German Holocaust Museum Foundation

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The Stiftung Deutsches Holocaust Museum , based in Hanover sought in Germany the establishment of a Holocaust - Museum as a comprehensive national educational site about the time of National Socialism on. At the same time, the museum is to include a research facility for peace and humanity and serve the goal of “countering right-wing extremist movements with all available democratic means”, as stated in the call for the foundation of the museum. Members of the foundation's board of directors are Manfred Messerschmidt , Freiburg im Breisgau (deputy chairman) and Eckart Spoo , Berlin. The foundation's board of trustees includes a. the politicians Volker Beck and Herta Däubler-Gmelin and the rabbi Eveline Goodman-Thau .

History and conception

The private law foundation was initiated by Hans-Jürgen Häßler and founded in 1998. Häßler was also a member of the Executive Board until his death in 2011.

Critics of the project argued that there were already a sufficient number of memorial sites and exhibitions. It was agreed that a Holocaust museum would fulfill a function that established institutions would not have taken on. The foundation was also - u. a. by Wolfgang Benz - accused of an insufficiently developed concept idea and a lack of professionalism. The federal government had already refused to finance a central museum with reference to existing memorial sites at the end of the 1990s.

Due to the criticism, the concept was further developed in 2006. An exhibition concept was planned that covers a wide historical range from the "Development of Human Rights" to National Socialism and the Holocaust including the "Representation of all groups of victims" to the "New Dangers" in Germany, Europe and the USA. New scientific findings should be conveyed in the form of changing exhibitions. The board of directors and the board of trustees of the foundation decided on Leipzig as the location of the planned site, the German Holocaust Museum. Documentation center for the history of the Nazi dictatorship should be called. The city of Leipzig provided the former "Russian Pavilion" on a plot of around 2000 square meters at its old exhibition grounds. Meinhard von Gerkan's architectural office presented a room concept in 2007. The cost of the renovation and expansion was estimated at 40 million euros.

The museum, as it was planned for Leipzig, should not only be a historical museum for the documentation of the Nazi crimes, but a sophisticated, modern educational facility that addresses both the past and the present, “a lively place for the formation of humanity [ become], whereby the past is constantly threatening in the background, ”wrote Gideon Greif in 2008.

In addition, according to its own statements, the foundation supports the work of memorials and history workshops as well as "conferences, events, student work and publications that serve to educate people about National Socialism".

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz: Does Germany need a Holocaust Museum? Memorial sites and public remembrance , in: Dachauer Hefte 11/1995, pp. 3–10.
  • Hans-Jürgen Häßler: Conceptual sketch for the German Holocaust Museum, documentation center on the history of the Nazi dictatorship, an initiative of the German Holocaust Museum Hannover , publisher: Stiftung Deutsches Holocaust-Museum, (= messages, supplement 1), Hannover 2006
  • Katja Köhr: The many faces of the Holocaust. Museum representations between individualization, universalization and nationalization , V&R unipress, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-89971-671-9 , pp. 95ff. ( digitized )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of foundations, status: 13. July 2015
  2. ↑ Death notices Hans-Jürgen Häßler , in: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of October 22, 2011, p. 21
  3. ↑ a b Katja Köhr: Between "silencing" and "coping with" - the memory of the Holocaust in the land of the perpetrators. Why is there no Holocaust Museum in Germany? In this. ibid. p. 95ff.
  4. ^ Foundation German Holocaust Museum: Mitteilungen No. 16, pdf pp. 7-9
  5. ↑ Jens Rosbach: Overall view of Nazi crimes. German Holocaust Museum planned in Leipzig . Deutschlandradio Kultur, October 12, 2006
  6. ↑ Reiner Burger: Leipzig should get a Holocaust museum , FAZ, October 10, 2006
  7. ^ Leipzig welcomes plans for the Holocaust Museum , Der Standard, October 10, 2007
  8. ^ Gideon Greif: The planned "German Holocaust Museum. Documentation Center on the History of the Nazi Dictatorship ”as an educational center . In: Mitteilungen No. 18/2008, published by the Stiftung Deutsches Holocaust-Museum, pdf p. 29
  9. ↑ holocaust-museum.de