In Berlin, there are plans to change the history curriculum: the study of GDR history is to be removed from the compulsory course for high school students, making it optional. This is reported by DW, writes UNN.
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The capital's senator (minister) for education, Katharina Günther-Wünsch, has decided to change the history course in high school gymnasiums. The number of compulsory history topics is planned to be reduced from four to two. Revolutions and National Socialism will remain in the curriculum, while the history of the GDR and the culture of remembrance will become optional.
An open appeal has already been launched against this decision. It has been joined by the association of history teachers, the foundation for victims of the communist regime, and the foundation for rethinking the dictatorship of the Marxist-Leninist Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which ruled in the GDR. The education department of the Berlin Senate told rbb that they had received this appeal and would consider adjusting the decision.
Berlin bears a special historical responsibility. No other German city is so closely linked to two 20th-century dictatorships: the Nazi regime and the communist dictatorship, as well as the long-term division of the city.