German History and Memory is Tested to the Breaking Point

Before too long, European history will likely be re-rewritten: as the EU incites more Russophobia, the ghosts--rather: demons--of the past rearing their ugly heads once more

I frequently allude to the history of the twentieth century as being quite…something else (in addition to the stuff found in textbooks).

The main feature of European history here is, of course, what the Marxisante historian Eric Hobsbawm in his The Age of Catastrophe called the ‘second Thirty Years’ War’—he was referring, of course, to both world wars and the period from 1914-45.

Much like in the original Thirty Years’ War, Central Europe—and Germany in particular—is the main battlefield in this second iteration.

Germany and its Troubled History

You see, the main feature of (West) Germany after 1945 was always to have finally ‘arrived’ in ‘the West™’ after travelling a long and winding road—Germany’s alleged Sonderweg, or Special Path—that was both different from the experiences of the Germans’ western neighbours and eventually led to World War One, the rise of Adolf Hitler, and, of course, ‘Auschwitz’ (which I’m putting into scare quotes to stand, as pars pro toto, for the totality of the National Socialist régime’s crimes). If you’re up for this kind of master-narrative—which still exists in our postmodern condition—I refer you to Heinrich August Winkler’s two-volume account Germany: The Long Road West (Oxford 2006-2007; vol. 1 takes you from 1789-1933 [sic], vol. 2 from 1933 through 1990; it has been re-issued in paperback in 2023).

The other day, friend-of-these-pages

Witzbold

asked an interesting question:

Has it always been so, that Nazi Germany cannot be compared (in Germany/Austria?) to anything else for fear of minimizing/relativizing its horrors?

And I think I’ll re-post my reply (with slight edits for clarity) because I think the points I try to make are pertinent (note that, by way of ‘full disclosure’, I need to note that I am a member of that kind of Kulturnation; my mother tongue is German, and it’s ‘my’ history, too, warts and all):

No, it hasn’t always been like that, but it has been a, if not the, constant since 8 May 1945. Yes, not everywhere in German-speaking countries to the same tune (e.g., not so much in Austria, which was a ‘victim’ of Hitler although the events leading up to the Anschluss were initiated by Austrian chancellor Schuschnigg and no other country could care about what happened); in the Cold War, the GDR for instance denied that they had anything to do with the Third Reich, and the Communists even made the ethnically cleansed Germans from the East continue their trek westwards. The Federal Republic, by contrast, is the continuity here, with the Bundestag’s research office in 2007 (if memory serves [among other things]) holding that the Federal Republic is, in fact, ‘identical’ with every German nation-state since 1867 (forget the founding of the Second Reich by Bismarck, they key moment arrived four years earlier in the guise of the North-German Confederation).

As to the issue I alluded to before—Hans Mommsen, one of post-WW2 West Germany’s leading historians once wrote that 1945 was Germany's ‘zero hour’ (Tom Brady quotes him in his German Histories in the Age of Reformations, Cambridge, 2009, 405):

For most Germans now going to Berlin, our history starts in 1945 or with the Holocaust…We have developed a new national consciousness, one formed from the terrible legacy of Auschwitz

To understand the ‘Nazi bludgeon’ [Nazikeule], I suggest the following line of thought: from May 1945 onwards, West Germans (who later took over their Eastern brethren) were told that Hitler and the Third Reich were the incarnation of Evil™ (I think that the victors did so, in no small part, to gloss over their own war crimes and, in Stalin’s case, also the way greater atrocities committed in the name of Socialism/Bolshevism even before WW2), hence Mommsen’s ‘zero hour’ notion. Everything that came afterwards was, is, and, in fact, must be incomparable by definition.

As to the major problem in the present—in the early 1960s, Fritz Fischer published his Griff nach der Weltmacht (trans. Germany's Aims in the First World War), which held that Imperial Germany’s aims in WW1 were, in fact, identical to Hitler’s in WW2. As a consequence, the period before Hitler rose to power in 1933 became similarly ‘tainted’ by Evil™ (although that’s not how history works). By the 1980s, the so-called Historikerstreit erupted over the 'singularity' of Hitler/Third Reich Evil™, and it’s still ongoing. A lot of these debates are quite…academic, but with so-called ‘Reunification’ in 1989/90 and the then-ongoing EU building project, other things soon took precedence. [I’m linking to Wikipedia pieces here to give you the ‘official™’ version of events and the ‘correct™’ interpretation.]

In the ivory tower of academia, just before Covid hit, Germany’s leading modernist historians were proposing that even the founding of the Second Empire by Bismarck were part and parcel of what eventually led to—you guessed it—Hitler/Third Reich Evil™. Right now, with first discussions of 1848 being tied into these notions, this tendency, too, suggests that this revised Sonderweg (2.0, if you will) may, at some point, extend or even surpass its first version (which commenced, it was held, in the 30 Years’ War [about which I’ll have an academic article forthcoming in German History next year).

