The Mediterranean Model and the End of Authoritarian Regimes (PCEE 45) Vesna Pusic

8/4/2019 The Mediterranean Model and the End of Authoritarian Regimes (PCEE 45) Vesna Pusic

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The Politics of Memory:Nazi Crimes and Identity inWest Germany, 1945-1990by Harold MarcuseDepartment of HistoryUniversity of CaliforniaSanta Barbara CA 93106-9410(October 1993)

Working Paper Series #45


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AbstractMemories of historical events are to a great extent dependent upon the identities of the re-membering subjects, which are in turn shaped by the immediate and vicarious experiencesof those persons. It may be assumed that experiences directly related to the historical eventsin question are especially important in e formation of memories of those events.This paper links the widely varying memories of the Nazi concentration camps in WestGermany during the past five decades to the differing historical experiences of those campsby the various groups performing memory work in the West German public sphere.The author has found that the remembered images of the camps fall into five main types,each of which held a predominant position in the West German public sphere during spe-cific periods. The first of these was shaped by an Allied media blitz immediately afterliberation in 1945; in Germany it held sway for about a year, while abroad it has persistedlargely unchanged to the present day.After a transitory period in the late 1940s, the author argues, leaders of public opinion inWest Germany made a concerted effort to establish a memory of the camps based on theNazi propaganda image of what he calls the "clean" camp. This sanitized image was super-seded during a period of historical rediscovery of systematic genocide and murderousrepression from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s by a more historically accurate but still ab-stract image of the camps. It was not until the 1970s that this external, parallel history of thecamps was reintegrated into the history of daily experience in Nazi Germany.As more recent events such as the 1985 dual commemoration at Bergen-Belsen and Bitburgshow, public memory of the Nazi camps in West Germany is bifurcated between the suc-cessors to the sanitized images of the early 1950s and the multifaceted memory fo thecamps as institutions of repression, exploitation, and extermination.


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Haro ld Ma rc us eD ep t. o f H isto ryUn iv er sit y o f Ca li fo rn iaS an ta B arb ara , C A 9 31 06 -9 41 0(805) [email protected] er fo r H arv ard C enter for E uro pean S tu dies Study G roup on T wen tieth-C entury G erm an

C ulture, 14 O ct. 1993not to be cited w ithout perm ission of the, author

THE POLITICS OF MEMORY; NAZI CRIMES AND IDENTITY INWEST GERMANY, 1945-1990

This essay reconstructs the image of Nazi concentration camps propagated by anAllied media blitz immediately after liberation in 1945, and then juxtaposes it with thepopular images of the Nazi concentration camps that were established during the yearsof their operation prior to 1945. The paper then traces the evolution of those competingimages through the 1950s and 60s. A brief sketch of the changes taking place since theearly 1970s and continuing today leads into a concluding discussion of the ethicalimplications of the two presently dominant images of Nazi crimes competing with eachother on the contested terrain of public memory.

I use the term m em ory in a collective sense to refer to an underlying picture of a pastevent shared by a group of individuals.! It is a m ore focused im age of w hat is often term edh is to ri ca l consciousne ss . Public m em ory, on the other hand, denotes an im age of the pastw hich dom inates the public sphere, w hether by its use in the m ass and print m edia, or inre pre se nta tiv e o ffic ia l c ommemo ra tiv e c eremonie s .. A lth ou gh c olle ctiv ely h eld im a ge s o f th epast are shap ed by th e interpretatio ns availab le in the public sp here, the tw o types o f m em oryare b y n o m eans iden tical.

C ollectiv e m em ories h av e th eir ro ots in th e co ncrete liv ed ex perien ce o f p articip an tsand ob servers, but they are also con stru cted by the d issem in ation and ritual reiteration of in-fo rm atio n ab ou t a h isto rical ev en t.? R em em berin g ex pe rien ces an d co nstru ctin g m em ories areboth selective processes, so that w hile experience is one determ inant o f m em ory, it is by nom eans the sole one. R ather, m em ory is also constructed according to the present agendas ofI For a general discussion, cf. Yves Lequin and lean Metral, "Auf der Suche nach dem kollektiven Gediichtnis," in:Lutz Niethammer (ed.), Lebenserfahrung und kollektives Geddchtnis: Zur Praxis do Oral History (Frankfurt:Syndikat, 1980), 339ff.2 For a good discussion of the different types of memory and remembrance, cf. Jerry Samet, "The Holocaust andthe Imperative to Remember," in: Roger Gottlieb (00.), Thinking the Unthinkable: Meanings of the Holocaust(New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1990),407-433, 420f.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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individu als and grou ps w ho w ish to exert in fluen ce in the p ublic sp here.B efo re o ne can an aly ze th e v ario us c ollec tiv ely rem em bered an d p ub licly p ro pag ated

im ages of the N azi cam ps, it is necessary to differentiate betw een the types of cam ps that areu su ally su bsu med u nd er th e term "co nce ntra tio n cam p. "3The first type I w ill call the early con centration cam p, a p rison or internm en t cam p serv in g tod isc ip lin e o r n eu tralize certain g ro up s th ro ug h w ork , to rtu re o r m urd er.T he second type, the "system atic" ~ rm ination cam p, w as erected as p art o f the so-called"Final So lu tion of th e Jew ish question " b eginning in 194 1; it serv ed solely to m urder largegroup s of peop le, process their b elo nging s, an d dispo se of their corpses (e.g . T reblinka II,S ob ib or). T hese w ere relativ ely sm all in stallatio ns w ith ou t p riso ners' q uarters sin ce v ictim sw ere tak en d irectly from th e train platform to und ressin g room s to the gas cham ber.Thirdly, after the dow nturn of G erm any's fortunes in the w ar in 1942, the regim e decided toex ploit ex term inees' labor b efore th eir m urder, and a hybrid of the first tw o types w as created:at ca mp s su ch as A usc hw itz-B irk en au an d M aid an ek m urd er an d p ro du ctio n facilities ex istedside by sid e.Finally, during the last six m onths of the w ar, the industrial exterm ination of hum an life w asdiscontinued, an d th e cam ps of all three types w hich rem ain ed u nder G erm an control becam ein fe rno s o f c ha os w here prisoners w ere left to die of starvation and disease, or w ere shot orbu rned aliv e in a last-ditch effort to k ill th em b efore they co uld be liberated.T he public m em ory of the N ational-S ocialist concen tration cam ps begins w ith this last im age.

Ie The Allied Imaee of the Concentration Camps. 1945-46In sp ite o f su rp risin gly d etailed in fo rm atio n av ailab le ab ro ad ab ou t th e N azi g en ocid al

pro gram s prior to 1 945, before the first unev acuated G erm an concen tration cam ps w ere cap-tured by the W estern A llies in A pril 1945, there w as no concrete popular conception of theco nd itio ns in th e ca mp s in th e in tern atio nal p ub lic sp here.f T he situ atio n ch an ged ra dicallyduring the last tw o w eeks of April 1945. O n 12 A pril, just as the first horrifying pictures ofthe lib erated cam ps w ere app earin g in U nited S tates' an d B ritish new spap ers, A llied C om -m and er-in-C hief E isenh ow er v iew ed th e rem ain s of B uchenw ald sub cam p O hrdruf (near G othain T huringia) w ith G en erals Patton an d B radley. E isenh ow er w as shock ed.f S oon afterw ard h e3 Cf. Konnilyn Feig, Hiller's DeaJh Camps (New York: Holmes &Meier, 1979),28-33.4 Deborah Lipstadt , Beyond Belief The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust , 1933-1945 (New York:Free Press, 1986). For an excelJent summary discussion of the literature on the information available inAlliedcountries before the liberation of the camps, cf. also Michael Marros, The Holocaust in History (Hanover,N.H.lLondon: University Press of New England, 1987), 157-64. The effect of the actual experience of theconditions in the camps at liberation on the Western international public sphere is well described by: JonBridgman, The End of the Holocaust: The Liberation of the Camps (portland: Areopagitica, 1990); Bridgmanmakes an argument similar to mine (cf. pp. 103-9).5 R ob ert H . A bz ug , I ns ide the Vicious Hear l: .Americans and the L iberat ion o f Naz i Concen trat ion Camps (New


