© Johanna Maria Dietz
The April 2025 Call to Remember MEMO study reveals that, 80 years after the end of World War II, public engagement with history, knowledge of complicity, and support for memory culture are increasingly under threat. For the study, the EVZ Foundation and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (IKG) at Bielefeld University conducted a representative online survey exploring critical historical awareness in Germany and then analyzed the responses of 3,000 permanent residents in Germany – both with and without German citizenship.
We asked experts to assess and interpret the study’s findings
© Manfred Grieger
Public knowledge about the role of businesses under the Nazis is as ambivalent as the MEMO study results in general. While more than 40 percent of respondents claim to have engaged deeply with Nazi history, only one in five say they have a good knowledge of the entanglements between the Nazi regime and the world of business and commerce. And since only one in ten were able to correctly identify the scale of forced labor in the wartime economy – more than 10 million people – this indicates a tendency to clearly overestimate one’s own knowledge.
There are a range of different reasons for this. In addition to the low level of importance generally attached to the economy in public discourse, the morally charged nature of the German word Verstrickung – meaning “entanglement” or “involvement” – often prompts respondents to give answers that align with presumed expectations. As such, it would probably be more effective to focus more directly on the relationships between business and the Nazi state. When asked which companies “benefited from Nazi crimes,” for example, it is perhaps no surprise that nearly half of those surveyed named ThyssenKrupp, even though that company was actually not founded until 1999. Only one in twenty mentioned BMW.
The companies that respondents identified in the study are therefore not a reflection of the actual role these commercial enterprises played in the Nazi system of forced labor but rather of the way that the image of corporations and their leaders has been passed on. Krupp was already known as the “cannon king” and a symbol of the German armaments industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries; Alfred Krupp became a representative example of an arms profiteer who was convicted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal. In the shadow of this man, cast as the villain, other participants were able to escape scrutiny from both the justice system and the public at large. Companies that used concentration camp prisoners and Jewish people as forced laborers or operated within the camps (like IG Farben in Monowitz, a sub-camp of Auschwitz) were not the only ones to profit from the Nazi regime and its state-sponsored racism. The study itself, which turns important names written in capital letters into a design element, inadvertently reinforces this tradition of overlooking the others.
Medium-sized family businesses like Bahlsen also made use of forced labor in their business operations during World War II, exploiting mainly Polish and Ukrainian forced laborers at its factories in Hanover and Gera. In addition, Bahlsen ran a large cookie factory in present-day Kyiv in 1942/43, where it used Ukrainian and Russian forced laborers. The fact that Bahlsen is the only midsized company that turns up alongside the major corporations is likely a reflection of public blame following inappropriate remarks made by the company heiress, a similar situation to that of Krupp.
Approaching one’s own environment provokes a productive discomfort and undermines the contingent self assurance of having been either uninvolved or on the side of the victims. After all, National Socialism was not someone else’s dictatorship.
© Johanna Maria Dietz
Most people know nothing at all about aspects like when “Aktion T4” and other Nazi “euthanasia” measures happened, how victims were assessed, the background of the perpetrators, the crime scenes, the scale of the killings, the methods used, or the extent of protests.
The many study days and guided tours for school classes, trainees in social care and healthcare professions, students of medicine or social work, and others at memorials to the victims of “euthanasia” murders show that there is a great deal of interest in engaging with the topic.
Young people in particular are very often shocked by the far-reaching historical significance of these crimes. Participants in educational programs are also surprised to learn that the ideological foundations for the murder of around 300,000 people with disabilities or mental illness or who were considered “socially undesirable” were laid in the 19th century with the emergence of eugenics and racial hygiene theories. Questions about the lives of the victims, the motivations of the people involved in the crimes, and the scope for agency at the time often arouse deep interest.
In addition, learning about the “euthanasia” murders provides crucial knowledge that connects to other areas of Nazi crime. The gas chambers at the six nationwide killing centers used for Aktion T4, which involved the murder of more than 70,000 people between 1940–41, set an organizational, technological, and staffing precedent for the subsequent murder of Jewish people in the extermination camps in occupied Poland.
“Aryan” patients were selected for the “euthanasia” killings according to inhumane criteria such as their perceived capacity to learn, frequency of family visits, or length of time spent in care institutions. By contrast, Jewish patients were sent to the Aktion T4 gas chambers from the summer of 1940 onward simply because they were Jewish. The systematic mass murder of Jewish people in the German Reich began with the Nazi “euthanasia” program, not in 1941 with the onset of the “final solution to the Jewish question.”
The staff at the six “euthanasia” killing centers in Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, and Sonnenstein-Pirna went on to play leading roles in setting up and operating the extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, also known as “Aktion Reinhardt.” They murdered around 1.5 million people there in 1942 and 1943, mostly Jews. What these perpetrators had “learned” at the sites of the Nazi “euthanasia” killings was later applied in the Holocaust.
The great relevance of actively remembering the Nazi “euthanasia” crimes in today’s democratic society is still not widely recognized. Current debates around disability rights are also shaped by the memory of these crimes. Memorial sites for the victims of the “euthanasia” murders in particular are playing no small role in turning these sites into spaces of inclusion, accessibility, and participatory education through innovative projects.
The Call to Remember MEMO study illustrates the importance of these memorials as extracurricular places of learning in the region. They show that grave Nazi crimes were not only committed in occupied foreign countries but also right in places where people live in Germany today. These memorial sites enable society, educational institutions, and especially young people to close the knowledge gaps highlighted in the study.
The current Call to Remember MEMO study paints an ambivalent picture: on the one hand, it once again reveals major gaps in young people’s knowledge of National Socialism. On the other hand, it shows a strikingly high level of interest in historical topics and a strong desire for social engagement. This is a reason for hope, as it contradicts the widespread assumption that young people are no longer interested in the past. At the same time, other figures are cause for concern. Levels of agreement with Antisemitic statements remain alarmingly high – and not for the first time. The Bielefeld “Mitte” study (2023), the Leipzig study on authoritarianism (2024), and regional surveys indicate similar trends. What is worrying is not only the extent of such attitudes, which is now well known, but also the fact that we as a society have so far failed to respond effectively.
This is where the EVZ Foundation’s own program “Informed, Courageous, Committed!” comes in. It collaborates with companies to mediate both historical and current forms of Antisemitism and to provide participants with training on concrete options for action. The goal is to actively counter Antisemitic stereotypes and hostile thinking and speech in day-to-day work settings.
There is by no means a lack of political will. Whether in coalition agreements or Bundestag resolutions, fighting Antisemitism is identified as a key goal. But political statements alone are not enough. critiquing Antisemitism is still hands-on work that takes time, expertise, and long-term resources.
Two things are needed here: education and structural development. Education because Antisemitic resentment stems not only from a lack of knowledge but also from a lack of values. Anyone seeking lasting change has to create spaces for critical thinking, self-reflection, and tolerance for ambiguity. But education takes time, and Antisemitic violence is a present-day reality. Data from RIAS (the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism) and OFEK (a counseling center for Antisemitic violence and discrimination) show that Antisemitic assaults have real, often traumatizing consequences for the people affected, be it in the form of physical violence, psychological strain, or restrictions on social participation.
That is why we have to build parallel structures that reach broad sections of society. Educational work cannot be limited to schools. It must also take place in adult education, such as at the workplace.
In summer and autumn 2025, the EVZ Foundation is set to launch a “Call to Remember” tour across six cities ( Dortmund, Bremen, Chemnitz, Pasewalk, Karlsruhe, and Nuremberg), accompanied by a social media campaign and a wide-ranging e learning format for those engaged in remembrance work.
© Sarah Jabs
