27. January 2025 | Magazine:

‘Remembrance means more than just remembering the past’ TU Braunschweig commemorates the victims of National Socialism

27 January 2025 marks the 80th year since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Around 1.5 million people were murdered here, including around one million Jews. Auschwitz became the symbol of the Schoa, the genocide of six million Jews. Together with members of TU Braunschweig, President Angela Ittel and Jakob Stahlhofen from the AStA’s anti-fascism and anti-racism department laid flowers at the Stolperschwelle in front of the old building in memory of the victims of National Socialism. During a university-wide minute of silence, we also commemorated the more than 50 members of our university who were expelled, dismissed and murdered by the Nazis.

‘In memory of the victims of National Socialism at our university. Discriminated against, dismissed, expelled, persecuted, murdered,’ is the inscription on the stumbling block that has been in front of the old building since 2014. Every year on 27 January, members of the TU Braunschweig gather there to commemorate the victims who were persecuted, disenfranchised and murdered by National Socialism.

Keeping the memory of the past alive and, in dealing with this past, taking responsibility for the present and the future, are the central messages on this day of remembrance, eighty years after the concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

Together, President Angela Ittel and AStA representative Jakob Stahlhofen laid flowers at the Stolperschwelle. Picture credit: Ahmed Nassef/TU Braunschweig

TU President Angela Ittel and Jakob Stahlhofen from the AStA's Department for Anti-Fascism and Anti-Racism commemorate the victims of National Socialim. Picture credits: Ahmed Nassef/TU Braunschweig Picture credits: Ahmed Nassef/TU Braunschweig

In their speeches, President Angela Ittel and Jakob Stahlhofen highlighted the importance of engaging with the past and drawing consequences from it. Picture credits: Ahmed Nassef/TU Braunschweig

The more than 50 members of the university who were expelled, dismissed and murdered by National Socialism were also commemorated with a minute's silence. Photo credit: Ahmed Nassef/TU Braunschweig

Since 2014, the Stolperschwelle at the old building has been the place of remembrance at the TU Braunschweig. Photo credit: Ahmed Nassef/TU Braunschweig

In her speech, TU President Angela Ittel warned that remembrance is more than just remembering the past, and emphasised the university as a place of responsibility.

(Excerpt from the speech)
Remembrance means more than just remembering the past. It is important to engage with what happened and to draw consequences from it. Our scientific and social actions must always be guided by the fundamental values of democracy, human rights and tolerance.

Worldwide, we are witnessing a strengthening of authoritarian currents, of racism and anti-Semitism. In Germany, attacks on Jews are on the increase, and people are being marginalised because of their origin or identity – including ‘deportation tickets’ being dropped into letterboxes. Right-wing ideas are once again finding their way into parliaments and social discourse and are spreading via social networks, which often act as amplifiers for hatred and agitation.

It is our task as a university to counteract these developments through education, dialogue and enlightenment, when scientific findings are disparaged as ‘fake news’. And it is essential that we take a clear and decisive stand against discrimination, against anti-Semitism and against any form of inhumanity. This is another reason why we are no longer active on the platform X and support the joint appeal of more than 60 universities and research institutions to stop communicating there. The increasing spread of misinformation, hate speech and agitation is incompatible with the value system of the TU Braunschweig.

Our university sees itself as a place of critical thinking, where well-founded opinions are formed and defended in open debates with factual arguments. But our university also sees itself as a place of responsibility. By researching the Nazi history of our university or working on projects against racism and to strengthen diversity and inclusion, we help to keep the lessons of history alive. But responsibility does not end at the walls of a university. It begins with each and every one of us. It is our daily decisions, our actions, our opposition to injustice that makes the difference. 27 January reminds us that we must not stand idly by when injustice occurs.

Let us remember, in order to make the future more humane. Or as Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer says: ‘Respect people, that’s the most important thing.’

Jakob Stahlhofen from the AStA Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Department warns of the resurgence of right-wing extremism.

