EXHIBITION

Dictatorship and Democracy in the Age of Extremes

Munk School of Global Affairs, Trinity College Site

March 10 to 28, 2014

1 Devonshire Place, Toronto

In 2014 we remember several historic anniversaries: The 100th anniversary of World War I, 75 years since the beginning of World War II, 25 years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and 10 years of Eastern European expansion. From March 10 to 28, 2014 the German Consulate General in Toronto presents an exhibition at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs to commemorate these significant events.

Revealing a total of 190 rare photographs, newspaper clippings and political cartoons from different European archives, the exhibition “Dictatorship and Democracy in the Age of Extremes” tells Europe’s dramatic story of the 20th century – a past between freedom and tyranny, democracy and dictatorship. Beginning with the outbreak of World War I, the exhibition illustrates the rise of Italian Fascism and Soviet Communism, the world economic crisis and the takeover of the Nazi regime in Germany, leading to the catastrophe of World War II. It continues with the struggle of newly formed democracies after decades of dictatorships, and depicts Europe’s journey from the Cold War to the Peaceful Revolution. In its complexity, the exhibition is a detailed historic localisation of Europe as we know it today.

The exhibition was developed by the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, the Deutschland Radio Kultur and the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship and is co-presented by the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Goethe-Institut.