Comfort women statue in Moabit has to go: court makes final decision!

Comfort women statue in Moabit has to go: court makes final decision!

Something is happening again on the political front in Berlin-Moabit: The controversial “comfort women” statue, which commemorates the approximately 200,000 women who were victims of forced prostitution by the Japanese army during the Second World War, has to be moved. The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court has dismissed a complaint from the Korea Association in a recent decision. This decision follows a previous rejection by the administrative court, which allowed the statue to remain in its location until September 28, 2025, but ruled out further toleration.

The statue, which was installed in 2020 with the approval of the district office, was initially supposed to stay for a year, but was given an extension. The dispute over the statue has been going on for several years and has been repeatedly accompanied by new controversies. The district mayor has now announced plans to erect the bronze statue at Unionstraße 8, where a publicly accessible area belonging to the Unionplatz Tiergarten tenants' cooperative can be used Berlin newspaper reported.

A memorial with history

The “Comfort Women” statue is a replica of a sculpture from Seoul and symbolizes the fight against sexual violence against women and girls. The original can be found in front of the Japanese embassy in the South Korean capital. The statue was designed by the artists Kim Eun-sung and Kim Seo-kyung and is the first of its kind in a public place in Germany. In addition to the tragic individual fates, the statue is also placed in the context of around 250 affected women from the Asia-Pacific region who are still seeking apologies and compensation to this day.

The former comfort woman Kim Hak-Soon broke the silence about her fate for the first time in 1991, which led to increased social and political debate on the issue of sexual crimes during the war. Critics accuse the statue of being purely symbolic and not based on a comprehensive analysis. Nevertheless, it remains an important part of the remembrance of this dark time in history and a memorial to the victims.

Political self-doubt and arguments

The decision to remove the statue is also based on a legal framework that sets a maximum installation period of two years for works of art in public spaces. This is intended to ensure that sufficient space is created for other artists in public spaces. The district also complained that the statue was installed without a competitive process. This regulation also affects other artists in the district, and the equal treatment of works of art plays a decisive role in the decisions, as the administrative court found.

The Japanese government has also put pressure on the German side, which in the past led to the approval being revoked in October 2020 on the grounds that the statue promoted hatred. Nevertheless, demonstrations for the preservation of the statue continued to take place, and the district council also spoke out in favor of its permanent preservation. However, the order for removal may not yet be final: an objection to the decision of the Higher Administrative Court is conceivable.

The move of the statue not only represents a shift in urban space, but also for the ongoing debates about the culture of remembrance, victims' rights and the role of art in public space. It will be exciting to see how the situation develops further.