Weimar - The struggle for democracy.
Game-based learning as a full-day workshop at Wall 40

On 04 November 2024, the following took place as part of the Interdisciplinary Weeks at Kiel University of Applied Sciences The event "Game-based learning as an all-day workshop" took place at the Foundation for Science and Democracy. A group of twelve students took on the role of political parties and politicians from the Weimar Republic and tried to save the first German democracy, familiarising themselves with the challenges of this historically fragile form of government.

Based on the board game idea "Weimar: The Battle for Democracy" by Matthias Cramer, Professor Boris Pawlowski from the Department of Media and Thomas Knigge from the Schleswig-Holstein Summer School e.V. (SHSS) led through an insightful day.

What looked to the outside observer like a group getting together for a nice board game turned out, on closer inspection, to be a highly complex scenario depicting the 14 turbulent years of the Weimar Republic from its inception in 1918 to Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor in January 1933.

Three students each took control of one of the parties of the time: the Communist Party (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Centre Party and the German National People's Party (DNVP). The task of the two mainstream parties was to preserve democracy, while the two fringe parties wanted to expand their power. The task was to make the right decisions at several political levels, in cities and in parliament, as well as in international relations, and to react appropriately to the events of the time.

On the one hand, the KPD and DNVP wanted more seats in the German Reichstag, but they were also fighting for power at grassroots level. In cities such as Breslau, Königsberg and Stuttgart, soviet republics and regimes were to be established for this purpose.

During the course of the day, the "Communists" proved to be particularly successful: the team of one female student and two male students were on the verge of bringing the KPD to power in Berlin and two other cities in order to establish a soviet republic and win the game.

This did not happen. And the seizure of power by the NSDAP, which also led to an immediate cancellation, also passed everyone by. It should be mentioned here that the author, Matthias Cramer, does not want anyone to "play" the role of the National Socialists, which is why the brown figures on the board only multiply when another party allows it.

Games were played on the Foundation's premises well into the evening hours and the event once again showed how important and effective game-based learning is for communicating and understanding political issues in a "playful" way. Wall 40 and SW&D provided the perfect setting for the students to approach this exciting topic in a practice-orientated way.