Looking back. Looking ahead. 2020-2025

208   SPEECHES | INSTITUTIONS Institutions ©Flossenbürg Memorial / T. Dashuber Ladies and Gentlemen, We gather here today for another solemn act of remembrance on the anniversary of the liberation of the Flossenbürg concen- tration camp. This is not something we do out of routine.We need such public acts of remembrance! And I say this deliber- ately in response to those who view commemorations as rigid and ineffective rituals that serve more to ease our conscience than to have any real impact. Of course, we must think carefully about how to shape our culture of remembrance so that it truly speaks to people today. And the Flossenbürg Memorial is a prime example of how this can be achieved every single day – not only through the use of modern digital tools for conveying historical content, but also through its involvement in current debates, its engagement with the pressing questions of our time for which remem- brance plays a crucial role, and through the remarkable inclu- sion of younger generations. Yet alongside all these valuable educational efforts, we also need a culture of remembrance that remains visible in the public sphere.We need continual public remembrance of the unimaginable violation of human dignity that took place here in Flossenbürg – and in so many other places – because only a lasting sense of shock can give us the moral resilience we need to confront today’s assaults on humanity. Only a public culture of remembrance can continuously nourish a public culture of humanity. The urgent need for such initiatives in today’s world is reflect- ed, for example, in the growing coarseness of public discourse – a trend intensified by social media, where algorithms follow purely commercial logic and extreme content promises higher advertising revenues. This environment is providing increas- ingly fertile soil for callousness, hatred and hostility towards Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm Regional Bishop 78th anniversary  of the liberation of Flossenbürg  23 April 2023 others – and the populist movements that exploit such   sentiments. Never since the crimes of National Socialism have the warn- ings voiced by a contemporary witness felt as urgent as they do today:“Language not only writes and thinks for me; it also guides my emotions and governs my entire inner being […]. Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: They are swallowed unnoticed and seem to have no effect, but the poison begins to work over time”. 1 These were the words of Victor Klemperer, the literary scholar and author who passed away in 1960, in his analysis of the language of the “Third Reich”. Today, I would like to remember someone who not only spoke out early against National Socialist injustice – especially against the injustice inflicted on Jews – but who also high- lighted the unmistakeable importance of a public theology and public ethics. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Protestant theo- logian who was executed here in Flossenbürg – together with other members of the German resistance – just weeks before the liberation of the camp, following a summary trial. The place where he was hanged in the early hours of 9 April 1945   is only a few metres from here. I am filled with sorrow – the pain of a tragic loss – when I ask myself what might have been if the advancing Allied troops had reached Flossenbürg just a little sooner. And the same question could be asked for every single person who was murdered here.What courageous, gifted and precious human beings were taken from us in this place! Each one a precious child of God. Each one worthy of our gathering here today – 78 years later – in their memory.We cannot know what path Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life might have taken had he been allowed to live. In his case, at least, his early death did not con-