Launch of the "Magdeburg 2023 Year of Remembrance": Remembrance of the "seizure of power" 90 years ago

The year 2023 marks the anniversaries of eventful incisions associated with the beginning and further development of the National Socialist dictatorship. The "Magdeburg Year of Remembrance 2023" will mark these anniversaries with public events and will kick off on Monday, January 30, at 4 p.m. in front of Magdeburg's main train station with a staged reading to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the so-called seizure of power.

The place of remembrance is the memorial embedded in the ground, which commemorates the deportations of Jewish Magdeburgers on Willy-Brandt-Platz. In order to visualize contemporary perceptions of the National Socialist overthrow, artist Herbert Beesten and Magdeburg museum expert Tobias v. Elsner recite testimonies by prominent figures from 1933, including writers and publicists such as Joseph Roth, Kurt Tucholsky and Sebastian Haffner, playwright Bertolt Brecht, but also Joseph Goebbels, who was almost religiously devoted to Hitler. The selected texts give an idea of the range of reactions to the "seizure of power", which ranged from euphoria to disgust and left others rather resigned and looking the other way. The staged reading will be accompanied musically by the Ukrainian artist Enver Ibragimov on the saxophone.

The "Magdeburg Year of Remembrance 2023" is a campaign by Miteinander e.V., the Bündnis gegen Rechts Magdeburg and the Magdeburg City Library. With a broad-based remembrance of the victims of National Socialism, Magdeburg's memorial sites and their stories are to be rediscovered and rediscovered. The Year of Remembrance thus aims to "contribute to strengthening the culture of remembrance as part of a democratic city culture," emphasizes initiator Pascal Begrich as managing director of the association Miteinander.

The patronage of the "Year of Remembrance Magdeburg 2023" has been assumed by Regina-Dolores Stieler-Hinz, Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Culture, Schools and Sports of the state capital Magdeburg.

The project implementation is made possible by the institutional support of Miteinander e.V. with funds from the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health and Equality of the State of Saxony-Anhalt.