By Oliver Eberl

1 What are conflicts of democracy?

Anyone carrying a placard reading "We are the people" at a demonstration today is asserting their democratic cause: in a democracy, the people have the right to make demands, complain, call for democratic innovations and berate "those at the top". They can accuse the government and accuse it of misconduct. The freedom to do just this was demanded at the Hambach Festival in 1832. The demand for "popular sovereignty" also has this meaning: the legislative sovereign is not the king, but the people (whoever this may actually be). And what's more, the people have to give themselves a constitution and always have the right to change the existing constitution - hence the demand for a constitution at the Hambach Festival. This also means that democracy is never finished, that there must always be conflicts about it, because the people can always gain new insights into their democratic state that lead to demands for change.

Today, demonstrations with the slogan "We are the people" indicate that they want to wage a conflict over democracy, that democracy must be changed because the wrong decisions are being made by the wrong people. Some protesters even become convinced that they are resisting a dictatorship. This impulse also led to the so-called "New Hambach Festival", making Hambach Castle the venue for a democratic conflict. The ambiguity of the concept of the people enabled the organizers to interpret the people of democracy ethnonationalistically as the "German people" - as a concept of democratic theory and as an ethnic concept.

2 Use or misuse of Hambach Castle? - Battles over interpretation

It was therefore a serious misunderstanding on the part of the Hambach Castle Foundation to treat the booking of Hambach Castle by the AfD parliamentary group in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament and by the AfD's recent nominee for the office of Federal President, Max Otte, as a neutral "use". This is precisely what plays into the hands of attempts to appropriate this eminently important place in the history of democracy and integrate it into the new nationalist narrative of German history. This is all the more problematic because Hambach Castle apparently had an ambivalent self-image at the time: on the one hand, it considered itself to be a particularly suitable multi-purpose hall for celebrations, while on the other, it referred to its public-democratic character, which could not simply exclude parties from its use. This worried regional civil society groups, e.g. the Friends of the Hambach Festival 1832, so that they subsequently protested against the "misuse" of the castle and informed the public.

In the meantime, the foundation has moved away from this position and is taking more determined action against the appropriation through legal and public activities. Nevertheless, there is a general sense of uncertainty. Hambach Castle is not the only place of remembrance in the history of democracy that is threatened by appropriation by a nationalist interpretation of democracy. Political scientist Herfried Münkler recognized this in one of the few interviews published on the events, but nevertheless gave the rather shirt-sleeved advice that people should simply occupy the sensitive dates with their own events and pay no attention to right-wing conservative events.[1] This can be seen on the occasion of the 190th anniversary: there is now a democracy festival at the castle. However, this does not prevent events being held on other dates or the ideological appropriation of the festival beyond the location. The Federal President's wish that Hambach Castle should be developed from a museum into a memorial and learning site for democracy [2], for which he is also publishing the appropriate textbooks [3], also reproduces historical 'master narratives' and thus conceals political interests. Instead of taking school classes to the castle and teaching them the "right" understanding of democracy, they should rather be informed about current conflicts about democracy and put in a position to have their say (see Landau Peace Lecture on historical politics as a cultural struggle).

3 Embattled democracy: What to do?

What is needed today is the competence to find one's way in democratic conflicts and to be able to form well-founded judgments about positions. What is a legitimate democratic demand and what is an ideological reinterpretation of democratic positions? The Engagierte Jugend Neustadt discussed this at the Democracy Week of the "Democracy City" Neustadt. However, Neustadt's ceremonial declaration as a "democracy town" could affect the town in a way that it had not expected and for which it is not prepared: namely that it will become the venue for conflicts over democracy, with Hambach Castle at the center. The city will then be faced with the same question as the site of Hambach Castle's democratic history: what to do?

The Foundation and the city will have to arm themselves to endure this role and actively shape it. The consolidation of an official narrative of democracy with a simultaneous narrowing of interpretative possibilities is not an appropriate approach. In this sense, the awarding of prizes does not contribute to the development of democracy; they tend to confirm conformist behavior rather than promote innovation. When former German Chancellor Joachim Gauck receives the first Freedom Prize from the Hambach Castle Foundation, this only confirms the impression of an elitist democracy. Democracy must remain open to democratic, critical protest. And cities can no more shield themselves from the conflicts about what that means than memorials can shield themselves from unwelcome interpretations. Dealing with democratic conflicts is certainly the greatest challenge facing our democracy today. Showing how they can be actively dealt with could actually make the "democracy city" of Neustadt a role model for democracy.