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Thousands of monuments set to open to the public across Germany

Millions of visitors nationwide are expected once again at Germany's Open Monument's Day, which spotlights the most striking monuments around the country.

Published: 5 September 2019 17:15 CEST
Thousands of monuments set to open to the public across Germany
Ulm's Minster as seen reflected in a mirror. Photo: DPA

“Upheaval in Art and Architecture” is the central focus of Germany's Open Monument Day on Sunday, September 8th, with the springboard being the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus art school.

The Monument Protection Foundation (Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz) is organizing the special day for the 27th time and are expecting around 3.5 million visitors nationwide, as in previous years.

Find out more about the line up of events at participating monuments on the event's official website (in German).

An example of Bauhaus architecture as seen at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Photo: DPA

The central opening ceremony for 8,000 events nationwide takes place in Ulm in Baden-Württemberg this year. After the opening, a panel discussion will explore the question of what makes a monument modern.

The slogan “Modernism: Upheaval in Art and Architecture” will be visible around the country, from historic restaurants to monasteries. 

“The theme is about changes to every monument,” said Sarah Wiechers from the German Monument Protection Foundation. 

The Bauhaus aesthetic is seen as a prime example of modern architecture. But the intention of Open Monument Day is to highlight the relativity of the notion of modernity. 

“What is old today was modern in its time of creation,” said Wiecher. 

READ ALSO: Inside Weimar's new politically charged Bauhaus museum

Transition and progress can affect forms of art like theatre, as its objectives are constantly changing, as well as industrial monuments like the Zollverein Coal Mine in Essen, which was converted to a cultural venue, said Wiechers.

Flowers in front of the Zollverein. Photo: DPA

According to Wiechers, the architectural Zeitgeist in the opening city of Ulm is particularly striking: The Minster, a late medieval cathedral with its almost 162 meter high church tower, is in the immediate vicinity of the townhouse. 

The latter only opened in 1993 and was placed under protection in January this year. According to Wiechers, this is Baden-Württemberg's youngest monument.

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TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

Published: 16 May 2023 08:29 CEST
France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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