What is enlightenment? Questions to the 18th century: exhibition ticket

The Deutsches Historisches Museum is Germany's national history museum. Located in Berlin's historic centre, it sees itself as a place of lively mediation and discussion of history. Valid directly as a smartphone voucher - no ticket printout necessary. Admission to the exhibition What is Enlightenment? Questions for the Eighteenth Century at the Pei-Building.

The exhibition for kids until 06.04.2025 at the German Historical Museum Berlin

Exhibition: What is Enlightenment? Questions for the Eighteenth Century

What is the Enlightenment? The exhibition is dedicated to this question, first posed in the Berlinische Monatsschrift in 1783, and focusses on important debates of this era. At the centre of the exhibition are the important debates of the Enlightenment era, its contradictions and ambivalences: the search for knowledge and science, questions about religion, the equality and freedom of people and the demand for civil rights through to mercantilism and cosmopolitanism. Important themes of the so-called long 18th century are also considered from an international perspective.

It takes account of the contradictions and ambivalences by not presenting the ideas of this epoch as a homogeneous project of progress, but by visualising conflicts over concepts and demands and making it clear that the ideas of equality or tolerance do not correspond to our ideas today and were often not realised in practice.