A Call to Remember: SED Victims' Commissioner Urges Preserving Knowledge of DDR as a Dictatorship
DDR Ombudswoman Emphasizes Importance of Understanding the Dictatorial Nature of the DDR - Enhancing Public Understanding of East Germany's Dictatorship: Pronouncements by the Victim Ombudsman
Evelyn Zupke, the SED Victims' Commissioner, warns against forgetting the real nature of the DDR as a dictatorship, thirty-five years after German reunification. "Our understanding of the dictatorship and its impacts should persist," she emphasized, presenting her 2025 annual report.
She proposed channeling funds from a special infrastructure fund towards memorial sites. "Each euro invested in memory and commemoration is an investment in our democracy," said Zupke, worrying about adequate funding for upkeep and renovations of these institutions.
Her second demand: The Bundestag should allocate funds for a memorial dedicated to victims of communism, positioning it between the Chancellery and the Bundestag in Berlin.
Democracy or dictatorship - it's the difference between night and day!
Zupke highlighted her concern over more than half of East Germans claiming a lack of political influence and questioning whether we truly live in a democracy. "Dictatorship or democracy, it's the same," she echoed. After the 1990 reunification, many East Germans suffered due to residual issues from the DDR era, and Zupke stresses the importance of distinguishing cause from effect.
Her role is to champion the perspectives of politically persecuted individuals during the DDR, said Zupke. "For me, the struggles and challenges of reunification have been more than worth it for every political prisoner who now lives in freedom," she added.
Improvements for SED victims
The situation of previous political victims has considerably improved since compensation payment reforms earlier in the year, according to Zupke. Her report also highlighted an increase in victim pensions and the elimination of their dependence on the recipient's financial situation, further establishing them as honorary pensions. She also mentioned the recognition of professionally damaging consequences and the simplified process for recognizing health damages due to repression. "What a relief for the affected," said Zupke.
Estimated victims of the SED regime include tens of thousands of individuals, including 250,000 imprisonment victims, about 136,000 individuals placed in children's homes or youth work camps, and up to 10,000 minors who suffered state-sanctioned doping. Other victim groups comprised women admitted to closed clinic wards due to suspected sexually transmitted diseases and women infected with hepatitis C through contaminated vitamin D ampules - a medical scandal that was hidden during the DDR era.
Annual report on the anniversary of the DDR uprising
Zupke took on her role as the first federal commissioner for the victims of the SED dictatorship at the German Bundestag in 2021. The publication of her report coincides with the anniversary of the DDR uprising on June 17, 1953. Around one million people in East Berlin and about 700 locations in the DDR protested against working conditions and demanded free elections and German unity. The DDR leadership and Soviet occupation troops brutally suppressed the protests, resulting in the death of at least 55 people, and the arrest of 15,000.
Government Funding and Support
Germany has supplied financial resources in various ways:
- Supporting memorials, museums, and educational programs dedicated to the DDR dictatorship and its impact.
- Funding research and documentation projects preserving testimonies and historical records of the SED dictatorship.
- Facilitating guided tours and cultural activities focusing on the DDR’s history.
These initiatives serve as part of a broader national commitment to critically address the past dictatorship and ensure its legacy remains significant in contemporary German society.
- "The Commission, led by Evelyn Zupke, is proposing to extend the period of validity of the agreement to cover the policy-and-legislation and general-news aspects surrounding the preservation and commemoration of SED victims, dictatorship, and democracy, as highlighted in Zupke's 2025 annual report."
- "The Commissioner's initiative aligns with Zupke's call for the Bundestag to allocate funds for a memorial dedicated to victims of communism, a move that underscores the importance of remembering the impacts of the DDR's politics on the German populace and the nation's evolving political landscape."
