Speech OB 27.01.2015

Dear Members of the German Bundestag and the Saxon State Parliament,

Dear City Councillors

Dear Mr Rotstein

Dear Mr Sonder

Dear people of Chemnitz,

Dear pupils of the Georgius Agricola Grammar School,

We are gathered here to commemorate all the victims of National Socialist tyranny.

It is 70 years since the liberation of all the countries invaded by Germany and of Germany itself by the Allies of the anti-Hitler coalition revealed the full extent of the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazi regime.

The liberation of the concentration camps - Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27 January 1945 - revealed a Germany that not only invaded other countries with its Wehrmacht and killed millions of people.

It also became clear that this country systematically persecuted, tortured and killed people. Anyone and everyone could become a victim. Often young, hopeful lives were snuffed out because they were the lives of Jews, Christians, Sinti and Roma, disabled people, political dissidents, non-conformists, homosexuals or people who did not conform to Nazi ideology. Six million Jews alone were murdered in agonising fashion.

People were victimised because they appeared to be different. The perpetrators were henchmen of the Nazi regime - but not only them. Those who remained silent were also accomplices. They looked the other way. Because they didn't want to know what was happening to their neighbours in the house. And above all, all those who helped prepare the systematic mass extermination in administrations and authorities - as well as here in Chemnitz - were also accomplices.

Hannah Arendt analysed these accomplices with empathy and ruthlessness: Those responsible refused to consider the consequences of their actions. Responsible without humanity.

Salutation,

Even 70 years after the liberation from National Socialism, I am still moved and moved by the eyewitness accounts and documents. And I would like to put it this way: I hope that I can share this intense involvement with the cruel facts of these crimes against humanity with many people of all generations. The few surviving contemporary witnesses have an urgent request for us: that we stand up for them as contemporary witnesses.

This is an essential part of the foundation on which the responsibility for present and future decisions is based. Our Basic Law, with its individual rights to human dignity, freedom of opinion, freedom of religion, equality before the law, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, was written down on this foundation and is a self-confident and self-evident part of our coexistence.

The Federal Republic of Germany is a recognised member of the international community of states. We travel the world as tourists, as employees of German companies or institutions, as athletes, artists or scientists. Young people in China, Japan, Africa and Europe know the names of the footballers on our World Cup team.

We receive a lot of respect and recognition for our country. For our hard work, for our culture, for our economic strength, for our strong democracy, for our welfare state.

In view of the crimes committed during the Nazi regime, this is a great vote of confidence in the peacefulness and humanity of the German people today.

For quite a few people around the world, our country has become a place of longing that they want to get to know. We proudly present Berlin, Munich, Dresden and the Andy Warhol exhibition in Chemnitz.

Salutation,

The Second World War, persecution and repression cost over 50 million people their lives. And many millions of people became refugees.

They were often only able to save one thing: their lives. They depended on there being a country, a place of refuge, where they could stay in order to survive. The individual right to asylum in our Basic Law is based on this fact.

We have been living in peace for almost 70 years. This does not apply to many regions in the world. There are currently more refugees than at any time since the Second World War.

Because Germany is a respected, recognised country, refugees are now coming to us as asylum seekers. They place their trust in us.

It is therefore up to us - especially in the knowledge of our history - to handle this trust well. I wish for an open city. Open to ideas. Open to other ways of life. Open to all people. And never again jurisdiction without humanity.

Salutation,

Those who know little believe a lot. And perhaps believe the wrong people who offer such temptingly simple answers to the problems of our time and our society. Who differentiate between us and others, who define who should and may belong to us. Who select.

The demonstrators of 1989 - in Plauen, Leipzig, Dresden, Karl-Marx-Stadt wanted: Freedom to travel, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press. "We are the people" is the call for a country without walls, even in our heads.

That is true.

And it is our responsibility to stand up for the values that characterise our democratic society today: Human dignity. They may seem self-evident to us in our country, which has experienced peace for longer than ever before. And in our democracy, in which some discussions and decision-making processes seem so agonisingly slow.

But it is days like today that remind us that these values cannot be taken for granted. But that it is we, all of us, who must stand up for these values. Self-confidently. As contemporary witnesses in representation and responsibility. And whenever it is necessary.