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Green politician Roth shortly before taking office as Minister of State for Culture at the memorial for the Sinti and Roma of Europe who were murdered under National Socialism: commemorative culture under examination
Photo: Christoph Soeder / picture alliance / dpa
Shortly before taking office on December 8, 2021, the new Minister of State for Culture, Claudia Roth, showed that culture of remembrance is important to her. The Greens politician laid flowers at the memorial to the murdered Sinti and Roma of Europe and told the German Press Agency: The task I have set myself is that we protect our memorial sites.
We have a lot to do there, which is one of the reasons why I'm here.« Especially in times of historical revisionism, a culture of remembrance is part of it for her.
A documentation center that has yet to be built and that the Bundestag decided in 2020 should be all the more important to her.
It is intended to educate about German excesses of violence in the occupied countries of Europe during the Second World War.
As brutal, murderous occupiers, they ruled over 230 million people in Europe.
It should also be clear to the audience how the experiences in the countries are still having an impact today.
The German Historical Museum in Berlin was commissioned by Roth's predecessor to develop a concept at the beginning of 2021.
Raphael Gross, museum director and historian, brought together a number of experts, including specialists from Ukraine and Russia.
He contacted victims' associations and other non-governmental organizations, presented an interim report and submitted the final implementation proposal at the end of 2021 on time.
And then?
Silence.
Around the time this paper was delivered, Russia was deploying soldiers on the border with Ukraine.
The threat has turned into a war.
At first the Germans didn't want to supply weapons with reference to their own past, but then they did.
There was no time for a debate about a special German responsibility - for restraint or for military support of Ukraine.
You're no further than the end of January
But that doesn't mean that such a discussion shouldn't still be held - and the concept before the government would be a good basis.
Anyone who wants to spend an additional 100 billion on armaments can perhaps bring themselves to be less secretive and make a paper that was commissioned by the public available to the public.
Claudia Roth has been in charge of the culture and media department in the Chancellery for almost three months.
The draft, as one learns there, is still being examined.
And: "The proposal is not intended for publication at this time."
So you're no further than the end of January.
SPIEGEL was informed that the German Historical Museum had "mastered the conceptual challenge assigned to it" and had presented a "convincing implementation draft," which was still being examined.
There are experts who suspected that Roth would be heard from much more quickly because it was important to deal with the matter.
And especially in the current situation, it would be of the utmost importance to learn more about how the Germans want to look back on their "criminal war" - this is a phrase from the June interim report.
This current situation also includes the new attitude towards rearmament.
For Raphael Gross, the museum director and historian, this represents a “fundamental turning point”, and right now “we need more engagement with German history in the European context”.
"Germany was and will be even more the hegemonic power in Europe in the future," emphasizes Gross, and the country must first understand "what it was between 1939 and 1945."
The fear of a militarily strong Germany is great in Europe, especially in the countries that have experienced terrible things.
According to the historian, this fear also exists in parts of German society.
According to him, the new center should also have an effect there.
»That the new military power will experience a corrective – even if it is only a matter of memory politics.
But after all, we are experiencing in many places how political history and remembrance can become.«
For Gross, who is Swiss, history shows that Germany has a clear responsibility for countries like Ukraine.
At the moment, however, there is a second responsibility here, namely that of allowing debate on this and other positions.
The Germans haven't let history get to them as much as they might think.
A lot could be conveyed in the center, the destructive character of the war waged by the Germans, including the massacre of the civilian population and the murder of prisoners of war and the sick, unfortunately so much more.
But now experts fear that the concept will be pigeonholed.
Minister of State for Culture Roth has it checked, but what exactly and for how long?
In the coalition agreement, the traffic light government not only committed itself to the documentation center, but also – in one breath, so to speak – to a memorial for the Polish victims of the World War.
It too had been decided by the old Bundestag.
The fact that Germans want to recognize the suffering of one country more than that of another is controversial and could seem particularly inappropriate at the moment.
If one were now to talk about the preparatory findings on the documentation center, and there are good reasons for this, questions about the planned memorial would certainly arise.
This is perhaps too sensitive even for those in the government who advocate reappraisal.
When asked again, Claudia Roth's authorities said that the examination of the concept would "probably be completed within the next few weeks".
Before the proposal goes to parliament, the departmental vote will take place, and the Ministry of Defense will also take a look at Gross's concept.
But at least his findings get there faster than the rest of the population.