The preservation of cultural heritage is a central task of cultural policy at all levels. Especially within the framework of monument preservation and in museums, the tangible evidence of cultural traditions is promoted and illustrated.
Cultural infrastructure: monuments, museums, world heritage list
According to the report on building culture, monument protection and monument preservation (2017), there are approximately 1 million individual buildings gardens, land, movable monuments and monument areas in Germany, 63 per cent of which are architectural monuments another 37 per cent are ground monuments. The proportion of listed buildings in the building stock is 2.9 per cent.
According to the most recent survey by the Institute of Museum Studies of 2021 https://journals.ub.uni- heidelberg.de/index.php/ifmzm/issue/view/5496/1014), 66 834 museums existed in 2019 under various forms of sponsorship: 51 per cent of museums are publicly sponsored (3.438 museums: state sponsors: 443; local authorities: 2 606; other forms of public law: 444), 45.3 per cent in private sponsorship (associations 2 043; companies / cooperatives: 327; foundations under private law: 251; private individuals: 473) and 3.8 per cent in mixed forms private and public (258).
Subdivided according to collection areas, the local and regional history museums, folklore and local history museums form the largest of the nine groups with 43.5 percent. The second largest group, with 15.1 percent, were the special cultural history museums. 12.6 percent of the museums had a natural science and technology focus, and the share of art museums was 10.7 percent. Of these 6,834 museums, 4,543 museums reported their visitor numbers, which amounted to 111.6 million visits (2018: 6,771 museums, reporting 4,831 museums with 114.1 million visits). In terms of collecting areas, it was the historical and archaeological museums (19.5 %), the art museums (17.9 %) and the natural science / technical museums (14.5 %), which had the highest number of visits.
Germany currently has 51 World Heritage Sites (48 cultural and three natural) on the UNESCO World Heritage List (https://www.unesco.de/kultur-und-natur/welterbe/welterbe- deutschland/welterbestaetten- deutschland), which includes more than 1,500 World Heritage Sites worldwide. Since 2015, twelve more cultural and natural sites from Germany have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, including, among others: Hamburg’s Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel with Chilehaus (2015), the architectural work of Le Corbusier (2016), caves and Ice Age art of the Swabian Alb (2017), Augsburg’s water management system (2019) and Matildenhöhe Darmstadt (2021).
In 2013, Germany joined the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The three UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists comprise a total of 584 entries from 131 countries, including five from Germany: Bauhüttenwesen, Blaudruck, Genossenschaftsidee and -practice, falconry as well as organ building and organ music.
Cultural policy: promotion and discussions
Remembrance culture plays an important role in cultural policy. The current coalition agreement (2021) also contains a commitment to the culture of remembrance and understands it as a “commitment to democracy and a path to a common future” (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/bundesregierung/bundeskanzleramt/staatsministerin- fuer- kultur-und-medien/kultur-im-koalitionsvertrag-1989728) The restitution of Nazi looted art is to exclude the possibility of claims becoming time-barred. The restitution of objects from colonial contexts will also be supported, and a concept for a place of learning and remembrance of colonialism will be developed. The communication of history of and in the immigration society will be advanced.
Monument protection and preservation are primarily the responsibility of the Länder and municipalities, but the preservation of important national cultural monuments is also a focus of the Federal Government’s cultural policy. The Federal Government funds numerous nationally significant cultural institutions, partly on its own and partly together with the Länder. These include the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, the German Literature Archive in Marbach and the German Cinematheque in Berlin. Museums dedicated to the history of the Germans and memorial sites are also among them. An important pillar of the federal government‘s monument conservation is the “Nationally Valuable Cultural Monuments” programme, which promotes the preservation of , archaeological monuments and historical parks and gardens. From 1950 to 2020, over 700 cultural monuments were preserved and restored with around 387 million euros from this programme. Since 2007, the BKM has launched nine special heritage conservation programmes with a total of around 330 million euros until 2021, in addition to the other heritage conservation programmes.
The importance of monument preservation lies in the preservation of the architectural heritage, but also in its economic dimensioin for the building industry, especially for specialised small and medium-sized enterprises. It enjoys great cultural-political esteem, which is supported by public campaigns. These include, for example, the “Open Monument Day“, which has been coordinated nationwide by the German Foundation for Monument Protection since 1993, and which is held annually in September under a specific motto (e.g. 2019: Modern Upheavals in Art and Architecture; in 2020: Opportunity Monument: Remember. Preserve. Rethinking and 2021: Being and Appearance – in History, Architecture and Monument Preservation).
