{"id":80811,"date":"2026-05-12T17:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/80811\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T17:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:29:13","slug":"the-battle-for-berlins-memory-peoples-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/80811\/","title":{"rendered":"The battle for Berlin\u2019s memory \u2013 People’s World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t<\/p>\n

The statue at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Treptower Park features a Red Army soldier standing atop a crumbled swastika and holding a young German girl. The work of Soviet sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, it depicts Soviet soldier Nikolai Masalov, who during the Battle of Berlin in 1945 risked his life under heavy German fire to rescue a 3-year-old German girl whose mother had disappeared. | C.J. Atkins \/ People’s World<\/p>\n

BERLIN\u2014On the night of April 7, 2022, the world-famous Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park, the final resting place of some 7,000 Red Army soldiers who lost their lives in the fighting for Berlin in April and May 1945, was\u00a0desecrated.<\/p>\n

Graffiti\u2014swastikas and slogans in English such as \u201cDeath to all Russians,\u201d \u201cRussia kills,\u201d and \u201cRussians = Rapists\u201d\u2014was found throughout the extensive grounds, from the Motherland Calls sculpture to the hill with the monumental statue of a soldier holding a child. At the time, an employee of a cleaning company tasked with removing the damage told the Junge Welt newspaper that the graffiti was so extensive that it seemed as if \u201can entire school class\u201d had been at work\u2014apparently professionals at leaving no trace, as the perpetrators were never\u00a0caught.<\/p>\n

Although Ukrainian historian Yevheniia Moliar recently called for the \u201csacred status\u201d of the memorials to be \u201cbroken,\u201d an incident of this magnitude has not been repeated since. The impetus behind the desecration of the memorial\u2014the attack on Soviet commemorative symbolism and its connection to the war in Ukraine\u2014has become\u00a0professionalized.<\/p>\n

\"\"The inscription at the Soviet War Memorial in Tiergarten, which reads: \u2018Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in battle with the German fascist invaders for the freedom and independence of the Soviet Union.\u2019 | C.J. Atkins \/ People\u2019s World<\/p>\n

What seemed hasty in 2022\u2014such as the demand by Stefanie Bung, then the CDU parliamentary group spokesperson for urban development in the Berlin House of Representatives, to remove the two T-34 tanks in front of the memorial in the Tiergarten as \u201csymbols of aggression\u201d\u2014is now being approached cautiously, step by\u00a0step.<\/p>\n

The three Soviet war memorials in Berlin\u2014in Treptower Park, Schonholzer Heide, and Tiergarten\u2014have become battlegrounds in the debate surrounding the interpretation of the Russian attack on\u00a0Ukraine.<\/p>\n

A coalition of political, historical-political, and \u201ccivil society\u201d actors is working to reinterpret, \u201ccontextualize,\u201d and alter these sites, ultimately aiming to \u201cde-Sovietize\u201d them. The anti-Soviet iconoclasm that has swept through eastern Europe with renewed vigor since 2022 is thus also reaching Germany, where, after 1990, initially \u201conly\u201d the various layers of the anti-fascist and communist culture of remembrance left behind by the German Democratic Republic were attacked, erased, and overwritten. Much of that continues today.<\/p>\n

\"\"Under the cover of the Russophobia unleashed by the war in Ukraine, many in Germany and elsewhere are pushing an anti-communist agenda, as they seek to link the government of Vladimir Putin with the old Soviet Union, even though the two states are diametric opposites. The monument to Ernst Th\u00e4lmann, which was vandalized immediately after West Germany\u2019s annexation of the GDR, has again been targeted in recent years. | Michael Sohn \/ AP<\/p>\n

The statue of Ernst Th\u00e4lmann, leader of the historic Communist Party of Germany, in a park in what was East Berlin is regularly vandalized in the same fashion as the Treptower Park Memorial. During the Nazi period, Th\u00e4lmann was imprisoned in the notorious Buchenwald Concentration Camp, where he was executed and communists later led the only movement inside a concentration camp that resulted in that camp\u2019s liberation.<\/p>\n

After World War II, the GDR constructed the Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism in Berlin, which featured a constant guard and an eternal flame burning at the site. After the GDR was annexed to West Germany, that flame was extinguished. Authorities never touched the huge monument to monarchy, the statue of Frederick the Great on horseback, just opposite that memorial, however.<\/p>\n

