Institut für Stadtgeschichte 
Karmeliterkloster, Frankfurt am Main

The Public Relations Department is responsible for our  calendar of events and for press relations. It provides a  reading room where users are welcome to browse our  library and archives. Using selected archive material, the PR Department also caters for school classes and other groups, providing  educational advice on working with historical sources and for projects on the history of Frankfurt . It provides guided tours of basement archives, including a tour entitled „ Below the Surface of the Earth“ and  guided tours of the Carmelite Monastery. Moreover, it organizes  lectures, conferences and symposia on the history of Frankfurt .

The Carmelite Monastery with its historic rooms offers outstanding opportunities for  exhibitions and  concerts. Working together with artists, private collectors and designers, the PR Department sets up exhibitions on the subject of fine art in Frankfurt as well as with a specific focus on Frankfurt itself. These are held either in the Refectory or the Cloister. It also  lets the premises of the Monastery for conferences and events of other organizers.

History-focused stimuli from the community in Frankfurt are made accessible by the Department to a broad public. Whenever  proposals for memorials are put forward by institutions, by representatives of local committees, by historical and political initiatives or by private history researchers, they are studied by the PR Department and submitted to the city’s Memorial Commission. Working closely with the City Council, with those proposing memorial projects and with fine artists, the Department then realizes the proposals that have been approved.

Another important part of the Public Relations Department is the  Frankfurter Erzählcafé ( Frankfurt Narration Café) . This is a series of events which was created in 1990 and is based on the oral history method. Verbal reports are put in writing, so that they become available for archiving. Moreover, the Department runs a series called „ Frankfurt-er-lesen“ (a phrase with a double meaning: „reading all about Frankfurt“ and „sophisticated Frankfurt“) where Frankfurt-based literature is communicated. Here, texts are presented which add up to a portrait of the city and thus a basis for the literary audio archives of the Institut für Stadtgeschichte ( Institute of Local History ).

The Public Relations Department conducts audio interviews with contemporary witnesses – an important source of the city’s unofficial records. These include guests of the city’s visiting programme for its former Jewish citizens, who are also supported by the Department in tracking their own histories.