And Doesn't That Just Say It All...?

In the summer of 2007, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a few weeks touring some of Central Europe’s most famous cities (Budapest, Vienna, Prague and Munich). And, because my travel partner was also a like-minded history major, the two of us were able to indulge in the local history and culture to our hearts content. Although I enjoyed them all for different reasons, it was the city of Munich that made the most lasting impression on me in terms of how its recent history was being conveyed to the public, both its own citizens and those visiting the Bavarian capital.

On our first afternoon in the city, my friend and I opted for a WWII-themed walking tour (I’m not positive, but I think it may have been billed on the brochure as a tour of “Hitler’s Munich” – insert *eye roll* here). Over the course of the next hour and a half, our guide pointed out dozens of things that peaked my interest as someone concerned with how history is communicated to and understood by the public. Perhaps a future blog will touch on more of these examples, but for now, I want to focus solely on the war monument in front of the Bavarian Parliament Building.

At first glance we barely noticed the monument. Its sandy colour and position (lowered into a hole in the ground and further hidden behind a small hedge) do a pretty good job of camouflaging it from visitors without tour guides as savvy as ours. The shape of the monument also helped to conceal its purpose for being - giant blocks of stone piled on top of each without easily understandable visual clues (like gigantic arcs, bronze soldiers, eternal flames, flags, etc) don’t exactly scream ‘honoring our war dead’ to me. Turns out, you have to go even further down a set of stairs to get inside the monument (hmmm… not-so-metaphorically burying your wartime history, Munich?!?).

Once you are inside the monument, there are two inscriptions carved into the walls in German, the first of which is for those that perished during WWI. Loosely translated it says, “Built for the city of Munich, Bavaria’s brave soldiers – 13 000 heroic fallen sons of the city of Munich.” I find this phrasing pretty typical of the WWI war monuments I’ve seen in the past. Use of the words ‘brave’ and ‘heroic’ show that despite Germany’s position on the losing side of the conflict, there was still a sense of pride in the individual soldiers who had acted honourably while giving their lives for their country. Further, the inscription’s use of the phrase “fallen sons” seems to show the sense of ownership the city of Munich felt towards these soldiers and their actions, just as a parent would have towards a child; they were truly a beloved part of the community and therefore deserving of a monument in their honour.

So, although the physical location of the monument doesn’t automatically convey a sense of nationalism or pride in the part that Munich’s soldiers played in the war, I could clearly see the impact that carefully chosen phrasing can give a monument in terms of the messages about the past that are being recorded for future generations to read and interpret.

Underneath the inscription in honor of those who died during the First World War is the dedication to the soldiers and citizens of Munich who were lost during WWII. Although both inscriptions were written under similar circumstances (that is, the German loss of a world war), the second inscription is markedly different than the one for WWI. Roughly translated, it reads:

“Built in memory of the
99 000 fallen
11 000 missing
6 600 victims of the air war
of the city of Munich
1939-1945.”

The differences between the two inscriptions are striking. Compared with the word choice of the WWI inscription, this one is cold, clinical even. Gone are phrases such as “heroic sons” and “brave soldiers.” In their place are emotionless numbers and one word descriptors. Essentially, the inscription boils down years of hardship and loss, tragedy and horror to a pile of emotionless statistics. Reading the inscription more than 60 years after it was first inscribed, the shame that this phrasing captured was still palpable to me.

What caused this change in the tone of the two inscriptions should be no mystery to anyone reading this blog, but it did bring to my mind the larger question of commemoration. Specifically, how do nations commemorate wars and how does the approach of a nation towards commemoration change depending on the outcome of the conflict? More to the point, perhaps, how does the approach to commemoration change when a portion of the soldiers and citizens of the nation in question participated in or benefited from such a horrific genocide?

I think the inscription that was added to the Munich war memorial following WWII is an interesting example. It strikes me as an obvious attempt by the city’s leadership to distance themselves from the ugly role Munich played during the 1930s and 1940s in regards to the Holocaust. Soldiers are now referred to only as “fallen” or “missing”; no longer are they the beloved “sons of Munich.” They are mentioned, not glorified. At the same time, however, it is clear that the city still tried to honour the sacrifices that their citizens and soldiers had made on their behalf (the fact that Germany had participated in and lost a second world war couldn’t exactly go unmentioned on German soil).

That said, I find the statistics dehumanizing. Presumably there were many people in Munich at the time who disagreed with or even acted against their government’s policies during WWII. I’m sure that they went missing or died in air raids with equal measure to those that supported Hitler and his regime. Perhaps they deserve to be remembered more fondly than they have been?!

I guess the question that I am posing is this: how does one, as an historian, find the balance between acknowledging the loss of the nation during wartime without glorifying the reprehensible actions that the country’s leadership put into motion?

Any thoughts?

[Note: For the purpose of this blog, I attempted to translate the inscriptions as closely as possible. Please be aware, however, that I don’t speak German. :) The translations above are a combination of my tour guide’s efforts two years ago in his second or (possibly) third language and an online translation program that I accessed as I was writing this post earlier this morning.]