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German Politicians on the Need for a Monument



In 2007, on the anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, the Bundestag passed a special resolution that called for erecting a "Monument to Freedom and Unity." This monument is intended to recall the peaceful revolution of 1989, and "simultaneously to memorialize and commemorate the German history of  'Freedom Movements and  Strivings for Unification'." [1]

Bundestagspräsident Lammert (CDU/CSU) endorsed the idea of a "Freedom and Unity Monument", saying that the successful German Revolution for Freedom and the subsequent Reunification of Germany should have a permanent place in the national memory. Bundesminister Tiefensee (SPD) added his support of a monument of this type: "Freedom and Democracy always have to be learned anew, strengthened and defended. This is a challenge for all generations, but especially the younger generation," said the Minister. [1]

Lammert said that "it is not as funny as it sounds" to say that there needs to be a monument to Freedom and Unity to remind young people of Germany's past, when "a recent study that found that 5% of German high-schoolers thought that Walter Ulbricht was an opposition leader in the GDR, and more than 7% thought that Erich Honecker was the second President of the Federal Republic of Germany." [2]

Tiefensee recalled that the civil movements that arose in the final phase of the GDR were not centrally organized, and that, "therefore, there probably will not be one central monument, but a number of them." [1]

Bundestagsvicepräsident Wolfgang Thierse (SPD) said that "we Germans do not just need monuments to keep us from forgetting the victims and shameful deeds of the past, but also to remind us of the happy moments of our history. Therefore, it makes sense to have monuments not only to the War and the Holocaust, but also to Reunification and the German Freedom Movements." [Focus, 24.10.07]

[1] - Magazine for Infrastructure and the New States (Länder) Nr. 008  12/2007
http://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Magazine/MagazinInfrastrukturNeueLaender/008/t-4-freiheit-einheit-denkmal-friedliche-revolution.html

[2] - http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/tagdereinheit2.html


-----------------Contact Addresses-------------

Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert, CDU/CSU MdB
Deutscher Bundestag
Platz der Republik 1
11011 Berlin, Germany
eMail: praesident (at) bundestag.de

Dr. h. c. Wolfgang Thierse, SPD MdB
Deutscher Bundestag
Platz der Republik 1
11011 Berlin, Germany
eMail: wolfgang.thierse (at) bundestag.de

Wolfgang Tiefensee
Bundesminister für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung
Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung
Invalidenstr. 44
10115 Berlin, Germany



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This page was last updated on: July 14, 2010