Saxony-Anhalt’s AfD faction plans to disband the state’s central agency for political education, citing its focus on the National Socialist era. The party’s parliamentary group vice-chair, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, argued in a state parliament speech that the agency’s events on the topic of National Socialism were an example of this. He specifically mentioned two events featuring Holocaust survivors Edith Erbrich and Mieczyslaw Grochowski.
However, Tillschneider’s comments have been met with sharp criticism. Christoph Heubner, the acting vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee, told the Welt newspaper that “Tillschneider’s shameless and shameful attacks on the remembrance culture are perceived by the survivors of the Holocaust as an attack on their murdered loved ones and on themselves. At a time when thousands of people in Germany are commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz, they are not only looking at the past but also at the attacks on democracy in Germany by the AfD, led by Tillschneider.”
Tillschneider had said in the state parliament that the agency’s upcoming events would focus on the National Socialist era, with five of the nine events dedicated to the topic. He stated, “And so, it’s only natural, isn’t it, that after the collapse of the NS regime, 80 years later, we’re still dealing with this topic in a mode of self-accusation and guilt.”
When asked by the Welt how the events fit with the notion of “latent self-accusation”Tillschneider replied, “The agency is not dealing with German history between 1933 and 1945 in a historical mode of distance, but in a mode of actualization and constant presence. The past, however, will eventually fade away. We must learn to let the past fade away.”
Regarding the question of what he had against testimony events and wreath-laying ceremonies at concentration camp memorials, Tillschneider said, “Nothing in itself, but if such events make up 50 percent of the activities 80 years after the war, it’s questionable.”The current surge in events is to be explained by the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of National Socialism, held on and around January 27.
Kai Langer, the director of the Saxony-Anhalt Memorial Foundation, told the Welt, “Tillschneider’s recommendation to only ‘historize’ with the NS past corresponds to the well-known demand for a ‘full stop’.