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The Significance for the Federal Republic of Germany and itsHomosexual Minority of the Memorial to the HomosexualsPersecuted under National Socialist Regime1. Panel discussionhost: Günter DworekOur first panel discussion examined the significance for the FederalRepublic of Germany and its homosexual minority of the planned nationalmemorial site dedicated to the homosexuals persecuted under NationalSocialism. Dr. Christoph Stölzl, the Vice-President of the Berlin Chamber ofDeputies opened the discussion with a statement. Mr. Stölzl welcomed allthose present in the name of the parliament and its president, Walter Momper,and wished everyone present a productive colloquium. Dr. Stöltzladded the following words:‘This colloquium can benefit from the great debates and conflicts thathave already taken place over other memorials in Berlin. Although thismemorial site has come about far too late, the memorial selection processwill be able to avoid many of the mistakes made with other memorials inthe past, mistakes that arose through a lack of debate or through the overdramatisation of certain issues in day-to-day politics.‘The preceding discussions often asked whether people do not spend toomuch time and energy remembering the past, whether we aren’t sufferingfrom a surfeit of memorial sites and whether the Germans aren’t obsessedwith remembrance. In response I would suggest that we estimate howmuch space is consumed by flowing traffic, stationary traffic, traffic androad signs, and car advertisements. To claim that the past occupies far toomuch space on the public streets and roads of the Federal Republic of Germanyis complete nonsense, as this little test clearly shows.‘The next question is more difficult to answer. When the discussion beganover the Neue Wache, I learned that there is no law that determines who isentitled to erect memorials. Anyone who has purchased or leased a pieceof land and obeys the building regulations is allowed to erect a monument.As strange as this seems, it nevertheless testifies to a certain degree ofdemocratic freedom and open-mindedness.‘However, the moment one is dependent on public money to fund amemorial things start getting complicated. The share a society accords toremembrance, to the afterlife, to anything outside the quotidian is historicallyvariable. Unlike our ancestors during the High Middle Ages, who turnedto heaven with all the wealth they were able to mobilise, we are very muchpresent-oriented. And we would do well to proceed wisely in rememberingthe Nazi period, the victims of the perpetrators, especially now when we arebeing overwhelmed by a deluge of remembered fates.‘Our age is most certainly unprecedented in the acceleration of humandeeds: both good and – far more frequently, unfortunately – bad. And if weEuropeans are right in assuming that every single fate and every singlehuman life is unique and deserves to be told, we shall need literally thousandsof years to relate the endless and unbelievable story of what happened.32