Two Sides of Germany: Remembrance and Hate

Buchenwald Memorial Site (Flickr)

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier attended a memorial service on April 11 in the city of Weimar that marked the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps. He was accompanied by Thuringia State Premier Bodo Ramelow and the president of the state parliament, Birgit Keller. Both camps are located in Thuringia State.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, neither those who survived these concentration camps nor their relatives were allowed to gather in remembrance. Many joined a virtual ceremony, which was an improvement from last year when no ceremony occurred. 

“Communists and democrats, homosexuals and so-called asocials were incarcerated at Buchenwald. Jews, Sinti, and Roma were brought here and murdered,” Steinmeier said during a speech. “With its diversity of victims’ groups, Buchenwald represents the entire barbarism of the Nazis, its aggressive nationalism to the outside, its dictatorship on the inside, and a racist way of thinking.”

Steinmeier also warned against forgetting the atrocities committed by Germans during the war. He also called for Germans to disregard those "who deliberately disregard the dignity of the victims today." He stressed that it is incredibly important to keep the memory of those who perished alive. 

While Steinmeier attended a Holocaust memorial, Germany’s most far-right party since the Second World War, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), called for a ‘normal’ Germany at a party conference where they finalized their manifesto. During Saturday’s session, it is reported that the 570 delegates did not adhere to COVID-19 protocols and restrictions.

In speeches made by co-leaders of the anti-Islam and anti-immigration party, there was a lot to be discussed. Co-leader Tino Chrupalla, who is most likely to be the chancellor nominee, urged party members to put aside recent infighting and unite with each other. He stated that the party needed a "clear profile, unity, courage, and solidarity."

Co-leader Jörg Meuthen used his time to criticize rival parties. He emphasized that Germany had been ruled for 16 years by a chancellor and parties that had destroyed "normality" in Germany bit by bit. Meuthen did not withhold himself, calling the Green and Left parties “socialist opposition parties.” He vowed to rid Germany of “these orgies of bans, these jailings, this mania for locking down.”

Their new manifesto aims also included Germany leaving the European Union, reinstating conscription for all German citizens, and banning minarets, which are recognizable structures in mosques from which a muezzin calls Muslims to prayer. 

All of this is seen as a return to a normal Germany by the AfD. The contradiction in attitudes between President Steinmeier and the far-right party of Germany on a day of solemn remembrance is striking. Yet, the AfD’s juxtaposed speeches do not indicate a significant change in German policy––their grip on Germany is slipping, and all other parties in Parliament refuse to work with them.