Commemoration of all victims of arbitrariness and persecution
Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig honours the significance of 17 June 1953 and the courage of dissenters
Today, 17 June 2013, the Mayor of Chemnitz used the annual commemorative event to remember and honour the events, victims and witnesses of 17 June 1953 as an opportunity to refer to the historical significance of this year's 60th anniversary of the popular uprising in her speech to around 100 participants at the memorial stele on Kaßberg. In particular, she honoured the courage and suffering of the victims and contemporary witnesses. At the same time, Ludwig emphasised at the public commemorative event that the memory of 17 June 1953 was meant for all victims of arbitrariness and persecution in the years after 1945 in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR.
Dr Clemens Heitmann, head of the Chemnitz BStU branch office and representatives of the Chemnitz district group of the Association of Victims of Stalinism, including many contemporary witnesses, took part in the commemorative event.
Mayor Barbara Ludwig: "We are taking 17 June 1953 as an opportunity to commemorate all those men and women who lost their lives during these turbulent days. We remember those who were arrested and sentenced to prison without due process of law and without the right to a fair defence." In her speech, Ludwig recalled the socio-political mood after the reconstruction of the first post-war years, when disillusionment swept the country and the new zeitgeist manifested itself in Chemnitz in a special way: from 10 May 1953, the city was called Karl-Marx-Stadt - no Chemnitz resident was consulted or involved in the decision to change the name beforehand. Strikes then took place in Karl-Marx-Stadt even before 17 June, with work at the grinding machine factory, the first machine factory and the spinning machine factory being stopped several times for hours and sometimes for the duration of entire shifts. "Today, we are taking the commemoration of 17 June 1953 as an opportunity to remember all those people who were victims of a system between 1945 and 1989 that fought against dissenters as enemies," emphasised Barbara Ludwig, recalling 52 people who were labelled opponents of the regime at the time and who were sentenced to death and executed.