Mr Schuster,
Ms Knobloch,
Minister‑President, Markus Söder,
Members of the Bavarian Cabinet,
President of the Landtag,
Your Highness,
Mr Mayor,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Permit me to express my most sincere gratitude to the World Jewish Congress for presenting me with the Theodor Herzl Award. I consider this to be a great honour.
I especially wish to thank you, Ambassador Lauder, for what you have you just said – for your words of generosity and appreciation, and also for your words of concern and warning.
When Theodor Herzl penned his book “The Jewish State” at the end of the 19th century, he dreamed of a safe homeland for the world’s Jews in the face of widespread antisemitism. Despite all of the discrimination and persecution, Herzl could not have foreseen even in his very worst nightmares what was to happen a little over three decades later, namely the betrayal of all civilised values that was the Shoa, committed in Germany during the National Socialist era. This crime against humanity or – as the Auschwitz survivor and long-standing President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Heinz Galinski once called it – “this crime towards humanity” involved breaking with all civilised principles.
It therefore fills me with humility that I, as Germany’s Federal Chancellor – in other words, on behalf of our country – am able to accept the Theodor Herzl Award today. I therefore consider this award ceremony to be a symbol of the trust that Jewish communities around the world and the World Jewish Congress in Germany place in Germany. I cannot be grateful enough for this trust.
It is and remains something that cannot be taken for granted, and I continue to be greatly moved when people such as Margot Friedländer, who witnessed and survived the Shoah, decide after many decades and at a grand old age, to return from exile abroad to Germany, in Friedländer’s case to her home city of Berlin. Almost 75 years after the end of the Holocaust, Jewish communities in Germany number 100,000 members once again. The Israelite Congregation of Munich that we are visiting today is one of the biggest Jewish communities in Germany.
Ms Knobloch, thank you so much for being our host today and for preparing everything so wonderfully for us. Please also extend our thanks to all of your staff. The atmosphere here is quite wonderful.
At your centre, you can experience how diverse and vibrant Jewish life is in our country, and I have had an opportunity to gain an impression of this myself.
Rabbis are being ordained in Germany while Jewish kindergartens and educational institutions are being founded and synagogues reconstructed. Jewish life, culture and history are part of Germany’s identity, and Jewish life and Jewish culture must be supported. It is with this in mind that the Federal Government recently increased funding for construction projects. I need only mention the Federation’s involvement in the new construction of a synagogue in Dessau.
Jewish life in Germany must be both promoted and protected. It is, unfortunately, a sad fact to have to emphasise how important protecting Jewish life is right now. We have been aware of this not just since the attack on the synagogue in Halle on 9 October – Yom Kippur – which struck at the core of our entire society. This horrific crime fills us with deep shame. The fact that Jewish people are exposed to threats even in 2019 shows that we must never slacken our efforts to defend the fundamental values of our society and to apply them in our everyday lives.
It is over five years since we gathered for a major demonstration at the Brandenburg Gate in September 2014 in the wake of antisemitic incidents. “Stand up! Never again hatred of the Jews!” – that was the slogan we heard at the time. I wish that I could say today that this appeal had borne lasting fruit, but, unfortunately, I cannot do that. The scourge of antisemitism is still at large in Germany. All of us must be greatly concerned by the most recent developments – and not only by the attack in Halle.
According to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 89 percent of the Jewish people in Germany questioned perceived an increase in antisemitism. The number of antisemitic crimes rose by almost 20 percent in the past year alone. Antisemitic utterances are being made ever more frequently and without restraint – particularly on the internet. These developments are deeply worrying. They impact Jewish people in our country, but by no means them alone. After all, they are targeted against all of us together, against Jewish and non-Jewish people, against everything that sustains and holds our country together, our values and freedoms. They strike at the core of our coexistence as they are the expression of a deeply anti-democratic attitude.
Those who violate human dignity, enshrined in Article 1 of our Basic Law, violate the peaceful and thriving coexistence of us all. The dignity of each individual human being shall be inviolable – this pledge at the beginning of our Basic Law is an obligation. It applies to all people in our country, irrespective of their religion, skin colour, origin, gender or sexual orientation.
The fact that we have experienced how the promise of protection made by our country with respect to the Jews in Germany has not always been fully fulfilled – and instead, for example, only the strong wooden door of a synagogue saved the faithful gathered together in that place of worship from a massacre – weighs all the more heavily.
We must never accept that people in Germany have to live in fear on account of their religion. Rather, we must do everything in our power to ensure that Jews in Germany can live in freedom and security. Incidentally, antisemitism and racism are not first manifested in acts of violence, but much earlier, more subtly. And we cannot wake up only when words give way to deeds. We have to take action before then.
In a few days’ time, ladies and gentlemen, we will call to mind 9 November, which is such a fateful day in German history. On the 80th anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht, I had the honour last year to speak at the central commemorative event at the synagogue in Rykestraße in Berlin. I would like to recapitulate a train of thought from this that continues to be important to me. It had to do with the fact that we humans tend at important commemorative events such as 9 November to focus our minds exclusively on these days and easily overlook the fact that they usually do not happen in isolation, but are part of a wider process.
