Campus or democracy
The people in the GDR showed that it is possible to overthrow a brutal and repressive regime by peaceful means: the so-called Peaceful Revolution is a model for many democracy movements worldwide. One of the central places of spying and repression was the Stasi headquarters in Normannenstraße in Lichtenberg – my home district in Berlin. At this place, up to 7,000 employees organised the surveillance and persecution of the population for almost four decades.
In 1990, this place became a central scene of the Peaceful Revolution. Demonstrators entered the sealed-off area and prevented the Stasi from destroying important documents of the SED dictatorship and its repressive apparatus. Today, parts of the site are used as a place of education about dictatorship and resistance. But many buildings remain empty and are increasingly falling into disrepair.
This should not happen to a place of such national and global importance. That is why I, together with many others, am committed to turning the former Stasi headquarters into a living place of remembrance of the repression organised from this base, of the Peaceful Revolution and the process of coming to terms with the SED dictatorship – and at the same time into a place of learning and exchange about democracy and democracy movements in the here and now. Together we want to turn the site into a living memorial to the Peaceful Revolution: A Campus for Democracy in the heart of Europe and with international appeal. There are democracy movements on every continent. But only a few have been as successful as ours.
We are developing concrete ideas for this vision as well as events and dialogue forums. We do this in partnership and together with local actors and interested citizens. Here you will always find up-to-date information:
Die beeindruckende Ausstellung auf dem Campus für Demokratie zeigt die Geschichte der unabhängigen Frauenbewegung in der DDR. Ich habe sie zusammen mit Kuratorin Ulrike Rothe und der Aktivistin Ulrike Poppe besucht.
Nach einer Führung über das Gelände haben wir uns darüber ausgetauscht, wie das Projekt "Campus für Demokratie" weiter vorangebracht werden kann.
Auf dem Campus für Demokratie wurde das jährliche Campus-Kino mit dem Film "Bettina" eröffntet. Ich habe die Veranstaltung als Moderatorin begleitet.
Ich war bei der Einweihung des neuen Informations- und Leitwegesystems auf dem Gelände der ehemaligen Stasi-Zentrale in Berlin-Lichtenberg mit dabei. Es soll einer besseren Orientierung auf dem Areal dienen.
Das Gelände der ehemaligen Stasi-Zentrale in Berlin wird erhalten und neu gestaltet. Es soll Platz für Kunst und Kultur bieten, Geschichtsvermittlung ansprechend umsetzen und zudem mit Gastronomie und Übernachtungsangeboten aufwarten. Mehr dazu findet ihr hier:
Aus einem Ort der Unterdrückung einen Ort der Aufklärung über Demokratie und Freiheit machen: das ist unser gemeinsames Ziel. Mit unserer Berliner Spitzenkandidatin Bettina Jarasch habe ich die ehemalige Stasi-Zentrale in Berlin-Lichtenberg besichtigt.
31 years after the fall of the Wall, I wrote an essay for the Tagesspiegel. You can read here why we should better commemorate the peaceful revolution and which Berlin monument has the potential for doing so.
When I was in eighth grade, my German teacher asked me to choose a poem that meant a lot to me. After giving it much thought, I picked out this one sentence by Andreas Tenzer. It was 1999, exactly 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, 20 years later, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the wall.
