(via Google translate) Slaves, anti-Semites, racists: Their monuments provoke disputes, in the US as with us. Should you tear it down - or would it be a sort of ending? BY MALTE LEHMING The Mohrenstraße underground station in Berlin-Mitte. Should you rename it?Mehr Artikel The Mohrenstraße underground station in Berlin-Mitte. Should you rename it? PHOTO: THILO RÜCKEIS Pictures are magical. They work in a way which is hardly to be understood by reason alone. There is a test that illustrates this. Someone is asked to pierce his eyes with a pointed needle on the photo of a family member. What is against it? It's just a picture on a piece of cardboard. Nevertheless, the scruples prevail in most people. They have the feeling of doing wrong to the person depicted. The effect is not limited to paintings, it also includes figures - dolls, monuments, statues, reliefs. Devotees of the Voodoo religion believe they can heal or pain people who are depicted as puppets by needles. Consciousness can not clearly be separated from representation. The symbol means that it transports the properties of the symbolized. It sends messages, communicates dumbly, but effectively, into its surroundings. The Taliban destroyed Buddha statues This is the psychological film, which is behind the fury of many picture-goers. For the reformers in the sixteenth century, Christian sculptures and paintings were a sort of idolatry that only satisfied the sensual, carnal desire of the people. They relied on the prohibition of the portrait - "Thou shalt not make a likeness nor any likeness" - and destroyed thousands of works of art. Martin Luther condemned this vandalism, but in his work "Of the Good Works" (1520), it is said that God does not expect fasting, pilgrimages and pretentious church decoration, but the sole faith in Jesus Christ. In March 2001, the Taliban destroyed two of the world's largest standing Buddha statues in the Bamiyan Valley in central Afghanistan. They too competed against the depiction of human figures, but also wanted to eradicate the memory of the centuries-old Buddhist tradition. Six years later, Islamists in Pakistan exploded a 40-meter-high, about 1300-year-old Buddha sculpture. In the Syrian Palmyra, the terrormilies of the "Islamic State" raged against ancient temples and theaters. In neighboring Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein's enormous monuments, which depicted the dictator, had been stormed. From Karl-Marx-Stadt, Chemnitz was back again And those who do not want to look so far back or so far away perhaps still have the picture-hunters in the GDR in mind, after the peaceful revolution 1989 from Karl-Marx-city again Chemnitz and the 19-meter-high Lenin monument on the Leninplatz in East Berlin was demolished. In the western part of Berlin, on the other hand, no one is disturbing Karl Marx Street in Neukölln or the Soviet Memorial on 17 June, where an eight-meter-high red army celebrates the victorious struggle against fascist Germany. In Charlottesville, Virginia three weeks ago several ultra-right groups marched, some of them anti-Semitic, some of them racist, fighting for a "dominance of the white race" in America. There were riots, a participant drove with his car into a group of counter-demonstrators and killed a young woman. The cause of the protest march was plans by the city administration to tear down a cavalry statue of the Southern General Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), who had even called slavery "a moral and political evil" but had stood in the civil war on the side of the Confederation for a right to slavery. Robert E. Lee is a historically contradictory person. Once a year, the social elite of Washington DC meets to dine at the "Alfalfa Club" in honor of the general's birthday. In 2009, none other than then President Barack Obama held the festansprache. No one protested. Trump hit the extreme right side In the song "The Night The Drove Old Dixie Down", the rock group The Band comprehensively describes the pain of many Southerners about their defeat in the Sezession war. The story is told by Virgil Caine, a soldier of Robert E. Lee's army. Levon Helm, the lead singer of The Band, sings the song with an angry accusation at a joint performance with Bob Dylan. Joan Baez came under the top ten with her version. In Germany the melody was known by Juliane Werdings "On the day when Conny Kramer died". Donald Trump , after the brutal attacks of Charlottesville, came to the side of the right-wing extremists who wanted to prevent the demolition of the Lee statue. "Is it George Washington next week? And a week later Thomas Jefferson? Everyone should ask themselves where it should end, "said the President-in-Office. Prompt it hailed criticism. To call Washington and Jefferson in one breath with Lee is grotesque. The historical merits of the founding fathers of the United States would be far more severe than the fact that they themselves also held slaves. In Wittenberg there is an antisemitic relief However, Trump supporters served a remark from CNN commentator Angela Rye as confirmation of their fears. "My ancestors were not considered human beings," she said, "whether it is a George Washington statue, or a Thomas Jefferson statue, or a Robert E. Lee statue - they must all be demolished." Where to start, where to stop, and what are the criteria? Surprisingly, there are only a few clear cases. A Hitler statue in Germany would be unthinkable. But Stalin is still revered in Russia and Mao Tse-tung in China. And even in Germany there is still an extremely antisemitic sculpture, the so-called "Judensau"at the St. Mary's Church in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther once preached. There are Jews who suck at the teats of a big sow, a rabbi holds up the tail of the sow and looks at her in the butt. At the beginning of the 14th century, this sculpture was erected at an eight-meter height; in 1988 it was supplemented by a memorial to remind the Shoah. But all the demands for a dismantling of the smuggling let go. Even the regional bishop of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany, Ilse Junkermann, says that the sculpture must remain as a "reminder and reminder". The Berlin Straßennamenstreit In Berlin, the dispute rages for street names in the African Quarter in Wedding and around Mohrenstrasse in Mitte. Activists call for a renaming, residents use a common name. Heinz Buschkowsky, the former district mayor of Neukölln, the collar has now burst . "History has been the way it was," he writes, "street names do not change the history book and are not suitable for wisecrackers with Wikipedia knowledge. They are first and foremost an order of reference and guidance in everyday life. " But this is not true. Street names, as well as statues and monuments, point beyond their purpose as orientation aids. The term "after him or her is named a street" is a synonym for "he or she is honored". However, the factors of time and duration are quite relevant when it comes to retaining historical evidence. Nobody would have the idea to call a road today Mohrenstraße or to install a "Judensau" -elief at a church or to build a Robert E. Lee statue in the USA. This would rightfully be understood as a pure act of the honorable remembrance of venerable things or persons. The duration of the wrong does not make it right According to Martin Luther are many places in German cities named. That does not bother anyone. But the plan, punctually to 31 October, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, to appoint a place in Trier after the reformer, finds resistance. The "evolutionary humanists" of the city have launched a call against it because of anti-Judaism. The longer a street bears the name of a man unworthy of it, the more it is perceived as a superseded testimony of history. The duration of the wrong makes it not right, but accustomed. Its dismantling then easily falls into the suspicion of the historical discord. No straight path leads from this dilemma. On the other hand, it is also clear: If there was a large Jewish community in Wittenberg, and the "Judensau" would become the place of pilgrimage for anti-Semites, it would have been removed long ago. The English word monument can be translated in German with monument and memorial. If honorary remembrance is added to mere remembrance, the duty of contextualization arises in the event that the honorable is unworthy. Instead of tearing down the statue of Robert E. Lee, it should be considered to supplement it with a panel on which the general's work is portrayed in his ambiguity. Disposing of all the misguided artifacts of history in museums would also mean withdrawing them from the public confrontation at any time. It is also sometimes the attempt to get rid of historically fatal epochs. In Germany it is because of its own history, a people must keep the memory of the dark sides of its past. Anti-Semitism is just as much a part of it as racism and colonialism . Many testimonies require a commentary classification. To remove them would be the same. AUTHOR Malte LehmingManaging Editor