Nearby, the enormously popular Palace of the Republic, a cultural and recreational venue popular in the GDR, was torn down and replaced with a hollow empty facade of the Kaiser\u2019s Palace. Frequent mass demonstrations against the destruction of the beloved center by the population were ignored.<\/p>\n

The TV Tower constructed in Berlin during the GDR days was always a sore spot for right-wingers in the Federal Republic of Germany, as it could be seen all over West Berlin as well as East Berlin, the capital of the GDR. It was for a while the fourth-tallest building in the world. Now, in the area where it stands, new construction blocks the view of the tower when you are in the area around it. Elsewhere in the city, of course, it can be seen from almost everywhere. What was a low-cost public facility is now an expensive restaurant and tourist attraction. Similarly, hotels all over the former GDR that were vacation spots for workers are now luxury hotels for businessmen.<\/p>\n

For a long time, though, the memorial sites with a direct connection to the Soviet military\u2019s defeat of Nazi Germany remained\u00a0untouched. The central argument against the memorials in their current form is inherently contradictory: On the one hand, Russia is accused of instrumentalizing the memorials; on the other hand, it is claimed that the memorials, with their Soviet character, are as such an authentic expression of an \u201cimperial\u201d policy that continues in the war in\u00a0Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Since 2022, this contradiction has been translated into political action with the annual ban on displaying Soviet flags and other symbols at the memorials on May 8 and 9. The fact that it can be normalized to prohibit the display of the liberators\u2019 flag at their graves on the day of liberation from fascism in the former capital of Nazi Germany has whetted the appetite for\u00a0more.<\/p>\n

\"\"Displaying the hammer-and-sickle flag of the soldiers who defeated Hitler and fascism is forbidden in Berlin. This sign was posted at the entrance to Treptower Park for Victory Day this year.<\/p>\n

Since 2025, there has been an increase in attempts to alter the appearance of war memorials. Eastern European actors play a significant role in this, indirectly introducing a line of inquiry into the mainstream of the German debate on the politics of remembrance, derived from the programmatic declaration of the so-called \u201cPlatform of European Memory and Conscience,\u201d which equates Nazism and\u00a0Communism.<\/p>\n

Organizations and individuals of the Ukrainian nationalist diaspora\u2014such as the Vitsche association and the Berlin-based Ukrainian Institute (arguing along the lines of a \u201cdecolonization\u201d of the memorials, based on the claim that the relationship between Russia and Ukraine in the USSR was a colonial one); the anti-Soviet Memorial association; the Pilecki Institute, which has been operating in Berlin as an outpost of Polish anti-communist historical policy since 2019; institutions of belligerent ideology production such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation-sponsored \u201cCafe Kyiv\u201d; Ukrainian and German historians (who, since 2022, have largely acted as maximalist amplifiers of the state\u2019s position, much like the discredited \u201ceastern studies\u201d of the past)\u2014and increasingly also parts of Berlin state politics are active in the debate about the\u00a0memorials.<\/p>\n

The main argument here is for a more or less invasive \u201ccontextualization\u201d of individual elements of the memorials. This method has a certain tradition\u2014one need only think of the handling of the memorial erected in 1981 in Berlin\u2019s Lustgarten for the resistance group around the communist Herbert\u00a0Baum.<\/p>\n

\"\"Demolishing the massive Soviet War Memorial at Treptower Park has proven too sensitive, especially as it is the grave of 7,000 soldiers. Instead, officials are planning ways to \u2018contextualize\u2019 and de-Sovietize the site in a manner acceptable to the political fashions of today\u2019s German ruling class. | C.J. Atkins \/ People\u2019s World<\/p>\n

Since simply removing the memorial seemed too risky, but it was also inconceivable that a communist monument bearing the inscription \u201cForever bound in friendship with the Soviet Union\u201d could remain in the heart of Berlin, the idea arose to cover the memorial stone with glass plates on which the monument would be commented on according to the dictates of German historical\u00a0policy.<\/p>\n

Similar preparations are now under way for the war memorials. Since 2025, two Social Democrat (SPD) members of parliament, Andreas Geisel and Alexander Freier-Winterwerb, have been particularly active. Both have recognized (or been told) that a redesign of the memorials can best be presented as a measure against \u201cStalinist bombast.\u201d In October 2025, they called, among other things, for commentary on the Stalin quotes engraved on some of the stones and a stronger emphasis on the memorial\u2019s character as cemeteries. The Berliner Zeitung newspaper thundered: \u201cAway with the Stalin propaganda at the Treptow War\u00a0Memorial!\u201d<\/p>\n

