Der Schutz symbolträchtiger Orte vor extremistischen Versammlungen

Extremist gatherings “misuse” symbolic places such as the Holocaust Memorial and the Dresdner Frauenkirche for propaganda purposes. In reaction to public indignation judicial and legislative powers place their symbolic content under special protection. Assuming that in the course of the spatial structural change, public space is being transformed, the book examines the constitutional limitations of this protection and outlines alternatives.

The concept of wehrhafte Demokratie (defensive democracy) in the German Basic Law and public order are ruled out as constitutional justification. The protection of human dignity and personal honour can justify such restrictions of gatherings only under certain conditions: The post-mortem protection of human dignity of those persons, who are commemorated in such places, cannot extend the need of special protection of them beyond the generation of eyewitnesses. The places themselves can be ascribed an own dignity only by using the – in terms of memory theory – questionable concept of collective memory. Instead, the reservation of peacefulness of the freedom of assembly and the principle of peaceful relations between nations should be concretised.