What a divided world can learn from Germany’s culture of remembrance.
For those of us following the news these days, talking about topics like group identity and history often feels like tip-toeing around a minefield. With statues being toppled by some and praised as sacred shrines by others, we are mired in an openly hostile confrontation over history’s role in shaping our identities today. Many of us feel passionately about these issues and the debate surrounding them is unavoidable and indispensable. We therefore need to find ways of talking about who we are without tearing our communities apart. Although it may be hard to believe today, it’s possible to have healthy conversations on identity and history. Successful public debate on these questions benefits all of us individually and society as a whole by grounding us and providing us with a secure framework for the future. For anyone grappling with the role of group identity in making the world a better place, Germany understandably was very much the last place to consider when looking for best practices. People a few decades ago would have understandably thought it a bad joke had you suggested learning from the German experience. Against the odds however, the German “Erinnerungskultur” (culture of remembrance) that is at the core of modern German identity, might just offer us a way forward at a time when society too often seems stuck between glorifying and forgetting the past. German President Richard von Weizsäcker in 1985 delivered a seminal speech that charts a path for not just Germans, but for people all over the world to follow. A recipe for building mature group identities, it highlights the impact of the way we remember our past on how we confront the present.
Remembering is at the core of von Weizsäcker’s message. His starting point is the question of how history, and especially WW2, impacts German identity today. How should people deal with their nation’s darkest chapters? Do events most people alive today never even participated in have any bearing on the present at all? One instinctively recoils at the idea of burdening living people with the deeds of generations past. Drawing artificial lines between the past and the present however distorts the many ways in which history is part of and shapes the present. The identities of people and nations are inextricably linked to their past. History isn’t just a record of individual lives. Groups can survive war and genocide even as countless individual lives are lost. History leaves its mark on the identities of groups just as memories of events shape individual personalities. Whether they know it or not, the living are therefore already burdened with and shaped by the deeds of generations past. The question is how this load, this heritage should be dealt with, not whether it exists. Should history be made to fit an idealised self-image? Should history be washed clean? Should we just forget about it entirely? To von Weizsäcker, the answer is that our highest duty is to remember. To remember honestly and without distortion so as to truly make the past part of oneself. Germany’s success in dealing with its past, and possibly even its success as a democratic country is founded on a culture that values this kind of honest remembrance over the cosy feel-good variety that abounds in many other parts of the world.
Recalling the past in this way is a radical thing to do, especially on the level of an entire people, but it’s absolutely a necessary first step. Abstract entities like for example nations can only demand sacrifice and loyalty on behalf of people if they can justify their claims thereto. Keeping the memory of shared history alive is a powerful way to create bonds between otherwise unrelated individuals. The most basic justification commonly used is a mythologised history beginning with a foundational myth. Whether it be Romulus and Remus growing up among wolves, a holy war of independence against tyrannical overlords or successfully overcome natural disasters, such stories are meant to strengthen the sense of common identity through the recollection of shared experiences. By placing the present into a larger context, such stories cast today’s generations as heirs to a grand tradition. The events narrated remain part of the present and play an important function in framing the way a group perceives itself and the world around it. When, for example, the Greeks in 2014 had a referendum on whether to accept the latest bail-out deal, those campaigning against it could tap in to the powerful tradition of Greece saying “OXI” (OH-chee, “no”) to those trying to interfere with its sovereignty. In the mind of every Greek, the term OXI is directly connected to Prime Minister Metaxa’s response to Mussolini’s request to allow in Italian troops. This brave and laconic response and the war that followed is to this day celebrated on OXI-day. It’s evident that by keeping events, whether recent or ancient, in people’s minds, such stories have a profound formative influence on the present. The more difficult questions to be answered are how they do so. Should our national stories portray ourselves in a purely positive light? What are the implications of believing that you’re the descendant of a line of perfect heroes? Maybe having a national story based on an idealised past motivates people to live up to their ancestors’ standard when faced with adversity in their own times. In practice, however, it seems that during a crisis all sides claim to follow in those glorious footsteps and frequently accuse the other side of betraying their noble heritage. The main effect of a national story like that instead is an immature worldview.