Leaving aside these academic debates, the bottom line is that ‘we Germans’ (see the disclaimer above) have no more history that we can turn to as everyone and everything in recent memory has become ‘tainted’. The best example of this trajectory is actually on Youtube.

Behold, exhibit 1: when, on the eve of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Oct. 1989, the Bundestag was in session in Bonn, and when it’s members heard of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, they spontaneously rose and sang the national anthem:

Exhibit 2, well, fast-forward to early 2024 and the fall-out of ‘Stupid Watergate’: remember when one of the participants suggested to sing the national anthem and was shoed off the stage…

German Gov't-Ordered Protests 'Against the Right' Reveal 'True' Colours

‘We Germans’ (in the Fichtean sense of a Kulturnation) are losing our history, warts and all, and this is perfect, if you’re about to run some IngSoc-like WEF-mediated mindfuckery. Mind you, I’m not saying our history is without ‘issues’ (to put it mildly), but what I'm saying is that it is in the process of being erased before our eyes.

If the above-related episodes are any guide, the concerns hotly debated during and in the wake of the Historikerstreit are coming true before our eyes. Unlike a generation ago, it is not historians from the right-of-centre who are pushing for the normalisation of Germany’s twentieth-century history. Today, this push comes from entirely mainstream scholars, most of whom are found on the political left-of-centre who are supported in this by virtually all legacy media outlets. Taken together with the political and societal fall-out of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a ‘new Germany’ seems, indeed, in the making.

And thus ends the history of the German people(s), with ‘the Germans’ perhaps—but certainly not without irony—becoming a ‘non-historic people’, as Frederick Engels so memorably (and infamously) put it with respect to the small nations of Eastern Europe over whom the more cultured and civilised Germans were destined to rule.

Yes, you read this correctly: one of the founders of Communism was an ardent ethno-nationalist (much to the chagrin of esp. post-WW2 historians, esp. in East Germany who struggled to reconcile [sic] the ‘socialistic brotherhood of man’ with these sentiments espoused by one of their leading luminaries), but we must not overlook the fact that there is away to ‘explain Hitler™’: since around the 1830s/40s, Germany’s liberal bourgeoisie (in the 19th-century sense of the terms) was virtually united in these sentiments:

Commemorating 1848, German President Lies (by Omission), thus Reinforcing the Decadent Régime

For a century B.H. (before Hitler) came to power, virtually the entire German political and academic elites were of essentially the same opinion: Germany’s mission civilisatrice lay in the East, with ‘holy war’ against Russia being the nation’s call to destiny (a few choice quotes are in order to drive home the below point):

As early as 1848 in the Paulskirche, German politicians were agitating for war against Russia:

‘In the East’, the Germans had always succeeded in the course of history in making ‘conquests with the sword [and the] ploughshare’. Germans could and should acknowledge this ‘right to conquer’ (Franz Wigard, ed., Reden für die deutsche Nation, 9 vols., Munich, 1848, here vol. 2, pp. 1145-6).

Another parliamentarian spoke of a ‘holy war’ that would have to be fought out at some point anyway ‘between the culture of the West and the barbarism of the East’ (Günther Wollstein, Das ‘Großdeutschland’ der Paulskirche: Nationale Ziele in der bürgerlichen Revolution 1848/49, Cologne, 1977, p. 303).

Another declared: ‘If war ever came, it would be between Germans and Slavs’ (Wigard, ed., Reden für die deutsche Nation, vol. 4, p. 2779). [line break added]

Heinrich von Gagern [whom Mr. Steinmeier explicitly repeatedly referenced, citing Gagern’s dictum that ‘we have the greatest task to fulfil’ (‘Wir haben die größte Aufgabe zu erfüllen’)] wrote in retrospect about the period of the bourgeois revolution:

‘The war with Russia—for the sake of the Baltic Sea and the Baltic provinces [i.e., dominion over present-day Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania]—for the sake of Poland—for the sake of the Danube and the Oriental conditions…was the most popular matter across all Germany’ (quoted in Veit Valentin, Geschichte der deutschen Revolution von 1848-1849, 2 vols., 1st ed. Berlin, 1930-1931, here repr. Berlin, 1977, vol. 1: p. 544).

What’s in a Word?

So, if you’d take these German Professoren at their word (which I think everybody should), the aspirations of both Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler—if they were indeed, identical—are hardly two different notions.

But so are (were) the aspirations of most German leaders and thinkers before, with perhaps, and ironically so, Bismarck’s leadership being the exception that proves the rule here.

In this—academically heretically—view, ‘Hitler™’ and everything he now stands for in German (sic) history, too, becomes very much intelligible, albeit not in a way that furthers the current government’s positions, with perhaps the ‘holy war’ against Russia being the one constant.

But now this ‘holy war’ can be conducted with full acceptance and support from ‘the West™’. It’s almost as if Hitler’s desires of alliance with the West to combat Russia are coming true before our eyes…

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure seems to rhyme, if in very strange and mysterious ways.

