Fake News, AI, and the Teaching of German Culture and History in Eastern Europe

Museums are places for the preservation, interpretation and presentation of (im)material cultural heritage. They open up spaces for mediation and negotiation and play a central role in the transfer of knowledge and memory. This transfer no longer takes place solely through collection objects and exhibition projects, but increasingly also via digital platforms, participatory formats and transcultural networks, which have the potential to restructure processes of collective memory (Assmann 2012).

Against this backdrop, the question arises as to how museums can integrate the potential of new technological developments in a meaningful and reflective manner (Fuchsgruber 2025). To this end, a wide range of new forms of interaction and participation are now available to them (Thiel 2023; Gasser 2023): digital technologies – from AI to VR – expand the possibilities for innovative and accessible outreach.

At the same time, the digital public sphere carries risks: the virtual space is also a place of fake news, AI-generated images and other forms of disinformation. As institutions of knowledge enjoying high social standing (Grotz, Rahemi-pour 2024), museums bear a particular responsibility in this regard. As key players in an open society, they raise awareness of these dangers and can counteract social division.

The conference aims to shed light on the diverse dimensions of mediating knowledge and memory in museums against the backdrop of new digital technologies and AI-supported educational formats, and to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives on this complex field.

The focus will be on the culture and history of Germans in Eastern Europe, a thematic area of national remembrance culture that also concerns the centuries-long history of interconnection between Germany and its eastern neighbours. This includes the Shoah and the war of extermination launched by Germany in the East, as well as, as a consequence, the flight, expulsion and (late) resettlement of Germans from autumn 1944 onwards. The international dimension is central to a joint, forward-looking process of coming to terms with the past and its dissemination.

Two-day conference: 12 and 13 October 2026

Programme

Monday, 12 October 2026

12.00 pm Guided tour of the special exhibition ‘Heavy Subject Matter: Women – Traditional Costumes – Life Stories’

1.00 pm Welcome and introduction

1.30 pm Keynote speech by Heike E. Gleibs (Wikimedia Germany)

2.00 pm to 5.15 pm Strategies for critical media literacy

Moderator: Matthias Thaden (MEK)

2.00 pm Harnessing digital potential for historical image analysis and contemporary media literacy. A web application for the critical examination of photographs of Nazi perpetrators in the context of German-occupied Europe

Axel Bangert/Martin Borkowski-Saruhan (German Historical Museum, Berlin)

2.40 pm ‘Controversial’ cultural heritage in the digital sphere. How can digital formats promote a critical and agency-oriented culture of remembrance?

Mara Metzmacher (House of Austrian History, Vienna)

3.20 pm: Coffee break

3.50 pm Viral Hallucinations. The Centre for Visual Media as a model for critical visual literacy in the museum

Mona Behfeld (Deichtorhallen Hamburg)

Moderator: Cornelia Eisler (BKGE)

4.30 pm The role of alternative narratives of remembrance in combating disinformation. The case of the Museum of the Poznań Bambergers

Agnieszka Szczepaniak-Kroll (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań Branch)

5.15 pm: Coffee break

6.00 pm to 7.30 pm Panel discussion: Museums between fact and fiction. Challenges and strategies in dealing with fake news

Moderator: Ingo Loose (Institute for Contemporary History, Berlin)

Participants: Sabine Arend (SS Special Camp/Hinzert Concentration Camp Memorial), Sandra Hollmann (Jewish Museum Berlin), Jörg Morré (Museum Berlin-Karlshorst)

7.30 pm: Social gathering

Tuesday, 13 October 2026

9.30 am to 1.15 pm AI and the museum of tomorrow. Opportunities and risks for education and participation

Moderator: Judith Schühle (MEK)

9.30 am Games in museums – museums in games. The culture of remembrance at the intersection of exhibitions and games

Isabelle Hamm (Institute for Media Culture and Theatre, University of Cologne)

10.10 am The Negotiation Space of Collective Memory. The ‘We Archive’ at the Museum of Russian-German Cultural History

Nico Wiethof (Museum of Russian-German Cultural History, Detmold)

10.40 am Half-full or half-empty: IT in museums as an opportunity and a burden

Jochen Mähnert (East Prussian State Museum with German-Baltic Department, Lüneburg)

11.20–11.50 am: Coffee break

11.50 am ‘Our Germans’ in the age of AI and fake news

Tomáš Okurka (J. E. Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem)

12.30 pm The need for action in the face of AI hallucinations. Short videos and AI-optimised content as a response

Alexander John Bolton (Buchenwald Memorial)

1.10 pm to 2.15 pm: Lunch break

2.15 pm to 3.45 pm: Panel discussion with closing remarks: AI and the museum of tomorrow

Moderator: Dorothee Haffner (HTW Berlin)

Participants: Katrin Glinka (Berlin University of Applied Sciences), Jürgen Geuter (ART+COM GmbH, Berlin), Carolin Wagner (Berlinische Galerie)

There is no conference fee.

To help with planning, please register by 7 October 2026 at: bkge@bkge.bund.de

Additional information

science

Back to event calendar