Memory culture: from denial to collective responsibility

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How are the memory cultures different in Germany and the United States, and what can they learn from one other? Dr. Andreas Etges, research associate at the Amerika-Institut at LMU, has organized a conference tour to address these questions. The project, titled “Building a Critical Memory: Transitioning from Denial to Collective Responsibility in Germany and the United States,” brings together a total of 50 German and American delegates from academia, museums, memorials, foundations, NGOs, educational institutions, and the media.

For a week in Germany at the end of March and another week in the United States in the fall, they will be taking part in tours, visits, and discussions and collaboratively develop a comparative perspective on the cultures of remembrance in Germany and the United States.

Your project invites people to compare German and American memory cultres. Why?

Andreas Etges: Just like Germany, the United States has tried to come to terms with a difficult past – a legacy of slavery and segregation, inequality, discrimination, and violence. In the past few decades, new museums and memorial sites have been opened that offer a much more critical and inclusive examination of history than before, also in the American South. In Germany and the United States alike, there have been a lot of controversies about how history should be taught, told, and reappraised – and what has been remembered, forgotten, or distorted. What was recorded in stone, in writing, or in pictures? Which narrative was dominant? How did this change over time? And what effect does it have now? We collaboratively explore these questions in the Building a Critical Memory project.

The Building a Critical Memory project facilitates discourse and exchange between historians and other professionals involved in preserving historical memory and cultural heritage in Germany and the United States. What gave you the idea for this particular format? And what expectations do you have for it?

The idea emerged from discussions with Margaret Huang, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama. The SPLC rose to prominence through its work against the Ku Klux Klan, its fight against hate groups and racism, and its campaigns for civil rights. We quickly realized that we didn’t want to organize a conventional academic conference, but an exchange that enables people who work in the sphere of historical remembrance to get to know the other country in more detail – the conditions, adversities, and successful projects – and to inspire each other and potentially establish long-term partnerships.

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What does the American delegation hope to learn from Germany and in Germany?

Germany is often held up as a model for dealing with the past. A main theory behind this view is that a society cannot make certain kinds of progress until it is ready to talk openly about, and critically reflect on, the dark sides of its history. It requires the acceptance of guilt, even if we’re talking about the crimes of earlier generations.

Clearly, we’ve had our blind spots, resistance, and difficulties too. After all, the creation of a memorial in Dachau on the site of the former concentration camp was not an initiative of the German state, but of survivors who campaigned for its establishment. We’ve arranged for guided tours in Munich, Nuremberg, and Berlin, which will specifically focus on how German cities deal with the material legacy of the Nazi period. In the course of the project, we want to collaboratively illuminate and discuss failings and successful practices, how to get from denial to collective responsibility, and what the building and maintenance of critical memory can look like.

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Are there examples of projects where such reciprocal learning has been achieved?

One of the most impressive memorial sites in the United States is the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. Suspended from the ceiling are more than 800 steel columns engraved with names, places, and dates, remembering the over 4,400 Black people killed in lynchings – one column for each county in which such lynchings took place. Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, which was the driving force behind the construction of the memorial, explicitly cites the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as the inspiration for the monuments. He was also inspired by the decentralized concept of “stumbling stones” inserted in pavements throughout Europe, which memorialize the fate of people who were deported, murdered, or expelled by the Nazis.

Part of the idea behind our exchange is to further stimulate this kind of mutual inspiration and discover opportunities for collaborations and support. Some of our partners in the critical memory project have never cooperated in this form before.

There’s currently a wave of hostility against attempts to memorialize historical guilt in our societies.

We’re undoubtedly seeing a backlash against the building of critical memory and the transition from denial to collective responsibility, and much more so in the United States than here. With the new administration over there, some institutions that have embraced a culture of remembrance have come under fire. In Texas and Florida, whole history lessons are being cut out of textbooks and curricula are being revised. The question as to what we want to remember as a society is gaining new relevance. Both Germany and the United States are struggling with increases in racism and antisemitism. This makes the exchange in our project all the more valuable for both sides.

The project Building a Critical Memory:

“Building a Critical Memory: Transitioning from Denial to Collective Responsibility in Germany and the United States” – the project will launch on 28 March with a hybrid panel discussion at the Amerikahaus in Munich. Panelists will include prominent figures such as Margaret Huang, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and Jim Grossman, Executive Director of the American Historical Association.

The main organizers come from these institutions: LMU Munich, the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF), the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, the Carter Center at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Additional partners which provide financial or material support are the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, the Bavarian America Academy / Amerikahaus in Munich, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, the Topography of Terror Documentation Centre in Berlin, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, and the Tempelhof Project.

Main sponsors: the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ Foundation) in Berlin and the Halle Foundation in Atlanta.