Volkstrauertag 2007

Back in November 2007, after watching a documentary on Stalingrad and the official address of the Bundespräsident on the Volkstrauertag (the German Memorial Day), I toured various places in Tübingen which commemorate the dead of war and persecution.

The first memorial remembers those soldiers who died in Tübingen during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, a war mostly forgotten these days despite its importance in leading to World War I. As you can see, a wreath (by the University of Tübingen) has been put down in front of it. Its location is the Stadtfriedhof (city cemetery) in Tübingen, near a lot of university and clinic buildings, and the gravesite for various “celebrities” including the poet Hölderlin (who spent his last 40 years in mental derangement in the famous Hölderlinturm in Tübingen) and the former German chancellor Kiesinger (who was infamous [and slapped] for his NSDAP membership.) In the same way the Franco-Prussian War is pending in the back of the German memory, the memorial’s location is quite hidden.

The second memorial is the World War I memorial, also a typical exponent of its type. A giant tomb, inscribed with a determined Feldgrauer’s head, and the words ”To the Heroes of the World War, 1914-1918,” are the typical features. Unfortunately, the surrounding graves of the soldiers are not viewable- the officers with upright cross tombstones separated from the ranks which only have small, flat tombstones with their names on it while being categorized into years. Overall, quite typical for Wilhelmine Germany and its class-thinking- and the mass-slaughtered casualties of trench warfare, arranged like being mown down by machineguns (or in military formation, as was more likely intended by those who did the outlay.)

Third, an almost even more hidden, and separated, section: The Gräberfeld X, a gravesite for people whose bodies were used for experiments and anatomical exhibitions at the university’s hospital. This is one of the dark chapters of Tübingen- some body parts were used for instructing medical students until the late 1980s. It is also a prominent example for the problems the city of Tübingen has with its Third Reich past- only after long debates and some very vague signs (and a very explicit sign which was immediately destroyed after its erection), a more informative plate was erected.

Example number four is the World War II memorial at the Bergfriedhof on the other side of town. The style is, once again, distinctly World War II memorial-ish- three crosses, like on a soldier cemetery (note that the Gräberfeld X also has this distinct feature.) As with the other three memorials, a wreath has been laid down in commemoration of the dead.

Coming back to Tübingen and its problematic approach to the Nazi history of the town, there has to be an exception from commemorating casualties and victims of former wars on this day. And this is the former synagogue. Destroyed in 1938, its site is today partly the foundation of an appartment block, partly a memorial. But it seems that the city of Tübingen did not have any more money for one more wreath for those who were deported or expelled from their home- or if they simply “forgot” (read: ignored) the site. I do not know if there was a wreath beneath the plates at the Stiftskirche which are in honor of all victims of the Nazi reign, but I feel that Volkstrauertag does not only mean decorating the official places of commemorating the (military) dead, but also those Heimat places which belonged to the primary victims of Hitler’s Rassenwahn. At least some private individuals cared for commemoraion (while others preferred to dump their garbage at the information column . . .)

Tags: 1870/71, Bergfriedhof, casualties, cemetery, commemoration, Franco-Prussian war, grave, Gräberfeld X, Hölderlin, Jews, Kiesinger, Memorial Day, memory, Stadtfriedhof, synagogue, Tübingen, Third Reich, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Volkstrauertag, World War I, World War II, WWI, WWII