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ordered every nearby unit which was not engaged in active combat to tour the camp, and hecalled for visits by delegations of US Congresspersons, British members of Parliament, and toprepresentatives of the US news media.s The groups were hastily assembled and arrived on 24,21, and 25 April, respectively.? Especially the reports by and about the group of publishersand editors contributed to the establishment of the popular image of the concentration camps asfestering sites of torture and mass death; these men were directly connected to an estimated 1/3of all US newspapers and 1/4 of all magazines, and some of their reports were serialized by thewire services. 8

The publicity about "the" German atrocities, i.e. about those which the Allies disco-vered at the end of the war, was not limited to Allied countries, but was also directed at theGerman populace. The most direct method was to force civilians in nearby towns to view andbury the dead found in the camps. At literally dozens of camps where prisoners were liberated,local residents were rounded up for such tours.? Soon afterwards, a more systematic programutilizing the mass media in Germany was implemented in order to reach the rest of the Germanpopulation. Newspapers.l? posters,'! picture exhibitions,12 pamphlets, 13 radio,14 and film15

York/Oxford: Oxford, 1985),27-30 gives a vivid description of the generals' visit to Ohrdruf based on thetestimony of several eyewitnesses. See also Bridgman, End of the Holocaust, 82.6 Cf. Alfred Chandler (ed.), Th e Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower: Th e War Years, (Baltimore/London: JohnsHopkins, 1970) vol. iv, 2623.7 The British report was published as: "Buchenwald Camp: the Report of a Parliamentary Delegation," CommandPaper 6626 (London, April 1945); the final report of the US congressional delegationwas presented before ajoint session on 15May 1945, d. "Atrocities and Other Conditions in Concentration Camps in Gennany," 79thCongress, 1st session, Senate document no. 47 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1945). .8 Norbert Frei, "'Wir waren blind, ungliubig und langsam': Buchenwald, Dachau und die amerikanischen Medienim Friihjahr 1945," in: V fZ 35(1987),385-401, 398. The delegation included representatives of the newspapersNew York Tunes, Washington Star, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Minneapolis Star-Joumal, Chicago Sun, DetroiiFree Press, Los Angeles Tunes, Houston Chronicle , Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and NewOrleans Tunes-Picayune, as well as of the newspaper chains Hearst and Scripps-Howard. The magazinesSaturday Evening Post, Collier's, This Week Magazine, American Magazine and Reader's Digest also sentreporters. Frei offers an excellent portrayal and analysis ofthe tour and subsequent efforts to publicize theGerman atrocities in the US. He draws most of his information from the collection of the delegations' reports,articles, diaries and speeches in Box 98 of the Joseph Pulitzer II Papers held by the Library of Congress.9 Without systematically searching for examples, I have been able to document 24 cases. Cf. Harold Marcuse, NaziCrimes and ldemity in West Germany: Collective Memories of the Dachau Concentration Camp, 1945-1990(Ann Arbor, Mi.: University Microfilms, 1992)[order #9308392], 99'n12S.For a selection of some of the moreprominent examples, see Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart, 33-9, 68f, 78, 82,and US Office of WarInformation, KZ: Bildbericht ausfonfKonzentrationsiagcrn (n.p.p., 1945)[cf. note 13, below].10 For an example of a didactic series about the liberated camps, see Hamburger Nachrichten-Blatt, issues from 14-24 May 1945. For a brief summary of Germanpress reports on the atrocities, see Elisabeth Matz, Die Zeilungender US-Armee for die deutsche Bev6lkerung, 1944-1946 (Munster: Fahle, 1969), 53f.11 See Barbro Eberan, Luther? Friedrich ..der Grope"? Wagner? Nietzsche? .,. ? Wer war an Hitler schuld? DieDebatte um die Schuldfrage 1945-1949 (Munich: Minerva, 1983, rev. ed.. 1985),22. The most common posterin the early weeks of occupation showed pictures of the concentration camps and carried in large letters the text"Das ist eure Schuld."12 See Rainer Schulze (ed.), Unruhige Zeiten: Erlebnisberichte aus dem Landkreis Celie 1945-1949 (Munich:Oldenbourg, 1990), 261 (Hermannsburg), and Gordon Horwitz, In the Shadow of Death: Living Outside theGates of Mauthausen (New York: Free Press, 1990), illustration opposite p. 115 (Linz),13 Cf. especially KZ: Bildbericht aus flnf Konzenrraiionslagern, a 54 page illustrated brochure produced by the USOffice of War Information in late April 1945 for distribution in Germany.14 According to Morris Janowitz, "German Reactions to Nazi Atrocities," in: American Journal of Sociology5 2( 19 46 ), 1 41 -6 , 1 43 , Radio Luxembourg and the BBCwere the main sources ofinfonnation on the camps inGermany inMay, Radio London repeatedly broadcast reports about German concentration camps in mid-May


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were used to inform the Germans about the atrocities. Former inmates who had remained silentunder Nazi rule and inmates returning home also disseminated information about the camps. 16In June, an Allied intelligence officer summarized the effects of this publicity campaign: 17

"Within four weeks after V-E Day, almost every German had had direct andrepeated contact with our campaign to present the facts [about the atrocities]."The campaign to establish this particular image of the "death camps" (as they were

generally called in the US) in German popular consciousness continued with the reporting onthe Nuremberg trials and mass screenings of a German version of the film Death Mills in1946.18 Thus the dominant image of the Nazi camps abroad and in the German public sphere(i.e. especially the mass media) from the end of the war until the end of the Nuremberg trialswas one of piles upon piles of emaciated, diseased, and brutally mistreated corpses. The vic-tims were, as we are told in Death Mills, "of all religious faiths, of all political beliefs;" thereis no differentiation among the dead, no hint, for instance, that Jews comprised the vastmajority of the religious victims. 19

However, although this conception of the camps was firmJy established in the in-ternational public sphere, and in spite of the saturation of the German public sphere with theseimages, most Germans harbored a quite different picture, as studies conducted as early as thesummer of 1945 show. 20

II. The Gennan Imaee of the "Clean Camp" (1947-1955>The prevailing German image of the Nazi camps after the war was rooted in thepeculiar nature of how the "early" concentration camps were experienced by the bulk of the

German population during the Third Reich; it was formulated in contradistinction to the picture

(Hamburger Nachrichten-Blatt, 16 May 1945).15 David Culbert, "American Film Policy in the Re-education of Germany after 1945," in: Nicholas Pronay andKeith Wilson (eds.), The Political Re-Education of Germany and her Allies After World War 11, (London: CroonHelm, 1985),173-202, esp. 177-9. The newsreel Well im Film devoted its entire fifth issue (week of 15 June1945) to the most horrifying footage from the camps.16 For some examples of public talks held by former Dachau inmates after returning home, see: Max Lackmann,Schuld und Gnade: Eine Heimkehr aus Dachau. Aus einem Yortrag Juli 1945, (Aalen: n.p., 1945); FritzWandel, [city councilman in Reutlingen), Ein Weg durch die HOlle. Dachau wie es wirklich war (ms. 1945,Dokumentationsarchiv des deutschen Widerstands, Frankfurt); and Ernst Wilm, Dachau - Berichi au] der

Gemeindeversammlung, Sonntag den 28.10.1945 in der evangelischen Kirche zu Mennighii ffen (Dortmund:Evangelischer Vortragsdienst, 1948).17 Janowitz, "German Reactions," 143.18 See Brewster Chamberlin, "Todesmiihlen: Ein fri iher Versuch zur Massen- 'Umerziehung' im besetztenDeutschland." in: Yierteljahrshefte for Zeilgeschich!e 29(1981), 420-36, and Culbert, "American Film Policy,"177-80, 196-9. Not until March of 1948 was distribution of the German version of "Death Mills" officiallydiscontinued; cf. WN-Nachrichten (Dusseldorf), 1 April 1948.19 Culbert, "American Film Policy," 180n18. Lipstadt, Beyond Belief, 254-61 demonstrates that the media effortsignored the knowledge that the purposeful extermination was focused on European Jewry.20 Cf. Janowitz, "Gennan Reactions" (note 14, above). Janowitz conducted the study in June 1945.


