Buchenwald Memorial Service Disrupted by Protests Amidst Right-Wing Populism Concerns

At Sunday's memorial service, actor and author Hape Kerkeling spoke about his grandfather, Hermann Kerkeling, a survivor of the Holocaust . "He was not a man of many words, but a man of action. A carpenter from Recklinghausen who knew how to get things done," Kerkeling recalled. On the roll‑call square of the former Buchenwald concentration camp on the Ettersberg near Weimar, in the heart of Thuringia , he was speaking "not as a public figure, but as the grandson of a survivor." Hape Kerkeling is widely known in Germany. At 61, he is a comedian, author, television host, and actor. His 2006 book "Ich bin dann mal weg" ("I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago") recounts his journey along the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostela. It has been translated into English, Spanish, Polish, Japanese and other languages. Grandfather Hermann — a carpenter, a Catholic, and a communist — survived his time at the camp, where, by April 1945, around 56,000 prisoners had been killed or had died from torture, murder, exhaustion, or despair. As his grandson recounts, Hermann "had distributed leaflets against Adolf Hitler immediately after what the National Socialists referred to as their seizure of power in 1933." That cost him twelve years of his life. Drawing on his own family's history, Kerkeling spoke of his grandfather's silence: "a leaden silence. That booming silence was like a glass wall surrounding his soul." He sounded out a warning against forgetting, against right‑wing populism. It sounded like a speech meant to endure, the voice of a grandson articulating grief for future generations. Hape Kerkeling gave a speech commemorating his grandfather Hermann, a Buchenwald survivor Image: Gränzdörfer/Agentur Wehnert/Future Image/IMAGO Buchenwald: hell on earth From 1937 to 1945, the Nazis imprisoned people in Buchenwald. These included political opponents, communists, homosexuals, foreign prisoners, Jews, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah's Witnesses, and clergy who had fallen out of favor. The Buchenwald system included the main camp on the Ettersberg and more than 50 smaller satellite camps mostly attached to war‑related production sites. More than 250,000 prisoners suffered there. When the first US army tanks approached the camp on April 11, 1945, the prisoners — who had built up a well-coordinated resistance group — rose up and captured dozens of soldiers from the fleeing SS units. For this reason, the commemorations spoke of both "liberation and self‑liberation." On the 81st anniversary of the liberation, two former inmates managed to attend: Alojzy Maciak (98) from Poland and Andrej Moiseenko (99) from Belarus. Elderly gentlemen, still wearing the caps from their time as prisoners. Several other survivors could not travel from Israel because flights had been suspended. At the 70th anniversary of the liberation in 2015 , around 80 survivors were still able to attend. In 2025, at the 80th anniversary, there were only 15. Now there were two, but they did not speak this time. #DailyDrone: Buchenwald Memorial To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video 01:32 Holocaust remembrance in difficult times This year's commemoration ceremony in Buchenwald was overshadowed in several ways. During his welcome speech, the memorial director Jens-Christian Wagner, described the current situation in bitter terms: "As ever fewer survivors of Nazi terror remain to defend themselves, memorial sites and the culture of remembrance are increasingly being misused as a stage for current political conflicts driven by particular agendas and attempts at self-promotion." Wagner pointed out that right‑wing extremists are attacking the culture of remembrance and defaming it as a "cult of guilt." "Nevertheless — or perhaps precisely because of this," he said, "they received support from up to 40% of voters in Thuringia." Nowhere else in Germany is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as strong as it is in this region, where its regional chapter is one of those that have been classified as right‑wing extremist by Germany's domestic intelligence service. But Wagner also stressed how profoundly the conflicts in the Middle East had cast a shadow on the commemoration. Some groups, he said, "tried to hijack this day for current political purposes." One organization called "Kufiyas in Buchenwald" had planned to hold a vigil in Buchenwald that Sunday for victims of genocide and fascism, with a particular focus on Palestine. Several days earlier, however, a court issued a ban on the event. A substantial police presence Yet fear of protests shaped the day. Around Weimar's train station, more than 15 police vans were lined up in the morning. Groups of officers in front of the station watched for possible counter‑demonstrators and checked who was boarding the shuttle buses to the memorial. Around the memorial itself, police vehicles appeared time and again. Wagner, the memorial's director, therefore made an emphatic appeal "to everyone present ... not to disrupt our commemoration." Several hundred, perhaps even a thousand people were gathered around the lectern and the tent housing the official guests. And yet, there were disruptions. Representing the federal government, Commissioner for Culture and the Media Wolfram Weimer (non‑partisan) had come to Buchenwald. His responsibilities include, among other things, supporting memorial sites dedicated to addressing the legacy of the Nazi dictatorship and the injustices committed under the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the former ruling party of East Germany . Government Minister Wolfram Weimer's speech in Buchenwald was interrupted by hecklers Image: M. Gränzdörfer/Geisler-Fotopress/picture alliance Protests against government minister Weimer The chairs of two associations representing relatives of former political prisoners of the camp had opposed Weimer's appearance. They argued that he had recently excluded three left‑wing bookshops from receiving awards in a competition, citing "findings relevant to the domestic intelligence service." Wagner, meanwhile, had spoken in favor of Weimer delivering his address. As Wagner welcomed him to the event, there were more than isolated boos from the crowd. When Weimer stepped up to the lectern, chants of "Alerta antifascista" could be heard from a left-wing bloc over which flags of the "Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime" (VVN) were flying, along with occasional shouts of "Fascist." Weimer spoke for around twelve minutes. Early on, he requested that the "dignity of the place" be respected. He addressed the two survivors and lamented what he called the "intolerable development" of increasing disruptions and threats at memorial sites. The Buchenwald Memorial, he said, had to spend more than 10% of its budget on security and protective measures. For almost the entire duration of his speech, hecklers shouted or sang lines from a solidarity song — "Vorwärts und nicht vergessen" ("Forward, and don't forget") — or from a song composed inside the camp in 1938: "O Buchenwald, ich kann dich nicht vergessen, weil du mein Schicksal bist," ("O Buchenwald, I cannot forget you, because you are my fate"). Later, Jens-Christian Wagner expressed his anger to journalists. It was "shabby" and "unbearable," he said, especially because the hecklers were loudest while Weimer was addressing the survivors. He added that it was legitimate for a federal government representative to speak on such an occasion. Wagner called it a "misguided political signal" to disrupt a representative of the democratic government. Minister Weimer closed by handing over to Hape Kerkeling, whom he thanked as one of the country's most respected cultural figures. Soon after came a minute of silence. Then followed the traditional remembrance of the "Buchenwald Oath" — the survivors' vow to "destroy fascism at its roots" and to build "a new world of peace and freedom." Fifty wreaths were placed in rows at the historic site by the culture minister and the victims' associations. The official commemoration had come to an end. Individuals and small groups lingered on the grounds, laying roses here and there, pausing to remember specific groups of victims. "3:15 p.m." reads the old clock in the tower above the camp's entrance building. Its hands always point to 3:15. At that hour, on April 11, 1945, the camp was liberated. That was when the hell ended. And yet, in some way, it never does. This article was originally written in German. Never forget? Germany's remembrance culture To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video 12:34