Památník svobody a jednoty v Berlíně
The Monument to Freedom and Unity, Berlin

Concerning the Debate about the Need for ‘Positive’ Monuments in Germany

Summary/Abstract: This article relates the still unfi nished story of the Monument to Freedom and Unity in Berlin. which is intended to commemorate the great changes of autumn 1989, and it looks at the related German debate about the culture of remembrance in their country. That debate is at present connected mainly with the crimes of Nazism, and people are now heard arguing that in addition to memory and ‘negative’ monuments Germany also sorely needs to develop ‘positive’ collective remembrance. One of the specifi c attempts to make this idea a reality is the Initiative for a Monument to German Unity (Initiative Denkmal Deutsche Einheit), which emerged in the Bundestag in 1998. From it comes the Berlin project discussed here, which, even seventeen years later (unlike the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), has yet to be built. The author discusses the changes in the conception of the monument and the competition for its design; although the second competition resulted in a winning design, that was not unanimously accepted, and disputes about the monument continue to this day.

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