Seibert stressed that the federal ministries were all mindful of these important turning points in history. “We will be marking these occasions with fitting events that were conceived, supported or co-initiated by the Federal Government,” Seibert said in Berlin. At the same time he paid tribute to the broad historical initiative in society: “What we do not have in Germany is a state-prescribed policy on history. We are a country in which remembrance and commemoration are strongly focused on the federal level and above all expressed in broad-based civil society activities.”

Exhibition in the German Historical Museum

The outbreak of the First World War – the “great seminal catastrophe of the 20th century” – is of particular historical importance. From June 2014 an exhibition entitled “1914 – 100 Years On” in the German Historical Museum will focus on these events. The exhibition is being financed by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. A programme of events will accompany the exhibition from June to the end of the year.

Other events across Germany will look at these historical events from various perspectives. The Federal Government is supporting various institutions. It recently launched a website on the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Fitting and appropriate commemoration

The Coalition Agreement sets out that: “In the coming legislative period we will mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and German Reunification, and will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps, the end of the Second World War and 80 years since the Nuremberg Laws in a fitting and appropriate manner.”