Installation consisting of 5 photographs (50 x 70 cm each)
and two videos (approx. 3 min. each, colour, silent)

In the early 1980s – at the climax of the cold war – a small village close to the inter-German border became the starting point of a scenario for the Third World War led with nuclear weapons between NATO and Warsaw Pact, which was developed by US-American military. This was made public by a television documentary about the defense strategy of the United States which was broadcasted in the USA. In this documentary US generals develop strategies for a "limited nuclear war" in Central Europe, which is called "European theatre" in the military usage. German television prevented the broadcasting of the documentation in the Federal Republic of Germany. However activists of the peace movement succeeded in receiving a copy of the film. Subsequently it became an important source of information for the German peace movement.
The installation "European theatre" combines excerpts of this film with a series of five photographs, which show the village today – more than 20 years after the appearance of the film. The film sequences show American generals during a training for nuclear warfare, standing around a model of the village. On the photographs the village looks deserted, with meager vegetation and without vehicles on the roads, like a model of itself.

© Wiebke Grösch/Frank Metzger