„Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar …“ Musikalische Lesung

In the organizer's words:

Three years after the end of the Second World War, the Parliamentary Council convened in 1948 to give Germany a democratic constitution: the Basic Law. As a result of the division of Germany into four occupation zones, for decades this constitution was only valid in the new West German state, the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Parliamentary Council on Herrenchiemsee consisted of 61 men and 4 women. They had very different world views, many of them had been politically persecuted during the Nazi era, refugees or survivors of concentration camps.

The Basic Law was shaped by the experiences of the horrors and crimes of the Nazi era. The fundamental rights of the individual should be the focus: Democracy, the rule of law, the separation of powers and the protection of human dignity and fundamental rights. Never again should the state be able to instrumentalize and control people. "The state exists for the sake of man, not man for the sake of the state [...]" was the wording of Article 1 of the draft adopted by the Herrenchiemsee Constitutional Convention in August 1948. In the final version of the Basic Law, it became: "Human dignity is inviolable. To respect and protect it is the duty of all state authority."

Our Basic Law has endured to this day and has become an export hit: South Africa, Poland, Spain - a whole series of countries have taken their cue from the Basic Law when drafting a new, democratic constitution. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR in 1989, the Basic Law attained its true purpose: as a constitution for a united Germany in democracy and freedom with German reunification in 1990.

Roman Knižka and the OPUS 45 wind quintet take a close look at the Basic Law from its creation to the present day. What is its foundation, what legacy did it inherit? What significance does this foundation have for us today?

Literary, philosophical and humorous texts by Susanne Baer, Max Czollek, Herta Müller, Heribert Prantl and Lucy Wagner, among others, as well as minutes of meetings of the Parliamentary Council, letters, telegrams, newspaper articles and much more will be performed.

The OPUS 45 wind quintet, consisting of musicians from the Hamburg State Opera, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover and the BBC Symphony Orchestra Glasgow, will play works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Paul Taffanel, August Klughardt, Maurice Ravel and Henri Tomasi, among others, sometimes in correspondence and sometimes in counterpoint to the reading.

Responsible: Dr. Sabine Bamberger-Stemmann