The February Revolution of 1848 in Paris
raised hopes for fundamental political
and social change.
Then, in March 1848, revolutionary
uprisings spread throughout the German lands
and eventually reached Berlin.
Events then forced an election
to the National Assembly, and the parliamentarians,
who came from all over Germany,
drew up a constitution in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt.
They opted for the “Kleindeutsche-solution”,
meaning, excluding Austria but including Prussia.
And the keystone for this constitutional work was
the election of the Prussian king
within the framework of a constitutional hereditary monarchy.
The Prussian king was to be elected Emperor of the Germans.
Therefore, a delegation of deputies
led by the jurist Eduard Simson
set out from Frankfurt to Berlin,
taking the constitution with him
to crown Frederick William.
He, however, refused the crown.
The contrast between parliamentary
responsibility and divine pardon
could not be reconciled
from the point of view of the monarch
this “window of opportunity”, in which Frederick William IV
had not yet rejected the constitution and the crown,
we stage as a space of possibility.
The trip actually took place.
We also have a travelogue
which was -some years later- published in the magazine
“Gartenlaube” by someone
who was there, namely the parliamentarian Karl Biedermann.
In our “possibility room”, we also possess
a very interesting object,
namely a Frankfurter Doppelgulden,
which was already minted on the election
of Frederick William IV. as German Emperor.
This object shows quite nicely
the hopes and imaginations of the contemporaries.
The city of Frankfurt in a frenzy of joy,
there would be a German emperor there again.
And this coin is a material remnant,
a material sign of what were
the ideas and dreams of contemporaries.