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ABSTRACT
This article asks what role National Socialism and the Holocaust play in Germany’s everyday discourse today. How does the population deal with this historical legacy, and how does it evaluate the hegemonic public commemoration of the National Socialist era, especially those parts of the population that do not want to remember it? Based on the concept of mnemonic hegemony and qualitative research, the article argues that National Socialism as a collective frame of reference is still constitutive for constructing national identity in very different ways. This finding is differentiated by a typology of ideal discourse communities within Germany’s population.
Acknowledgments
This research was conducted in the framework of the RePAST project ‘Revisiting the Past – Anticipating the Future’ (www.repast.eu) and received funding from the European Union under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant Agreement No. 769252. The author would like to thank Julia Traunspurger for her support in designing and conducting the study and the BA and MA students in media and communication studies at the universities of Munich and Berlin for their assistance in conducting the interviews and focus group discussions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The results of the representative opinion poll commissioned by the German weekly Die Zeit (January 28, 2020) can be accessed here: https://www.zeit.de/2020/19/zeit-umfrage-erinnerungskultur.pdf.
2 These and other quotations in the text were freely translated from the original German works. They have been marked as quotations.
3 Christian Staas’ article “Das Ende der Selbstgewissheit” (April 28, 2020) published in the German weekly Die Zeit is available here: https://www.zeit.de/2020/19/erinnerungskultur-nationalsozialismus-aufarbeitung-deutschland-rechtsextremismus-umfrage.
4 See, e.g. Langenbacher, “Still the Unmasterable Past?”
5 See, e.g. a survey commissioned by Deutsche Welle in January 2020 available here: https://www.dw.com/de/die-deutschen-wollen-keinen-schlussstrich/a-52094901; With the “MEMO Germany – Multidimensional Memory Monitor,” the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence Bielefeld (IKG) has been researching since 2018 what, how and for what citizens of Germany historically remember: Zick et al., “MEMO”; In 2013, the Bertelsmann Stiftung commissioned a representative survey in Germany and Israel including questions on German–Israeli history and the Holocaust: Hagemann and Nathanson, “Germany and Israel Today.”
6 Alexander Gauland’s full speech is available on the AfD’s website: https://www.afdbundestag.de/wortlaut-der-umstrittenen-passage-der-rede-von-alexander-gauland/. An English translation of the controversial passage can be found here: https://www.dw.com/en/afds-gauland-plays-down-nazi-era-as-a-bird-shit-in-german-history/a-44055213.
7 An English translation of Björn Höcke’s speech is available here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-afd-idUSKBN1521H3.
8 König, “Das Politische des Gedächtnisses,” 116.
9 In 2020, there were about six million people living in Germany who were at least five years old in 1945: https://rp-online.de/panorama/deutschland/weltkriegs-zeugen-sechs-millionen-noch-lebende-bundesbuerger_aid-50449437.
10 Jureit, “Geschichte als Identitätsressource,” 30.
11 Rothberg and Yildiz, “Memory Citizenship.”
12 The author of this article would like to thank Julia Traunspurger and the BA and MA students in media and communication studies at the universities of Berlin and Munich for their assistance in conducting the interviews and focus group discussions.
13 Foucault, “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity”; Foucault, “The Subject and Power.”
14 See Nooteboom, Rituelen.
15 Olick, “Das soziale Gedächtnis,” 109.
16 Foucault, “The Order of Discourse.”
17 Welzer, Moller and Tschuggnall, Opa war kein Nazi.
18 See Molden, “Resistant Pasts versus Mnemonic Hegemony.”
19 Fiedler, “Defying Memory?”
20 See Wang, Memory Politics, Identity, and Conflict.
21 See Jureit, “Geschichte als Identitätsressource.”
22 Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” 778.
23 Weir, “Who Are We?” 535.
24 Strozier, Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity, 57.
25 Foucault, “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity,” 145.
26 Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci.
27 Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” 777.
28 Ibid., 778.
29 Welzer, Moller and Tschuggnall, Opa war kein Nazi.
30 Bublitz et al., “Diskursanalyse – (k)eine Methode?” 11.
31 Foucault, Dispositive der Macht, 52.
32 Molden, “Resistant Pasts versus Mnemonic Hegemony,” 140.
33 Frevert, “Geschichtsvergessenheit und Geschichtsversessenheit revisited,” 6.
34 Koselleck, Sediments of Time.
35 Assmann, Das neue Unbehagen an der Erinnerungskultur, 9.
36 Ibid., 11.
37 Timothy Garton Ash in Assmann, Das neue Unbehagen an der Erinnerungskultur, 59.
38 Rohde, “Die Erinnerungskultur im Spannungsfeld von Anerkennung und Geschichtsrevisionismus,” 232.
39 Siebeck, “Dies- und jenseits des Erinnerungskonsenses,” 25.
40 Jureit and Schneider, Gefühlte Opfer, 11.
41 Herf, “Politics and Memory in West and East Germany”; Wolfrum, “Geschichte der Erinnerungskultur in der DDR und BRD.”
42 See, e.g. Olick and Levy, “Collective Memory and Cultural Constraint”; Dreisbach, “Transatlantic Broadcasts.”
43 See, e.g. Niven, “Remembering Nazi Anti-Semitism in the GDR”; Wolfgram, “The Holocaust through the Prism of East German Television.”
