Vergangenheitsbewältigung

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culture
.

The German

Holocaust, and related events of the early and mid-20th century, including World War II. In the sense of a quest for a new German identity, the word can refer to the psychological process of denazification
.

After the

Federal Republic of Germany) and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Vergangenheitsbewältigung also referred to coming to terms with East German Communism.[4]

Historical development

Vergangenheitsbewältigung describes the attempt to analyze, digest and learn to live with the past, in particular the Holocaust. The focus on learning is much in the spirit of philosopher George Santayana's oft-quoted observation that "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it". It is a technical term also used in English that was coined after 1945 in West Germany, relating specifically to the atrocities committed in Nazi Germany, and to both historical and contemporary concerns about the extensive degree to which Nazism compromised and co-opted many German cultural, religious, and political institutions. The term therefore deals at once with the concrete responsibility of the German state (West Germany assumed the legal obligations of the Reich) and of individual Germans for what took place "under Hitler", and with questions about the roots of legitimacy in a society whose development of the Enlightenment collapsed in the face of Nazi ideology.

After denazification

Historically, Vergangenheitsbewältigung often is seen as the logical "next step" after a

Christian Democratic Union government of Konrad Adenauer
, and began in the late 1950s and early 1960s, roughly the period in which the work of the Wiederaufbau (reconstruction) became less absorbing and urgent. Having replaced the institutions and power structures of Nazism, the aim of liberal Germans was to deal with the guilt of recent history. Vergangenheitsbewältigung is marked by learning from the past in ways such as honestly admitting that such a past did indeed exist, attempting to remedy as far as possible the wrongs committed, and attempting to move on from that past.

Religion and education

The German churches, of which only a minority played a significant role in the

leitmotiv
of Christian youth.

Vergangenheitsbewältigung has been expressed by the society through its schools, where in most

concentration camps
. Jewish Holocaust survivors are often invited to schools as guest speakers, though the passage of time limits these opportunities as their generation has aged.

Philosophy

In philosophy,

catch phrase "working through the past" as misleading. He argued that it masked a denial, rather than signifying the kind of critical self-reflection that Freudian theory called for in order to "come to terms" with the past.[5]

Adorno's lecture is often seen as consisting in part of a variably implicit and explicit critique of the work of Martin Heidegger, whose formal ties to the Nazi Party are well known. Heidegger had attempted to provide a historical conception of Germania as a philosophical notion of German origin and destiny (later he would speak of "the West"). Alexander García Düttmann's Das Gedächtnis des Denkens. Versuch über Heidegger und Adorno (The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno, translated by Nicholas Walker) attempts to treat the philosophical value of these seemingly opposed and certainly incompatible terms "Auschwitz" and "Germania" in the philosophy of both men.

Culture

In the cultural sphere, the term Vergangenheitsbewältigung is associated with a movement in

Deutschstunde and Grass's Danziger Trilogie
both deal with childhoods under Nazism.

The erection of public monuments to Holocaust victims has been a tangible commemoration of Germany's Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and Flossenbürg
, are open to visitors as memorials and museums. Most towns have plaques on walls marking the spots where particular atrocities took place.

When the seat of government was moved from

Berlin-Mitte
; it was opened on 10 May 2005. The informal name of this memorial, the Holocaust-Mahnmal, is significant. It does not translate easily: "Holocaust Cenotaph" would be one sense, but the noun Mahnmal, which is distinct from the term Denkmal (typically used to translate "memorial") carries the sense of "admonition", "urging", "appeal", or "warning", rather than "remembrance" as such. The work is formally known as Das Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas (English translation, "The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe"). Some controversy attaches to it precisely because of this formal name and its exclusive emphasis on Jewish victims. As Eisenman acknowledged at the opening ceremony, "It is clear that we won't have solved all the problems – architecture is not a panacea for evil – nor will we have satisfied all those present today, but this cannot have been our intention."

