Robert Habeck’s speech commemorating July 20, 1944 – Culture

It cannot be taken for granted that you, dear Svetlana Tichanovskaya, are speaking to us today. Today we remember those Germans who had the courage to resist during the National Socialist regime. Who have decided to risk their lives to end the rule of injustice and inhumanity, or at least to do something to counter it. We remember the men and women of July 20, 1944 and all who lived human solidarity during the years of dictatorship. Today we know, not least thanks to the persevering work of the German Resistance Memorial Center over the past few decades: there were more than we commonly think. But there were far too few to comprehensively counteract the tyranny of the National Socialists, let alone put a stop to it.

In view of this, I am grateful that you have accepted the invitation from the Federal Government and the Foundation July 20, 1944 and will share your thoughts with us. Timothy Snyder recently made clear why listening across national borders is so important if we are to give memory a power to point to the future. In particular, a country like Germany, which has inflicted so much violence, oppression and destruction on other countries, must listen to the voices of people whose ancestors or who were victims of this violence themselves, said Snyder.

His testimony refers to Ukraine as a victim of Hitler and his regime, but it applies equally to Belarus, a country that has particularly suffered from German tyranny and the extermination campaign.

It is to the credit of Timothy Snyder and his book “Bloodlands” that we Germans have been made aware of a blind spot: namely the insufficient reminder that it is above all the people in Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine, the Baltic States and the western areas of Russia that suffered from the National Socialist tyranny and policy of extermination. Today we also commemorate the resistance in these battered countries, which is still far too little known.

“What would you have done?” – that is the question that July 20 puts to us Germans

Ten years ago, Janusz Reiter, the former Polish ambassador, spoke of the need to overcome purely national discourses in his remarkable and moving commemorative speech in the Bendlerblock. The German Wehrmacht invaded Poland, devastated the country, murdered and expelled countless people, but above all destroyed Jewish life in Auschwitz, in Treblinka, in the Warsaw ghetto. And yet Janusz Reiter had to state in his speech at the time, I quote:

“In a certain sense, Eastern European history is a blank spot in European historical awareness. This also applies to Germany, despite extensive historical literature on the subject. […] I am convinced that Germany needs knowledge and understanding of the experience of Central and Eastern Europe, especially under Hitler and Stalin. Not least because this experience is very closely linked to German history.”

A good ten years after this admonition and almost five months after the beginning of a new brutal war of conquest in Eastern Europe, it is more urgent than ever that this mutual understanding of how interwoven our national histories are grows. And the fact that you, dear Svetlana Tichanovskaya, are about to speak to us makes me hopeful that we are on the right track.

Your presence today, the fact that you have come with Tatsiana Khomich, the sister of Maria Kolesnikova, who was expelled from the Belarusian regime in 2021 – simply because she bravely and fearlessly stood up for rights in a democracy during the months of rebellion against Lukashenko – was sentenced to eleven years in prison: Your presence breaks the routine of our culture of remembrance in another way.

“What would you have done?” – That is the question that July 20 has been asking us Germans since the end of the Second World War. The routine of the ceremony can sometimes dull the urgency, even the urgency of the question. After all, it was an implicit certainty that he would not really be faced with a choice throughout his life.

How many people tried to “live in the truth” during the Nazi era?

With the strengthening of authoritarian, totalitarian systems in our neighborhood – but also with populism in the liberal democracies – the historical question now takes on an immediacy.

From the question “What would you have done?” is the question “What can you do?” become. We must now answer them, each and every one of us, if we want to defend our democracies. History is caught up by the present.

Open detailed view

One whose thinking and attitude was often a political compass for me was the Czech playwright, freedom fighter and later President of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel. Havel was imprisoned for many years of his life. Precisely those who lack freedom in such a fundamental way can provide valuable information about the nature of freedom. Havel writes in his essay “Attempt to live in truth”: “Resigning from defending the freedom of others – even if they are far removed from one’s own attitude to life – means also renouncing one’s own freedom.”

Havel’s understanding of freedom is based on the conviction that we humans have the strength, even the desire, to resist what he calls “living in lies”.

Even if the power and oppressive structures of dictatorships differ, how many people tried to “live in the truth” under National Socialism? How many were there that we don’t know about? Which were deliberately forgotten in the post-war period because they were evidence that we humans always have a choice, even under the worst circumstances? How many try today in Belarus, but also in Russia?

Havel speaks of a pre-political space of resistance in dictatorships, which we inevitably only rarely hear about. The people who live in this room are “unsung heroes” – to quote the beautiful title of the permanent exhibition on Stauffenbergstraße, which tells the impressive stories of courageous people who helped Jews.

That’s what we have to do: tell us stories about unsung heroes, no matter how rudimentary the stories, because we hardly have any testimonies.

We not only commemorate these people, we celebrate them

For example, the story of Hedwig Porschütz from Berlin, of whom there are no photos, no letters, and the burial place of the woman who died in 1977 has long since been removed. In 1943 and 1944 she hid four Jews in her tiny attic apartment and provided them with food. Three of her charges survived. She supported the small manufacturer Otto Weidt, who helped persecuted Jews in his workshop. She got fake IDs. She packed food parcels for the Theresienstadt ghetto. And in order to be able to earn her own living and that of her Jewish protégés, she worked as a prostitute on Alexanderplatz.

What an example of an unbreakable compass of humanity. The judgment of a Berlin post-war authority that their help “was not suitable for undermining the Nazi regime” and that their application for recognition as a politically persecuted person should therefore be rejected is not only outrageous, but also fundamentally misunderstands the nature of human resistance.

We not only commemorate these people, we celebrate them. The memorial day of July 20th is their holiday! The day of those who have found the strength to take a stand against bondage and violence, no matter how small; of those who have had the courage to listen to their moral compass and have lent a helping hand in a variety of ways. And those who have found the inner strength to shed their ideological blindness – like many officers of July 20th. Because that’s the point: straight because Stauffenberg and other members of the military-conservative resistance initially followed Nazism, their attempt to end the dictatorship is so remarkable. They were Everymen of the Germany of their time. But that doesn’t put her act into perspective, on the contrary: it makes her an encouraging sign that people can free themselves from the ideological aberrations of their time. If they could, why couldn’t others?

We mark this day in special times, when freedom, democracy and human rights are under attack from so many sides and when people risk everything, to defend freedom and democracy. Sometimes you only have a choice when you make a decision. That takes courage. We remember that. He obliges us.

This speech was written by the Federal Minister of Economics and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck on the commemoration day of the Federal Government and the Foundation July 20, 1944 for the resistance against the National Socialist tyranny. Because of a corona disease Habecks she was from State Secretary Anja Hajduk at the Plötzensee Memorial.