Memory policy – memorials under pressure: places of self -criticism

In Brandenburg it was 29 percent, 31 percent in Saxony and 33 percent in Thuringia – in the 2024 state elections, the right -wing extremist AfD received a particularly large number of votes in the East German federal states. An “atmospheric climate change” has been clearly noticeable in Brandenburg since then, Horst Seferens, spokesman for the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation. This is not only evident in an increasing number of rights and anti -Semitic incidents in the memorials on the crimes of the NS, but also to more and more help -looking teachers whose pupils display right -wing views more confident and aggressive. “We set ourselves to the fact that the climate will continue to exacerbate and that the attacks on the culture of remembrance will increase,” says Seferens.

But what about the work of the Nazi memorials in the three countries? What influence have new households at the state and federal level in the design of the places of remembrance? Representatives of the memorial foundations from Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg provide information about this and tell of concerns about the future, but also of hopeful alliances as the guardian of a timely one again! “.

Structural underfunding

Most memorials that are reminiscent of the historical places of the main or outer warehouse of a concentration camp are operated or financed by foundations. In the three countries, this Foundation is called Saxon Memorials (SSG), Brandenburg Memorial Foundation (SBG) and Foundation Memorials Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora in Thuringia (SGBM). The foundations have been promoted proportionately from the budget of the Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media since 1990 – according to the current draft budget, none of them are affected by cuts, but the grants have not been increased.

In contrast to the other foundations, which are funded by the federal government and the federal states, the SSG receives 75 percent from the Free State of Saxony. With the current draft budget, the “serious danger of what has been achieved so far and our ability to work is threatened,” said the SSG on April 14th. Because in the Saxon budget draft for 2025 and 2026 there is no adaptation to the increased personnel costs due to tariffs and the increased operating costs. “Housekeeping has never been so challenging,” says deputy managing director Sven Riesel in an interview with “ND”.

In Brandenburg, “has been suffering from structural underfunding for years,” said SBG spokesman for Seferens. He also refers to increased energy costs with a growing number of visitors since Corona pandemic. More audiences need more staff, increased energy costs and aging buildings need more money.

A large part of right -wing extremist attacks on memorials take place today in the digital space.

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Although according to Riesel, the structural certificates have a “high value” in the mediation work, digital memorial work is becoming more important. The SGBM press officer, Rikola-Gunnar Lüttgenau, says that a large part of right-wing extremist attacks on Thuringian memorials take place in digital space today. He reports of a recently commissioned forensic report on lampshades and pocket knife etuis made of human skin that the SS could be made from the prisoner bodies. Although it can be proven in the place of memory, the memorial decided to hire a costly report. The reason: fake news and conspiracy counts on the net that deny the objects made by the Nazis from human skin. “This is a new, original task of concentration camp memorials,” says Lüttgenau about working in the digital space.

Corraps and bulwark

The memorials in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg can only do this task through project funds. In Saxony there is not a single memorial with a full position in the field of education, says SSG managing director Riesel-let alone a social media editorial team. »In these sociopolitical debates, where we could contribute a lot with our expertise to historical contexts and democratic values, others take the place that are extremist. The time runs away, «said Riesel. Lüttgenau also speaks of a “digital guardrail”: to provide knowledge of Nazi memorials on the net, can help democratically hired citizens to incorporate it into discussions. It is also about making history revisionism visible. “In a way, we are the keepers of the place,” says Lüttgenau.

However, the employees do not defend their places of remembrance just before cuts or digital attacks, but also before the AfD. “New” is the growing parliamentary arm right -wing extremist ideology according to Lüttgenau. In Thuringia, the AfD regional association has been considered “secured right -wing extremists” since 2021, in Saxony the Higher Administrative Court on January 21 confirmed the AfD as “secured right -wing extremist” and Brandenburg was classified on April 14. The spokesman for the foundations report more and more AfD MPs who hang up election posters in the memorials or disrupt the events.

For the head of the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial, Andreas Froese, the AfD is only a “symptom” of a background of social law that has been emerging for years, which is in high election results for the external party. Froese reports in conversation with “ND” that participants in the educational formats are increasingly no longer available. The pedagogues more often hit a shrug or an unimpressed “yes and?”, For example if they conveyed racism in the NS. The spokesman for the Saxon Memorials Foundation also tells how tours are often disturbed and the work of the memorials would be questioned.

Civil society alliances

So what to do if more right -wing extremists have a say in the debates in the state parliament and the political discourse? What to do if right -wing ideas are normalized? The spokesman for the foundations agree: the educational work must be evaluated and strengthened. It is also important to close alliances in civil society.

“We are now in a social situation in our country where it is not enough to mow the lawn as a sports club and put the beer box down, but we have to do more,” says SGBM spokesman Lüttgenau. With the Weimar Sports Office and the State Sports Association of Thuringia, the Foundation is designing an exhibition on Jewish sports stars this year. “We know from conversations that the clubs need concrete visits,” says Lütgenau. For the foundation, the new task is to “go into the width of rural areas”.

One should not lean back and rest on the great encouragement and the many visitors, says the spokesman for the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora memorial. Instead, it is about “getting in touch with the people who have not yet been in concentration camp memorials” as well as the creation of offers that appeal to people in their living environment. An approach that the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation has also been implementing under the motto “From the region for the region” for several years, as foundation spokesman Seferens explains. This includes, for example, participation in regional youth history projects as well as demonstrations on the occasion of Christopher Street Day.

It is important to all speakers of the foundations that dealing with the history of National Socialism is connected to the present and future, as they make clear several times in conversation. In this context, “almost a kind of fundamental judgment” was felled in November, says Tourgey spokesman Lüttgenau. On November 5, 2024, the Weimar administrative court largely rejected the Thuringian State Association of the AfD. The party had tried to prohibit the SGBM in court to point out historical revisionist statements by party representatives. The complaint was preceded by a letter from the SGBM from August 2024 in front of the Thuringian state elections: In it, the foundation called for the Thuringian population to choose democratic parties. They also informed about National Socialist language and Holocaustrelative statements by AfD politicians.

The court decision is encouraged not only for the Thuringian Nazi memorials, but probably for all seasons in Germany. »Basically, the judgment in Weimar reflects how we already work in Saxony: non -partisan and independent of the party. But of course we work politically: we have a clear legal order to protect and convey the values ​​of our democracy and our rule of law, ”summarizes the managing director of the Saxon Memorial Foundation, Sven Riesel.

Non-neutrality requirement

There may be no precise ideas about what is the task of a Nazi memorial. Rikola-Gunnar Lüttgenau speaks of a “quite remarkable fact” that a democratic society creates an institutionalized place in order to take a critical look at from there. Nazi memorials would open the room to ask themselves to what extent the company is well written and what developments have to worry. According to Lüttgenau, the memorial work is always about the reference to your own past and the question of how a society has already developed in the wrong direction.

Culture of remembrance lives from the “contemporary relevance,” says Horst Seferens from the SBG. Because on the one hand, the mandate of the foundations is to preserve the dignity of the victim, but also in addressing the perpetrator. In order to fulfill this order, Nazi memorials must not be “neutral”, but also have to interfere in current political discussions, emphasizes Lüttgenau.

The memorial manager in Mittelbau-Dora, Andreas Froese, makes it clear that this order is right now. The CDU’s taboo break is “alarming” to form a political majority of the AfD for the first time in the Bundestag in order to attack asylum law. After all, it was the United Nations who, in 1948 in the general explanation of human rights, fixed an individual asylum law – as a consequence of the historical experience of National Socialism.