Plan for Holocaust Memorial Questioned

The front-runner to be Germany’s next chancellor called for a new debate over whether a national Holocaust Memorial should be built in Berlin, suggesting it might not be needed. Gerhard Schroeder, the Social Democrat who leads Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the polls two months before the election, made the proposal after his cultural affairs advisor spoke out this week against the much-delayed project. Michael Naumann, a New York-based publisher, told a Berlin radio station that the memorial reminded him of the grandiose buildings of Adolf Hitler’s favorite architect, Albert Speer, who created such gigantic tributes to German glory as the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.