DURING a holiday in Berlin last month I visited the magnificent Reichstag, home again to the German parliament since 1999, following refurbishment after reunification.
Sir Norman Foster’s stunning glass dome, which affords views across Germany’s capital, is a memorable addition to this historic building. But in my view the most extraordinary element of the restoration was the decision to show graffiti left by the Russian soldiers who took the building – and the city - in April 1945. There is a rather touching love heart dedicated to sweethearts Anatoli and Galini, whoever they may be, but what really sticks out are the insults: “Gronin was here and spat” reads one line; “They’ve paid the price for Leningrad” is another.
Victors have no doubt daubed graffiti for as long as there have been wars. But what makes this instance so moving, so important, is that it embodies Germany’s brave and very rigorous approach to confronting its own history. Every single day Chancellor Angela Merkel and her political friends and foes, German civil servants and cleaners, visiting pensioners and school children, walk by these words and are confronted with their Nazi past.
The Germans could easily have removed or painted over these words, which had been hidden by plasterboard for half a century when they were rediscovered in the 1990s. Instead, they chose to make them a permanent fixture and a daily reminder of their shameful history. They actively want to be reminded of their fascist past not only so they will never be tempted to return to such evil, but because it drives them towards more and better freedoms.
Throughout Berlin, throughout Germany, as anyone who has visited cannot fail to notice, there is a similarly honest presentation of the nation’s past, in particular Nazi and Cold War history. They even have a word for it, “Mahnmale”, meaning monuments to national shame, which are realised in the likes of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Everything is presented fully, contextualised in detail, with monuments and commemorations added all the time; Germans do not allow themselves to hide behind the passage of time.
If only other nations would confront their history with the same courage and honesty. Germany constantly came to mind as I tried to make sense of the Neo-Nazi mobs marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, and President Donald Trump’s hideously inflammatory response. You cannot easily compare or equate the Holocaust with slavery in the US, or World War Two with the American Civil War. There are surely similarities, however, not only in the evil logic that allowed them to flourish, but also in the way they continue to haunt the societies where collective memories of both victims and perpetrators live on.
The scars of the Civil War and its aftermath, the racial, political, cultural and economic consequences of that 150-year-old conflict, the lines that continue to divide America, were laid bare in Virginia last weekend, fuelled by the most divisive president in living memory. The civil rights movement of the 1960s and 70s may have changed laws, but true racial equality is still a distant dream. At the same time, poor white communities cling more tightly than ever to perceived past glories as their pride and purpose diminishes in the harsh light of globalisation.
It is notable that much of the reaction coming out of Germany to Charlottesville contained not only anger and outrage, but also deep-seated shame and pain, and a direct plea to Americans: if anyone knows about Nazis it is us, was the gist of it, do not allow yourselves to tolerate and succumb to hate.
At the same time, the issue of commemorating the Confederacy continues to muddy the waters, since it was a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee – a complex historical figure - that was the flashpoint for violence.
If ever there was a time for the US to heed Germany’s words, to take on board the heartfelt advice of the friend it helped rebuild in the aftermath of 1945, it is now. I fear, however, under President Trump, a man for whom truth and reality are utterly alien, confronting the past will be impossible. Indeed, existing divisions are deepening into dangerous chasms from which there may be no easy return. There will be many more Charlottesvilles to come, I fear.
The only crumb of comfort I can find at the moment comes in the reaction of descendants of General Lee, fellow General Stonewall Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, to recent events. All agree, generously in my opinion, that if the monuments to their relatives prevent African Americans from feeling that racial justice is possible, they should be removed either permanently, or at least into a museum where they can be better contextualised.
These descendants of some of these controversial figures are ready and willing to re-contextualise the actions of their family members because they know it will facilitate dialogue and understanding. If only their president had such intelligence, courage and dignity.
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