Dangerously Endangered

The Humboldt Forum Foundation and the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship are hosting a networking event titled “Dangerously Endangered—The Future of Sites with GDR History” at the Humboldt Forum on February 11–12.

With the symposium “Dangerously Endangered – Reappropriation of Sites with GDR History,” held as part of the program focus “The Palace of the Republic Is the Present,” the Humboldt Forum Foundation explored the reappropriation of sites with GDR history in February 2025. Even decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, these sites continue to raise questions about attitudes, belonging, and social coexistence. Both because of their emotional significance and the demands of contemporary use, they present challenges for both operators and users.

The symposium brought together and connected people who engage with sites of GDR history in very different ways—in memorials and museums, historic preservation, academia, culture, political education, public administration, or civil society.

Two years later, the network meeting picks up where those discussions left off: How have the individual projects evolved? What new initiatives and debates have emerged? And what questions are currently on the minds of those who preserve, design, research, interpret, or further develop sites associated with GDR history?

The network meeting focuses particularly on practical challenges—from questions of monument