Merz upholds fight for democracy, 65 years after Berlin Wall built

On the 65th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called on Thursday for the defence of freedom and democracy.

"Sixty-five years ago, the leadership of former East Germany had the Wall built. Today, our country has been united longer than it was divided and we live in freedom and peace," Merz wrote on the platform X. 

"The lesson of the Wall remains: freedom and democracy are not a given. We must always fight for them." 

Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer warned against playing down the dictatorship in former East Germany.

In eastern Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and The Left party were producing "positive distortions of former East Germany,"  Weimer told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

He said of the AfD that it went so far as to "singing the former East German national anthem." He was referring to an AfD event in the state of Saxony Anhalt in July, ahead of a key state election on September 6. Cabaret performer Uwe Steimle started singing the former East German national anthem, with AfD politicians joining in.

Weimer criticized such "collective forgetting, repression and downplaying of former East Germany" as the biggest challenge to commemorating the East German dictatorship. 

He said he was very concerned about the culture of remembrance.  As culture minister, Weimer is also responsible for memorial sites.

"If Saxony-Anhalt slips to the far right and Berlin slips to the far left, then remembrance policy in both cases will be different from before," he said.

Weimer suggested naming streets and squares after resistance fighters from the former East Germany. 

"For example, wherever new streets are being created, people should at least consider namesakes who were killed by the Communist dictatorship or were imprisoned," he said.