Saxon Memorials Foundation to commemorate the victims of political tyranny

Saxon Memorials Foundation to commemorate the victims of political tyranny (StSG)
Door sign of the foundation in Dresden
Legal form:	Foundation under public law
Purpose:	Development, promotion and maintenance of historical sites in the Free State of Saxony, which in authentic locations remind of violent political crimes of supraregional scope, of particular historical importance, of political persecution, of state terror and state-organized murders.
Chair:	Foundation board member Eva-Maria Stange , managing director Siegfried Reiprich
Consist:	since February 15, 1994
Founder:	Free State of Saxony
Seat:	Dresden
Website:	www.stsg.de

The Saxon Memorials Foundation for the Remembrance of the Victims of Political Tyranny is a foundation under public law established by the Free State of Saxony , which maintains or financially supports several memorials to commemorate the victims of National Socialism and Communism. After a dispute between associations of the victims of National Socialism and the communist dictatorship and criticism of the Memorial Foundation Act, the Saxon State Parliament passed an amendment to the law on October 17, 2012 with a large majority (SächsGVBl. P. 623). This came into force on December 16, 2012. The foundation is a member of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience .

Creation and development of the foundation

The culture of remembrance of the SED regime in the GDR was largely limited to communist victims of National Socialism and thus by far not sufficient to take into account all groups of victims. After the reunification of Germany, the “missing” victims were honored by appropriate victim associations, by newly formed local associations and by committed individuals who volunteered to deal with the past on site and remembered the events.

At the beginning of the 1990s, these citizens' initiatives, individual parliamentarians, but also the new associations of the victims of the communist dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) and in the GDR encouraged the formation of an umbrella organization for all memorials in Saxony in order to guarantee their funding and their work to put on a stable basis. On February 15, 1994, the Saxon state government decided to establish the “Foundation of Saxon Memorials to Remember the Victims of Political Tyranny”. It received its legal basis from the Saxon Memorial Foundation Act ( SächsGedenkStG ) of February 28, 2003.

As a result of the decision, some important associations of victims of the Nazi dictatorship stopped working on the foundation's committees. These were the Central Council of Jews in Germany , the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma , the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime , the Federal Association of Victims of Nazi Military Justice and the Dr. Margarete Blank eV The criticism was directed against, among other things, the description of the foundation's purpose in the Saxon Memorial Law. Paragraph 2 does not differentiate between the National Socialist and the Stalinist dictatorship. This would equate Nazi crimes with communist crimes in the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR and thus relativize them. While the law provided for the formation of different thematic working groups, the critics called for two separate advisory boards, each of which should have its content before and after 1945. As stipulated by law, the Foundation has a joint advisory board for representatives of all victims, i. H. the victims of the Nazi dictatorship and the victims from the Soviet Zone / GDR era. The controversy surrounding the Sächsische Gedenkstätten Foundation was related to the discussions about a change in the federal memorial concept, but also to the question of reviewing the committee members for Stasi cooperation. In January 2010, both the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Saxon Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisten eV announced their return to the Saxon Memorials Foundation. The victims' associations of both German dictatorships are now working together again in the foundation's committees.

Purpose and tasks of the foundation

According to Section 2 (1) of the Saxon Memorial Foundation Act, the purpose of the foundation is to develop, promote and supervise those sites in the Free State of Saxony that are involved in violent political crimes of supraregional scope, of particular historical importance, political persecution, state terror and state-organized activities Remember murders. The foundation has to honor the victims of political tyranny and the resistance against the dictatorships and to document the structures and methods of the respective systems of rule for the public.

The tasks of the foundation are as follows:

• Development and preservation of the material legacies and evidence of injustice in the authentic places (e.g. objects and documents),
• a worthy memorial design of the memorial sites,
• the scientifically based design of permanent and temporary exhibitions in the memorials,
• the provision of educational offers and information for visitors to the memorials, especially for young people,
• the anchoring of the historical significance of the memorials in the public consciousness through events, publications and other forms of educational and public relations work,
• close cooperation with victims' associations and processing initiatives,
• applied scientific research and documentation.

financing

The foundation is financed by funds from the budgets of the Free State of Saxony and the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media . In addition, there are third-party funds and own income. A total of approx. 2.6 million euros were available in 2007.

Foundation bodies

The foundation has three foundation bodies .

Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees has steering and decision-making power (simple majority) as well as control over the entire foundation and is therefore the highest service authority. It includes representatives from Saxon ministries, research and educational institutions, victims' associations, municipal state associations as well as churches and religious communities.

executive Director

The managing director, elected by the board of trustees for five years, takes on the overall management of the foundation and the coordination of the work at the respective workplaces. He manages the day-to-day business and implements the resolutions of the Board of Trustees. In addition, he is responsible for publications and “executions of scientific and memorial- related decisions by the foundation committees” ( Section 8 (3) of the Saxon Memorial Foundation Act).

The current managing director of the foundation is Siegfried Reiprich . He was re-elected by the Board of Trustees in 2014 and confirmed in office by the state government for another seven years. At the end of June, the foundation announced in a press release that Reiprich would be replaced before the end of 2020 due to its failures.

Foundation Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Board

The Foundation Advisory Board consists of a maximum of 20 members who are not already active in another body of the Foundation and from the "interest groups (committees and associations, memorial and processing initiatives) as well as churches, religious communities and municipal sponsors of memorials" ( § 9 para. 2 of the Saxon Memorial Foundation Act).

The Scientific Advisory Board consists of 5 knowledgeable experts. He assesses the concepts (projects, exhibitions, etc.) of the memorials and gives recommendations and suggestions for the work.

The chairman of the foundation advisory board is Tobias Hollitzer, the chairman of the scientific advisory board ( Section 11 of the Saxon Memorial Foundation Act) is Joachim Scholtyseck .

