LEBEN DES GALILEI

In the organizer's words:

Italy in the 17th century. The polymath Galileo Galilei receives a new invention from Holland: the telescope. He succeeded in significantly improving the instrument. His "telescope" brought him much recognition - and finally allowed him to disprove the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe. This brought him into conflict with the Church's authority of interpretation. However, Galileo's thirst for knowledge was greater than his fear and so, despite all warnings and to the misfortune of his daughter, he continued to work undeterred. After a controversy within the Church, from which the reactionary forces emerged stronger, Galileo was arrested. Under threat of torture, he recants his teachings - and in doing so betrays science, truth and himself.
What is the price of truth in a society in which opinion politics and dogmatism prevail instead of facts? What role do science and progress play when they either contribute to the well-being of humanity or its destruction? Brecht tackled the subject of the famous "heretic" Galileo in 1938 as a politically persecuted person in exile in Denmark and drew parallels between his present and the historical figure of Galileo. Under the impression of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, the remilitarization of the Federal Republic of Germany and the threat of a third world war, he continued to work on the play, thus drawing a highly topical dilemma of the modern scientist in "Life of Galileo": the balance between zeal for progress, ethics and social responsibility.