Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth wants to prescribe a new culture of remembrance for Germany. Memorials and historians, on the other hand, are taking to the barricades. The Green politician is now rowing back.

Despite all reports to the contrary, the federal government has too much money. This impression comes to mind when you look at her plans in the area of ​​historical policy: she wants to build a new documentation center on the Second World War in Berlin for 134 million euros.

A German-Polish memorial site, which is also to be built in the capital, is unlikely to be cheaper. An exhibition center in Halle with which the federal government wants to honor the “lifetime achievements of East Germans” is expected to cost more than 200 million euros. These are just a few of the multi-million dollar history museums that the traffic light government wants to realize as soon as possible, despite likely dwindling tax revenues.

The states are actually responsible for maintaining historical memory. In recent years, however, the federal government has acquired more and more competencies. In February, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth presented the draft of a “Framework Concept for Remembrance Culture”, which for the first time sets out in detail how Germany should deal with its history.

The 43-page paper sparked a storm of indignation among historians. A letter from all German memorial sites addressed to Roth states that the concept could be understood as “historical revisionist in the sense of trivializing the Nazi crimes.” Although it disappeared from the Minister of State’s website after a short time, it subsequently received a hail of critical press reports.

After the scandal surrounding anti-Semitic works of art at the Documenta and Roth’s silence on the anti-Israel speeches at the Berlinale, the Green politician had once again found herself in trouble.

Hubertus Knabe is one of the most famous historians in Germany. For 18 years he was scientific director of the memorial in the former Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. He works as a historian at the Chair of Modern History at the University of Würzburg. His most recent book, “17. June 1953. A German uprising”. Further analyzes from him can be found at www.hubertus-knabe.de

Roth had actually planned the big hit. Because the SPD, FDP and Greens agreed in the coalition agreement to update the federal memorial concept, they wanted to fundamentally reform the German culture of remembrance. It was important, she wrote in a newspaper article, “to create a policy of remembrance for the immigration society.” But the mountain gave birth and gave birth to a mouse.

Even in terms of language, the paper is an imposition. It meanders in long tapeworm sentences about the tasks involved in dealing with German history. It reminded the historian Norbert Frei of a “diligent seminar paper”.

The verdict from the memorials was even more damning. In their letter to the Minister of State, they wrote that it did not contain an “analysis of challenges to the culture of remembrance based on scientific findings.” The deficiencies in Roth’s paper were so serious that “the present draft should not be pursued any further.”

A sample: A contemporary memory concept, it says on the first page, must “also take into account the struggle for democracy in Germany and the diversity of individual and collective memories as formative elements of democratic equality and future shared memories, especially in one Appreciate the immigration society.”

I’m sorry, what? If you wade through the text, which is surprisingly miserable for a ministry of culture, you will learn that the German state should no longer only remember National Socialism and the SED dictatorship, but also colonialism, the history of immigrants and the “culture of democracy”.

For this purpose, the Commissioner for Culture and Media is planning further projects worth millions. In Berlin she wants to build a memorial to European and German colonialism and also promote “cultural lighthouse projects” on the same topic. A “House of the Immigration Society” is to be built in Cologne, for which it has already approved more than 22 million euros.

In Frankfurt am Main, the Paulskirche is to be expanded to include a “House of Democracy”, for which it wants to provide 19.5 million euros. A documentation center is also to be built for the victims of the right-wing extremist NSU group, which, according to the feasibility study, will cost over fifteen million euros annually.

The paper is silent about how all of this will be financed. Federal Finance Minister Linder informed his cabinet colleagues in writing in March that “there will be no additional financial resources available for distribution” in 2025. The head of the Buchenwald Memorial therefore warned: If there are no more resources overall, but there are additional memorials, this could lead to “the existing places possibly no longer being able to carry out their work in this form”. According to the latest tax estimate, the federal government’s revenue will be another eleven billion euros lower.

However, the unclear financing of Roth’s plans is only one point of criticism. Historians are primarily opposed to the expansion of state remembrance into all possible areas – which would push the crimes of National Socialism and the SED dictatorship into the background. The memorials therefore accuse the Green politician of her draft ushering in a “historical-political paradigm shift that would lead to a fundamental weakening of the culture of remembrance.”

According to her statement, Roth’s concept does not make clear the central importance of dealing with Nazi crimes for the Federal Republic’s self-image. Rather, the mention of the crimes against humanity of the Shoah only seems like “a dutiful mantra.” The comments on communist injustice also “raised doubts about a reflective attitude towards the GDR state crimes”.

In fact, the paper only deals with the communist dictatorship in East Germany under the heading “German Division / German Unity”. It says that alongside the history of repression, resistance and peaceful revolution, there has been “increasingly a critical reflection on the transformation period” after reunification. The initial focus on perpetrators and victims and the Stasi gave way to a “differentiated examination of life under the SED dictatorship.” The fact that the federally funded memorials have the task of counteracting such trivializing tendencies is not part of Roth’s concept.

The statements about the “immigrant society” seem naive and dangerous. While memorials wrestle with the problem of how to convey the insights of National Socialism and Communism to migrants, Roth wants to take the opposite approach: the aim is “to create a common remembrance of the future of our society based on the many different experiences, perspectives and historical memories to make possible”.

The German culture of remembrance should therefore be dissolved into a colorful mix of multicultural narratives. What this seemingly progressive tolerance can lead to can already be seen today in schools and universities, where anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are on the rise everywhere.

The uncritical adoption of post-colonial discourses by Germany’s highest cultural authority fits in with this. Under Roth’s aegis, it works, among other things, with the Black People in Germany Initiative, whose board includes an ultra-left Marxist. This is also noticeable in the concept. Accordingly, “many current phenomena of inequalities and injustices in the current world order” can be traced to the consequences of imperialism and colonialism.

This is evident, among other things, in unstable governments, ethnic conflicts, migration and racism. The planned place of learning and remembrance, for which a commission of experts is already developing a report, is also intended to convey this shortened view of Africa’s problems.

At the end of April, the memorials spoke out for a second time. In a letter they formulate their own guidelines for revising the memorial concept. The National Socialist crimes would then have to continue to occupy a “prominent position”. Coming to terms with the SED dictatorship is also “a task for the entire state”. In addition, it has proven useful to “exclusively focus on memorial sites at sites of state-organized crimes.”

If revised, it goes on to say, places that have a connection to German colonialism could also be included. However, the same funding criteria must apply to them as to everyone else: the decisive factors are the national significance of the historical site and the quality of the concept. An anti-colonialist propaganda center cannot be created with these specifications.

The strong reactions to her paper obviously surprised Roth. In January, at a meeting of the Central Council of Jews, she proudly pointed out the concept, which was still in the works at the time. Apparently no one had pointed out to her that the federal government’s memorial policy was by far the most difficult area in her department. Your plan to proclaim a new remembrance policy for Germany has failed resoundingly.

Roth has now withdrawn. While she originally wanted to have her concept discussed at large “dialogue forums” in the second half of April in order to “subsequently” complete it, there is no longer any talk of this. The later announcement to invite people to a “Round Table of Memorials” at the beginning of May is now obsolete again. It is now scheduled to take place on June 6th in the Federal Chancellery. When asked when the concept should be presented to the Bundestag, a spokeswoman only gave a vague answer: “Probably in the fall.”

It is questionable whether this will happen at all. Roth has assured the memorial sites that the discussion about the culture of remembrance will be separated from the memorial concept. That would take your paper off the table. A revision of the existing concept also takes time and there are federal elections in September next year. By then, at the latest, the 70-year-old Green Party politician herself should be history.