Funding amounting to millions for concentration camp memorial sites

Berlin (dpa) – The Federal Government will be making 21.8 million euros available for modernising the concentration camp memorial sites Dachau near Munich and Flossenbürg in the northern part of the Oberpfalz region. Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer announced the funding during a visit to Dachau, where he laid a wreath at the international memorial and discussed structural and educational challenges with the site management. 

Mr Weimer highlighted Germany’s historical responsibility. “Remembrance is our most powerful response to extremism,” he said, adding that Dachau represented “failure of civilisation in its most brutal form”. More than 200,000 people were stripped of their rights here, and over 40,000 of them did not survive their incarceration. 

Funding from the Federal Government is to be used to initiate a project titled “Lernen am Ort – Lernen vom Ort” (“learning on site and from the site”) in Dachau. The reconstructed prisoners’ barracks are to be converted into a modern education and exhibition centre. The Federal Government will contribute 17.5 million euros of the quoted cost of 38.8 million euros. In Flossenbürg, the Federal Government is funding the conversion of a former SS administration building for education purposes with 4.3 million euros. Planning also provides for funding for the Bavarian Memorial Foundation to be increased by up to 265,000 euros in 2026. 

The memorial site manager Gabriele Hammermann referred to the funding as “extremely generous” and pointed out that more than a million visitors came to Dachau every year.