Exhibition opening at the memorial

On Thursday, February 22, 2024 at 4.30 p.m., the exhibition "Friedrich Wilhelm Höhn. A Prussian police captain in Japan. A Search for Traces 1885–1891" at the Memorial and Documentation Center "Victims of Political Tyranny", Collegienstraße 10.

The special exhibition is dedicated to the international interdependencies of Brandenburg-Prussia's police history using the example of Friedrich Wilhelm Höhn (1839–1892), who was born in Güstebiese (Gozdowice) in 1839.

In 1885, the Berlin police officer went to Japan with his wife and stepdaughter, to a country that was faced with the task of modernizing its state system as quickly as possible in order to be on an equal footing with the major Western powers. As part of these reforms of the political, cultural and scientific system, which encompassed all areas of social life, Höhn devoted himself to reorganizing the police system along Prussian lines.

Höhn helped to create a modern institution that served both to protect and control the Japanese subjects. Because of his outstanding role, he was called the "father of the Japanese police" at the time and was later honored with a memorial stone at the Mimeguri Shrine in Tokyo.

The exhibition will be on display at the memorial until 4 July 2024. Curator Beate Wonde will be present at the opening and present background information on the exhibition and her research in Brandenburg and Japan in her introductory lecture.

The event is being held in cooperation with the Volkshochschule Frankfurt (Oder) adult education center.

When and where?

Thursday, February 22, 2024 | 4.30 p.m.
Memorial and Documentation Site "Victims of Political Tyranny" 
Collegienstraße 10, 15230 Frankfurt (Oder)