Cultural Affairs Minister Wolfram Weimer (non-partisan) has issued a warning regarding the 65th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall, cautioning against any trivialization of the GDR dictatorship. Weimer told the FAZ that parties like the AfD and the Left Party are promoting “positive images of the GDR in East Germany.”
Speaking in the context of an AfD event in Dessau where a comedian had sung the GDR national anthem, “Auferstanden aus Ruinen,” and some AfD politicians had joined in, Weimer stressed that the “collective forgetting, pushing aside, and trivializing the GDR” represents the greatest challenge to remembering the SED dictatorship.
The Culture Minister, who is responsible for memorial sites, expressed “great concern” over the culture of remembrance in federal states where elections are scheduled for September. He warned that if Saxony-Anhalt drifts further right and Berlin further left, the approach to historical memory in both regions will change compared to before. This caution is particularly relevant given that the AfD could achieve an absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt, while the Left Party shows strong polling in certain parts of Berlin.
Weimer advocated for “active forms of remembrance,” such as naming streets and squares after those who resisted the GDR regime. He stated, “For example, wherever new streets are being built, one should at least consider naming them after people who were killed or imprisoned by the communist dictatorship.”
Evelyn Zupke, the Federal Commissioner for the Victims of the SED Dictatorship, criticized the tendency to portray the GDR as “cozy and communal.” Zupke told the FAZ that for the victims-those who were persecuted or imprisoned-the past is never over. Furthermore, she noted that anyone who could not or would not conform could not have led a good life under the dictatorship.
The trivialization of the SED dictatorship manifests in “many forms,” such as the “politically charged nostalgic rides on the Simson,” an East German moped, on which the Thuringian AfD chairman, Björn Höcke, took photographs. While Zupke conceded that “private nostalgic memories are deeply human,” she stated that it becomes problematic “when dictatorship and surveillance are forgotten.”
