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One of the most important developments in the incipient Berlin Republic's memory regime has been the return of the memory of German suffering from the end and aftermath of World War II. Elite discourses about the bombing of German cities, the mass rape of German women by members of the Red Army, and, above all, the expulsion of Germans from then-Eastern Germany and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe have gained massive visibility in the last decade. Although many voices have lauded these developments as liberating, many others within Germany and especially in Poland—from where the vast majority of Germans were expelled—have reacted with fear. Yet, do these elite voices resonate with mass publics? Have these arguments had demonstrable effects on public opinion? This paper delves into these questions by looking at survey results from both countries. It finds that there has been a disjuncture between the criticisms of elites and average citizens, but that the barrage of elite criticisms leveled at German expellees and their initiatives now may be affecting mass attitudes in all cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the paper he presented at a conference in La Plata, Argentina in September 2004, on the topic of "The State and the Politics of Memory: Archives, Museums, and Education." His paper is about discourses and sites of public memory and history in Berlin, Germany. The theoretical dimension of the paper he gave argued for the persistent dialectic of memory and history, specifically for the sharpening of discourses of memory according to the rules of history. He was arguing against the appropriation of history by memory in the tradition of Pierre Nora, and for the infusion of memory qua raw material by historical reasoning in what he takes to be the central Freudian argument.

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Germany is one of the very few countries in the world with deserter monuments. Sparked by the Filbinger affair of 1978 and the protests of the German peace movement against NATO rearmament in the 1980s, a deserter monument movement emerged in numerous German cities, and by 2010 some 25 deserter monuments had been established across the country. These monuments fall into two main categories: those which specifically commemorate German soldiers who deserted from the Wehrmacht in the Second World War and those which are dedicated to honouring desertion as a matter of principle. Both types of monument qualify as a form of counter-monument, seeking to provoke reflection about traditional soldierly values and to challenge existing war memorials. The deserter monument movement and the monuments which it has spawned have played a significant role in shifting public perceptions about deserters from the Wehrmacht – leading to legal rehabilitation of the deserters in May 2002 – and have also contributed to the broader public debate about the role of the Wehrmacht in Hitler’s ‘war of annihilation’. The monuments occupy an important place in the evolving ‘memory culture’ (Erinnerungskultur) of contemporary Germany, representing one example of continuing German attempts to rewrite the public narrative of German war experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the course of the 2006 Soccer World Cup, Germans started to celebrate a “new patriotism.” As the construction of national identity is inseparable in Germany from the Nazi past, this occurrence can be considered an indicator of an altered relationship to this past. This article examines these changes by focusing on a nationally recognized site of remembrance, the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, where five matches of the World Cup were played. The convergence of site and event evokes contradictions and ambiguities, such as the encounter of the opposed needs of sports and remembrance at the same location. It shows what problems arise at a site of national collective memory today, when the role of the national collective is challenged by developments like European integration, migration within and to Europe, and the on-going effects of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]