At the German federal government’s commemoration of July 20, 1944, Federal Minister Karin Prien—as a descendant of victims of the Shoah—honored the courage of the men and women who risked their lives in the resistance more than 80 years ago. She warned against indifference today toward far-right politics and said: “Every person bears responsibility for their own actions: It is the individual who makes the difference.”

Even before the commemoration began, Tobias Korenke—one of the 100 descendants of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer and the grandson of the murdered Rüdiger Schleicher—attempted to remove the wreath laid by the AfD at the memorial site. A scuffle ensued with security personnel. Korenke explained his spontaneous action, saying: “When you read the AfD’s government platform for Saxony-Anhalt and how it talks about the so-called ‘cult of guilt,’ and when you know that the history curricula are to be changed, then this is a party that has nothing to do with the memory of the resistance against National Socialism. On the contrary. It is a provocation and an outrageous display of bad taste for them to lay their wreath here.” Korenke was no longer able to hear the federal minister’s remarks because, as someone who acts responsibly, he had been expelled from the courtyard of the German Resistance Memorial Center.

Tobias Korenke is vice-chairman of the board of the “Bonhoeffer House Memorial and Place of Encounter” in Berlin-Charlottenburg. People from all over the world visit Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s former family home because the Bonhoeffer family’s stance and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thoughts and actions have become role models for them.

Gottfried Brezger, Chairman