Saxony-Anhalt election result raises fears for memorial work

The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation is urging the federal government and Germany’s states to protect memorial sites after the AfD’s strong result in Saxony-Anhalt.

Foundation director Jens-Christian Wagner said memorials must be able to conduct independent research and education even when their findings displease a government. “Confronting Nazi crimes must remain the basis of our political understanding of ourselves,” he said in a statement.

The foundation fears for its remembrance work if the AfD takes part in governing Saxony-Anhalt. The party’s state election programme calls for a “new, patriotic cultural policy” and a “patriotic turn in all areas.” It also opposes what it describes as the perpetuation of a “complex of guilt” concerning Germany’s past. The programme says organizations seeking public funding should make a credible commitment to the democratic order and a patriotic stance.

“

Memorials must be able to conduct independent research and education even when their findings displease a government. Confronting Nazi crimes must remain the basis of our political understanding of ourselves.

The foundation wants binding safeguards that would remain effective if a state government withdrew support from memorial institutions or tried to subject their work to party-political directives. It says legal protection should cover scientific and educational independence as well as funding, including support that could keep institutions operating if politically motivated cuts were made to state funding.

According to the foundation, 42 satellite camps of Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora stood in what is now Saxony-Anhalt. The camps were sites of forced labor, violence and death in cities, communities and businesses. Memorials in Langenstein-Zwieberge, Wernigerode and Rehmsdorf now commemorate them. Between 1937 and 1945, the Nazis deported about 280,000 people to Buchenwald and its satellite camps, including tens of thousands of Jews. Some 56,000 were murdered or died from hunger, disease, forced labor or medical experiments.

“

that also remain effective if a state government withdraws support from the institutions or seeks to subject their work to party-political directives