German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/192, pp. 24217-24218.
Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and
gentlemen.
“…I confess
that I am disappointed…”
Christoph
Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): By your party!
With these words, Marianne Birthler, the earlier civil
rights advocate and former Federal commissioner for the Stasi documentation,
ended her statement during a hearing here in the German Bundestag on the
planned dissolution of the Federal authority. And she continued – I cite with
her permission, Frau President – I had hoped for a departure [Aufbruch]. Yet what here lies before us
is more a probate of estate. – That, ladies and gentlemen, was four years ago.
And when we today glance at the draft law before us, then we
must state: Not much has changed. With the law, for which today the majority in
this house will vote in favor, the German Bundestag buries one of the most
prominent achievements, if not the prominent achievement, a world-wide,
one-time inheritance, of the Peaceful Revolution.
Monika
Lazar (Greens): It does not become better when it is repeated!
The Federal authority for the Stasi documentation properly
owes its existence – as we have already plainly heard – to a revolutionary act:
The occupation of the premises of the Ministry for State Security on January
15, 1990, by the break in of citizens. It is perhaps a German peculiarity and
perhaps in fact nothing bad, that a revolutionary act ends in an authority.
This authority was and is just as much also a monument, a living memorial, in
which approximately 1,500 people work in a total of twelve locations. To this
remarkable monument that is an authority belong the documents, preserved from
destruction, of the State Security, as just so does the Federal commissioner,
the guardian of these documents.
Now we hear in committee that in fact not much of this will
change. The documents will simply be incorporated into the Bundesarchiv and
instead of a Federal commissioner for the Stasi documentation, there shall be,
30 years after the unification [Wende],
now for the first time a victims commissioner.
Christoph Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): “Wende” is SED-speak!
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know whether you today
actually expect applause for this. To install a victims commissioner 30 years
after the Wende is no claim to fame.
That is a proof of poverty. That ought to have been done much, much earlier.
Let us nevertheless say it clearly: The so-called victims
commissioner is in truth actually a compensation for the suppression of the
Federal commissioner, a fig leaf to appease critics and victims associations
and to de-couple from the actual matter. The AfD delegation therefore in a
motion put before you today, has demanded that a Federal commissioner with
expanded competences be appointed. According to our presentation, he shall not
only be there for the victims but also to protect the functioning of a
commissioner for the working through of the SED dictatorship; for, ladies and
gentlemen, not only the victims but also the perpetrators are still among us.
Who really wishes to do something for the victim shall not at the same time
make his peace with the perpetrators and take the actual SED, legally still in
existence, into a governing alliance.
Monika
Lazar (Greens): Take a peek at your own!
And so as not to be misunderstood: Yes, the DDR naturally
was a German state, the second German dictatorship of the 20th
Century. Naturally, the documentary evidence, official documents and special
documents belong sooner or later in the Bundesarchiv.Yet, ladies and gentlemen,
there is not at all an urgent necessity to do that now.
Christoph Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): Naturally!
The basis for this law is exceedingly thin – and that has
also been stated in many hearings. All described problems which you wish to
solve with this law could also have been solved in other ways. I name only the
essentials: The securing of the documents, so you say, can no longer be
fulfilled. That would naturally have been achieved by means of cooperation with
the Bundesarchiv or by means of a better equipment of the documentation
authority itself. An ombudsperson for the victims – I have already referred to
it – would have long since been able to be appointed and naturally quite
independently of the question of the documents.
On the other side, the law offers in fact no solution to
actually existing problems. How and when, for example, will the approximately
15,000 sacks of torn Stasi documents finally be reconstructed and secured?
Since 2016, apparently not a single document has been electronically joined
together. Of that, the citizens committee 15.Januar
wrote on its internet presence – I cite with permission – :
“The Jahn
authority for years deceived the public and the parliament over the factual
standstill of the virtual reconstruction.” Meanwhile, almost all project
experts at the Frauenhofer Institute…with their special knowledge have left the
team and, at year’s end, the project’s long-time leader and initiator is
retiring.
Ladies and gentlemen, how shall these problems be solved? Not
a word of that in your motion. How does it now appear with the research
activity and the pedagogical education work? Here will arise in the future
something worthy of note; since a Bundesarchiv naturally is primarily, as the
name says, an archive. Here therefore, a push, a real departure, as rightly
desired by Marianne Birthler, is not to be expected. Since an archive primarily
places sources at the disposal of research. Its first duty is not to conduct its
own, independent research.
Ladies and gentlemen, 30 years are no reason to draw a
summary line. You too do not want that. 30 years, for a historian, that is only
the blink of an eye. For the historian, the proper work first begins after 30
years. And I may add: Also for pedagogues, for teachers, the real work is just
beginning. Ask the youth what they today know of the DDR. Terribly little! That
has to do with your education policy, with your suspended information policy,
which you for years pushed here. We need a departure. We need a push for an
investigation of the SED dictatorship. We need a strengthening of the existing
research associations; for example, here at the FU [Free University, Berlin]
and at many others. And in this regard, the law allows no good hope.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is at least worthy of note – so concluded
Marianne Birthler – that we in Germany have a teaching chair for the history of
Azerbaijan, yet we have, 30 years after the end of the DDR, not one teaching
chair for the history of the SED dictatorship or the communist rule of violence
in eastern Europe. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a proof of poverty. We just
so urgently require a memorial day for the victims of the communist
dictatorship. Our motions [Drucksachen
19/14348, 22240, 22295] for that lie before you. You have only to vote for
them.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
