We demand that the glorification of Prussia, which has taken place with the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace facades, be broken.
Since the demolition of the Palace of the Republic, only the facade of the Prussian royal house and the German Reich has been presented here. But the castle always stood for the colonial expansionist ambitions of Prussia and the German Empire, even within Europe. At the same time, it stands for 20th-century German history like no other place: for the revolution of 1918, the period of the Weimar Republic, the Second World War, the division of Germany and the GDR, but also for peaceful reunification and the cultural appropriation of the building.
We demand that this be made visible again on site using artistic means and inscribed on the facades of the Humboldtforum. This would also undermine the instrumentalization of the project by right-wing extremist circles, who have been campaigning for and donating to the “faithful” reconstruction from the very beginning.
You can either sign directly online on the Bundestag website, but you will also need to register there.
Or you can download a signature list, print it out, collect a few more supporters and send it by post, fax or email to the Bundestag.
Every person – regardless of age, nationality or place of residence – is entitled to sign the petition until November 7, 2024. If the quorum of 30,000 signatories is reached within this period, the Bundestag committee will deal with the petition in a public hearing.
The Petition
Demands
- Independent examination of all donors of the facades of the Berlin Palace with regard to right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic statements
- Transfer of donations from right-wing extremist, anti-Semitic and anonymous donors to an anti-racist initiative
- temporary visualization of the components financed by these donations
- Announcement of an artistic realization competition to break with the Prussia-glorifying appearance of the building
- Ending the collaboration with the association for the promotion of the Berlin Palace
Reason
The Humboldt Forum/Berlin Palace is a central symbolic building for reunited Germany. Its architecture, however, expresses a social self-image in which significant parts of the public do not recognize themselves. It expresses a self-image that refers unbrokenly to Prussia and the German Empire until 1918. However, a great many people living in Germany today cannot identify with it.
In 2002, the Bundestag decided by a large majority to reconstruct the baroque facades of the Berlin Palace for the construction of the Humboldt Forum. In the years that followed, the symbolic significance of this recourse to Prussian heritage – which was already highly controversial in the public sphere – was intensified by the reconstruction of additional elements from the period of reaction, the wars of unification and the German Empire, i.e. the years 1848 – 1918. In particular, the dome with its cross and banner inscribed the project with messages of national Protestantism, imperialism, anti-universalism, and the authoritarian state. These changes are largely due to the influence of the – partly anonymous – donors and the Förderverein Berliner Schloss (Berlin Palace Association). It has since become known that among the donors, association members, but also association officials, there were people who held anti-Semitic and right-wing radical positions and some of whom were also connected to right-wing extremist milieus. The motivation for the implementation of certain architectural symbols cannot be separated from their political views. The association has not distanced itself from its right-wing donors, members and functionaries, but has so far acknowledged all its donors without reservation.
The Humboldt Forum Foundation, as the host, has partly denied the problems, partly played them down and glossed over them. It has tried to exonerate itself and others by making false statements. This is no longer acceptable. The influence of right-wing forces on the Humboldt Forum must end, the past mistakes must be addressed, and the symbolic content of the architecture must be broken up, modified and expanded through new narratives that are artistically incorporated.
The – on three sides – unbroken reconstruction of the Berlin Palace as it was in 1918 erases the violent history of 20th-century Germany and offers a return to a supposedly unproblematic idyll of the Prussian monarchy and the German Empire.
A registration of other traces of the history of the place from the time after the end of the empire (revolution of 1918, Weimar Republic, World War II, post-war period, GDR, post-reunification period) can make previously suppressed perspectives on German history visible here and open up the ideological narrowing and instrumentalization of the place.
Submitters:
Klaus Brake, urban researcher and planner
Elisabeth Broermann, architect
Max Czolleck, publicist
Theo Deutinger, architect
Christian Koppe, historian
Kristin Feireis, curator
Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, architect
Harry Friebel, sociologist
Theresa Keilhacker, architect
Doris Kleilein, editorial director Jovis Verlag
Detlef Kurth, urban planner
Anton Maegerle, investigative journalist
Philipp Meuser, architect and publisher
Henrike Naumann, artist
Silke Neumann, Büro N
Anh-Linh Ngo, editor-in-chief ARCH+
Philipp Oswalt, architect and publicist
Fred Plassmann, OFFscreen MediaCollective
Eike Roswag-Klinge, architect
Agnieszka Pufelska, historian
Yvonne Rothe, artist/graphic designer
Philipp Ruch, artist
Steffen Schuhmann, graphic designer
Ulrike Steglich, journalist
Alexander Stumm, architectural historian
Tina Veihelmann, journalist
Anna Yeboah, curator and architect
Jürgen Zimmerer, historian