Preview of the Year
2017 is the year of the Bundestag election, but there are also other dates that should be noted.
The 2017 political year in Germany begins with the election of a new Federal President on 12 February. The major popular parties, the CDU/CSU and SPD, support the candidacy of the current Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD). After this, the state elections in Saarland (March), Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia (both in May) will dominate political life before the electorate votes in September 2017 in the Bundestag election.
2017 will also be marked by the Luther anniversary. 500 years of the Reformation will be commemorated by numerous nationwide events, including three major special exhibitions in Berlin, Wittenberg and on the Wartburg near Eisenach. In the United States too Luther’s life and work will be the focus of three major exhibitions. This year the 500th anniversary of the Reformation on 31 October 2017 will be a public holiday in all the German states.
For art lovers, a visit to the world’s most important exhibition of contemporary art, the Documenta 14, is at the top of their list for 2017. The Documenta will take place from 10 June to 17 September 2017 in Kassel and from 8 April to 16 July 2017 for the first time in the Greek capital of Athens.
In addition, 2017 marks the anniversaries of the births and deaths of outstanding German figures. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin died on 8 March one hundred years ago. He invented the rigid airship, called the “zeppelin”, and founded in 1908 the still existing airship construction company Zeppelin GmbH in Friedrichshafen. The German graphic artist and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz was born in Königsberg on 8 July 150 years ago. In often severe, sometimes frightening works, she developed her own artistic style. On 14 September, Germany will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the writer Theodor Storm. Storm was an exponent of realism. His work is closely bound up with the landscape of the north. His stories revolve around two themes: the failed life and failed love. 21 December is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Heinrich Böll. He is regarded as one of the most important German writers of the post-war period and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. 2017 is also the 50th anniversary of the death of Konrad Adenauer. A new permanent exhibition will be opened in honour of the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (from 1949 to 1963) in his house in Rhöndorf.
