Remembering? On the utilization of anniversaries
By: Peter Lang
Tags: Remembering, Oxford, Politics, Germany

The past is ever present and exists in many forms. It is utilized to varying ends, from honouring a commitment to remembering at one end of the spectrum, as we see on Holocaust Memorial Day, through to a cynical appropriation of the past at the other end. We see the latter both here in the UK and in Germany in particular. As my students are currently learning, the past is also a battleground, one which we can read to understand society, the desires, interests and influences on it at any point in time, and how these battles correlate with notions of identity and the values we wish to project about ourselves.

Each year we mark a number of significant anniversaries, and we do so in an increasing number of ways, from traditional ceremonies to digital engagement via social media. Let’s look to Germany. 2019 has already witnessed the 100th anniversary of the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the 76th anniversary of the Factory Action and Rosenstrasse protest, and the centenary of the birth of the Weimar Republic. Whilst this ritualized remembering highlights the priorities in a nation’s remembering, looking at what is included and excluded, anniversaries and the ceremonies that mark them can also shed light on on-going memory battles and on broader political tendencies and trends.

In my research, I point to the dominant pattern of critical remembering that allowed for a remembrance of past heroism without either trivialising the protest or detracting from culpability for the Holocaust. Yet, I also posit that this memory culture is on the cusp of change. This paradigm shift is played out by politicians through their speeches and campaigns, as well as by academics and other individuals engaging via social media. Germany’s AfD party (Alternative for Germany) attempted to appropriate memories of the Claus von Stauffenberg and the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, attempting to claim legitimacy via the assertion that he’d have been one of them and that they were fulfilling his legacy. They were met with criticism, including rebuttals from the Stauffenberg family. At the same time, in response to the official 20 July anniversary state commemorations, Norwegian academic Johan Galtung criticised them, suggesting via social media, that reflecting on the resistance of the White Rose or on the Rosenstrasse protest would be better instead of commemorating Stauffenberg. The implicit suggestion that one act of resistance is more valid or worthier of recognition is reminiscent of debates in the early 1990s, a spilling over of the Cold War dynamics of remembering, but one that ultimately led to a consensus to recognize the breadth and diversity of opposition to Nazism. So, what can this tell us? Have we come full circle?

The answer to this question is no. Whilst there are similarities, this emerging pattern differs and points to a future foreboding, to how the past is currently being appropriated across the political spectrum to differing ends. Moreover, it suggests that those who attempt to downplay the right-wing populists, may in fact not only be woefully underprepared but also self-defeating. We can see this in the speech delivered by Petra Pau, politician for Germany’s Die Linke party, marking the 75th anniversary of the Rosenstrasse protest in February 2018.

In her speech, Pau used the remembrance of the protest to frame her rallying call to stand up to intolerance. She linked the 1943 protest to her call for opposition to the AfD and their utilisation of the past, as well as speaking out against intolerance more generally, and passivity in the face of it. In so doing Pau also drew on patterns of remembering the Nazi past, whilst simultaneously evoking memories of late Weimer Germany in a plea not to repeat now, the mistakes of those years. Yet, whilst she called for a critical remembering of the past in order to combat the populist right’s rhetoric on the Nazi past in particular, Pau did the very thing she warned against — offering a reading of the events that had taken place in Rosenstrasse 75 years earlier that may have suited her wider political agenda, but was also simplistic and fell short of acknowledging the very critical remembrance of the protest that has emerged through research. Whilst criticising the AfD then, she mirrored their approach.

So, what does this suggest? It suggests we should turn our focus to forthcoming anniversaries as a means of measuring not only concerns about populism in the present but also how well their opponents are able to tackle the challenges they pose and the messages they promote, particularly via the medium of social media.