(Excerpt from the speech)
Today we stand here to commemorate all the human lives that fascism has taken. But a commemoration alone, a laying down of wreaths and speaking of warm words, is not enough. Days of remembrance like this are much more a reminder of our own historical and political responsibility. Because fascist, inhuman ideology, which divides life into worthy and unworthy, did not disappear after 1945. For many years, right-wing extremist ideas and forces have been growing and flourishing in Germany and throughout the world. We live in times in which a party with right-wing extremist roots is the second strongest in Germany. And in which conservative forces are already openly talking about working together. In times in which the richest and perhaps most powerful man in the world performs a Nazi salute on an open stage and receives applause for it.

Right-wing extremist violence has continued to cost many lives since the end of the Second World War. Be it the pogroms of Hoyerswerda and Rostock-Lichtenhagen in the 90s, the terrorist attacks of Halle and Hanau or the NSU murders. Right-wing violence and right-wing terror have long since become ubiquitous again. And for years, the far-right ideology has been getting louder, stronger and more normal, and has long since arrived in the centre of society. Today’s Nazis are taking their new self-confidence to the streets: CSDs are being deliberately threatened and attacked, politicians are being attacked while hanging up election posters, and the premises of anti-fascist groups are being smeared with swastikas and threats.

And while this violence continues to rise in recent years, established parties continue to follow right-wing demands, outbidding each other in inhumane asylum law tightening and deportation debates. When, at the same time, legitimate protest against this is violently suppressed by massively armed police, and even parliamentary observers are beaten unconscious by the state, it must be clear to us that remembrance also means resistance.
On days like today, we remember the lessons we must learn from our history. It is time to take responsibility for our society as a whole at the university as well. It is time to organise and stand together in solidarity. There are already strong and growing student protest movements. Now more than ever, we must persevere, organise our fellow students, persevere, maintain alliances and forge new ones in order to jointly, decisively and permanently counter the growing danger from the right. Let us act together as we owe it to the victims of fascism – and let us commemorate these victims together today.

Today we remember 6 million Jewish people, 1.8 million non-Jewish Polish civilians, 5.7 million Soviet civilians, 312,000 Serbian civilians, 250,000 people with disabilities, 250,000 Sinti and Roma, thousands of members of the LGBTQ* community, an uncountable number of political opponents and resistance fighters, and all victims of right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic violence in the years after 1945.

Further information

The Memorial Day

On 27 January 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where more than one million people were murdered by National Socialists between 1940 and 1945. Since 1996, this has been a nationwide, legally enshrined memorial day that remembers the crimes of Nazi regime. At TU Braunschweig, the Stolperschwelle on the steps in front of the Historic Main Building has been a place of remembrance since 2014. This was laid by the Cologne sculptor Gunter Demnig in cooperation with the association “Stolpersteine für Braunschweig e.V.”.

“In memory of the victims of National Socialism at our university. Discriminated, dismissed, expelled, persecuted, murdered,” reads the inscription on the Stolperschwelle, which keeps the memory of the darkest chapter of German, but also of our university history alive at this prominent location and at which a commemoration has been held since 2018.

The Technische Hochschule under National Socialism

The expulsion of politically and racially disliked persons began at the Technische Hochschule as early as 1930. With more than a third of the entire teaching staff, the proportion of expelled teachers was far higher than the average at other universities in the German Reich. Two publications by TU Braunschweig contributed to processing the period of National Socialist persecution. In 2010, the volume “Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung an der Technischen Hochschule Braunschweig 1930 bis 1945“ (Victims of National Socialist Persecution at the Technische Hochschule Braunschweig 1930 to 1945) was published by Michael Wettern and Daniel Weßelhöft under the direction of Hans-Ulrich Ludewig.

With 51 short biographies of those persecuted for racist and political reasons at the TH, TU Braunschweig wants to commemorate the victims and keep the diversity of their fates in mind. In the second publication “Von fleißigen Mitmachern, Aktivisten und Tätern. Die Technische Hochschule Braunschweig im Nationalsozialismus” (About industrious participants, activists and perpetrators. The Technische Hochschule Braunschweig under National Socialism) by Daniel Weßelhöft, 72 short biographies of people who were active in various functions at TH Braunschweig between 1930 and 1945 in the sense of National Socialism show how different a National Socialist commitment could appear.

You can find more information on the website “Unsere Geschichte – Aufarbeitung der NS-Zeit“ (Our History – coming to terms with the Nazi Era)