Hannover remembers Hannah Arendt: A theater evening full of insights!

Hannover remembers Hannah Arendt: A theater evening full of insights!

Today, December 4th, 2025, we remember the great political theorist and journalist Hannah Arendt, who died exactly 50 years ago, on December 4th, 1975, in New York. Born in Hanover in 1906 and raised in Königsberg, she shaped political theory in the 20th century with her astute analyses. In honor of Arendt, the Hannover Theater is organizing a special theater evening entitled “arendt forever”, which highlights facets of her life and work in a four-part program. The dramaturge Mira Gebhardt refers to the graphic novel “The Three Lives of Hannah Arendt” by Ken Krimstein from 2019, which illustrates Arendt's remarkable biography.

Arendt's life was characterized by constant new beginnings, not least due to her father's illness and her escape from the National Socialists. This makes clear how important the questions of reconciliation and memory of crimes were in her work. A central theme of the theater evening will be the awarding of the Lessing Prize in Hamburg in 1959. Here Arendt is discussing with her husband Heinrich Blücher whether she should accept the prize, which is the subject of the staged reading of the theater text “Nobody's Sister” planned for Friday.

Arendt's lessons for the present

The importance of Arendt's work will also be underlined this evening by Friedrich Weißbach, who moderates the evening. He will address the lessons learned from their analyzes of totalitarian rule and authoritarianism. Arendt coined the term “banality of evil,” noting that authoritarian leaders can often come to power through democratic means. Her study “Elements and Origins of Total Domination,” published in 1951, remains central to today's political discussion. Here Arendt saw totalitarianism as a new form of rule that endangered human spontaneity and individuality.

The current societal challenges that Arendt identified back then can be found in the concerns addressed in the essays by Timothy W. Stanley. In his work he advocates for the revitalization of deliberative democratic practices and addresses the ongoing religious divisions, which are seen as a source of growing social fissures. In his upcoming monograph, he plans to engage with Arendt's identification of these problems in multicultural democracies.

A dark shadow of history

The tragedy in Arendt's biography receives particular attention in the context of the Holocaust. Her experiences as a Jewish refugee who was arrested by the National Socialists in 1933 and then worked as a social worker in Paris shape her work and her view of political systems. In her writings she warned of a state of “worldlessness” in which people can no longer develop a common interest in their society. These warnings are particularly relevant today, when political debates are often characterized by division and disinterest.

Arendt's legacy will be honored at the theater evening not only through her literary works, but also by an actress who appeared in both “Hannah Arendt” and “Rosa Luxemburg” receiving the Golden Ox from the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Film Arts Festival in May. This shows the continued importance of her ideas and the appreciation of her as a person in the culture.

Despite the cancellation of all other events after a controversial person was disinvited from the cultural week in Klütz, the theater evening in Hanover will invite celebration and reflection on Arendt's legacy and her timeless questions. A good reason to deal with their philosophy and their position on totalitarian systems - a topic that couldn't be more current.