The German stamp programme for 2021 currently lists 53 stamps. Six of these are of special interest for this part of my collection. Issued in February for example will be two stamps about the 150th birthday of Friedrich Ebert and 1700 years of recorded Jewish Life in Germany. At first I was not very interested in the second stamp, but since I know that it will commemorate a specific event, I am excited. Currently I plan a post about it, so I do not want to write too much about it now. The next issues will celebrate the Birth Centenary of Sophie Scholl in May, the Centenary of the AVUS in July and the 500th anniversary of Augsburg's Fuggerei in August. At least for Sophie Scholl I plan a post, but currently I do not know how it will look like. Also I still try to find an answer, why Sophie now already gets the third stamp, while her brother Hans have not got any yet. The last stamp I want to mention here will be issued in November and commemorates without any anniversary Robert Blum, who definitely deserves to be finally shown on a stamp. A jubilee I really miss in this programme is the 150th anniversary of the Proclamation of the German Empire. I also plan a post why it maybe was omitted.
Austria also plans some interesting stamps for the next year. These for example include the Centenary of the Burgenland, the 50th anniversary of Diplomatic Relations with China and Climate Change. The real highlight however will already be issued in January. A stamp will honour the Frankfurt Kitchen and a post for this one will follow for sure, so again I do not want write too much about it yet.
France so far only published the first half of its programme, but the most important stamp is already included in these first six months. On 17th April a stamp for the 200th death anniversary of Napoleon will be issued, which is definitely among the stamps that I am most looking forward to. Other issues include for example Madeleine Brès, Simone de Beauvoir and the Gaul hillfort Bibracte.
Among various actors and singers also Italy will issue a stamp about Napoleon. This is currently the only European jubilee for which I saw stamps planned by more than one country. Other issues of Italy include the 1600th birthday of Venice and the 450th anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto. However also Italy so far just published the first half of its programme. An issue which should be expected in the second half of the year is the 700th death anniversary of Dante Alighieri, which will also be honoured by a Vatican issue next year.
Thinking outside the European box shows that the USA currently only have one anniversary issue in their programme about the Bicentenary of Missouri Statehood. History themed stamps about Chien-Shiung Wu and Japanese American Soldiers of WWII are however also planned without anniversary. A Chinese jubilee to look forward to is the Centenary of the Communist Party, while no stamp about the 650th birthday of Zheng He is planned.
My list of jubilees that I will include in the page above in the next days so currently looks like this:
100th birthday of Friedrich Dürrenmatt
100th birthday of Sophie Scholl
100th birthday of Stanislaw Lem
100 years Burgenland
100 years Communist Party of China
100 years Discovery of Insulin
150th birthday of Friedrich Ebert
150 years Proclamation of the German Empire
200th death anniversary of Napoleon
200 years Beginning of the Greek Revolution
200 years Congress of Laibach
300 years End of the Great Northern War
450th birthday of Caravaggio
450th birthday of Johannes Kepler
450 years Battle of Lepanto
500 years Diet of Worms
500 years Fuggerei in Augsburg
550th birthday of Albrecht Dürer
650th birthday of Zheng He
700th death anniversary of Dante Alighieri
750 years Beginning of Marco Polo's Journey
1600 years Venice
1700 years Jewish Life in Germany
1900th birthday of Marcus Aurelius
Unlike in recent years 2021 does not offer a BIG jubilee, however there might be one which is not on my radar yet or maybe more countries decide to issue stamps for example for Dante or Napoleon. If you think I missed one please post a comment.
During 2020 German museums were closed for more than three months (mid-March until early May, since November until ???). Nonetheless I still visited some new museums and interesting exhibitions, but the excitement for next year is even bigger. Unfortunately however I think it is quite hard to find comprehensive information about upcoming exhibitions here in Germany, so these are just a few selected exhibitions I am looking forward to:
The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum here in Braunschweig will show in March an exhibition about the Silver Furniture of the Welfs, which are currently here as a loan from the Marienburg Castle. Later a exhibition will deal with the early life of Max Beckmann. The two big museums in nearby Hildesheim, the Cathedral Museum and the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum, will deal with nunneries and epidemics and the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover is supposed to show an exhibition about dinosaurs in movies, which was actually planned to open this month, which now however is postponed, as the museums are still closed. After Fascination City in 2019 the Cultural History Museum in Magdeburg again prepares for a big medieval exhibition, about the Premonstratensians this time. Some rather faraway exhibitions I would love to visit are about the Silk Road (Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg), Gothic art (Berlin) and the Nebra Sky Disk (Halle State Museum of Prehistory). The one big exhibition I wanted to visit this year however, Krieg Macht Nation in Dresden, I could not visit, so I am not very hopeful that these will work. Interesting is also the reopening of the Prussian Museum in Minden and an exhibition about the Diet of Worms in Worms. Currently shown in the Netherlands, the Baden State Museum in Karlsruhe will later also show an exhibition about women in Jugendstil art, but as that one will be shown here in Braunschweig in 2022, I will wait.
Last but not least next year also the new preselected sites for the European Heritage Label 2022 should be announced this year. As far as I know Finland already preselected the Seminaarinmäki in Jyväskylä and Germany chose Fulda and the Oderbruch, but only one of these can get the label.
What did I miss? What are you looking forward to in 2021?
