After the AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt: Threatened Nazi memorial sites

T he election program of the AfD Saxony-Anhalt in the area of ​​culture includes 21 points. It says things like this: “We will promote a relaxed and healthy self-confident German identity by referring to the good sides of German history.” And vice versa: “We should finally get rid of the “artificial maintenance of a feeling of guilt”.

Memorials to the victims of the Nazi regime are not directly included in the government program. But the sentences quoted make it clear that the right-wing radical party wants to lay the ax to the foundations of German culture of remembrance. Responsibility for history should lead to a “self-confident German identity”. Guilt is rejected as a category of weakness. Whoever is to blame has done something wrong. The Holocaust disrupts the splendor of German history. He should go away.

The concentration camp memorials and stumbling blocks, Jewish museums and memorial plaques for Nazi victims, all these things that remind us of the responsibility of the Germans, will do little to promote the desired “patriotic turnaround in all areas”. In the eyes of the AfD, they are therefore dispensable. The AfD will not level the Lichtenburg Prettin concentration camp memorial. Nor will the memory of the “euthanasia” murders in Bernburg be closed straight away. But cutting funding, yes, that would work. After all, you also have to pay the promised state representative for the preservation of the war memorials.

The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.

Cultural matters are a state matter. The Memorials Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt depends on donations from the state budget. The door to a revaluation of values ​​is wide open: away from humanity and historical responsibility, towards national arrogance, arrogance and false pride. Anyone who supports Ulrich Siegmund as a member of parliament, elects him as Prime Minister or promotes him by abstaining from the vote has not understood what is at stake. Namely the future of the past.