Construction of the Sachsenburg concentration camp memorial secured

The construction of a memorial on the site of the former Sachsenburg concentration camp near Frankenberg can continue seamlessly until 2028. According to Culture Minister Barbara Klepsch (CDU), a solution has been found for the approximately 1.7 million euros required in addition to the previous planning. The money "has been reserved for the Sachsenburg Memorial and the financing is currently being arranged in a cabinet procedure", she said. The project is thus secured until 2028.

The Sachsenburg concentration camp memorial is considered an important place of remembrance of the early phase of the Nazi regime in the Free State. According to Klepsch, the costs for the entire project with the Path of Remembrance and memorial site now amount to around 6.9 million euros. Originally, five million euros were planned for their construction, financed equally by the federal and state governments.

Increased construction costs drive up funding requirements

Higher construction costs mean that around 6.9 million euros are now required, according to the ministry. The federal government will cover 2.5 million euros, while the state's share will ultimately be around 3.5 million euros, in addition to around 900,000 euros for preliminary conceptual work, the expansion of the existing exhibition and the operation of the information and documentation center.

The Free State has already provided 1.5 million euros for the new building. In addition, 200,000 euros from the assets of the parties and mass organizations of the GDR - so-called PMO funds - could be used for urgent roof work in the current year.

Precursor to later concentration camps

Sachsenburg was one of the first concentration camps to be established in 1933 after Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP seized power. It is smaller and less well-known than camps such as Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, but was a kind of precursor to the later Nazi concentration and extermination camps.

In the only concentration camp in Saxony from 1934, which was also an experimental field and training center for the SS camps, around 10,000 people were interned until 1937.000 people were interned until 1937 - opponents of the regime such as social democrats, trade unionists and communists, and later also Jews, priests and so-called preventive prisoners.