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 . . .)

(read: “The Bomb is Ticking – Tuition Fees – Students! Defend Yourselves!”)

The “sic!” about this is that it resembles this:

(read: “Germans! Defend Yourselves! Don’t Buy Jewish Goods!”- the date is April 1, 1933, the event is the “Judenboykott” which was basically the [lawful] beginning of open hostility toward Jews by the recently inaugurated Nazi party.)

What makes it even more ridiculous is the fact that the tuition boycott banner was posted on the History Department building until last week (in the picture above it is posted on castle Hohentübingen, summer 2006) . . .

Ouch.

Germans have quite a split personality when it comes to World War II. On the one hand, many people are fed up with hearing about a “shared guilt”- on the other hand, the Second World War is a perfect seller not only (but most present) on TV. Recently, some historians have put the German “victims” on the map (and pages and screens), whether it be those of Allied bombings or of post-war forced westward immigration. While Rommel, with his quasi superstar status already in his lifetime, had been rehabilitated quite early in the 1950s and then deconstructed in more recent years, the military resistance against Hitler, embodied in the group of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Henning von Tresckow, had to go over a rocky path (and be reenacted in movies and documentaries) into the collective memory. While the resistance has been mostly present in the media through the annual vow of recruits of the Bundeswehr (which has adopted Stauffenberg and his comrades as part of its ethical foundation) and the accompanying protests against it, the forthcoming Hollywood movie Valkyrie might bring this topic to a broader audience and media attention not only in Germany, but worldwide.

Probably the most common ingredient of World War II TV documentaries is the eyewitness (who has once been jokingly described as “the arch-enemy of the historian” by one of my history professors). Members of almost every group from that time have told there stories sitting in front of a black curtain and/or have been followed to battlefields, concentration camps, and the lost “Heimat”, mixed with dramatic reconstructions and an even more dramatic musical score. Former members of the opposing forces meet in peace for the first time on one of the D-Day beaches, while on the next channel Hitler’s former bodyguard shows you where the Führer’s bunker once stood. Meanwhile most of those who do not make it on the screen are getting less and less, and with them memories are lost who are priceless for history and remembrance. Carefull search and unexpected discoveries can lead to old photographs and documents, while pictures of lost family members can be found in some German living rooms. But active Vergangenheitsbewältigung of ones own ancestors remains, in relation to the majority of the population, marginal. Nonetheless, projects like http://zugdererinnerung.de/ try to confront and invite people to open their eyes and minds.

The question is how the historiography and public memory of the Second World War will develop in the coming years. The perspective in history has shifted from the topward down position of the leaders to those who received orders, who were victims- short, the mostly nameless mass of those who had to endure the war and its consequences the most. Although each topic has been discussed over and over, recently discovered primary allow new perspectives and points of view. One thing is certain: films and pictures like those of bulldozers pushing the emaciated and dehumanized dead KZ inmates into chalked mass gaves will remain in the global collective memory and continue the unfinished debate on the why in Germany and abroad.