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propagated by the Allies. A s I w ill argue, m em ories of the cam ps were already being shapedin tention ally b y the po licym ak ers of th e N azi P arty as the p op u lace was learning abou t thec a m p s in the 1930s.

During the 12 years of the Third Reich, the overw helm ing m ajority of the G erm anpopulace had received at least secondhand know ledge about the inner w orkings of the con-centration cam p system as a system of political repression, and a substantial proportion of thepopulation had heard at least rum ors about the exterm ination cam ps.21 H ow ever, because ofth e strin gent co ntrol of in form atio n circulatin g in th e p ub lic sph ere,2 2 the o nly exp licitlytolerated im age w as a relatively harm less official picture of w hat I w ill call the "clean"con cen tratio n cam p.23 T his official im age w as o ne o f ord erly, spanan ly efficien t cam psdesigned to "educate" persons w ith "asocial" behavior to becom e productive m em bers of theG erm an racial collectiv ity, an d to isolate in cu rab le social an d racial "parasites" fromproductive m em bers of society. The w ell-know n inscription "A rbeit m acht frei" on m anyconcentration cam p gates, and the slogan painted in huge letters on the roofs of the m ainbuildings in cam ps such as D achau and N euengam me:

'There is only one w ay to freedom . Its m ilestones are: O bedience, Indu-s trio us ne ss, H on esty, O rd erlin ess , C lea nlin ess, S ob rie ty , T ru th fu ln ess , S elf-S acrifice, an d L ove o f the Fatherland 'reflect this official im age of the camps. In the words of a July 1933 article in the M u nich I l-lu stra te d N e w s, i n Dacha u

'M em bers of the Yolk w ho had fallen victim to foreign seducers ... are beingeducated to becom e useful m em bers of the N ational-Socialist state by thehealin g effects o f p rod uctiv e w ork an d tigh t discipline. '2 4By that time, at least 12 people had been murdered or tortured to death in the camp.25 InD ecem ber 1936 the official illustrated new sw eekly of the N azi Party described the D achauco ncentration cam p as 'clean ,' 'im macu late,' 'b eautifu l,' an d 'o rd erly. '2 621 For a comprehensiveoverviewof recentresearchand literatureon this issuecf . Hans Momm sen,"WhatDid theGermansKnowaboutthe Genocideof the Jews"," in:WalterPehle (ed.), November 1938: FromReichskristallnacht to Genocide (Oxford:Berg, 1991),187-221.22 On the controlof informationin general,cf .W illiBoelcke (ed.), Kriegspropaganda 1939-1941: GeheimeMinisterkonferen::.en im Reichspropagandaministerium (Stuttgart:DVA, 1966),introduction.For examplesofrestrictionson informationabout the concen trationcamp s,cf, GordonHorwitz, In the Shadow of Death: Living

Outside the Gazes ofMauthausen (NewY ork:Free Press, 1990),37,49,62,70,76,89,94f.23 To date there has been no publishedsystematicexaminationof the officialportrayalof the concentrationcampsduring the Naziperiod;the focusof researchhas beenon how muchm embersof the Germanpopulaceknewaboutthe programsof massextermination.Cf. Marcuse,Nazi Crimes and Identity, 66-76, and FederationNationaledesDeportes et InternesResistantset Patriotes,Le choc 1945: L a presse revele l'enfer des camps nazis(Paris:FNDIRP,1985).24 "DieWahrheiti iberDachau,"Munchner lllustrierte Zeiumg ; 16July 1933.25 C f. Hans-Gunter Richardi,Schule der Gewali: Das Konzentrationslager Dachau, 1933-1934 (Miinchen:Beck,1983),88-107.26 Friedrich Franz Bauer, "Konzentrationslager Dachau," in: l li u s tt imer Beobachur , 3 Dec . 1936,2014-


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H ow ever, rum ors and inofficial inform ation about the cam ps seem not to have been asrigidly repressed as other illegal discourse, as long as they rem ained w ithin certain lim its.Since the concentration cam ps drew their m ass disciplinary pow er prim arily from thefrigh tenin g asso ciatio ns co up led w ith th em (as o pp osed to th e actu al ex perien ce o f arrest,w hich w as ultim ately lim ited to a m inority), such unconfirm ed rum ors heightened thatpotential. In fact, all official descriptions of the cam ps refer im plicitly or explicitly to thee xis te nc e o f a d ifferin g p op ular view , a critical an ti-tru th ab ou t th e co ncen tratio n cam ps. T hefirst official pictures of D achau w ere published under the title 'T he T ruth about D achau, '27 an din 1934 the com mander of the B erlin-O ranienburg concentration cam p published a book abouth is c amp e ntitle d 'Anti-Brown-Book.Sf T he latter adm itted that 'som e of the arrestees receivedtreatm ent that w as not all too gentle,' but reasoned that that had been a 'com pelling necessity'b ecau se th ey had fo ug ht ru th lessly ag ainst th e N atio nal-S ocialist v an gu ard . B etw een th eglow ing lines of the 1936 Party new sw eekly report, forced castration in D achau is m entioned(against w hich a prisoner could supposedly appeal), as is the fact that 'all legal m eans' w ereused against intractable persons. W hat "legal" m eant in those years of state-fostered street vio-lence and after the passage of the 1935 N urem berg racial law s should have been quite clear toevery reader -- although such conclusions could only be draw n in private.

It should be noted that official reports about the concentration cam ps had tapered off bythe tim e the w ar began, and that propaganda efforts concerning the m ass executions andex term inatio n cam ps after 1 941 w ere lim ited to d isclo su res u sin g d isto rtin gly eup hem isticterm s such as 'very strict m easures,' or 'special treatm ent' (of the Jew s).29 In 1943 H itlerordered that in all official pronouncem ents (w hich included the controlled press), 'transport ofthe Jew s' be substituted for 'special treatm ent,' and that 'final solution of the Jew ish question'be replaced by the 'com plete m obilization of Jew ish labor.' Thus the publicly shared know -ledge about the cam ps w as essentially frozen or m oved back to the pre-'Final Solution' level,i.e. w here "the cam ps" had supposedly been labor cam ps.

T here is also convincing evidence that N azi policym akers w ere quite aw are of the ab-solute am orality of their program s of exterm ination and thus w ished to conceal their genocidalactivities both from contem poraries and posterity; one need think only of the lack of high-level

17+2028.27 The article is cited in note 24, above. It should be noted that the pictures were posed and the captions false andmisleading.28 Werner Schafer, Konzemrationslager Oranienburg: Das Anti-Braunbuch "ber das erste deutsche Konzentra-tionslager (Berlin: n.p., 1934). The book contrasts news reports, letters, pictures and even tables listing the gainin weight of prisoners with German rumors and published foreign reports about barbaric conditions in the camp.The following quotation is from p. 23.29 Cf. MarJis Steinert, Hiller's War and the Germans: Public Mood and Attitude during the Second World War,trans. Thomas de Witt (Athens, Ohio: Ohio State, 1977), 141-7.


