Berlin Blog #1 "Memorial"

The question that was posed for the first blog response is “discuss how history is memorialized similarly or differently in Germany than in the United States?” To get to the root of this question, history must first be discussed about each country, because there are similarities and differences in the way that each country has reached the point they are at today and how they memorializes their past. One of these differences has been the way that each country looks at World War Two. The United States view of World War Two is a history of heroism and victory. Examples of the pride for American soldiers in this war can be seen in movies such as “Band of Brothers” and “Saving Private Ryan.” United States memorials like the Arizona at Pearl Harbor commemorate not only the men who died at the start of the war, but also American naval power in the pacific and decisive victory over the Japanese through the use of the atomic bomb. There is also a new World War Two memorial in Washington D.C. that was commissioned in 2004 that consists of 56 pillars for each state and other American regions in 1945. Each one of these pillars memorializes fighting and heroism in the war, or the sacrifices and hardships that were felt at home. The last of the images that is relevant to the way that United States viewed World War Two, but is not a memorial, is the picture of the “Kissing the War Goodbye.” This is a famous picture from 1945, by Victor Jorgensen, of a sailor kissing a nurse in Time Square, in New York City, after the announcement of the end of conflict in the Pacific. I think this is relevant to the point that is made above and a major difference between the ways that these two countries look at their history. Americans have romanticized the last Great War, weather it was in pictures, movies or memorials. The main conclusion that can be drawn from this is the role that victory plays in these different areas of remembrance, and why there is nothing romantic about the way World War Two is remembered in Germany.

Germany’s memorials, and the way that World War Two history is remembered, is a much darker past than the United States. Much of this gloomy and depressing history, not only has to do with Adolf Hitler and the extermination of the Jews, but the fact that Germany had lost two major wars in just over 30 years. The question that should then be posed is does a country that is morally and psychically broken and divided want to remember? Of course there would be memorials to the Jews that were killed in World War Two in the concentration camps, so the past would always be remembered and nothing like this atrocity would happen again. But the Jewish community only represented less than one percent of the population before the war and with the ones that either fled or were killed just a fraction of that after. It is hard to say that these memorials are for Germans, like you would see in the United States. German memorials seem to represent the men that have unified Germany well before the war, like Wilhelm the first and Bismarck; you would never see a statue of Adolf Hitler in Germany. You can’t enter Germany with Nazi propaganda or post it on signs or billboards without receiving a heavy fine. This is one of the main differences between the way that Germans and Americans memorialize their history. There is a feeling here that Germans would rather forget this dark time and look to the future, unlike the American viewpoint. The Washington D.C. memorial of World War Two was rushed into construction because they felt that too many soldiers from the war had already died and would not see their monument. There is stark contrast between these two countries view of history and memorializing World War Two. One is a view of darkness, holocaust and defeat; while another is a view of remembrance, heroism and victory.