On 9/10 On January 1, the memorial inscription for the bomb victims of February 13, ’45 was removed. Quietly and secretly – an explosive process. Birgit Branczeisz Dresden. In broad daylight, the words disappeared from the border of the entrance to the underground car park, in the middle of the Altmarkt. When citizens and the city council asked, the people of Dresden were speechless. A subversive group, even the town hall – who initiated this? Incredible. City councilors were stunned and comments online were overflowing.
There was no response from the town hall. Instead, a statement was announced. Then it came, on January 19th! Yes, the public had not been informed, it was ultimately said. Even worse: The heads of the Roads and Civil Engineering Office and the Office for Economic Development signed a contract with the underground car park operator in December 2022 that the inscription would be removed at the city’s expense. Finally, in 2018(!), it was agreed at a workshop by the AG on February 13th – in which city councilors also took part – that the bench with the inscription was unsuitable as a memorial site.
The Altmarktumbau consortium then removed the inscription in accordance with the contract. “Unfortunately, the higher management levels were not informed about this agreement,” they say somewhat contritely. One would like to present the incident as if someone had simply “forgotten” to say something. “Unfortunate communication” was mentioned verbatim in a press release. This isn’t “unfortunate communication.” But this incident wasn’t “stupid,” but rather a scandal. A scandal because otherwise templates, concepts and competitions are created for everything and citizens’ groups are initiated.
And this topic, which is so traumatic for Dresden, wasn’t important enough to stop talking about it from 2018 until today? Neither in the city council, nor in the February 13th working group, let alone with the people of this city? Even professional “rememberers” like city councilor Holger Hase, who has worked on several monument and memorial committees in the city for years, cannot remember that the removal of the inscription was discussed in this way. But even if there had been a resolution from the AG on February 13th – nothing would be better.
It remains a scandal because the committee is even authorized to do so. It was launched by the former mayor Helma Orosz and was intended to provide recommendations on emerging questions. Despite all its commitment, the AG can neither decide on anything that results in a demolition order nor commission anything new. It is not for nothing that Councilor Annekatrin Klepsch has now initiated the election of an “Advisory Board for Remembrance Cultures”.
He is now being used and actually has powers for the first time. The fact that the stele that was immediately removed has now been put back up may seem like a correction of a mistake. However, the inscription was changed on that occasion. Another solo effort! The layout has been revised, it simply says. And literally: »The text was adapted across departments by the Mayor of Culture, Annekatrin Klepsch. A specific day of the cremations that took place was omitted because there were different information in the sources. – Maybe, but that’s not a “revision of the layout”, but content and that’s not what Annekatrin Klepsch decides.
2024-01-24 14:56:49
#DRESDEN #WORDS #FAIL #Dresden
