When I was seven years old, in 1960, my grandmother Angelica opened my eyes to the meaning of 8 May 1945, the day when Nazi Germany surrendered and World War II ended in Europe. We were spending our summer holidays in Normandy where the liberation of Europe from Nazism had started on D-Day, 6 June 1944. One evening, I listened to my parents and my grandmother talking about the past. I have forgotten the details of their conversation, but I can still hear my grandmother’s sigh of relief when she said “Thank God we lost that war!”
From a child’s perspective, it wasn’t self-evident that losing was a good thing. But of course, my grandmother was right to equate defeat with liberation. The more I have thought about the lesson she taught me 45 years ago, the clearer I have seen another, less obvious dimension in what she said: It is “we” who lost the war. Collectively, the Germans had not been the innocent victims of a small gang of criminal outsiders called “Nazis” – Nazism had been an inside ideology supported by millions of Germans, and every German was liable for its atrocities whether or not he or she had adhered to it individually.
In today’s Germany, an overwhelming majority subscribes to the proposition that 8 May 1945 was a day of liberation – not only for Europe, but also for Germany itself. Compared to public opinion in 1960, that’s certainly an enormous progress. But paradoxically, it may also contain an element of forgetfulness, because it tends to conceal the fact that liberation required a military defeat. To use my grandmother’s parlance, it is not “us” who were the liberators, but “them”.
The way people see the past tells us more about their present attitudes than about the past itself. This is what the term “politics of memory” is meant to indicate. And this is why it doesn’t matter whether the relevant events happened 60 years ago (as World War II), 90 years (as in the case of the Armenian genocide) or even 600 years (such as the battle of Kosovo in 1389). A violent conflict in the past may survive as a war of memories in the present, as can be observed in the current dispute between China and South Korea on one side, and Japan on the other. A war of memories, in turn, may sometimes lead to a violent conflict in the future.
Former perpetrators often try to de-legitimize their former victims’ moral superiority by claiming they were victims themselves. Therefore, the 60th anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden by Allied forces on 13 February 1945 has probably been a more crucial moment in terms of the German “politics of memory” than the 60th anniversary of 8 May 1945 is going to be.
Far-right groups infamously dubbed the attack by which at least 30,000 people were killed “Dresden’s Holocaust of bombs.” Fortunately, their propaganda campaign has been a failure. Although it is true that thousands of the civilians killed in Dresden and other German cities were innocent at an individual level, there can be no doubt it was morally imperative that Germany be defeated collectively.
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On the left side of the German political spectrum, the proposition that 8 May 1945 was a day of liberation remains unchallenged. However, it is sometimes repressed that the massive use of force had been necessary to achieve that result. Left-wing pacifism tends to overlook this simple fact. Its slogan “Never again war!” is only half the truth – the other half is “Never again appeasement!” 8 May 1945 was not “zero hour,” as a popular saying in Germany goes. It had an antecedent, that is, a lack of pre-emptive resistance at home and abroad to the threat that built up in Nazi Germany during the 1930’s.
There is yet another lesson to be learned. Yes, 8 May 1945 was a day of liberation to which the Soviet army contributed decisively. But for millions of Central and East Europeans, liberation was followed by Stalin’s oppressive regime.
The current war of memories between the Baltic republics and Russia, with regard to the international celebration in Moscow on 9 May this year, reminds Germany of a special historic responsibility. The German-Soviet non-aggression treaty, the so-called Hitler-Stalin pact, concluded in August 1939, had been supplemented by a secret appendix dividing the border states Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania into spheres of interest for the two parties. But excusing Nazi atrocities by pointing to Stalinist crimes is an intellectually and morally unacceptable stratagem. When Chancellor Schröder travels to Moscow for the Red Square celebrations, he should bear in mind Nazi Germany’s contribution to the Baltic tragedy.
On 8 May this year, public speakers will remind us how important it is not to forget. They will stress that if the lessons of history are not learned, history is bound to repeat itself. All this is perfectly true. But personally, I will also remember my grandmother’s sentence “Thank God we lost that war!” Thank God – and thanks to all those brave Allied soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the sake of Europe’s liberty.