Needless to say, the problem here is that post-1945 Germany cannot go to war (in principle because of lack of ± everything) but doing so will likely bring down what remains of German identity that was so carefully (re)constructed after the Second World War.

In a way, successive German governments are caught between a rock and a hard place: they must go to war with Russia together with the West, but doing so is poised to destroy Germany. Not so much because of the physical destruction a war with Russia will likely cause, but also because it will be a de facto return to the policies espoused by German leaders and thinkers since the 1830s. Talk about irony here.

In fact, it might as well be that the true German ‘revolutionary’ in this regard would be—Bismarck whose so-called Reinsurance Treaty (Rückversicherungsvertrag) was a kind of ‘grand bargain’ with Tsarist Russia and the one moment of clarity in German foreign policy in the past 200 years that was not 112% in favour of waging ‘holy war’ against Russia. Talk about irony, once more.

Epilogue

I don’t know if ‘we Germans’ are special; I for one doubt it.

What I do know is that German history and memory might be the fore-runner for an engineered erasure of both.

Since the Second World War, many topics and issues are verboten über alles (expressly forbidden), and what is taught in classrooms is perhaps the best explanation:

We have the notion of Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation somehow causing the Third Reich, although the former preceded the appointment of Hitler by about a decade.

Speaking of the Weimar Republic, whose ‘democracy™’ was ostensibly destroyed by Hitler (which is partially true), as the prime example of ‘good rule’ is, frankly ludicrous, in particular in light of the collusion between the Social-Democratic gov’t and the Imperial Army to crush Bolshevik sentiment by force in autumn 1918:

Germany 1918: Gunpowder, Treason and Plot by the Business, Financial, and Military Elites against the German People

Germany 1918, pt. 2: Accounting for Hopes Betrayed, Conspiracy, and Counter-Revolution

In keeping with these notions, we note, almost in passing, that chancellors Heinrich Brüning (in office 1930-32), Franz von Papen (in office 1932), and Kurt Schleicher (in office 1932-33)—who preceded Hitler’s appointment—ruled by decree and in cahoots with president Hindenburg used the Weimar Constitution’s emergency paragraph to ‘govern™’.

Yet, ‘Hitler™’ gets all the credit for ‘destroying democracy™’, to say nothing about his bad reputation for doing so.

This is, by the way, why the reconstituted West German state had no corresponding Emergency Acts (Notstandsgesetze) in the original version of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz). It was not before 1968 (!) before the West German gov’t added that specific clause to their de facto constitution—and I’ll let the official version (via Wikipedia) tell you the rest of this (references omitted):

The German Emergency Acts (Notstandsgesetze) were passed on 30 May 1968 at the time of the First Grand Coalition between the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. It was the 17th constitutional amendment to the Basic Law, adding emergency clauses to ensure the federal government’s ability to act in crises such as natural disasters, uprisings or war.

The inclusion of emergency laws in the German Basic Law was one condition imposed by the Allies before they would transfer full sovereignty to the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War. This was in order to ensure the safety of their troops still stationed in Germany.

On 27 May 1968 the Allied Control Council declared that they would give up their right of control (Vorbehaltsrecht) if the Emergency Acts were passed [talk about election interference]. On 30 May, when the law was voted on, the FDP was the only party to stand firm against their introduction. Of the Grand Coalition, 54 members also voted against them. The laws came into effect on 28 June 1968, marking the end of the special powers the Allied forces had been given over Germany in the Statute of Occupation of 21 September 1949.

The passing of the Emergency Acts was preceded by fierce domestic political debates, which contributed to the establishment of the APO (‘Außerparlamentarische Opposition’, lit. ‘Extraparliamentary Opposition’). The critics of the Emergency Acts referred to the catastrophic effects of the emergency decrees of the Weimar Republic (Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution), which gave the President of the Reich extensive powers in the event of an unspecified emergency.

Note that it was this Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution that was used for years by president Hindenburg and his co-conspirators Brüning, von Papen, and von Schleicher before Hitler did the same.

I’m not saying that these characters are all the same and their actions were (are) morally identical; what I am saying is that by selectively ‘remembering’ Hitler as the ‘destroyer of democracy™’ while omitting these facts is to white-wash the less-than-splendid aspects of Weimar Germany.

The same with the simplistic trope of ‘hyperinflation caused the ascent of National Socialism’, which is also off by a decade (and Mark Blyth has been quite outspoken about this).

The most likely outcome of all of this will probably be a stunning ‘revision’ of the role of National Socialism in general and Adolf Hitler in particular.

In the grander scheme of things, the way that the 12 year-long period of the ‘1000 Year Third Reich’ is remembered—as a kind of ‘aberration’ or gigantic hoopla moment is, of course, patently absurd.

If the quotes from 1848 are any indication, these sentiments are quite the norm for Germany’s elites, and if the recent rabid Russophobia is any indication, they are also remarkably consistent across the past 200 years.

In any way, the next couple of years will be quite…interesting to watch (but rather in the uncomfortable Chinese proverbial way).