Thursday, April 26, 2018

How did Germany handle their Historical Monuments?

Germany has a very loaded history. They have been to blame for much of the catastrophes that took place during World War II. But if you go to Germany you will not find monuments of national socialists. They don’t honor Nazis in their town squares. They are not “erasing history” or censoring it, as a country they have learned to honor the ones they have wronged. In Berlin, there is a large monument that is dedicated to the Holocaust and its victims. Therein lies an acknowledgment of the horrors that occurred but in a way that honors the victims. In Stuttgart, there resides Rubble Hill. Stuttgart was an industrial center during World War II and was hit by Allied bombs. After being hit by 53 Allied bombing runs about 60% of the city of Stuttgart was destroyed. At the conclusion of World War II, the rubble of Stuttgart was collected and brought to Birkenkopf. A large cross was made from rubble and metal beams and was placed in the middle of the cement.  Rubble Hill is about 511 meters high and sits high above the city. There is a plaque that roughly translates to, “This Hill was erected from the rubble of Stuttgart after the Second World War. Let this hill stand as a memorial to the victims and as a warning to the living.” There is power in the words “warning to the living”. There are not any monuments that honor the men that are responsible for Rubble Hill. They have a 511-meter tall reminder that was made from every brick, burnt couch, the remaining stuffed toy, shattered windows, and every lost life that looks down on them every day as a “warning to the living”. There are a constant battle and debate across America whether to leave up the monuments of slave owners and Confederate soldiers. There should not be a discussion. A monument is a way of commemorating a person or event. We as American citizens need to better understand that we are not erasing history by removing these monuments but rather ceasing to honor the person or event. This is an issue that even faces Rhodes College. We have a major academic building, Palmer Hall, that is named after a man that was not only a supporter of slavery but thought that the institution of slavery benefits both whites and blacks. There are efforts to change the name of the building but the fact that the name remained for so long is a disgrace to Rhodes as a college that advertises themselves as “dedicated to diversity.”

4 comments:

  1. You bring up a lot of really interesting points in the ways in which Germany remembers its histories and the ways in which the U.S. does so. One of the main questions that this brought to my mind was, why does the U.S. remember and commemorate slavery and slave owners so much differently than Germany remembers the Holocaust and WWII. Maybe it is due to the recency and the publicity that the Holocaust received, and the fact that it is still in the world's collective mind. However, the atrocities of slavery and racial terror were still publicized, so I'm not sure if this train of thought really explains it. Nevertheless, this comparison between the U.S. and Germany brings up some really interesting questions that I will continue to think about moving forward.

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  2. Your ideas made me think of a solution to a problem that I've been trying to work out with myself for a while. I've always wondered what we should do with the monuments that we take down (because we WILL take them down). I know the Memphis ones are being stored in some secret place until the decide what to do with them, meaning they don't know what to do with them either. I like the idea of making them into new ones, like destroying them and making them into something else.

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  3. I agree with you Lillian. I do not think the United States has handled its past as well as Germany. We often try to avoid and deflect the dark parts of our history instead of teaching our it thoroughly and making our past mistakes clear. I think when Rhodes College changes the name of Palmer it will show acknowledgment of our past just like the way Germany acknowledges their past.

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  4. Amen sista. The main difference between the U.S. and Germany in this sense is that the people who were in political and social power during slavery are still in power, while in Germany the Nazis are obviously no longer even in existence. To create a closer parallel, one must think of how Germany would be if a sort of modern Nazi party was in power - one that no longer discriminated against Jews or other minorities, but nonetheless had still encouraged and committed the atrocities of the past. Because of the fact that the group in power was directly responsible for the atrocities committed, which in Germany resulted in over 7 million deaths over 12 years, they would be much more reluctant to blatantly accept blame and acknowledge their wrongdoing. They would say that they did not endorse the actions of their forefathers, and even if minorities were still systematically oppressed as a result of the Holocaust era, they would not willingly acknowledge their own role in this oppression. This is the case in the U.S.; minorities and especially black people are still being crushed by the oppression that began with slavery. Anywhere between 1.8 to 5 million people were killed during the slave trade, which of course does not come close to depicting the amount of lives destroyed by living in bondage. But still, the white majority in the U.S. struggles to acknowledge their role in this atrocity, or in the ongoing oppression ever present in America.

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