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w ritten orders charting the course of the various m urder campaigns.P? or the concerted effortto effa ce exterm ination cam ps after their "function" had been fulfilled (e.g. T reblinka),31 or atleast to destroy incrim inating docum ents in the last days before liberation. The necessity ofconcealing the m urder program s from posterity w as em phasized by H im mler in his w idelyq uo te d Octo be r 1943 speech at a gathering of SS leaders in Poznan:32

'Most of you know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side,when 500 lie there or 1,000 ....This is the most glorious page in our history, one which has not been writtenand which shall never be written. 'This pronouncem ent show s that the official public portrayal w as not only designed to erodepotential popular protest,33 but that it w as also explicitly intended to m ake an exculpatory or atleast euphem istic writing of history possible, even at a tim e when the Nazis were planning tow rite th at h isto ry themselves.P The transition to the popular use of this "clean" im age of theearly cam ps for self-exoneration after the end of the war was sm ooth; its beginnings can befound in statem ents by H im mler him self.

In A pril 1945, after m onths of w avering betw een obedience to H itler's 'scorched earth'policy and the desire to save his own skin, Him mler met with Norbert M asur, the director ofthe Sw edish section of the W orld Jew ish C ongress. A s related by his confidant-physicaltherapist, H im mler responded to M asur's reproaches about the concentration cam ps asfollows:35

"'They should have been called educational cam ps, for crim inal elem entsw ere lodged there besides Jew s and political prisoners. Thanks to theirconstruction, G erm any , in 1941, had the lowest crim inal rate for m any years.The prisoners had to work hard, but all Germans had to do that. The treat-ment was always just I concede that [crimes were committed in thecamps] occasionally, but I have also punished the persons responsible ." ,

30 This phenomenonis the basis for muchof the pseudo-scholar lyattemptsto "revise"the history of 20thcenturyGerman genocide,such as DavidIrving 's at temptedexonerationsof Hitler .Cf . Martin Broszat ,"Hitlerund dieGenesisder 'Endlosung,' aus AnlaBder Thesenvon DavidIrving V fZ 25(1977),739-75.31 In 1943 ,special task forcesweresen tback to thes i tesof massmurder to exhumeburied corpses andbum themto dest royal l t races of the extermination program.To date there hasbeen no systemat icstudy of such cover-up .attempts,whichw ere apparentlyfairlywidespread.For some examples,cf. WolfgangBenz (ed.), Dimension desV6lkermords: Die Zahl der jadischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Munich:Oldenbourg,1991),320n55,469;

RaulHilberg, The Destruction of/he European Jews (NewYork/London:Holmes&Meier , r ev . ed . 1985),vo l.3 , 42f, 979f .; and Br idgman,End of the Holocaust, 2lf.32 The speechwas publishedby PoliakovlWolf(eds.)Das Drit te Reich und die Juden: Dokumente und Aufsii lze(Berlin:Arani, 1955),215; and WaltherHofer(ed.)Der Nationalsozialismus: Dokumente 1933-1945(Frankfurt:Fischer , 1960), 114.33 Cf . the Steinert ,Hitler's War, cited in no te29 , above.34 For a similar interpretat ionof this quote,see: SaulFr iedlander,"The "FinalSolution ':O n the UneaseinHistoricalInterpretation,"in Hayes (ed.), Lessons and Legacies, 23-35,26.35 FelixKers ten ,The Kersten Memoirs, 194~1945 (NewYork: Macmillan,1957) ,withan introductionby H. ROoTrevor-Roper ,trans. by ConstantineFitzgibbonand JamesOliver, p. 287. I havechangedthe translat ionofE r z i e h u n g s l a g e r to educational camp, instead of "training camp."


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T hus for H im mler and other im mediate perpetrators the propaganda lie becam e the personallie. O ver 30,000 people m urdered at D achau, m ore than 56,000 at B uchenw ald, a nearly equaln um ber at N eu en gam m e =not to m ention the hundreds of thousands upon m illions of Jew s atthe exte rmina tion c amps - , all b ecam e "o ccasio nal crim es" w hich h ad alread y b een ex piated .A nd for those civilians w ho could deny firsthand (experiential) know ledge of the cam ps or thecenters of physical exterm ination, the form erly dubious official version becam e the core of anim age of the past w hich m ight protect them from the consequences of com plicity now that theyw ere at the m ercy of their potentially vengeful conquerors: 'W e did not know !', the ubiquitouspopular claim of the post-w ar years, w as born.

In N ovem ber 1945, in one of the first m ajor civilian com mem orative cerem onies forconcentration cam p victim s in occupied G erm any, the m ayor of D achau gave this exculpationan especially eloquent form ulation. O ne should know that prior to the First W orld W ar D achauhad been best know n as an artists' colony. a counterpart to the north-G erm an W orpsw ede. In aspeech in front of num erous representatives of the occupation forces w hich w as broadcastthroughout E urope and the U nited States, he dec1ared:36

'L ad ie s a nd Gen tleme n!H ow peaceful life once w as here! D achau, once the epitom e of rural stolidityand earthiness, closely bound to its artists and their noble cultural efforts formore than a century! To m ention only a few of the names that carriedDachau 's reputation into the w orld: C hristian M orgenstern, .,. K arlSpitzw eg, W ilhelm L eibl, L ovis C orinth, .. ,That w as once ou r D achau !But then non-local sadists cam e and settled on the outskirts of our city, andwith horror and fear we had to w atch as they defiled the nam e Dachau in theeyes o f th e en tire civ ilized w orld .For tw elve long years the concentration cam p w eighed like a nightm are uponus.A t the beginning sparse reports about the inm ates of the cam p leaked out tous. B ut after construction w as com plete the herm etic isolation left us w ithonly dark prem onitions about the fates and hum an suffering behind the con-crete w alls topped w ith barbed w ire. "_A nd the nam e of our beloved D achau is associated w ith all of these cruelties!But t he re al D ac ha u w as d iffere nt!T oday, w ith pure hearts and clean hands this "other D achau" com mem oratesall of the victims whose blood has soaked our native soil and whose ash co-vers the paths w ithin the cam p. 'T his speech is filled w ith subterfuges and contradictions. T he D achau concentration cam p w asall b ut "h erm etically iso lated " o nce co nstru ctio n w as com plete; lo cal su ppliers entered th ecam p daily throughout its existence, tow nspeople w orked in the cam p factories, and hundreds

36 Josef Schwalber, manuscript of speech for 9 Nov. 1945, BavarianMain State Archive (BayHsta), JosefSchwalber Papers (js) 101, and draft of speech for 9 Nov. 1945,js25. Also printed in: Augsburger Zeitung, 15Nov . 1945, p.l.


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of prisoners m arched through the tow n to their w orkplaces in D achau's factorles.P? T he speechdoes indicate how specific aspects of the experience of the cam p w ere pieced together to form am em ory of the concentration cam ps that w as suitable as the basis for post-w ar (W est) G erm anid en tity: T he p opu lace at larg e rem em bered h av in g b een essen tially ig noran t an d h elp lessconcerning all that w ent on inside the cam ps, thus preserving its "pure hearts and clean hands."T he cam ps them selves had com e from the outside; they had been established by "non-localsadists." M ore generally, blame was placed on Hitler, H imm ler or the SS, or one spoke ofexogenous "N azis" as perpetrators (as opposed to "G erm ans" or "w e"). C onspicuously, in thespeech no m ention is m ade of any system atic exterm ination of hum an life (w hich, althoughthere w ere no gassings, w as also practiced in D achau).

