A Tour of German Histories in 'Germany: Memories of a Nation'

Having finished my comparative literature dissertation related to the writing of history, I immediately sensed my pathetic lack of historical knowledge but didn’t know which history book to start reading. Then my eyes were drawn to one that I bought in Oxford during a summer exchange two years ago which I haven’t touched since it laid in my room. This book is Germany: Memories of a Nation written by Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects which tells the world history with objects from the British Museum Collection (another book on my to-read list). I decided to read this as the first book of my summer holiday, only to find that this is indeed a rich introduction to European history and also to understanding Germany (as well as an effective way of pushing myself to do constructive things. I'm indeed grateful for that).

As I read the first page, I realised instantly that this is not what we expect from conventional history books that chronicle and analyse historical events. This book tells stories starting from the collective memory. It is not only interested in ‘what’ happened in the past, but also ‘how’ the past lives in the memories of the people in architectures and objects in the public urban space. This book starts with the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and tells how it witnessed various major events in German history such as the Napoleonic invasions and the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall. A main argument of this book is that the history of Germany is the document of guilt and shame, most notably the Nazi and communist pasts. Instead of bearing smooth progressiveness, the history of Germany remains dynamic and contentious in the minds of the people.

The history of Germany is not only laden with contingencies and controversies, but also contradiction. Take nationalism, a recurring theme of this book, as an example. It has a double function. On the one hand, it can act as a unification force in defence against violence from foreign states, but on the other hand, it can also legitimise state violence against the minority. At times of foreign invasions during the Napoleonic War, Germany (including the states of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, etc.) was indeed in need of unification and the people’s support to resist the encroachments from France. In such circumstances, nationalism consolidated the people’s collective consciousness at a disadvantageous situation.

This national consciousness is materialised through, as argued in one of the parts I enjoyed reading the most, the formation of ‘the German language’. This book pinpoints that the sense of belonging to a nation does not stem from a shared geographical border, but by a shared language. The standardisation and popularisation of the German language started with Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. Utilising the emergent technology of printing press, this vernacular language was disseminated to the communities of German speakers regardless of the varieties of the languages they speak. This part reminds me of the idea of ‘imagined community’ proposed by Benedict Anderson. In his argument, nationalism was formed when the shared vernacular language unified the people, who in the context of Europe broke away from the centralised Latin-speaking Holy Roman Empire. This national consciousness also empowered the German people to dissociate themselves from French assimilation. Evolving later in the works of Goethe and the Brothers Grimm, the German language gave rise to the collective consciousness of nationalism which did not only resisted foreign invasions, but also, in the present, encapsulates universal values such as humanism, which the German people take pride in.

Nationalism takes shape through the inclusion of people who share a language and cultural imagination, which entails that exclusion is equally at play. This exclusion, once taken to an extreme, would result in a detrimental side of nationalism -- xenophobia. Under the Nazi rule, the notion of the ‘pure Aryan race’ was propagated. To provoke hatred against the Jews, extreme nationalism would construct a narrative of victimisation. Hitler won the support from the German people because he raised the shared grievances of post-WWI hyperinflation among them and blamed the Jews for the economic regression. Identifying the German people as the victims of Jews, the Nazis legitimised the annihilation of Jews. The state policy that perpetuated violence against the marginalised was then disguised as the rejuvenation of the oppressed people. This disguise resulted in the obscurity of power relation between the ‘racially pure’ and the alien. Extreme nationalism was masked as the nationalism that promoted humanism and liberty. Ironically, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, which celebrate such values, became a Nazi propaganda to celebrate the superiority of the Aryan race. The Nazis would also prescribe what they considered as the desirable art by backlashing the so-called degenerate art, one of which included the innovative Bauhaus artistic style, which initially emerged to advocate communist idealism. As different treatments of nationalism yield opposite mentalities, we can also observe from this departure that that narratives of a nation’s past are never closed with an absolute meaning. Rather, a nation’s history is subject to interpretations that vary according to how the state would like to define itself in different contexts.

History does not have an end and is lived up till today. It is of course pivotal to remember the past guilt of state atrocity in order not to repeat the same mistake in the present. Yet, remembrance is only the first step to take. Extreme nationalism is often disguised in various forms and it is by a sharpened sensitivity, not merely a fixated memory of the past, that it can be cautioned against. Our task is, on top of remembering, to bear the open-mindedness to accept that historical narratives are contingent on specific social contexts and are therefore loaded with heterogeneous meanings. Instead of docilely accepting a prescribed meaning, we should always scrutinise national narratives and be open to their multiple facets. As I read the book, I found that some celebrated innovations of Germany are in fact tainted with a dark side. The Bauhaus architectural style, welcomed first for its advocate of freedom and cross-class community, resulted in exactly the opposite as it evolved in the later few decades. Developed by Swiss architect Le Corbusier, this style shaped the modern public housing estate, which in time degenerated into dehumanising housing structures that housed ghettos that deteriorated social problems. Just a year after the first publication of this book, Volkswagen, which is hailed as the iconic manifestation of German precision in engineering, was involved in the emissions scandal. In 2015, it was revealed that the company programmed a emissions control system in its diesel vehicles sold for the US so that the system would provide fake emission results and pass the testing. Being conscious of the decline of these ‘national prides’ does not mean to negate their contributions to the progression of the state, but rather, it reminds us that only by always destabilising these national narratives could we keep ourselves from falling victim to the manipulation of extreme national ideologies.

This book also conveys the message that the turbulent history of Germany lives well in the memories of the German people because it is preserved in architectures and museums. Memory is indeed a forceful resistance against collective amnesia. It also empowers the people with the sensitivity to scrutinise national and historical narratives in the present. Apart from providing the foundational knowledge of German history, this book can also serve as an excellent travelogue as it tours readers around various parts of Germany, even including cities that no longer lie in the modern national border. No matter whether you’re planning a visit to Germany or to read German history, this book is a good start.

(photo credit: Penguin books)