Speech OB 05.03.2012

The spoken word counts!

Dear people of Chemnitz,
dear guests and friends of our city,

Around 2000 people have gathered on this square in the heart of our city this evening. Each and every one of them has their own personal life story. Many of them were born in Chemnitz or Karl-Marx-Stadt. Others have come to our city for very different reasons. Because they found a job, a place to study or a partner for life here. Some because they could no longer or no longer wanted to stay in their home country. Because they want to develop a new perspective on life here in our city.

Like the former contract workers from Vietnam or the 650 members of the Jewish community. They come from Ukraine, Russia and Israel. Or Alyona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy. Alyona comes from Ukraine, Robin's father from Tanzania. They are from Chemnitz and carry the name of our city around the world as outstanding athletes.

We almost all speak the same language, even the same dialect. And yet we are all different.

I want us to be able to "be different without fear", as former German President Rau put it, and that there are basic values that unite us. That Chemnitz is a place where women and men, regardless of skin colour, origin or religion, can create something. The better this succeeds, the stronger our city will develop.

Many of you have brought candles with you today. A powerful symbol that expresses many things: the light of life, hope, security, the peaceful revolution of 1989, church liturgy, joy on a birthday or painful memories when a candle on a grave commemorates a loved one.

If we light candles for every person who was killed, burned or suffocated on 5 March 1945 after the bombing of Chemnitz - if we light candles for all those who died that evening alone - there would have to be over 2000 lights.

If we light candles for all the Jews who were tortured, gassed and murdered in the concentration camps, on the transports or in forced labour, there would have to be 6 million candles here.

If we wanted to light candles for all the dead of the Second World War - children, women, men, soldiers - there would have to be 60 million.

An unbelievably large sea of candles.

War is the perversion of what people are capable of in all their abilities and actions. When they organise millions of murders. When the horror of evil degenerates into banality.


Dear people of Chemnitz, in our democracy there is a fundamental right to freedom of assembly. And by being here today, you have brought this right to life.

We commemorate the destruction of our city, which wiped out large parts of the city's stone history forever in one hour.

This tragedy is a warning to us: Never again war, never again fascism. Most of us are lucky to have been born and raised in peace. It is not our fault that the war unleashed by Germany and the barbarity towards Jews, communists, Christians, trade unionists, social democrats, homosexuals and upright democrats wiped out 60 million lives.

But we have a responsibility to ensure that this never happens again. We are not to blame, but as the post-war generation we owe this responsibility to the victims.

And even 67 years after the end of Nazi barbarism, this responsibility is not an easy one, nor is it a done deal.

Salutation,

On 23 February, our country held a memorial service for the victims of the series of murders committed by a terrorist cell that gave itself the name "National Socialist Underground". Ten people, nine immigrants who wanted to find a new perspective on life in our country, and a policewoman were murdered by fanatical neo-Nazis. Ten lives extinguished. A series of murders that went undetected in our country until 2011. This certainly shames many citizens in our country.

And it shames us too. Right-wing extremist violence is not somewhere far away. Between 1998 and 2000, the three members of the terrorist cell lived on Limbacher Straße and Wolgograder Allee in Chemnitz, among other places. They lived in Chemnitz because they could fall back on a network of supporters here.

I would like to quote an excerpt from Chancellor Merkel's speech at the memorial service for the relatives that is close to my heart:

"Human dignity is inviolable. It is the duty of all state authorities to respect and protect it." - This is how our Basic Law begins. This was the answer to twelve years of National Socialism in Germany, to unspeakable contempt for humanity and barbarism, to the break in civilisation caused by the Shoah. "Human dignity is inviolable." - This is the foundation of coexistence in our country, the free and democratic basic order of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Whenever people in our country are marginalised, threatened or persecuted, this violates the foundations of this free and democratic basic order, it violates the values of our Basic Law. That is why the murders committed by the Thuringia terror cell were also an attack on our country.

Salutation,

and if we think and feel the same way, then that means we should always keep an eye out when right-wing CDs and DVDs turn up in the homes of our children or grandchildren. Right-wing clothing labels are popular at school. Xenophobic slogans appear.

The strength of our democracy is not decided on television, in the Bundestag or in the city council alone. Above all, it is the way in which we live together in everyday life and are prepared to make a personal commitment. How we are willing and able to actively accept the responsibility that the crimes against humanity committed by the National Socialists impose on us.

Whether we treat other people - no matter where and from where - with the respect that we expect for ourselves. Here and abroad.

With a foreign population of 3 per cent, Chemnitz is not an international city. - But Chemnitz is an international city. We are proudly displaying the paintings of the Peredwischniki in the art collections. Great pictures by Russian painters - a piece of world culture. Singers, musicians and dancers in our theatre come from many countries around the world. When art is good, it knows no borders. It is no coincidence, but a commitment to our city that artists from our theatre are involved here today.

And Chemnitz benefits from the international orientation of many of our industrial companies and our university.

We export over 35% of the products manufactured by Chemnitz industrial companies to all continents. Our companies send Chemnitz residents out into the world to advertise our hard work, our wealth of ideas and our achievements.

Isn't it paradoxical when neo-Nazis want to march through our city with their xenophobic ideas right here and now?

I am glad that 5 March has been celebrated as Peace Day in our city for around ten years. Many initiatives have organised it and are involved throughout the year. They raise awareness in schools, youth clubs and offer resistance when right-wing forces try to gain ground.

esterday, the AG In- und Ausländer was honoured with the Peace Prize. An honour for people who have been working for years to ensure that we can "be different without fear." I would like to thank them and all those who often go unnoticed for their commitment.

I am delighted that so many of us are joining together to set an example for a peaceful, cosmopolitan, colourful and tolerant Chemnitz, where there is no place for Nazis.

Yesterday I spoke to women from Chemnitz who lived through the war and 5 March. I asked them what their message to us was.
The answer from the women, who are over 80 years old, was emphatic: Never give the Nazis another chance! And do everything you can to ensure that peace remains.