Actions of other European countries

In Austria, ongoing arguments about the nature and significance of the Anschluss, and unresolved disputes about legal expressions of obligation and liability, have led to very different concerns, and to a far less institutionalized response by the government. Since the late 20th century, observers and analysts have expressed concerns about the ascent of "Haiderism".[a]

class struggle were often overlaid onto generally received histories, which tended to exclude both acts of collaboration and antisemitism
in these nations.

The advance of the

Volksdeutsche
) as a reaction to Nazi Germany's attempt to claim the eastern lands on behalf of ethnic Germans.

Analogous processes elsewhere

Main article:
Truth and reconciliation commission

In some of its aspects, Vergangenheitsbewältigung can be compared to the attempts of other democratic countries to raise consciousness and come to terms with earlier periods of governmental and

Umkhonto we Sizwe
.

Comparisons have been made with the Soviet process of glasnost and perestroika, though this was less focused on the past than achieving a level of open criticism necessary for progressive reform to take place.

It was widely assumed during this time that the

mass graves containing the victims of the Red Terror, Stalinism, and the Gulag
; the clock began ticking on the continued survival of the Communist system.

Since the

Stalinist
past, as well as its countless human rights abuses, is sometimes referred to as a post-communist equivalent to Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

The well-documented history of Japanese war crimes, both before and during World War II is something the then-future Emperor Naruhito expressed his concerns about in February 2015, regarding how accurately such events are remembered in 21st century Japan.[6]

See also

Notes

  1. Austrian People's Party
    .

References

  1. compound noun of die Vergangenheit "the past" and Bewältigung
    "the overcoming of problems", often used in psychological contexts for coming to terms with repressed and incriminating mental injuries and guilt.
  2. ^ Collins German-English Dictionary: Vergangenheitsbewältigung
  3. ^ "Duden | Vergangenheitsbewältigung | Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition" (in German). Duden.de. Retrieved 2017-04-28. Auseinandersetzung einer Nation mit einem problematischen Abschnitt ihrer jüngeren Geschichte, in Deutschland besonders mit dem Nationalsozialismus
  4. ^ Berdahl, Daphne (1999). Where the World Ended: Reunification and Identity in the German Borderland. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 215.
  5. ^ a b Boos, Sonja (2014). Introduction to Theodor W. Adorno's "Was bedeutet: Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit" (The Meaning of Working through the Past). A media supplement to: Boos, Speaking the Unspeakable in Postwar Germany: Toward a Public Discourse on the Holocaust. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. The website (under the banner of the "Signale" book series on modern German literature and culture) includes the audio recording of Adorno's lecture, along with links to the German text and an English translation.
  6. ^ Itasaka, Kiko (February 24, 2015). "World War II Should Not Be Forgotten, Japan's Prince Naruhito Says". nbcnews.com. NBC News. Retrieved April 9, 2015. Japan's Crown Prince has spoken about the need to "correctly" remember World War II in an extremely rare public statement that comes amid a chorus of calls to play down the country's war crimes..."It is important to look back on the past humbly and correctly," Crown Prince Naruhito said during a press conference marking his 55th birthday.

Sources

  • Frei, Norbert; Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1996. [In English as Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration. New York: Columbia University Press]
  • Geller, Jay Howard; Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  • Herf, Jeffrey; Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
  • Maier, Charles S.; The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
  • Maislinger, Andreas; Coming to Terms with the Past: An International Comparison. In Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Identity. Cross National and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Russel F. Farnen. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2004.
  • Moeller, Robert G.; War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
  • Moeller, Robert G. (ed.); West Germany Under Construction: Politics, Society and Culture in the Adenauer Era. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
  • Pross, Christian; Paying for the Past: The Struggle over Reparations for Surviving Victims of the Nazi Terror. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
  • Transitional Justice and Dealing with the Past", in: Berghof Glossary on Conflict Transformation. 20 notions for theory and practice. Berlin: Berghof Foundation, 2012.
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