In the first p ost-w ar years, n either th e G erm an s n or th e in tern atio nal p ub lic asso ciatedw ith the cam ps any other exterm ination schem e than m ass death by starvation, epidem ics andfaceless sadism -- the beatings and torture of the early cam ps, as w ell as the gassings of theexterm ination cam ps w ere absent from G erm an and A llied m em ory. T he m ain differencebetw een the im ages held by the tw o groups w as that the A llies projected their conception backindeterm inately, w hereas for the G erm ans it w as lim ited to a relatively short (and, in thatlo gic, relativ ely in co nsequ en tial) p erio d of ch ao s p reced ing the end o f th e w ar.

T he G erm an s u sed th e N atio nal-S ocialist p ro pag an da im age o f th e clean co ncen tratio ncam ps to counter the A llied im age of the chaotic death cam ps. T hese conflicting m em ory-im ages of the cam ps are reflected in their concrete uses by each group. The A llies used m anyform er concentration cam ps (esp. those near urban centers) as internm ent cam ps for m em bersof the SS, N azi Party, and G erm an A rm y. 38 For them , the sym bolism of the concentrationcam ps as sites of heinous crim es w as an im portant factor: in D achau the SS m en w ereim prisoned in the form er prisoners' com pound, w hereas Party and A rm y functionaries sharedm ore tolerable quarters in the vast SS barracks adjacent to the cam p.39 In contrast, once theA llies had relinquished the cam ps, W est G erm an authorities had no qualm s about reusing thep hysical p lan t fo r 'p ractical' p urp oses (su ch as so cial h yg iene), m uch as th e N atio nal-S ocialistspurported to have done. In D achau and N euengam me they w ent so far as to attem pt physicallyto recreate the "clean" cam p.

In January 1948 all parties of the Bavarian parliam ent united to pass unanim ously a

37 Sibille Steinbacher has written a master's thesis at Munich University on this topic.38 Cf. Heiner Wember, Umerziehung im Lager: lntemierungslager in der Brit ischen Zone (Dusseldorf: Klartext,1991);Christa Schick, "Die bayerischen Intemierungslager," in: Martin Broszat/Klaus-Dietmar Henke/HansWoller (eds.), Von Stalingrad zur Wiihrungsreform: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Umbruchs in Deutschland(Munich: Oldenbourg, 1988),301-25.39 For detailed documentation cf. Harold Marcuse, "Das ehemalige Konzentrationslager Dachau: Der miihevolleWeg zur Gedenks ta tt e 1945-1968", in: D a c ha u er H e fi e 6(1990) ,182-205 , 185f.


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resolution calling for the conversion of the former concentration camp into an Arbeits tager, aforced labor camp for 'asocial elements' which would 'reeducate the work-shy to be willinglaborers. '40 The minutes of parliament in 1948 echo almost verbatim the Nazi-era descriptionsof "clean" concentration camps quoted above. In Hamburg the sruation was only slightly diffe-rent: the "dirty" camp was mentioned explicitly, but only as a historical aberration which wasto be eradicated. In October 1947 the director of the prison authority wrote to the mayorr'!

'Concentration Camp Neuengsmme weighs like a curse on Hamburg's con-science, its honor and its reputation. Neuengamme's reputation of inhumanityand cruel horrors must be eradicated from the memories about our times.Now the opportunity presents itself to build a model penal institution whichwill restore Neuengamme's and thereby Hamburg's reputation. This mark ofpast shame should be obliterated ... 'While a new prison was erected within a year in the heart of the Neuengamme camp (using i.a.the bricks of the crematory to build a theater), the rapid escalation of the conflict with theSoviet Union prevented the realization of the Bavarian work-camp plan. In April 1948 theheightened influx of refugees from the East prompted the Bavarian parliament to move torefurbish all concentration/internment camps vacated by the Allies for use as refugee camps. 42When the Dachau concentration camp was turned over to German authorities in the fall of1948, the enormous sum of 5 114million newly minted German Marks was quicklyappropriated to convert the barracks not into a temporary refugee camp, but rather into semi-permanent apartments for 2000 refugees. Here the uprooted undesirables from the East were torun their own model community strictly separated from the town, to prove their mettle beforebeing allowed to resettle elsewhere. In the ensuing years, the camp street was paved, streetlights installed, flower beds planted, and stores and factories granted concessions in the oldcamp buildings.

In West Germany, the early 1950s saw a reversal of many of the measures taken to"denazify" public offices. Cold War considerations spurred the western allies to curry favorwith former Nazi elites, and hand in hand with the remilitarization of the Federal Republic as amember of NATO went a rehabilitation of former Nazis in West German society. Essentiallyall German perpetrators who had been convicted by Allied courts (unless they were among thefew who had been sentenced to death and already hanged) were pardoned and released from

40 Yerhandlungen des Bayerischen Landtags, vol. 2(1947/48), pp.587 und 589 with supplement no. 871. Cf. alsoAusschuB fiir Sozialpolitik, proposal by Hans Hagn and Comrades re: "Freimachung von Lagem zur Beniitzungals Arbeitslager fiir asoziale Elemente," 21 Nov. 1947; Archive of the Bavarian State Diet, bound volumes ofcommittee minutes.41 Gefangnisbehorde to Senat, 21 Oct. 1947, Dokumentenhaus Neuengamme; cf. Marcuse, "Gefiingnis alsGedenkstatte," unpubl. seminar paper, Univ. of Hamburg, 19849; in turn quoted by Fritz Bringmann andHartmut Roder, Neuengamme. Yerdrdngt= vergessen - bewdli igt? Die iweiie Geschichte desKonzentrationslagers Neuengamme (Hamburg: VSA, 1987), 38f.42 Yerhandlungen des Bayerischen Landlogs, vel. 2(1947/48), p, 1346.


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custody,43 and former Nazi Party members comprised the majority of the employees in manygovernment institutions, e.g. in 1951 94% of all Bavarian judges and state prosecutors, 77% ofthe employees in the Ministry of Finance, and 60% in the Ministry of Agriculrure.e" This wasjust the tail end of a development that had been going on for a number of years,45 althc -g b itwas not publicly legalized until 1951 with the passage of a law fulfilling Article 131 of theFederal Constitution. That so-called" 131 law" made the reinstatement of all Nazi officialsdismissed during denazification possible, and in practice essentially no one was refusedreemployment. With this legalization of the personal renazification of state offices came thefirst active German measures to eradicate the Allied image of the chaotic death camps frompublic memory, which was in tum paralleled by the physical creation of the image of the"clean" camp.

The first explicit eradicatory measure was the curtailment of the commemorativeactivities relating to the concentration camps which had been organized annually by formerpersecutees since 1945. After 1951 and until 1957, state representatives no longer participatedin memorial ceremonies organized by former prisoners in Dachau. Rather, from 1951 to 1956,the week during which most of the concentration camps had been liberated was chosen as alavishly endowed national week of commemoration for German "prisoners of war. "46 Officialrepresentatives of the state spoke instead at patriotic rallies demanding the return of GermanPOWs from the Soviet Union. Also in 1951, the organization of former German Dachauinmates was placed under police surveillance and its activities narrowly circumscribed.e? In1953, after a year-long malicious media campaign against an exhibition in the Dachaucrematorium which portrayed the "dirty" side of the concentration camp' s history, the relicsand documents were removed by state officials. The next step, the closing of the formercrematorium itself (the paramount symbol of the "dirty" camps) to public access and ultimatelyits demolition, was only narrowly prevented by massive international intervention in 1955.

m. The Process of the Historical Rediscovery of Genocide and Murderous Re-pression. 1957-65There can be little doubt that without pressure from abroad, West German authorities

43 Cf. Frank Buscher, The U.S. War Crimes Trial Program in Germany, J946-J955 (New YorklWestport:Greenwood, 1989), chaps. 4,5, and 7.44 Unsigned memorandum by the state chancellory, 17 Mar. 19S0, BayHsta Stk 113626. The statistic was compiledby the VVN.45 Hans Woller, Gesellschaft und Polaik in der amerikanischen Besatzungszone: Die Region Ansbach und Furth(Munich: Oldenbourg, 1986), Il l-IS.46 Detailed documentation of the interaction between Bavarian and national authorities relating to the"Kriegsgefangenengedenkwoche" can be found in BayHsta, MArb 114829.47 Files pertaining to these police measures can be found in the Munich City Archive, BuR 2467ff.


