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The Hero Principle
(c) Ilona Marti
The use of the photo is only free of charge in the context of the announcement of performances and with denomination of the author. Any further use of the photos, for example for illustration of reviews, shall be subject to payment of a fee. Please contact the photographer.
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The Hero Principle
(c) Rimini Protokoll
The use of the photo is only free of charge in the context of the announcement of performances and with denomination of the author. Any further use of the photos, for example for illustration of reviews, shall be subject to payment of a fee. Please contact the photographer.
Download >

The Hero Principle
(c) Rimini Protokoll
The use of the photo is only free of charge in the context of the announcement of performances and with denomination of the author. Any further use of the photos, for example for illustration of reviews, shall be subject to payment of a fee. Please contact the photographer.
Download >

The Hero Principle
(c) Rimini Protokoll
The use of the photo is only free of charge in the context of the announcement of performances and with denomination of the author. Any further use of the photos, for example for illustration of reviews, shall be subject to payment of a fee. Please contact the photographer.
Download >

The Hero Principle

By Helgard Haug / Daniel Wetzel

Alexander the Great, the Chinese physician Li Wenliang, Napoleon and Greta Thunberg never had anything to do with one another. And yet: They were or still are considered heroes or heroines in their time, in their countries, societies and even beyond. What makes them similar?

Heroes and heroines are not born, but made – by those who tell stories filled with admiration to heroise a person, a feat or an event. So the question of how a hero or a heroine is made, of who or what they are, is not up to the heroised themselves, but rather the societies doing the heroising. But what happens exactly when heroines and heroes are spoken of and heroised? 

The Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB, or Collaborative Research Centre) 948 at the University of Freiburg has made heroisation the focus of a twelve-year research project, examining the process in the past and present from a social, cultural, political and international perspective. The Prinzip Held* (The Hero Principle) exhibition examines this phenomenon: Heroines and heroes do not necessarily stand out because of their particular biographies, but rather because they break boundaries, bend rules, fight battles, unite communities on the inside and define them against the outside – and are presented for a specific audience. Prinzip Held* thus highlights the impact that different combinations of these components have, from Alexander the Great to Greta Thunberg.

As a public research project, Prinzip Held* is a cooperation between the University of Freiburg (SFB 948), the Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences (ZMSBw), the Bundeswehr Museum of Military History and Rimini Protokoll.