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When I was seven years old, in 1960, my grandmother Angelica opened my eyes to the meaning of 8 May 1945, the day when Nazi Germany surrendered and World War II ended in Europe. We were spending our summer holidays in Normandy where the liberation of Europe from Nazism had started on D-Day, 6 June 1944. One evening, I listened to my parents and my grandmother talking about the past. I have forgotten the details of their conversation, but I can still hear my grandmother’s sigh of relief when she said “Thank God we lost that war!”
From a child’s perspective, it wasn’t self-evident that losing was a good thing. But of course, my grandmother was right to equate defeat with liberation. The more I have thought about the lesson she taught me 45 years ago, the clearer I have seen another, less obvious dimension in what she said: It is “we” who lost the war. Collectively, the Germans had not been the innocent victims of a small gang of criminal outsiders called “Nazis” – Nazism had been an inside ideology supported by millions of Germans, and every German was liable for its atrocities whether or not he or she had adhered to it individually.
In today’s Germany, an overwhelming majority subscribes to the proposition that 8 May 1945 was a day of liberation – not only for Europe, but also for Germany itself. Compared to public opinion in 1960, that’s certainly an enormous progress. But paradoxically, it may also contain an element of forgetfulness, because it tends to conceal the fact that liberation required a military defeat. To use my grandmother’s parlance, it is not “us” who were the liberators, but “them”.
The way people see the past tells us more about their present attitudes than about the past itself. This is what the term “politics of memory” is meant to indicate. And this is why it doesn’t matter whether the relevant events happened 60 years ago (as World War II), 90 years (as in the case of the Armenian genocide) or even 600 years (such as the battle of Kosovo in 1389). A violent conflict in the past may survive as a war of memories in the present, as can be observed in the current dispute between China and South Korea on one side, and Japan on the other. A war of memories, in turn, may sometimes lead to a violent conflict in the future.
Former perpetrators often try to de-legitimize their former victims’ moral superiority by claiming they were victims themselves. Therefore, the 60th anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden by Allied forces on 13 February 1945 has probably been a more crucial moment in terms of the German “politics of memory” than the 60th anniversary of 8 May 1945 is going to be.
Far-right groups infamously dubbed the attack by which at least 30,000 people were killed “Dresden’s Holocaust of bombs.” Fortunately, their propaganda campaign has been a failure. Although it is true that thousands of the civilians killed in Dresden and other German cities were innocent at an individual level, there can be no doubt it was morally imperative that Germany be defeated collectively.
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Access every new PS commentary, our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content – including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More – and the full PS archive.
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On the left side of the German political spectrum, the proposition that 8 May 1945 was a day of liberation remains unchallenged. However, it is sometimes repressed that the massive use of force had been necessary to achieve that result. Left-wing pacifism tends to overlook this simple fact. Its slogan “Never again war!” is only half the truth – the other half is “Never again appeasement!” 8 May 1945 was not “zero hour,” as a popular saying in Germany goes. It had an antecedent, that is, a lack of pre-emptive resistance at home and abroad to the threat that built up in Nazi Germany during the 1930’s.
There is yet another lesson to be learned. Yes, 8 May 1945 was a day of liberation to which the Soviet army contributed decisively. But for millions of Central and East Europeans, liberation was followed by Stalin’s oppressive regime.
The current war of memories between the Baltic republics and Russia, with regard to the international celebration in Moscow on 9 May this year, reminds Germany of a special historic responsibility. The German-Soviet non-aggression treaty, the so-called Hitler-Stalin pact, concluded in August 1939, had been supplemented by a secret appendix dividing the border states Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania into spheres of interest for the two parties. But excusing Nazi atrocities by pointing to Stalinist crimes is an intellectually and morally unacceptable stratagem. When Chancellor Schröder travels to Moscow for the Red Square celebrations, he should bear in mind Nazi Germany’s contribution to the Baltic tragedy.
On 8 May this year, public speakers will remind us how important it is not to forget. They will stress that if the lessons of history are not learned, history is bound to repeat itself. All this is perfectly true. But personally, I will also remember my grandmother’s sentence “Thank God we lost that war!” Thank God – and thanks to all those brave Allied soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the sake of Europe’s liberty.