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Press Information published by the International Auschwitz Committee

13.02.2023

IAC calls for change in Germany’s remembrance culture

 
 
Potsdam Germany, 21 March 1933. Handshake at official meeting of Chancellor Adolf Hitler and President Paul Ludwig von Hindenburg at the opening ceremony of the Reichstag held in the Garrison Church in Potsdam. Image: imago images/Leemage

Potsdam Germany, 21 March 1933. Handshake at official meeting of Chancellor Adolf Hitler and President Paul Ludwig von Hindenburg at the opening ceremony of the Reichstag held in the Garrison Church in Potsdam. Image: imago images/Leemage

 

 

 

These days mark the 90th anniversary of the time when the Nazis took over power in Germany on 30 January 1933 and then promptly destroyed the foundations of democracy in civil society in the following few weeks of February and March 1933.

At that time only a few members of the social elites were prepared to stand in the way of the Nazis, but there were many obliging and submissive opportunists who helped to pave the way for the destruction of democracy in society and give free rein to rampant anti-Semitism. To this day, many of these opportunists are actually commemorated in German towns and cities. Their names are eternalized on memorial plaques and in street names, where they are enshrined as role models, and respectable citizens.

To name but a few examples from a lengthy series: to this day the city of Kassel still has not managed to conclusively distance itself from its honorary citizen Paul von Hindenburg. And to this day the city of Düren has continued to cultivate the memory of Max von Schillings, a German composer who was born in Düren in 1868. Schillings was a declared anti-Semite and anti-democrat who willingly became a Nazi lackey as President of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, and ensured that Jewish artists and highly recognised democratic authorities, such as Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann were forced to leave the academy. To this day, Max von Schillings is honoured in Düren with a plaque on the house where he was born, and with the name of the main street in the district of Gürzenich. Speaking in Berlin, Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, said:

“Now, as despisers of democracy and anti-Semites are once again taking up the old hatred of those days and years and spreading it around the globe, it is high time to increase general awareness about the destruction of democracy and the people who promoted it. It is also time to end the continuing, undifferentiated cult of honouring anti-democratic and anti-Semitic citizens. The cities of Kassel and Düren are now facing the challenge to amend their remembrance culture and add information that enables especially young people to learn from history.”

 
 
 

For further Information

Christoph Heubner

Executive Vice President
International Auschwitz Committee
Phone ++ 49 (0)30 26 39 26 81