The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

Abstract

The previous chapter discussed manifestations of the dialectic of normality in the Berlin Republic in terms of politics and political education. This chapter will consider how the dialectic of normality is expressed through cultural representation, using the example of the lengthy controversy surrounding the construction of a national Holocaust memorial in Berlin. This controversy merits consideration for several reasons. First, it reflected the difficulty of representing aspects of the National Socialist past in aesthetic form. This factor is especially significant in view of the shift from communicative to cultural memory and the need to find adequate forms of preserving knowledge of this past. Second, the debate on the Holocaust memorial concerned the image that the Berlin Republic wishes to project to the outside world and, by consequence, the choices made regarding the representation of the layers of its history. Third, the debate was indicative of tendencies in contemporary Geschichtspolitik and, as such, as significant as its end purpose. In other words, the Holocaust memorial is not just a vehicle for ritual remembrance but also a symbol of the public debate on Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Fourth, the controversy involved ‘wars of memory’ between various groups seeking to shape cultural memory at national level. Opinions on the memorial may well have been influenced by the views of such groups just as much as by aesthetic concerns.