9 November 1938 did not occur in isolation. We all know what happened next. However, there was a pre-history to these events. Hatred of the Jews has existed in Europe since the Middle Ages and was primarily religious at first. Racially motivated antisemitism emerged in the 19th century, during which social issues became pressing with the Industrial Revolution and secular nation states were in the ascendant. All of this led to the cataclysm that culminated in the betrayal of all civilised values that was the Shoa.
I firmly believe that we can only learn the right lessons from the horrors of the past for us today and in the future if we consider the November pogroms of 1938 to be part of a process that was not only followed by the terrible chapter that was the Shoah, but also had a pre-history. This pre-history was accompanied by a large majority of the German population looking the other way, remaining silent and indifferent and going with the flow.
Today, ladies and gentlemen, we are once again living at a time of profound technological and global change. At times such as these, there is always a particularly great danger that those who respond to the difficulties and consequences of these upheavals with simple answers – simple answers that all too often go hand in hand with a brutalisation of language on the streets and the internet – gain in support. We must take a firm stand against the onset of such trends. And we means, first and foremost, our country. I say this expressly in my capacity as Federal Chancellor.
Politicians and the state must protect their citizens with all the means available to a constitutional state. Our constitutional state cannot stand idly by and allow people to be verbally abused, threatened or attacked when they profess to be Jewish. It cannot stand idly by and allow a Jewish mother and her children to have stones thrown at them. It cannot stand idly by and allow security personnel at the synagogue on Oranienburger Straße in Berlin to be attacked.
It is therefore vital that the Federal Government adopt its package of measures for tackling right-wing extremism and hate crime the day after tomorrow. We will introduce a reporting obligation for providers. Service providers are to be obligated to report hate crime on the internet to the security authorities. We will set up a central office at the Federal Criminal Police Office to this end. Stiffer penalties against hate speech and aggressive insults are also planned. It is especially important that the dialogue among security authorities be strengthened in the fight against right-wing extremism. The same goes for prevention work to tackle right-wing extremism, racism and antisemitism. We will improve the protection of local politicians, i.e. those working on the ground in cities and communities and will adjust the criminal justice system to this end. With this package of measures, we are doing everything in our power to ensure that words do not become deeds. We will expand positive initiatives and existing measures. And we will build up new structures where there are gaps.
Moreover, the office of the Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism was created at the beginning of this legislative term, in May 2018. The Commissioner coordinates the various measures for tackling antisemitism and therefore does his part in working towards a package of measures for tackling right-wing extremism and hate crime.
In all that we are doing, we are taking the working definition of antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as our guide. This working definition was adopted with Germany’s support and the Federal Government endorsed it in 2017.
Incidentally, it is right that most of the fields of action for fighting antisemitism fall within the competence of the Länder. However, it is also right that we are all resolved together not to be hampered in our fight against antisemitism and right-wing extremism by discussions on jurisdiction between the Federal Government and the Länder. This is why we have a joint Federation-Länder Commission to fight antisemitism in which we are pooling all of our forces to tackle right-wing extremist and Islamist-motivated antisemitism – and also to tackle antisemitism that is targeted against the security and existence of the State of Israel.
European and international dialogue is indispensable to this end. Regular consultations are therefore held with France and Israel on the issue of combating antisemitism. Moreover, we want to strengthen European cooperation especially in this area during Germany’s European Council Presidency in the second half of next year.
This is also important in view of the concerns of the Jewish community surrounding Islamist-motivated antisemitism as a result of the immigration and displacement of Muslim people to Germany. It is good that we can count on support from strong and committed partners in civil society particularly in this regard. I am thinking here, for example, of organisations that promote the Jewish-Muslim dialogue, of the Kreuzberg Initiative against Anti-Semitism that devises and implements educational projects, and also of the memorial sites that have developed special programmes on the issues of displacement and migration.
At the international level, the World Jewish Congress is a prominent partner in the fight against racism and antisemitism. I am extremely grateful to the World Jewish Congress for its commitment to the concerns of Jewish people around the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, Theodor Herzl’s dream of a Jewish State of Israel became a reality with its foundation in 1948. The fact that the State of Israel re-established diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1965 – 20 years after the crimes against humanity that were the Shoah – was akin to a miracle. At any rate, this was an incredible vote of confidence for our country. We celebrated the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel together last year. Then as now, I reiterated the fact that Israel’s security is and remains part of Germany’s raison d’état.
Germany and Israel are united by countless economic, scientific and personal relations. We are delighted to have such lively school and youth exchanges, and we have many town-twinning projects and friendship organisations. The governments of both of our countries hold intergovernmental consultations on a regular basis. Part of this is also the fact that the Federal Government continues, in spite of all the setbacks, to support a two-state solution – with Israel as a Jewish, democratic state in good neighbourliness with a viable Palestinian state.
Ladies and gentlemen, looking ahead, believing in a vision and making it a reality and working towards a bright future, full of conviction, with courage and creativity – these were features that distinguished Theodor Herzl. And so I consider this award that you have presented me with today and which bears his name to be an obligation for me to never simply make do with what we have achieved, but to work together with our partners to promote a bright future.
I would like to pass on the recognition that the World Jewish Congress has expressed by awarding the Theodor Herzl Award to all people in Germany who are committed to exchange and understanding and to combating antisemitism and exclusion. I would like to encourage all of them to continue to work with determination to promote the diversity and security of Jewish life in Germany. And I want to continue to do my part to this end.
Thank you very much.
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