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would have completely eradicated all physical remains which could trigger associations of theNazi concentration camps and genocidal programs. From 1945 until today, international at-tention which focused on the former concentration camps at critical junctures has been crucialin determining the fate of their physical remains. However, whether in ~ergen-Belsen, Dachau,Flossenbiirg or Neuengamme (the four major former concentration camps in West Germany),after the departure of military government until the late 19608 all monuments, museums andceremonies commemorating National-Socialist state terror were established solely throu gh th ei ni tia ti ve o f f orm e r p e rs ec u te es , and almost always against great resistance on the part of stateauthorities. Although this rule held true with chillingly few exceptions for two decades, begin-ning in the second half of the 1950s the emergence of a second public image of the Nazi campsin West Germany can be discerned.

By the late 1950s a new generation old enough to have experienced public life in theThird Reich firsthand, but too young to have occupied positions of responsibility (i.e. especi-ally those born in the later 1920s and early 1930s) began to gain influence in the Germanpublic sphere. We can observe a rejuvenation of interest in the darker sides of the Nazi period.By the time of a 1958 lawsuit in Ulm in conjunction with the 131 law, this change in publicinterest could no longer be overlooked. In VIm a former Nazi police sergeant had sued for hisreemployment as a high-ranking police officer.48 When it was discovered that he wasresponsible for the murder of 4000 Jews in Lithuania, there was a vehement public reaction,and politicians were quick to act. The "Central Office of State Judicial Authorities for thePursuit of Violent National-Socialist Crimes" was created. That Vim trial marks the beginningof a series of trials which, in spite of their rather narrow judicial scope, made a majorcontribution to historical and public knowledge of the Nazi camps. In fact, until the 19705, themost important research on the National-Socialist programs of repression and genocide carriedout in West Germany was conducted in conjunction with litigation by this institution. 49

At the sites of repression in West Germany the generation of teenagers and studentsbegan to show interest in the past. As West German historian Peter Steinbach put it:50

'In the late 1950s the [West German] public sphere split into a group of thosewho were asking questions, and a group of those who were embarrassed forlack of answers but who made up the bulk of the electorate.'48 Cf. Peter Steinbach, Nationalsozialistische Gewaltverbrechen: Die Diskussion in der deusschen OjJenllichkeitnach 1945 (West Berlin: Colloquium, 1981), 46ff.49 Important examples include the study prepared for the Auschwitz trials. in Frankfurt in 1964, published as: HansBuchheim, Martin Broszat, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Helmut Krausnick, Anatomie des SS-Staates (Munich: dtv,1967), and Reinhard Henkys, Die nationalsozialistischen Gewaltverbrechen: Geschichte und Gericht (Stuttgart:Kreuz, 1964). The most prominent exception was Eberhard Kolb's study: Bergen-Belsen: Geschichte des"Aufenthalislagers" 1943-45 (Hanover, 1962).50 Steinbach. Nationalsozialistische Gewaltverbrechen, 46. For an excellent monographic study that confirms thesefinding, cf. Michael Schornstheimer, Bombenstimmung und Katzenjammer: Yergangenheitsbewaliigung: Quickund Stern in den 50er Jahren (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1989).


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In the summer of 1956 West German newspapers reported critical remarks regarding theneglected condition of Bergen-Belsen made by Winston Churchill and British journalists whohad visited the site earlier that year.51 A number of youth groups became interested in Belsenand organized commemorative ceremonies. On 20 July 1956 the student government of theUniversity of Hamburg laid a wreath with the inscription: 'The students of the University ofHamburg honor the men and women of the other Germany' - referring to the putsch attemptorganized by the conservative German military elite on 20 July 1944. In September the tradeunion youth organizations of Lower Saxony and Luneburg commemorated the 'victims of theNational-Socialist and communist dictatorships,' and resolved to hold a ceremony each year on17 June, the anniversary of the massive workers' strikes against the government in EastGermany in 1953.

These spontaneous outpourings of interest and concern demonstrate both theextraordinary power of Cold War ideology, and the historical naivite of the young protagonistsexposed to it: the events of 20 July 1944 or especially the invocation of anti-(Stalinist)-communism were far more closely connected to the Nazi elites than to the victims in Belsen.For one thing, some of the German military men who had tried to depose Hitler in July 1944had colluded in the deportations and genocidal programs which ended in the inferno of Belsenand other camps; but the German Wehrmacht had also used Belsen prior to the construction ofthe concentration camp in 1943 as a POW camp where soldiers of the Red Army were confinedin an open area and basically left to die. The students not only made no mention of theseSoviet victims, they probably did not even know about them. This lack of historical knowledgewas typical of the state of public consciousness about the concentration and exterminationcamps in the 1950s: fhey were places where terrible things had happened, but there was verylittle knowledge as to who the victims were or who the perpetrators had been. 52

In the years between 1957 and 1964, this situation changed dramatically. Teenagerswere fascinated by the history of the Nazi period, which, at the popular level, was graduallybroadened from the limited post war conception of the chaotic death camps to encompass thehistory of the extermination camps. The diary of Anne Frank, which ended with her and herfamily's deportation from Amsterdam, is a case in point.53 The diary was first published in theNetherlands in 1947, then in Germany and France in 1950, and the United States and Britain in

51 Cf. H. Goovan Dam "Monument der Unmenschlichkeit: Wichst Gras dariiber?," in: Allgemeine Wochenzeitungder Juden in Deutschland, 8 June 1956.52 Several authors examining the historiography of the Holocaust (i.e. the National-Socialist judeocide) haveconfirmed this finding. Cf. Leon lick, "The Holocaust: Its Uses and Abuses," in: Brandeis Review (Spring1986),25-31, 27f.; Michael Marrus, The Holocaust in History (Hanover, N.H.lLondon: Univ. Press of NewEngland, 1987).2.53 C f. A lvin R osenfeld, "Popularization and M em ory: T he C ase of A nne F rank," in: Hayes (ed.), Lessons and

Legacies [ no te ( 1) ], 243-78.


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1952. In 1955, however, a popular Germ an paperback edition was published. Then in 1958 theG erm an author Ernst Schnabel published an im mensely popular book w hich traced A nneFrank's history beyond A msterdam to the cam ps at W esterbork, A uschw itz and B ergen-Belsen.5.t Not only was the perspective of the victim s m ade accessible to a wide audience forthe first tim e, but it also included a description of the actual experience of the process ofextermination.

