Remembrance and commemoration
Commemoration of the NS rule of terror is defined by our knowledge that the holocaust is beyond compare. For this reason Germany bears a particular responsibility for the victims of the National Socialist tyranny and for the consequences of the Second World War. Added to this is the task of reconciliation for the wrongs of the SED dictatorship. The Federal Government’s objective is to accept responsibility, strengthen reconciliation with the past and remembrance. Substantial additional resources have already been made available for this purpose. For the years 2008 and 2009 the allocation for support for memorials has been increased by 50 percent to 35 million Euro.
The memorial concept which was decided upon by the Cabinet in June 2008 notably fulfils the obligations of the commemoration policy. The concentration camp memorials at Bergen-Belsen, Flossenbürg, Neuengamme and Dachau, which are of national importance, are being incorporated into the institutional funding provided by the Federal Government. In the surroundings of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is financed by the Federal Government, the Sinti and Roma murdered and the homosexuals persecuted under national socialism will be remembered by memorials in the Berlin Tiergarten. The Federal Government is involved in the construction of a memorial to the Nuremberg trials on the authentic site.
The new memorial concept will also reinforce reconciliation for the wrongs in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR, and remembrance of the victims. The institutional funding which is already in place will continue, such as at the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, where in addition the Federal Government is financing half the costs of the forthcoming rebuilding and the creation of a permanent exhibition. Because of their exceptional national and international significance, the Memorial to the Division of Germany in Marienborn is being co-funded by the Federal Government for the first time, and Federal support for the Marienfelde Refugee Centre Memorial and for the memorial site and meeting place at Leistikowstrasse in Potsdam is being made permanent. Support for the Memorial Museum on the "Runde Ecke” in Leipzig continues. The Reconciliation Foundation, which has been within the ambit of the Minister of State for Culture and the Media since 2005, will also support future projects dedicated to research and reconciliation of the wrongs of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).
The memorial on Bernauer Straße in Berlin is being extended in order to remember the victims of the division of Germany and the inhumanity of the Berlin Wall. At the "palace of tears” at the Friedrichstrasse station, the Foundation for the History of the Federal Republic of Germany is going to set up a permanent exhibition on the theme of "Division and the border in everyday German life”. To commemorate the peaceful revolution in autumn 1989 and the re-creation of a unified German state, a monument to the freedom and unity of Germany is being erected on the Berlin Schlossfreiheit.
Following a resolution by the Federal Government, an exhibition and documentation site is being set up in Berlin which is affiliated to the German Historical Museum as an independent "Foundation for Flight, Expulsion and Conciliation” to remember the fates of those who were expelled in Germany and throughout Europe. The historical preconditions for the flight and expulsion of the German people before and after the Second World War will also be illustrated, against the background of the National Socialist policy of expansion and destruction. The documentation site will serve for purposes of education and reconciliation, and is part of ongoing conciliation policy of the Federal Republic of Germany.