Relying as it does on a black and white account of history, it makes nuanced critique of the past not just impossible, but positively treasonous. While these myths can make for blockbuster entertainment, they should not be mistaken for sources of real-life guidance. It is a powerful sign of how convincing this Rambo-style morality of good guys vs bad guys is, that people who have no difficulty admitting that no one is without fault on the personal level, nevertheless buy into these childish stories about their own groups’ idealised past. The reason why this pattern is not just curious but actually dangerous, is that it colours people’s perception of the present. Individuals are most vulnerable to totalitarian ideologies and most likely to sleepwalk down the slippery slope to disaster when they are convinced they are incapable of doing so. Is it too much of a stretch to argue that on a community level, too, acknowledgement of one’s potential for evil is the necessary precondition for truly doing good? How is a community that is wilfully blind to the darker chapters of its past supposed to recognise and avoid the tell-tale signs of danger in the future? Isn’t any such community much more vulnerable to being manipulated into senseless conflict by demagogues skilfully exploiting its lack of self-awareness? We need to think carefully about the power of communal stories and find a way to make them work in favour of peace and prosperity. Instead of being infernal machines on standby they should be firewalls protecting us from our worse instincts. Just like with individuals, remembering important events with others is a crucial part of any functioning community. Just like with individuals, remembering honestly is a sign of maturity without which communities cannot live alongside each other.
The first thing you notice when thinking of the past in this honest way is the variety of individual experiences. For people in 1945 this meant that some had lost their homes to strategic bombing raids, others to invading armies. Some had been taken to Siberia as prisoners of war while every family was still grieving for its losses. At the end of that global conflagration, the range of experiences is hard to grasp. While people were celebrating in the streets of Paris and London, the war was still raging in the Pacific, where the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still went about their daily lives. Remembering these vastly different experiences together, sharing and listening, walking a mile in other people’s shoes and suspending judgement for the moment forces us to see the sheer humanness of the past. It forces each and every one of us to recognise the sins committed by one’s ancestors, and to confront the fact of their guilt and innocence. History comes alive the moment we experience it through the stories of survivors. Art, whatever form it takes can blur the line between past and present, turning abstract suffering into something personal and immediate. No one can watch a movie like “The Pianist” and remain untouched by the end of it. Art therefore has a special role to play in this process of remembrance.
Now remembering history in a way that genuinely makes people connect to each other and to their past cannot remain stuck in silent meditation. It translates into real world action. You cannot expose yourself to the darkest chapters of human experience and not change your attitude towards the world. So, what’s the next step? What follows from the guilt of one’s ancestors? What follows from their innocence or their heroism? Is it collective self-castigation and self-immolation by the descendants of the guilty and complacent rituals of self-congratulation on behalf of the victors? Should the descendants of victims indulge in annual lamentations of their fate and demand that their one-time enemies do eternal penance? All this is, of course, insane. The main point of remembering in the first place was to recognize that individuals everywhere experienced loss and injustice. Accepting that individuals could in some way be guilty and yet be victims nonetheless, does not diminish the guilt of e.g. the Nazi regime for starting the war, but it does invite us to be charitable towards individuals. The broad spectrum of individual guilt, ranging from the wilful blindness of large parts of the population to the active orchestration of crimes against humanity by the Nazi élite similarly demands a nuanced approach. Terms like “collective guilt” lose all justification when a people is not analysed as a cold, monolithic machine, but as the living organism of vastly different individuals it is in reality. There was plenty of guilt of all kinds to go around in 1945, first and foremost amongst my countrymen, but, like innocence, it was at all times individual. By rejecting a black and white picture of history, this approach makes possible a group identity based on the acknowledgement of the full range of human potential. The most cherished chapters of our national stories are as important as ever, but they are not, and never were sufficient. People everywhere would benefit from developing their own cultures of remembrance centred around listening and healing rather than blaming and dividing. Ultimately, it is only by following this path that we can turn the load of the past into a heritage to be proud of.
Our groups become defined not just by their finest hours, but also by their darkest. As our communities take this crucial step, we become more understanding and thoughtful on a group level. It’s probably not a step that can ever be made with any finality, because the struggle over how to interpret the past is renewed with each passing generation, but the closer our communities come to forming mature narratives, the more likely it will be that these narratives empower the better angels of our nature. History becomes only more impressive when looked at this way, since the people shaping it are seen as ordinary humans rather than demigods. We don’t need glorification of our past, and we don’t need self-castigation centred around collective guilt. What we need today more than ever is a healthy, mature conversation about who we are and where we came from.
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