Anti-Semitism expert: “Experiencing climate change in memory policy” | tagesschau.de

The director of the foundation of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora memorials warns of a “political climate change in memory”. This can also be seen in the appearance of the AfD, in statements by Maassen and the discussion about Aiwanger, said Wagner.

tagesschau.de: Mr. Wagner, a year ago, during the corona pandemic, you called for the protection of liberal democracy’s “reflective historical awareness”. How are Germans dealing with their own history today?

Jens Christian Wagner: It’s gotten worse. On the one hand, the conspiracy legends associated with Corona and ahistorical equations of a “Corona dictatorship” with National Socialism persist. On the other hand, there was the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. This also goes hand in hand with the instrumentalization of history, with a reversal of guilt. The right-wing extremists in particular are using the war to stir up anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-American, but also anti-Semitic resentments.

tagesschau.de: How is this reflected in the foundation’s work?

Wagner: Open attacks have increased significantly in recent months, especially in recent weeks. Neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic graffiti appear almost daily at German memorial sites. Two weeks ago there was an attack on the office of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation. Panes were smashed, plaques overturned. We are very concerned about this development.

tagesschau.de: How do you explain that?

Wagner: For several years we have been experiencing a climate change in memory politics. Anti-Semitism, conspiracy legends, Reich citizen ideology are increasing. You can basically sum it up in three letters: AfD. The party is experiencing a lot of growth due to the various crises. In doing so, it unites exactly these currents in its ranks, which gives the right-wing extremists the tailwind to openly turn against memorial sites and a culture of remembrance. In this social climate, violent attacks on memorial site work take place.

Warning against AfD candidates in the mayoral election in Nordhausen

tagesschau.de: The Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial is located in Nordhausen. The city will elect a new mayor next Sunday. They publicly warn against the election of the AfD candidate, who is said to have good chances. Why?

Wagner: Jörg Prophet tries to present himself as a supposed moderate. He is a member of the Thuringian AfD, which is led by Björn Höcke – a right-wing extremist with folkish “cleansing” fantasies and notorious historical revisionism.

tagesschau.de: And the candidate himself?

Wagner: Prophet has spoken of the so-called guilt cult in the past. This is pure historical revisionist AfD discourse. Two weeks ago he was at the “summer party” of the anti-Semitic and right-wing extremist “Compact Magazine”. There Prophet appeared between neo-Nazis and Reich citizens. Apparently he has no fear of contact.

Such a mayor would be a catastrophe for Nordhausen – a town in which Mittelbau-Dora, one of the most terrible concentration camps in Germany, was located between 1943 and 1945. I’m sure that survivors and their relatives would never set foot in the Nordhausen town hall if an AfD mayor by Höcke’s grace resided there. And we couldn’t and didn’t want to do any more exhibitions in urban spaces either.

“Bird shit” affects visitors

tagesschau.de: You have been working in Mittelbau-Dora since 2001 and later also in Buchenwald. How did you experience dealing with the AfD?

Wagner: The parliamentary group has made several small inquiries about our work and myself. My professional suitability as a manager was denied and I was accused of being a Wessi who would have gotten his job via networks. You throw a spanner in the works and create distrust.

However, the historical-political expressions of opinion are more violent: Gauland’s “Vogelschiss”, Höcke’s “Monument to Shame”. We notice this in conversations with visitors to the memorial sites. Provocative behavior has increased there.

tagesschau.de: In 2017, after the Dresden speech, Höcke was banned from entering Buchenwald. Is that still valid?

Wagner: Höcke has no house ban. He can visit the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora memorials at any time to find out more about the history of National Socialism. However, all AfD officials are forbidden to take part in foundation events. That would normalize extreme right-wing discourses.

tagesschau.de: As the head of a public foundation, aren’t you obliged to be neutral – especially before elections?

Wagner: Our party-political neutrality ends where Nazi victims are mocked or our legally formulated purpose of the foundation is called into question. It is precisely this that obliges us not to give Mr. Höcke and other right-wing extremist politicians of the AfD a stage in the memorial.

tagesschau.de: You spoke of a “political climate change of memory”. Is that also evident in the discussion about the Bavarian Vice President Hubert Aiwanger and a tasteless pamphlet that was found on him when he was at school?

Wagner: Aiwanger should have apologized and shown credible insight. He did that late and only half. Now he accuses his opponents of “abusing the Shoah for party political purposes.” That doesn’t show insight. If the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora memorials were in Bavaria, I would not allow Aiwanger to hold memorial speeches here. But it’s not just about him.

tagesschau.de: Rather?

Wagner: Thanks to its numerous defenders, instead of talking about a pamphlet glorifying the Holocaust, only an alleged smear campaign is being talked about. The climate change in memory politics is characterized by a decrease in historical awareness and historical sensitivity towards the Nazi crimes. The negative foil of National Socialism was always fundamental to the democratic self-image of the Federal Republic. That no longer applies today.

Maassen mocked Nazi victims

tagesschau.de: You have reported the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, for incitement to hatred. Maassen had written on the Twitter successor X: “In the 1930s it was said: ‘Don’t buy from Maassen.’ History repeats itself.”

Wagner: Maassen is referring to the slogan “Don’t buy from Jews”. The so-called boycott of Jews was one of the first steps on the way to the complete exclusion and disenfranchisement of the Jews – and then to brutal persecution and mass murder from 1941 onwards. You have to see that in one line.

I am firmly convinced that to equate it with this is a trivialization of the Shoah, a violation of Section 130 of the Criminal Code. I hope that Maaßen will come to the realization that ahistorical NS equations that mock the victims are not permissible.

tagesschau.de: According to Maassen, he is pursuing an “anti-socialist turn” in Thuringia, somewhere between the AfD, CDU and FDP. What is the role of actors in social change?

Wagner: Maassen has undoubtedly arrived in the new right, extreme right-wing milieu and is firmly anchored there. His connections to the Reich bourgeois milieu are obvious. A few months ago he spoke of an alleged “eliminatory racism against whites”. In doing so, he alludes to the eliminatory anti-Semitism described by Daniel Goldhagen in the 1990s. Here we have again a reversal of guilt, a historical revisionism. Maassen writes about the “Great Reset” and “globalist elites”. These are anti-Semitic codes.

Nevertheless, Maassen is still a CDU member. My great concern is that he will be able to get party friends to follow his line. I hope that the Thuringian CDU will distance itself more clearly from him and that the party exclusion process will ultimately be crowned with success.

The interview was conducted by Thomas Vorreyer, tagesschau.de