By that time, the French documentary film "Night and Fog" was being shown inschools throughout W est Germ any. W hen the film was first released in 1956, the W est Germ anforeign office successfully pressured the French governm ent not to show it at the C annesFestival,55 but several screenings for selected G erm an audiences in the ensuing m onths recei-ved considerable m edia attention, so that the N ational O ffice for E du cational M aterialsiBundeszemrale fur Heima td iensn w as obliged to com mission a G erm an synchronization. 56 B ySpring 1957 the film w as being show n in com mercial m ovie theaters throughout G erm any,selections w ere broadcast in the TV discussion program "P anoram a," and distribution toeducational film suppliers had begu n.57 A n accom panyin g teacher's guid e contained sur-prisingly accurate and com prehensive inform ation about the developm ent and inner w orkingsof both the concentration cam ps and the program s to m urder all the Jews of Europe.58

In the 1960s public interest in and popular consciousness of the Nazi cam ps was fueledby w idely publicized and discussed tria ls of central figures in the rep ression, exterm in ation,and exploitation program s, especially the trial of Adolf Eichm ann in Israel in 1961 and theFrankfurt A uschw itz trial in 1964.59 C oncurrently, pedagogues began to think of w ays to teachabout the Nazi period -- the concept of "com ing to terms with the past"(Vergangenheitsbewl1ltigung) cam e into com mon use.60 Theodor A dorno's fam ous essay:'W hat is: W orking through the Past?' (1959) w as an early attem pt to influence this discus-sion.61 B y the m id-1960s a substantial proportion (but nonetheless a m inority) of the popula-54 Erns tSchnabel,Anne Frank: Spur eines Kindes (Frankfurt:Fischer, 1958)(1988 :165,OO Othopy printed);AnneFrank: A Portrait in Courage, trans. R. an d C. Winston(NewYork:Harcour t ,Brace&World, 1958).Thisbook was immediatelyadaptedas a radioplay; a film vers ionof the originald iary cameout in 1959 .5 5 Ka rlKorn, "Nachtund Nebel," in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13April1956.56 Die Europiiische Zeitung (Bonn),20 Nov. 1956 .57 Die zeu , 7 Ma rch 1957.58 GunterMoltmann, Der Dokumeniarfi lm Nacht und Nebel (Hamburg:KuratoriumfUrstaatspolitischeBildung,1957;D usseldorf. 1960).59 For a co llec tionof reactions to HannahArendt 'sbook Eichmann in Jerusalem. cf . Fr iedr ichA rnoldKrummacher(ed.), Die Kontroverse: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann und die Juden (Munich:Nymphenburger,1964).Peter Weill' orator ium "DieErmittlung"and GerhardZ werencz'essay "UnserAuschwitz"are examplesof the discussioninitiatedby the Auschwitztrials. Cf. also HermannLangbein(ed.),Der AuschwiIz-ProuJ3:Eine Dokumenuuion in Zwei Banden (Frankfurt:EVA , 1965).60 Cf. Hans Wenke, ' ''Bewaltigungder Vergangenheit 'und 'Aufarbeitungder Geschichte':Zw ei Schlagworter,kritischbeleuchtet," in : Geschichte in WlSsenschaft und Unterrichi 11(1960),65-70.61 T be o do r A d orn o, "Was bedeu te t: Aufarbeitung der Vergangenhe it," in : idem, Eingriffe:


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tion in W est G erm any had transcended the lim ited G erm an im ages of the N azi cam ps as eitherhard-line w ork cam ps or sites of random m ass death.

T he in terest o f th is g en eratio n co in cid ed w ith th e re viv al o f co mm em orativ e activ itiesby the surviving persecu tees after th ose h ad reached a low point du ring C old W ar sup pressionand rep ressio n. B etw een 19 60 and 196 8, cornerston e layin gs and dedications of m em orials an dco mm em orativ e facilities in itiated b y g ro up s o f fo rm er p riso ners in D ach au w ere tak in g p laceat an averag e of 2-3 tim es per year - w ith notew orthy public particip atio n and goo d pu blicity.B y the m id-1 960s form er p riso ners , w ith the aid of international p ublicity , h ad been able toforce regional W est G erm an governm ents to erect a m useum in D achau (1965) and ane xh ib itio n in B erg en -B els en (1 96 6).

IV. The Vicarious Experience of the Nazi Past. 1970-presentT his reestab lish men t o f N atio nal-S ocialist g en ocid e an d m urd ero us rep ressio n as ele-

m ents of pub lic m em ory, ho wever, rem ained cu riou sly external to the iden tity of its su bjects.Just as th e sites of the form er concen tration cam ps w ere san itized of rem ains w hich cou ldco njure up im ag es of the infernal experiences th ere, the G erm an translation of A nne Frank 'sdiary had b een sanitized o f m ost references to G erm ans as perpetrators.s- W here A nn e Frankw ro te o f fig htin g ag ain st "th e G erm an s," h er G erm an tra nslato r su bstitu ted "th e o ccu py in gp ow er" o r m ore g en erally "rep ressio n." On 9 O ctober 1942 A nne Frank w rote in her diaryabo ut the Jew s d eported to th e transit cam p W esterbo rk:

'If it is as bad as th is in H olland w hatever w ill it be like in the distant andbarbarous regions they are sent to? W e assum e that m ost of them aremu rd ere d. 'T he seco nd o f these sen ten ces w as sim ply om itted from the tran slation , so that G erm an readersreceived no im age of the daily terror A nne Frank had to bear.

In historical discourse the N azi past w as conceived of as a set of stereotypes andreferred to w ith such set phrases as the "N ational-Socialist R ule of T error," or the "R egim e ofIn ju stice." W h en G erm an stu den ts co nd em ned co nse rv ativ e p olitician s as "fascists" an d"N azis" in the late 196 0s, their reproach w as b ased on rather tenu ous links a nd a super fi ci alknow ledge of the inner w orkings of the N azi state; at the sam e tim e, they w ere clearlyclaim in g ex clu sio n fro m th e in flu en ce o f th e sam e trad itio ns.

N e un K ru tsche M odelle (F ran kfu rt: S uh rk am p, 1 96 3), 1 25 -4 6 [E ng lish : "W h at D oesC om ing to T erm s w ith the Past M ean?," in: G eoffrey H artm ann (ed.), B itbu rg in M oral andPo li ti ca l Pe rsp e ct iv e (B lo om in gto n: In dia na Un iv ., 1 98 6), 1 14 -2 9] .62 For a detailed discussion of this, see: Alvin Rosenfeld, "Popularization and Memory: the Case of Anne Frank,"in : Peter Hayes (ed.), L essons and L egacies: The M eaning ojthe H o locau st in a C hanging W orld (Evanston, 11.:Northwestern, 1991),243-78.


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It was not until the 1970s, with the entrance of an even younger generation onto thecontested terrain of public memory, that this abstract conception of the past was reconnected toits experiential roots. Beginning in this decade and continuing during the next, the unearthingof the suppressed Alltagsgeschichte, the history of everyday life, of the grandparents'generation began.63 The Nazi past was slowly personalized and localized; historical knowledgewas anchored in the realm of day-to-day life. This development marks the beginning of theintegration of the vicariously experienced Third Reich into the personal identities of a notinsubstantial minority of younger West Germans. Anniversaries of important dates on theNational-Socialist road to carnage drew large crowds, even before the film "Holocaust" openedthe floodgates in 1979. The broadcast of that film was as much an effect as it was a cause.

Salient examples of nationally celebrated commemorative events in the 1980s were the50th anniversary of the Nazi accession to power in 1983, the 40th anniversary of the end of thewar in May 1985, and the 50th anniversary of the anti-Jewish campaign of 9 November 1938in 1988. The latter two events illustrate the intergenerational bifurcation of public memory: in1985 Bergen-Belsen and Bitburg represented respectively the "dirty" and sanitized images ofthe Nazi past; three years later the novel but in the public domain almost exclusive use of theterm Reichspogromnacht -the night of the pogrom against the Jews+, instead of Kristallnacht--the night of broken glass--, testified to the new concreteness of history, while the insensitivityand use of well-worn stereotypes by parliamentary president Philipp Jenninger in his nationallytelevised commemorative speech led to his removal from office.