This opens a path to ultimately deeming the entire memorial \u201cStalinist\u201d (or, depending on the context, \u201cimperial\u201d) and calling it into question. This was evident from the program of a conference held on March 26 at the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum\u2014a joint event organized by the museum, the Ukrainian Institute, and the \u201cFederal Foundation for the Study of the SED [Socialist Unity Party] Dictatorship\u201d (in East\u00a0Germany).<\/p>\n

Under the telling title \u201cForeign Remembrance\u2014Our Own Responsibility?\u201d discussion focused on \u201cSoviet Memorials and German Culture of Remembrance,\u201d with the opening panel tellingly addressing \u201cComing to Terms with Communism in\u00a0Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only afterwards was the discussion turned to \u201cDealing with Memorials and Cemeteries.\u201d At the site where Nazi Germany\u2019s unconditional surrender was signed on May 8, 1945, the structurally and primarily anti-communist \u201cGerman culture of remembrance\u201d comes into its own. It could not be demonstrated more clearly that the intended new approach to the war memorials is understood as a kind of conclusion to the political debate surrounding \u201cCommunism in\u00a0Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conference caused quite a stir after an RT report referred to it as a \u201csecret conference,\u201d especially since Jorg Morre, the museum\u2019s director, subsequently told the Berliner Zeitung: \u201cWe were not interested in public reporting on March 26. That was the selection criterion for our\u00a0guests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just before the anniversary of the liberation this past weekend, Berlin\u2019s state politicians took action. A motion from the Green Party, which the Left Party (Die Linke) supported at the committee level, proposes entering into dialogue not with Russia, but with the 14 other successor states of the USSR\u2014several of which, as is well known, pursue a policy of rigorously removing Soviet monuments\u2014about what the future of the memorials could look like. SPD representative Freier-Winterwerb reiterates in his motion the demand to \u201ccontextualize\u201d the Stalin quotes. The SPD\u2019s coalition partner, CDU, will now form an opinion on the\u00a0matter.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lining the central area of Treptower Park are 16 sarcophagi containing the remains of 7,000 Red Army soldiers who died in the war. Some, like this one,\u00a0 feature wartime quotes from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. | C.J. Atkins \/ People\u2019s World<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, the (foreign) policy costs associated with intervening in the design of the war memorials are also being considered. In the agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Russian Federation on the \u201ccare of war graves\u201d of December 1992, the Federal Republic committed itself to maintaining and caring for the Soviet war cemeteries in Germany, guaranteeing access and dignified conditions for commemorative events, and informing the Russian side about restoration and maintenance work.<\/p>\n

However, the 1992 agreement only guarantees the existence of the war cemeteries, not the architectural design and political symbolism. A greater obstacle appears to be the historic preservation regulations, which make it difficult to simply remove or overwrite individual design\u00a0elements.<\/p>\n

One factor, however, cannot be factored into the equation: political opposition. In the Berlin House of Representatives, only Rep. Alexander King of Sahra Wagenknecht\u2019s party has so far spoken out against the redesign of the war\u00a0memorials.<\/p>\n

He told Junge Welt last Thursday that the plan to reinterpret the Treptow War Memorial is \u201cclearly in line with the logic of anti-Russian propaganda.\u201d In his view, \u201cneither German politicians nor Memorial EV [the German wing of the anti-Soviet Memorial organization], which is collaborating with Berlin SPD representatives on this matter,\u201d are authorized to \u201cdevelop or even implement changes to the memorial\u201d without the consent of the Russian\u00a0embassy.<\/p>\n

Republished from Junge Welt (www.jungewelt.de<\/a>). John Wojcik contributed to this article.<\/p>\n

We hope you appreciated this article. At\u00a0People\u2019s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading\u00a0People\u2019s World\u00a0and the stories we bring you, please\u00a0support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today<\/a>. Thank you!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCONTRIBUTOR<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Nico<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The statue at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Treptower Park features a Red Army soldier standing atop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[42980,42981,112,13679,42982,42983,190,1193,31764,41910,1827,10892],"class_list":{"0":"post-80811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-anti-communism","9":"tag-anti-fascism","10":"tag-berlin","11":"tag-east-germany","12":"tag-fascism","13":"tag-german-democratic-republic","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-history","16":"tag-nazi-germany","17":"tag-victory-day","18":"tag-world","19":"tag-world-war-ii"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116562792833938433","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}