Situated in the heart of Berlin’s Spreebogen district is a well-maintained lawn dotted with a few young trees and three park benches. Every day, thousands of people pass by this site, mostly tourists from around the world or employees of the nearby Chancellery or parliament on their way to or from Berlin’s main railway station.
This vacant lot is where one of Germany’s most important memorials is to be built. Since fall 2024, the site has been designated for the Memorial for the Remembrance of the Victims of Communist Dictatorship in Germany, which will honor the victims of the communist regime in Germany.
Until 1989, a border divided East and West Germany. In East Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ), which had existed since 1945, became the on October 7, 1949.
The GDR was an authoritarian regime that systematically persecuted dissidents and suppressed freedom of movement and expression until its collapse in the fall of 1989 and the following year. During the GDR era, more than 600 people lost their lives while attempting to flee to the West across the inner-German border or over the .
Victims’ associations say memorial is ‘long overdue’
There are now plans to commemorate this history. In September, when the German parliament debates the 2026 federal budget, the State Minister for Culture’s budget is expected to receive the necessary funding for the memorial. This will open the way for the launch of a design competition.
“Erecting the memorial is long overdue,” said Dieter Dombrowski, a 74-year-old East Berliner and chairman of the Union of Associations of Victims of Communist Tyranny. In 1974, he was sentenced by the Schwerin District Court in the GDR for “illegal border crossing” and “subversive activities.” He served 20 months of his sentence and was later able to leave for West Germany.
Dombrowski was vindicated in 1994. Recalling his upbringing in a Catholic family, Dombrowski remembers how his mother made a conscious effort to protect her children from the influence of communism. It was ” omnipresent in the GDR,” Dombrowski told DW. “In kindergarten, at school, at work, everywhere.”
Dombrowski was one of eight children in the family, six of whom were at some point imprisoned. Around 350,000 people ended up in prison in the GDR because of their opposition to the system.
The memorial, said Dombrowski, will also commemorate those prisoners who have already died. “Many people did not live to see the fall of the wall in 1989, but they desperately longed for it to happen.” He believes the memorial will provide psychological support for all survivors and demonstrate that they were not alone.
The already approved the memorial back in 2019, but only now is the project finally getting the money it needs to be realized.
“We are the last in the former Eastern Bloc to erect a national memorial to this. That speaks for itself,” said Dombrowski. He stressed that remembering the victims of the “second German dictatorship” should not diminish the “special significance” of the first German dictatorship during the era. “But communism does always mean dictatorship,” he added.
Remembering a dictatorship
There are more than 900 commemorative sites, memorials and museums in Germany that memorialize the dictatorship in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) and the subsequent GDR established in 1949.
Many of these are local or regional initiatives, but some are of nationwide significance, such as the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial and the Cottbus Prison Memorial, both of which commemorate the prisons of the secret police of former East Germany, the .
The Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany is responsible for the future memorial site. Its director, Anna Kaminsky, hopes that once the budget has been approved, the project will quickly take shape and the memorial will become a reality as soon as possible.
She said it’s important “that as many of the victims and people affected as possible, especially during those early years,” are able to see the completed memorial so that they feel that their suffering will be remembered forever.
Kaminsky also sees the memorial as “a part of the memory of dictatorship.” Her remarks refer to the popular and the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, which created an Iron Curtain between East and West. She believes that explicit remembrance is “urgently needed today to make the differences between dictatorship and democracy clear.”
Although the 2026 federal budget has yet to be approved, details about the site have already been finalized. At the moment, the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany, the staff of the State Minister for Culture, and the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning are drafting the specifications for the competition to design the future memorial.
Once the funds have been approved, work is to begin without delay. If the competition is decided in 2026, construction could begin in 2027, 38 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Dombrowski says victims’ associations are not interested in a memorial site where a state ceremony is held once a year or where wreaths are occasionally laid. He would like to see an “interactive memorial” that could be established online that offers a wide range of additional features via QR codes.
This way, said Dombrowski, the place could also become a “learning hub” for school classes, youth groups or educational institutions. “Then it wouldn’t just be a memorial but would contribute to broad civic education.”
This article was originally written in German.
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