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‘I do not think that we should do this in order to prevent something comparablefrom happening again. As a historian, I do not believe that historicalconstellations faithfully repeat themselves. Nor do I believe that memorialsites, however successful they may be, can in any way change the moralcondition of a society that finds itself in decline. But I do believe that wehave to remember for the sake and honour of those who were harmed, wholost their lives and were tortured. In doing so, we follow an old Europeantradition. And it has nothing to do with educating people. It does, however,have something to do with a certain sense of justice: that the living owesomething to those who have been denied the chance to live. Perhaps thisseems irrational or too Christian. Whatever the case may be, I have consciouslyadopted this as my personal position and not that of parliament.‘Against this background, we can only hope that art will succeed inachieving what all the books and curricula can only do to a limited extent:that it can endure. We should therefore apply our minds to this questionuntil we are absolutely convinced that the design will endure – even if itdoesn’t exist for all eternity – and that it will encourage consensus amongthose who treat these matters with the seriousness they deserve.‘Art defies practical application. And if an artwork is momentous, it will nottry to tempt anyone with a beckoning index finger to adopt the “right” position.It is difficult to strike a balance between the enigmatic quality andambiguity of a great work of art and the facts we want to remember here.‘In Berlin people argued earlier and with greater intensity and passionthan in any other city in Germany over how much space, how many permanentposts, how much printed paper and how much cut stone we shoulddedicate to these events which now lie just a few years behind us. In Berlinthese processes have generally been initiated by ordinary people. Theirrepresentatives, the parliaments and the finance ministers first needed agood moral push before they were prepared to acknowledge just how reasonablethese endeavours were. The fact that Berlin is now exemplary inthis regard, not only for the rest of the republic but for many other countries,too, is a tribute to the Berliners.‘I now have another request. During some of our past discussions thepassion for debating and the battle of opinions have been pursued withgreat ardour and, at times, too much ardour for my taste. Our present subjectis far too serious for us not to seek consensus, or for us to insinuatethat those whose opinions differ from ours over aesthetic questions, legendsand dimensions are mistaken, or that they even have destructiveintentions. For especially in the field that concerns us here, we ought totreat one another with respect and assume that others have come with thesame good intentions as we ourselves.‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with other groups of victims – as theyare so strangely called here in Germany – wanting to construct additionalmemorials once this one has been completed. Memory cannot be made tooperate on command. As the Southern German Alpine region shows, whereyou find a wayside shrine, a cross or memorial site at every corner, remembranceis a human right. And there can never be too much of it.’34