Germany struggles with the concept of monuments both with itself and with UNESCO

Berlin - In Germany, there is a fierce debate about the concept of heritage preservation. Part of society views monuments as untouchable relics of history, while another part sees them as a part of today that must adapt in one way or another to the demands of contemporary life in order to survive. This dispute, which also occupies the general public, could lead to a conflict with the United Nations organization for culture, UNESCO.
    Germany has had a number of its monuments inscribed on the World Heritage list, and international experts are now expressing concerns about some planned interventions around these landmarks - they see them as a disruption of the agreed status.
    For some time now, the planned construction of a new bridge over the Elbe River in Dresden, the capital of Saxony, has been in a heightened state. According to many opinions, it could violate the character of the riverfront, a set of valuable buildings and nature, as inscribed on the UNESCO list. On Monday, about 4,000 people demonstrated again in Dresden against the approved commencement of bridge construction and advocated for a tunnel alternative to cross the river, regional newspaper Sächsische Zeitung reported.
    The city's leadership, which has long rejected the tunnel option as unsuitable for the location, plans to publish a new, streamlined version of the bridge plans next week. The modifications to the original massive project are being led by former construction director of the restoration of the Baroque Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche) Eberhard Burger, a person who cares about the appearance and reputation of the city.
    The proposal will then be submitted to UNESCO's headquarters in Paris through official channels, and the city hopes it will help break the organization's existing resistance to the construction. According to proponents, the city needs the bridge precisely to divert a significant portion of traffic from the overloaded historic center.
    This week, the DPA agency published another warning from experts. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), as an advisory body to UNESCO, strongly advises Germany against building a bridge over the Rhine in the area of the famous Lorelei rock, and it suggests that the transportation issue should at most be addressed by a ferry. The upper part of the Middle Rhine has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2002.
    "Lorelei is the heart of the local cultural landscape. Bridging the river here is an entirely unacceptable idea,” said the director of the German branch of ICOMOS, Michael Petzet, to the agency. According to him, the tunnel option would also be problematic. "Neither a bridge nor a tunnel belongs in this cultural landscape; only a ferry is suitable here,” Petzet argues.
    The debate about a fixed crossing of the Rhine in this area has been ongoing for decades and is becoming increasingly urgent. In this part of the river between Mainz and Koblenz, about 100 kilometers long, there is currently no bridge over the Rhine, which causes problems for businesses and citizens and unnecessarily congests traffic elsewhere. The state government of Rhineland-Palatinate repeatedly emphasizes that it does not want to jeopardize the area's status with UNESCO. It plans to present the issue to citizens in a regional plebiscite and hopes that the people "will not want to jeopardize the UNESCO inscription” and will reject the construction.
    However, one cannot rely on this: Dresden insists on the bridge construction, citing the decision made in the plebiscite in 2005. It is possible that UNESCO will remove the Dresden banks of the Elbe from the list of monuments as early as this summer if the bridge construction progresses and the project modifications do not satisfy the world organization. Currently, the banks of the Elbe in Dresden are on the "endangered UNESCO monuments" list, which is a form of the highest warning.