Memorials and other projects

The foundation directly sponsors the following memorials and documentation centers:

• Pirna-Sonnenstein Memorial : In this former sanatorium, around 15,000 mainly mentally handicapped people fell victim to the National Socialist “ euthanasia ” in 1940/41 .
• Zeithain Memorial Grove : Tens of thousands (mostly Soviet ) prisoners of war perished between 1941 and 1945 in what was then the Zeithain prisoner-of-war camp.
• Münchner Platz Dresden Memorial: The memorial commemorates the victims of justice of the Nazi state, the Soviet military administration and the early GDR criminal justice system . Not only were death sentences pronounced here, but around 1,300 were also carried out . The judicial complex has been part of the TU Dresden since 1957 .
• Documentation and Information Center Torgau (DIZ Torgau): With the military prisons "Fort Zinna" and "Brückenkopf" and the Imperial Court Martial , Torgau was the headquarters of the Wehrmacht justice system during the Second World War . After the end of the war, the Soviet secret police NKVD set up two special camps in Torgau . "Fort Zinna" was handed over to the East German People's Police in 1950 and today houses the Torgau correctional facility . The DIZ commemorates the victims of the Nazi justice system, the Soviet military tribunals and the GDR justice system .
• Bautzen Memorial : The Bautzen Memorial commemorates the victims of the two prisons Bautzen I and Bautzen II . The former, also known as “Yellow Misery”, was used as a former state prison under National Socialism as a penitentiary , by the Soviet occupiers as a special camp and in the GDR era as a penal institution. From 1956 to 1989, Bautzen II was a feared prison for “state criminals” with special access rights from the Ministry for State Security (MfS).
• Foundation's documentation center: The “Documentation Center for the History of Resistance and Repression in the Nazi Era and the Soviet Occupation Zone / GDR” was set up in 1999 with the aim of identifying the memorials maintained by the Foundation by indexing files and setting up a biographical archive on resistance and repression during the Nazi regime -Time to scientifically support the Soviet occupation and the GDR in the area of ​​today's Free State of Saxony. The results are not only used in exhibitions, but also in private inquiries from victims of political tyranny or their relatives. From January 1, 2015, these can only be given to Germans. Until 2014, the documentation center led the research project: “Soviet and German prisoners of war and internees. Research on the war and post-war period ”.

Project funding and institutional funding

The museum memorial in the “Round Corner” in Leipzig (supported by the Leipzig Citizens Committee), the Bautzner Strasse memorial in Dresden (supported by knowledge through remembrance) and the Bautzen Committee e. V. deal exclusively with the GDR past. They do not belong to the Saxon Memorials Foundation in the narrower sense, but are financially supported by it through institutional funding.

The Archive Citizens Movement Leipzig e. V. , the environmental library Großhennersdorf e. V., the Martin-Luther-King-Center in Werdau and the initiative group Geschlossener Jugendwerkhof Torgau eV

New memorials under construction

With the amendment of the Foundation Act in October 2012, the so-called memorial dispute in Saxony was settled. The legislature defined new memorial projects that can be funded. These are in particular the memorial for forced labor in Leipzig, the former central execution site of the GDR in Leipzig, the Sachsenburg concentration camp , the Hoheneck women's prison and the memorial in honor of the euthanasia victims in Großschweidnitz. The projects are set up by development associations and communities and supported by the foundation.

This also applies to the plan to set up a memorial site in or at the historical site of the release of prisoners in the GDR, the former Stasi prison on the Chemnitz Kaßberg.

See also

• Memorial sites of national and international importance in Germany

Web links

• Literature from and about the Saxon Memorials Foundation in memory of the victims of political tyranny in the catalog of the German National Library
• Saxon Memorials Foundation to commemorate the victims of political tyranny
• Documentation center for the history of resistance and repression of the Saxon Memorials Foundation
• Almost a miracle - The conflict over Saxony's memorials is moving ( Die Zeit , May 26, 2010)
• Text of the Saxon Memorial Foundation Act

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Jander: Memorial concept of the Union: Scale mentality , haGalil from June 20, 2004
2. ↑ DIE ZEIT: the conflict over Saxony's memorials is moving
3. ↑ See Leipziger Volkszeitung from January 7, 2010: Central Council of Jews returns to the Saxon Memorials Foundation .
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Composition of the Foundation Council, Foundation Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Board of the Saxon Memorials Foundation 
5. ↑ Current overview ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. through the members of the foundation committees 
6. ↑ Cf. Medienservice Sachsen: Cabinet approves Siegfried Reiprich's appointment ( memento of the original from September 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
7. ↑ http://www.medienservice.sachsen.de/medien/news/38324  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. New Managing Director of the Saxon Memorials Foundation takes up work  
8. ↑ Jüdische Allgemeine - exert influence: the Central Council returns, Kramer expresses his trust in Reiprich
9. ↑ Managing director Siegfried Reiprich confirmed in office
10. ↑ Head of memorial site according to NS comparison , Kulturnachrichten deutschlandfunkkultur.de, published and accessed July 3, 2020
11. ^ Announcement: Documentation center provides information on Soviet prisoners of war
12. ^ Website of the Saxon Memorials Foundation, Dresden Documentation Center
13. ↑ Remembering without equating. The memorial dispute in Saxony has been settled
14. ^ Foundation currently: Amended SächsGedenkStG in force
15. ^ Memorial for Forced Labor Leipzig
16. ↑ Leipzig execution site
17. ^ Sachsenburg concentration camp
18. ↑ Förderverein Gedenkstätte Stollberg, Frauenhaftanstalt Hoheneck eV ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
19. ↑ Memorial in honor of the euthanasia victims, community Großschweidnitz
20. ↑ Learning and memorial site Kaßberg Prison eV