On the site of the IG Farben Haus is the Norbert Wollheim Memorial. this consists of a pavilion where visitors can see an exhibition about those forced to go to the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp at Auschwitz and work for IG Farben. The exhibition also concerns the survivors' fight for compensation from the IG Farben company and from the German government.
The memorial also consists of photo panels of Jewish people who were sent to the camps, in the days before the Third Reich, which are distributed around the site. In addition, the website http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/ is also part of the memorial and offers a lot of interesting and thought-provoking material, including a detailed history of IG Farben AG, the story of the fight for compensation, and video interviews with survivors of the camps. It is available in German and English.
It is interesting that this memorial is on the site. What does this tell us about how the past is being dealt with? It obviously shows a willingness to engage with the very specific and odious past of the company which built the IG Farben Haus. But is it there to do the memory work for people? Or does it bring the current generation nearer than the last to history (cf Frei, 2005)? And is this really healthy? Several historians have claimed that Germany is 'obsessed' with the Nazi period. And while he was Chancellor, Schröder tried to ensure that Germany could deal with its past in a 'normal' way, working through it without the obsession.
There is also a memorial plaque to the victims of the Third Reich on site. But no memorials of the American times (although there is still an Eisenhower Room) and certainly nothing to recall the terrorist attacks of the 1970s and early 1980s. Information about the terrorism carried out in the building is almost impossible to find. Homewood (2005) comments that the memory terrorism seems to have been tightly controlled by politicians and the media, to create the impression that Germans were in total solidarity against the terrorists. Could this be the reason why the attacks are not commemorated? Although they would be dedicated to the memory of the the victims (one person died and others were badly injured in the Frankfurt attacks), they could also be regarded as memorialising (and to some extent, glorifying) the acts themselves, or it may be feared that they could become a sort of pilgrimage destination for terrorist sympathisers. This would undermine the anti-terrorist solidarity.
The terrorists also claimed that their attacks were parallel to attacks on Nazi institutions (van der Knapp, 2005). The re-stirring of this bad memory may also be part of the reason that the current users of the building do not want to be forced to remember. There is an unwillingness to criticise the American troops who were stationed in the building, as they were seen as great friends and allies to the German people. Mießner (2001) commented that the 50 years of American use of the building stand for the Frankfurt Documents and the beginning of German federalism, the founding of German states, the airlifts, and for the establishment of democracy and freedom in Germany. To have to remember a time when the Americans were regarded so badly and as 'Nazis' would be unthinkable.
The German 'obsession' with the National Socialist Period seems to remain on the IG Farben grounds, at least as far as memorials are concerned. The two major memorials are to the victims of the Third Reich and this is the period of history with which the users of the site are now most engaged, despite it only lasting 12 years. The Americans were in the building for over 50 years. The terrorist attacks took place over a period of 10 years and are scarcely mentioned. Although the site seems to be dealing enthusiastically with one aspect of its past, other events are being forgotten or glossed over.