44 Augstein, “Deutschland,” 222; Cf. Miles, “Post-Communist Holocaust Commemoration in Poland and Germany.”
45 Levy and Natan Sznaider, “Memory Unbound.”
46 Augstein, “Deutschland,” 225.
47 Welzer, Moller, and Tschuggnall, Opa war kein Nazi; See Assmann, “Weltmeister im Erinnern?”
48 Zülsdorf-Kersting, Sechzig Jahre danach; Morgan, “Is It Possible to Understand the Holocaust?”
49 Silbermann and Stoffers, Auschwitz: Nie davon gehört? 22–23.
50 Salzborn, Kollektive Unschuld, 11–14.
51 See, e.g., Hammerstein, Gemeinsame Vergangenheit – getrennte Erinnerung?; Piwoni, “Latent but Not Less Significant”; Wegner, “Geschichten von ‘Nähe und Distanz.’”
52 Gerhards, Breuer, and Delius, Kollektive Erinnerungen der europäischen Bürger im Kontext von Transnationalisierungsprozessen, 56.
53 Molden, “Resistant Pasts versus Mnemonic Hegemony.”
54 Jäger and Jäger, Deutungskämpfe, 28.
55 Link, “Sprache, Diskurs, Interdiskurs und Literatur,” 118–19.
56 Waldschmidt et al., “Discourse in Everyday Life—Everyday Life in Discourse,” 320.
57 Link, “Sprache, Diskurs, Interdiskurs und Literatur.”
58 Waldschmidt et al., “Discourse in Everyday Life—Everyday Life in Discourse,” 320.
59 Assmann, “Memory, Individual and Collective.”
60 Waldschmidt et al., “Discourse in Everyday Life—Everyday Life in Discourse,” 327.
61 Jäger and Jäger, Deutungskämpfe, 28.
62 Assmann, Shadows of Trauma.
63 Foucault, The Will to Knowledge; See also Molden, “Resistant Pasts versus Mnemonic Hegemony,” 136.
64 See Hammerstein, Gemeinsame Vergangenheit – getrennte Erinnerung?; Piwoni, “Latent but Not Less Significant.”
65 Waldschmidt et al., “Discourse in Everyday Life—Everyday Life in Discourse,” 327.
66 Levy and Natan Sznaider, “Memory Unbound.”
67 Glaser and Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory, 61–62.
68 All names in this study were pseudonymized to guarantee the interviewees’ anonymity.
69 Brummett, Techniques of Close Reading.
70 Salzborn, Kollektive Unschuld, 14.
71 Rudolf, Focus group no. 30, 4 July 2019.
72 Helena, Focus group no. 5, 27 November 2018.
73 See note 2 above.
74 Elisa, Focus group no. 5, 27 November 2018.
75 Waldschmidt et al., “Discourse in Everyday Life—Everyday Life in Discourse,” 326.
76 See Brosius and Huck, “Third-Person Effects.”
77 Caroline, Focus group no. 10, 12 January 2019.
78 Bettina, Focus group no. 8, 3 January 2019.
79 See note 2 above.
80 Ben, Focus group no. 15, 3 January 2019.
81 Moritz, Focus group no. 30, 4 July 2019.
82 Michaela, Focus group no. 30, 4 July 2019.
83 Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
84 Sarasin, “Die Wirklichkeit der Fiktion: Zum Konzept der Imagined Communities,” 36.
85 Reckwitz, “Ernesto Laclau: Diskurse, Hegemonien, Antagonismen,” 306.
86 Meyen et al., Qualitative Forschung in der Kommunikationswissenschaft, 183.
87 Gerhards, Breuer, and Delius, Kollektive Erinnerungen der europäischen Bürger im Kontext von Transnationalisierungsprozessen, 56.
88 Jedlowski, “Memory and Sociology.”
89 See Fiedler, “Defying Memory?”
90 Christoph, Focus group no. 20, 23 January 2019.
91 Valentin, Focus group no. 10, 12 January 2019.
92 Mona, Focus group no. 6, 27 November 2018.
93 Ben, Focus group no. 15, 3 January 2019.
94 Jochen, Focus group no. 22, 27 January 2019.
95 Anja, Focus group no. 35, 4 December 2019.
96 Nathalie, Focus group no. 32, 13 July 2019.
97 Anna, Focus group no. 28, 1 July 2019.
98 Hans, Focus group no. 36, 19 December 2019.
99 Volker, Focus group no. 7, 27 December 2018.
100 Jessica, Focus group no. 32, 13 July 2019.
101 Konrad, Interview no. 68, 2 May 2020.
102 Waldschmidt et al., “Discourse in Everyday Life—Everyday Life in Discourse.”
103 Salzborn, Kollektive Unschuld.
104 Langenbacher, “Still the Unmasterable Past?”; Piwoni, “Latent but Not Less Significant.”
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Anke Fiedler
Anke Fiedler (Dr. phil.) is a communication historian at the Department of Media and Communication at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Since 2018, she has been a principal investigator in the EU-funded project RePAST – Revisiting the past, anticipating the future, which investigates how European societies deal with their troubled past today by analyzing discourses of conflict rooted in this past, with a view to the impact of these discourses on European integration. Her research revolves around the role of public and everyday communication in remembering the National Socialist and Communist past in Germany and Europe.