Dr. Marco Brenneisen
  • Exhibition design
    Working group Tatwerk/finke.media and Stacey Spiegel
  • Single ticketInfos: 7.00 EUR
  • ReducedInfos: 3.50 EUR
  • Family ticketInfos: 10.00 EUR
  • Groups of school children: 2.00 EUR
  • Free entranceInfos: 0.00 EUR