For her term of office, state parliament president Heike Winzent has set herself the goal of visiting all 52 municipalities in Saarland to find out about their administrations, companies and institutions on site. She is expressly keen to get in touch with people, to meet and discuss with decency and respect. Like District Administrator Dr Theophil Gallo with his "District Administrator goes to school" project, she also seeks dialogue with pupils - whether at their school or in the state parliament. "Politics must not claim that people come to it. You have to approach them," says the President of the state parliament. As part of her "summer tour", she visits places of living democracy and organisations that support the topic of democracy. Her route therefore took her to the Siebenpfeiffer Foundation, which is based in the district administration of Saarland-Palatinate.
Martin Baus, the foundation's managing director, informed her about the organisation, which was named after the first Homburg "Landcommissär" Dr Philipp Jakob Siebenpfeiffer and founded in 1988, its committees and supporters, research topics and activities. The foundation publishes a series of publications dealing with the formative personalities of the Vormärz, but also with the history of democracy as a whole. Topics include freedom of the press, censorship, legal history and ideas about Europe in the 19th century. More than 30 years ago, District Administrator Dr Theophil Gallo, among others, conducted intensive research into the course and background of the proceedings of the Assisengericht in Landau in the course of Siebenpfeiffer's arrest and conviction following the Hambach Festival. Colloquia, but also public events on current topics such as the banquet to mark the founding of the Press and Fatherland Association - a kind of journalists' union - and the awarding of the Journalist Prize for Courageous Enlightenment are part of the foundation's work. District Administrator Dr Gallo emphasised: "We must raise awareness of the pioneering achievements of people like Siebenpfeiffer or Johann Georg August Wirth, who provided the impetus and groundwork for our democracy with the Hambach Festival in 1832, but also preserve them and therefore always remain active on the subject. The President of Parliament emphasised: "In these difficult times, I would like to advocate that we all stand up for our democracy. As the heart of democracy, the state parliament is open to groups of visitors to take part in plenary sessions and discussions with MPs. 4,000 visitors a year take advantage of this offer, which is to be further expanded and for which additional formats are to be developed.
Martin Baus also gave a haptic insight into the Foundation's collection. Originals of the printed Siebenpfeiffer speech and Wirth's Vormärz newspaper "Deutsche Tribüne" with censorship blanks could be held in hands and read. This liberal daily newspaper was produced in Homburg and Zweibrücken in Georg Ritter's print shop until it was completely banned. Monika Link, alias his wife Regina, provided a deeper insight into Wirth's life and work during a flying visit to the Siebenpfeiffer House. Regina Wirth, mother of three children, was herself a participant in the Hambach Festival and helped to organise the demonstration in the Palatinate from Homburg. She welcomed the President of the State Parliament and the District Administrator at the original printing press on which Wirth produced his "German Tribune". This press will be presented next year at the Bavarian state exhibition "Our best king? Ludwig I!" in Regensburg next year - as an important testimony to the democratic opposition in the Palatinate, which had courageously opposed the monarch.