Prof. Harold Marcuse homepage > Presentations page > GSA 1997 Neue Wache presentation > memorial text comparison

From President Weiszäcker's May 1985 speech

Today we commemorate in sadness all dead of the war and the tyranny.
   

  1. We remember especially the six million Jews who were killed in German concentration camps.
  2. We remember all of the peoples who suffered in the war, especially the unspeakably many citizens of the Soviet Union and the Poles who lost their lives.
  3. As Germans we remember in sadness our own countryfolk who lost their lives as soldiers, in the air raids at home, in captivity, and during the expulsion.
  4.    
       
  5. We remember the Sinti and Romany Gypsies,
    the homosexuals and the mentally ill who were killed,
       
        
        
  6. as well as the people who had to die for their religious or political beliefs.
        
  7. We commemorate the hostages who were executed.
        
  8. We recall the victims of the resistance movements in all the countries occupied by us.
  9. As Germans, we pay homage to the victims in the German resistance-among the public, the military, the churches, the workers and trade unions, and the Communists.
    We commemorate those who did not actively resist, but preferred to die instead of violating their consciences.

Text of plaque outside the Neue Wache, 1993

The Neue Wache is a place of remembrance and commemoration of the victims of war and tyranny.

  1.    
      
       
  2. We remember all nations/peoples who suffered in war.
    We remember their citizens, who were persecuted and lost their lives.
  3. We remember all of the innocent people who lost their lives in war and because of the consequences of war at home, in captivity, and during the expulsion.
  4. We remember the millions of murdered Jews.
  5. We remember the murdered Sinti and Romany Gypsies.
    We remember all of the people who were killed because of their ancestry, their homosexuality or because of sickness and disability.
    We remember all of the murdered whose right to life was denied.
  6. We remember all of the people who had to die because of their religious or political convictions.
  7. We remember everyone who became a victim of tyranny and went innocently to death.
  8. We remember the women and men who sacrificed their lives in the resistance against the tyranny.

    We honor everyone who preferred to go to their death than compromise their conscience.
  9. We remember the women and men who were persecuted and murdered because they resisted the totalitarian dictatorship after 1945.

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