Statement

A policy statement by dieKunstBauStelle e. V., dated 31 October 2026, on the Federal Memorial Sites Concept and the 2026 project funding call. It is published in the Lobby Register of the German Bundestag under regulatory project RV0026969 (register number R008055); the version provided there is authoritative.

The Federal Memorial Sites Concept of 12 November 2025 honours civically-based, decentralised remembrance work as the foundation of Germany's memorial landscape. A funding instrument matching the working conditions of these initiatives has not yet followed from it. The statement documents this gap against the funding guideline and the call of 1 September 2026.

Four conditions combine: applications solely through the federal state in which the applicant is based, co-financing of at least 50 per cent with a binding commitment at the time of application, a minimum project volume of 150,000 euros and a four-week application deadline. Voluntary work does not count towards the applicant's own share. Largely voluntary associations without administrative staff could barely meet these conditions in practice.

The first funding call under the concept ran from 1 September to 1 October 2026, with ten million euros for 2027. At the same time, as one generation hands over to the next, a body of knowledge held in no archive is at risk of being lost: collections, interviews, local knowledge and the cross-connections between people, enterprises and places. The gap can still be closed before the next funding round.

For addressing the SED dictatorship, the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship has provided direct, nationwide funding access for associations since 1998. For the reappraisal of Nazi crimes there is no equivalent. In addition, small independent initiatives have no representation of their own in the bodies that prepare funding guidelines.

In the short term, a second funding line for independent civil-society organisations: direct application access, a track below 60,000 euros, two application dates per year, a two-stage outline procedure and recognition of voluntary work — modelled on the Federal Foundation for Reappraisal. In the medium term, a dedicated instrument for multi-year structural support and for securing and handing over the initiatives' knowledge. In addition, representation of these organisations in the relevant bodies and a hearing before the next funding round.

Most sites of Nazi crimes have no memorial: satellite camps beneath industrial estates, forced-labour camps on company premises, deportation routes along country roads. They become visible through documentation, mapping and online communication — databases, citizen science, crowdsourcing, apps. For these sites, the digital is the only access there is. The message of decentralised remembrance work is: it happened everywhere.

dieKunstBauStelle e. V., Landsberg am Lech, a non-profit association carried by volunteers. The author is Wolfgang Hauck, chairman. The association runs the NaziCrimesAtlas — the digital documentation of around 25,000 court proceedings concerning Nazi crimes at around 8,000 places — and the app „NS-Erinnerungsorte in Bayern“. Through the NaziCrimesAtlas it is in contact with more than one hundred local remembrance initiatives; this experience is the basis of the statement.