V. Bifurcated Memory and Moral Identity in the 1990sThe Historians' Debate and the resurgence of the extreme right-wing in the late 1980s

show, however, that the assimilation of the ..dirty" side of the past into personal identity thatbegan in the late 1950s has not been able to attain a hegemonic position in the construction ofpubl ic memory. Although the bulk of the pubIcations in the Historians' Debate came out onthe side that recognized and accepted the ineradicable stain of the Nazi past, the efforts of therevisionist historians to sanitize German history were not insubstantial.s+ In conclusion, Iwould like to outline the consequences of each of the two competing conceptions of the past for63 The great interest in the school historical competitions for the "prize of the national president" in the late 19705are indicative of this. Cf. Dieter Galinski and Wolf Schmidt (eds.), Jugendliche erforschen die Nachkriegszeit:Materialien zum Schulerwenbewerb Deutsche Geschichte 1984185 (Hamburg: Korber, 1984).64 I am referring here not only to the 'revisionists' who took part actively in the debate, but also to the works ofhistorians such as Uwe Backes, Eckhard Jesse, Michael Wolffsohn and Rainer Zitelmann. A number of theseright-leaning publications are cited in: Peter Dudek, "'Vergangenheitsbewalt igung:' Zur Problematik einesumstrittenen Begriffs," in: Aus Poluik und Zeageschichte, 3 Jan. 1992,44-53, esp. notes 18-2l.There is a vast literature on the Historians' Debate, little of which transcends the narrow confines ofhistoriography. For a solid contextual discussion including broader philosophical issues see: Charles Maier, The

Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge: Harvard, 1988);pp. 39-54 and 167 -72 are especially pertinent to the present discussion.


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the moral nature of present political culture.In the summer of 1987 a group of prominent historians, sociologists and philosophers

in West Germany met to discuss the consequences that the destruction of moral consciousnessunder National-Socialism has had for the philosophy of ethics in West Germany.65 The poli-tical leanings of the participants ran the gamut from the outer reaches of the mainstream left(e.g. Detlev Peukert, Dan Diner) to the stolidly conservative right (e.g. Heinrich Lubbe,Richard Rorty), In his presentation, Karl-Otto Apel, a senior professor and colleague of JurgenHabermas at the left-leaning University of Frankfurt, asked if the Germans 'could have learnedanything special from the national catastrophe of the Hitler-years.' In answer to his ownquestion Apel argued that the National-Socialist experience was helping to propel Germanythrough the 'world-historical transformation to post-conventional morality. '66

Heinrich Liibbe, a professor who had served at the upper levels of state governmentt St aa tss ek re ta r b eim M in is te rp r as id em e n vo n N o rd rb ein -w es tfa ie ni, avoided such heights oftheoretical argument in the application of his theory of "common sense" (he used the Englishterm) to the role the National-Socialist experience has played in West German public con-sciousness.s? Lubbe argued that most (West) Germans reacted in a 'natural' way to the reve-lations about the concentration camps at the end of the war (i.e. they were horrified), and thattheir relationship with the past had only been distorted at some unspecified later date by left-wing critics who claimed that they were repressing the evils of National-Socialism. As evi-dence for this assertion Lubbe offered a novel interpretation of the outpouring of emotionfollowing the broadcast of the film "Holocaust" in Germany in 1979. It was not the painfullyshocked recognition and acceptance of one's own past, he argued, but rather the restoration ofthe traditional integrity of "common sense" as a moral authority. For instance, he claimed, thepositive portrayal of Jewish partisan resistance demonstrated that bravery was indeed a virtueand thus rehabilitated the bravery of German soldiers which had been discredited because ithad been abused by Nazi war-mongers. ThlIS he, too, conceived of the decades since WorldWar II as a process of moral learning, but one which had been hindered, not sparked, by the65 The papers were printed in: Forum filr Philosophie Bad Hornburg (ed.), Zerstorung des moralischenSelhstbewuj3tseins: Chance oder Gefiihrdung? Praktische Philosophie in Deutschland nach dem Na-t ionalsozialismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988).66 Karl-Otto Ape!, "Zuriick zur Norrnalitat? Oder k5nnten ~ aus der nationalen Katastrophe etwas Besonderesgelemt haben? Das Problem des (welt-)geschichtlichen Ubergangs zur postkonventionellen Moral in spezifischdeutscher Sicht," in: Zerstorung des m oralischen Selhstbewuj3tseins, 91-142. Apel's position is similar to the onetaken by Haberrnas in his opening article in the historians' debate. Cf. Jiirgen Haberrnas, "Eine ArtSchadensabwicklung," in: Die Zeit, 11 July 1986; translated in: idem, The New Conservatism: Cullural Criticismand the Historians' Debate (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 199x).67 Heinrich Liibbe, "Verdrangung? Uber eine Kategorie zur Kritik des deutschen Vergangenheitsverhii ltnisses," in:Zerstorung de; moralischen Selhstbewuj3tseir.s, 217-28. See also Liibbe's contribution to a mammoth state-sponsored gathering of historians on the 50th anniversary of Hitler's take-over in 1983, in: Martin Broszat et al

(eds.), Deutschlands Weg in die Diktatur: lntemationale Konferenz zur natianalsozialistischen Machtubernahmeim Reichstagsgebaude zu Berlin. Referate und Diskussionen (Berlin: Siedler, 1983),329-45, with discussion pp.351-77.


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creation of new collective and public memories of the worst aspects of experience underNational-Socialism.

These two interpretations represent the most sanguinely progressive and the mostapologetically conservative positions vis-a-vis "coming to terms" with the National-Socialistpast in West Germany: on the one hand, with the introduction of the 'Holocaust' into collectiveidentity, the ultimate moral lesson is being learned, on the other, through the rehabilitation ofpositive aspects of the Third Reich, present public ethics are seen as 'at last' returning to the'healthy' state of naive self-assurance they have always, at least intuitively, had. Thus thecentral duality in the West German collective memory of the Nazi past i_;the basis for di-vergent conceptions of Germany's future: Whereas Uibbe's sanitized image of responsiblepopular behavior during the Third Reich legitimates present-day Germany's unhindered rise toworld power status, Apel's notion posits that the historical experience of Nazism should be anethical touchstone constraining political and economic expansionism.


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The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies

The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies is an interdisciplinaryprogram organized within the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences anddesigned to promote the study of Europe. The Center's governing committeesrepresent the major social science departments at Harvard and theMassachusetts Institute ofTechnology.Since its establishment in 1969, the Center has tried to orient students towardsquestions that have been neglected both about past developments ineighteenth- and nineteenth-century European societies and about the present.The Center's approach is comparative and interdisciplinary, with a strongemphasis on the historical and cultural sources which shape a country's politicaland economic policies and social structures. Major interests of Center membersinclude elements common to industrial societies: the role of the state in thepolitical economy of each country, political behavior, social movements, partiesand elections, trade unions, intellectuals, labor markets and the crisis ofindustrialization, science policy, and the interconnections between a country'sculture and politics.

For a complete list of Center publications (Working Paper Series, Program onCentral and Eastern Europe Working Paper Series, and F ren ch P olit ic s an dSOciety, a quarterly journal) please contact the Publications Department, 27Kirkland St, Cambridge MA 02138. Additional copies can be purchased for $4.A monthly calendar of events at the Center is also available at no cost.


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The Mediterranean Model and the End of Authoritarian Regimes (PCEE 45) Vesna Pusic

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Transcript of The Mediterranean Model and the End of Authoritarian Regimes (PCEE 45) Vesna Pusic