Berlin police apologize Holocaust memorial press-ups scandal
November 1, 2021
Police in the German capital have issued an apology after photos emerged of officers disrespecting Berlin's Holocaust memorial.
Berlin police officers filmed each other doing press-ups on the blocks of the memorial back in JuneImage: picture-alliance/Geisler-Fotopress/S. Gabsch
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The head of police in Germany's capital condemned a number of officers on Monday after images emerged of them doing push-ups on the blocks that make up the Holocaust memorial.
The Berliner Zeitung newspaper published photos of officers in uniform and carrying weapons using the memorial's concrete blocks as supports for exercise.
"The behavior of the colleagues disregards what this very memorial stands for and does not correspond to the respect that must be shown to it and that is shown to it by the Berlin police," Chief Barbara Slowik said.
"For me, it also violates the memory of those who were murdered," Slowik added.
A place of remembrance
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe consists of 2,711 grey blocks of different sizes, located in central Berlin, close to the Brandenburg Gate.
Commemoration at the Holocaust Memorial
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While tourists often use the site to take selfies, run around, or even for sunbathing and picnicking, the rules forbid running, making noise, smoking and other acts that could be seen as disrespectful for the place of remembrance.
The photos displayed by the Berliner Zeitung appeared to be stills from videos taken by the officers themselves.
The event took place during a protest action in the capital in June for which the police were deployed.
Police union calls for 'consequences'
Slowik said she would open an internal investigation into the incident and also stressed that she would highlight the role of the memorial as "a place of remembrance and commemoration."
Germany's police trade union, GdP, also apologized for the "tasteless" actions, calling for "consequences."
"The Holocaust memorial is not an adventure playground. This inexplicable action mocks the genocide of millions of people and tramples on the values that our Berlin police," the GdP added.
Victims and heroes: Berlin war memorials
On July 20, 1944, German officers tried to kill Hitler. The assassination attempt failed, and the attackers were executed. On the anniversary, DW visits some memorial sites in Berlin.
Image: Andrea Warnecke/dpa/picture alliance
Memorial to the German resistance
World War II almost ended a year earlier: On July 20, 1944, a group of German officers led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler. But the assassination attempt failed and the officers involved were executed. The German Resistance Memorial Center remembers those who died while resisting the Nazi regime.
Since 1993, the Neue Wache (New Guardhouse) has been Germany's central memorial site for the victims of war and tyranny. It was built at the beginning of the 19th century according to designs of Karl Friedrich Schinkel and has always been a memorial site. First for the Napoleonic Wars of Liberation 1813 — 1815, later for the fallen of the First and Second World War.
Image: Marc Vorwerk/SULUPRESS.DE/picture alliance
Pieta by Käte Kollwitz
A mother embraces her dead son: this replica of Käthe Kollwitz' statue is the centerpiece in the Neue Wache. Kollwitz crafted the artwork in honor of her son Peter, who was killed in World War I. The original statue is housed at Cologne's Käthe Kollwitz museum.
Image: picture-alliance/W. Rothermel
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
There are numerous memorials for the victims of the Nazi regime in Berlin. The most famous and largest one is the Holocaust Memorial near Brandenburg Gate. A field of 2,711 stelae commemorates the more than 6 million murdered Jews in Europe.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Büttner
Topography of Terror
With about one million visitors annually, the documentation center Topography of Terror on Niederkirchnerstrasse is one of the most visited memorial sites in Berlin. From 1933 to 1945, this was the site of the headquarters of the Secret State Police Office and the SS — in other words, where the Nazi regime's system of terror was planned and managed.
Image: DW/F. Wiechel-Kramüller
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe murdered during the Nazi era
A water basin, filled with symbolic tears. The names of concentration camps are inscribed on the stone slabs around it. The monument in Berlin's Tiergarten commemorates 500,000 people who were persecuted and murdered as "gypsies" by the Nazis in Germany and other European countries between 1933 and 1945.
Image: imago/C. Ditsch
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on Breitscheidplatz was severely damaged in bombing raids in 1943. When it was to be completely demolished and rebuilt in the postwar years, the people of Berlin protested. Thus the 71-meter-high (233 ft) tower ruin was preserved as a memorial against war and destruction, for peace and reconciliation, visible from afar.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Günther
The Soviet War Memorial
A Soviet soldier holding a rescued child on his arm and a lowered sword over a shattered swastika — this huge monument towers above the Soviet Memorial in Treptow. The military cemetery is the final resting place for 7,000 Soviet soldiers who lost their lives in the fight for Berlin in the spring of 1945.
Image: picture-alliance/360-Berlin/J. Knappe
Commonwealth War Cemetery in Berlin
Some 3,600 Air Force soldiers, mainly killed in air combat over Berlin, are buried in the British cemetery on Heerstrasse. The honorary cemetery was built between 1955 and 1957 for the fallen soldiers from Great Britain and the Commonwealth States, especially Canada. It is still under special protection by the British Crown.
Image: picture-alliance/Arco Images/Schoening Berlin
Monument to the Polish liberators of Berlin
For a long time there was no place in Berlin to remember the Polish victims of war and German occupation. But in September 2021, this memorial plaque was unveiled in Berlin in honor of the Polish troops who took part in the Battle of Berlin in 1945.
Image: DW/W. Szymanski
New documentation center to be created
The German Bundestag has decided to establish a new documentation center on the Nazi occupation in Europe. It will be dedicated to all victims of the German war of extermination and Nazi occupation, focusing on groups of victims that have received little attention up to now.