For some years now, there has been a public debate on the protection and status of intangible and tangible cultural heritage in cultural policy. It is repeatedly ignited by striking examples and major cultural projects in the federal capital, such as the reconstruction of the City Palace or the restoration of the Museum Island in Berlin, which are of particular political and cultural-historical significance.
In view of dwindling financial resources and the difficulty of finding an appropriate and economically viable use for restored buildings, the protection of historical monuments and the funding policy for the restoration and maintenance of built testimonies to the cultural heritage are coming under increasing pressure. The reason for this is not only the scarcity of public funds, but also the thematic expansion of the concept of monument protection through the broadened cultural concept of the 1970s and 1980s to include evidence of everyday and industrial culture, which is viewed more critically today. As a result of this and the reunification of the two German states, the number of objects worthy of preservation and in need of restoration has grown so much that new criteria for selection are needed.
With regard to the built testimonies of industrial culture, there are more frequent debates about whether it makes sense and is affordable to put them to cultural use, because the public sector seems to be less and less able to pay the follow-up costs. In addition, there are more fundamental cultural policy considerations, because in relation to the financial expenditures for the cultural and artistic works and testimonies of the past, the promotion of contemporary and living art and culture is becoming significantly more marginalised.
Special concepts and events
In July 2007, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media presented a memorial concept entitled “Taking Responsibility, Strengthening Reappraisal, Deepening Remembrance”. In June 2008, after a broad public debate, the Federal Cabinet decided to update the memorial concept of 1999. In the future, on the one hand, memorials of national importance that commemorate the National Socialist reign of terror and its victims, and on the other hand, the reappraisal of the dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone and in the former GDR and the commemoration of their victims are to be promoted more strongly. In 2015, a symposium was held to critically assess the work done at the memorial sites to date. Also in 2015, the Expert Commission, which advises the Federal Government on the allocation of project funds in the memorial sector, expressly spoke out in favour of the approach of a stronger educational orientation of the Federal German memorial work and funding.
In May 2008, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted under National Socialism, which is located near the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, was handed over to the public in Berlin. With this memorial, the Federal Republic of Germany wants to commemorate the persecuted and murdered homosexual victims and the injustice done to them, and is also intended to be a permanent symbol against intolerance, hostility and discrimination against homosexuals.
In 2010, after 20 years of planning and construction, the Topography of Terror Documentation Centre (https://www.topographie.de/topographie-des-terrors/) was opened on the site of a former central institution of Nazi persecution. With over 1 million visitors a year, it is one of the most visited places of remembrance in Berlin. The first memorial in Germany for deserters was opened in Cologne (September 2009) and the Memoriam Nuremberg Trials (https://museen.nuernberg.de/memorium-nuernberger- prozesse) opened a Exhibition with comprehensive information on Courtroom 600 at the venue of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice in November 2010. In October 2012, the central memorial for the Sinti and Roma murdered under the National Socialists, designed by Dani Karavan, was inaugurated in the presence of the Federal President and the Federal Chancellor. In April 2015, on the 70th anniversary of Munich’s liberation, the NS Documentation Centre Munich – Place of Learning and Remembrance on the History of National Socialism (https://www.ns-dokuzentrum-muenchen.de/home/) was opened. In addition, in 2016 the BKM announced a research programme to address the Nazi past of the Minister and central German authorities. Funding of 4 million euros was made available for the period from 2017 to 2020.
In 2011, a new documentation centre about the division of Germany was inaugurated at one of the most frequented border crossings between East and West Berlin (the so-called Palace of Tears).
In 2018, the Minister of State for Culture opened the European Heritage Year in Germany. In Germany, more than 400 projects with 1,500 events and more than 100,000 visitors took part. In 2018, the BKM‘s budget supported 38 projects and initiatives across Germany related to the European Heritage Year with a total of 7.2 million euros. Germany was one of the initiators of the European Heritage Year. The programme for the theme year was coordinated by the German National Committee for Monument Protection and accompanied by further activities of the federal states, municipalities and other actors.
In 2019, Germany celebrated numerous anniversaries, such as 100 years of the Bauhaus, 100 years of women’s suffrage, 50 years of the moon landing, 30 years of the Peaceful Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and 250 years of Humboldt. Due to these anniversaries and other historical dates, such as the 70th anniversary of the Second World War, activities and programmes in particular were influenced by the theme of heritage and remembrance.
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