In the final week of the program, our group traveled to Berlin where we visited museums, monuments, and sites throughout the city. Remnants of the war, and the subsequent Cold War, mark the city and help visitors realize the tollthat both the Holocaust and World War II had on the civilians of Berlin. However, the complicity of individuals and the general German population in World War II and the Holocaust were often in focus, especially at the Wannsee House and the Topography of Terror.

Pictured: Anhalter Bahnhof, a former large train station that was destroyed by Allied bombing in WWII

            The Wannsee House details the Wannsee Conference in which Nazi leaders planned the “Final Solution,” the genocide of European Jewish people at extermination camps. In the Wannsee Protocol the sheer scale of the Nazis’ plan overwhelms visitors, a plan calculated to eliminate eleven million people. Though the Wannsee Protocol avoids using the term ‘genocide,’ the context of previous Nazi policies

Pictured: Nazi discussion of implementing the Wannsee Protocol in occupied nations.

and practices clarifies the true meaning of words such as ‘deportation.’ The Wannsee Conference was held after millions of Jewish people in Europe had already been murdered, and its sixteen participants planned the fates of millions more. Not only the Wannsee planners, but lower-level officers, common soldiers, and members of the police who carried out the Wannsee Protocol were integral to its implementation. Additionally, German citizens who benefitted from the Wannsee Protocol are complicit in the genocidal effects of the plan.

            While visiting the Topography of Terror, a museum on the former site of the primary SS prison in Berlin, one confronts the complicity of German civilians in the atrocities. The SS, a Nazi paramilitary organization, enjoyed nearly unfettered police and military powers and under Heinrich Himmler carried out genocidal policies of the regime. Beginning with exhibits showing that Nazism held great influence throughout Germany, the Topography of Terror displays the complicity of Germans through images such as to the right: nearly an entire audience gives the Nazi salute to Hitler, highlighting the popular support that the Nazi Party enjoyed in 1936. The exhibits then progress through the rise of the SS in Germany and the victims of the brutal organization. As the SS rose along with the backing of the Nazi Party, Germans who supported the regime effectively supported the SS. This support for the Nazi Party also supported the SS concentration camps, extermination camps, and the continuance of the organization’s extra-legal status. After the war, many claimed that the Nazi regime’s oppressive control left Germans no choice but to engage in its genocidal policies; however, exhibits such as the ones displayed in the Topography of Terror refute this claim. With the seemingly unanimous support that the Nazi Party had, it is certain that many supported the SS as well, not only due to the oppressive control of the regime.

          Both museums were good depictions of an event and an organization that greatly affected World War II in Germany. The Topography of Terror, with its early focus on the popularity of the Nazi Party, highlights the complicity of German citizens in Nazi crimes. The Wannsee Protocol’s enormous impact, as displayed at the Wannsee House, causes visitors to contemplate how many people were necessary for its implementation.

The Berlin Wall is an incredible symbol of the divisions that wars uphold long after an armistice is signed. Built sixteen years after WWII ended, the Wall served as a physical separation for Berlin and Germany itself for twenty-eight years. It also created a clear divide between NATO in the west and the Eastern Bloc, further polarizing the democratic and socialist institutions of Europe. The day that we arrived in Berlin we went to the area Potsdamer Platz, only one train stop away from our hotel. In the center of the intersection there was a panel

of the Berlin Wall painted in support of peace in Ukraine and against the Belarusian government and Vladimir Putin. This was far from the only show of support for Ukraine in Berlin, yet I found it particularly striking to use a medium such as the Berlin Wall to demonstrate this political message of peace. I felt this again the next day when exploring the East Side Gallery with several of my colleagues. The Gallery is a mile long stretch of the Berlin Wall that has been turned into a public art gallery, with the entire street side of it lined in various murals. Almost all of these had a political message ingrained in them, whether this was directly stated in the painting or took some digging using the posted informational QR codes. One of these depicts a man jumping over the wall while looking back at a crowd of people, and another had a caption which translates to “Politics is the continuation of war by other means.” Another has a more cartoonish look to it, with characters such as a walking ashtray and a DJ-ing mushroom, meant to depict events in Berlin after the fall of the Wall.  

While I had seen a mural portion of the Berlin Wall before at the University of Virginia, it meant so much more to experience it as it once stood. Using the Berlin Wall as a canvas allows people to express their views of the world around them while combining it with a direct connection to the history of the Wall itself. Messages of peace and celebration as well as of political protest being displayed on something that was built to separate people gave me a sense of hope for how this area has been able to heal. To imagine what it was like for a city and its communities to be separated and later reunited helped resonate just how far Berlin has come in the years since World War II, and what efforts have been made to remember their past, both the good and the bad. 

Recognition

An Interpretive Blog of Germany

Meg Brosneck

After visiting France and Poland and finding only denial of past antisemitism, Germany was a breath of fresh air. I’d heard that modern day Germany had done well in acknowledging the sins of its past, but the museums and memorials we visited exceeded my expectations.

The Empty Library memorial

The Germans have dedicated many museums to educating people on the corrupt actions of the Nazis. The Topography of Terror Museum, for example, was devoted almost exclusively to their murderous actions. Just by walking through Berlin, one is likely to stumble upon some kind of memorial to the victims of the Nazis’ actions: for example, “The Empty Library” in front of Humboldt University of Berlin, dedicated to the books the Nazis burned in May of 1933.  But the Germans went further than just recognizing the Nazi leadership’s role in the terror; they make clear that average citizens played a large role in the terror too. 

The Archive of German Members of Parliament

Many of the museums specify that most citizens supported the Nazis. Even the German Resistance Museum, dedicated to those who stood against the Nazis, stated that less than one percent of the population resisted. The majority were complicit. In the Reichstag, the home of the German Parliament, there is an art installation called the “Archive of German Members of Parliament” which showcases the names of every member of the German parliament throughout the 20th century. Many are Nazis, and Adolf Hitler is included. This exhibit includes those names to emphasize that those Nazis rose to power under the electoral system of the Weimar Republic; it was the German people who elected and brought them to power, and that needs to be remembered so it won’t be repeated. This open acknowledgment of the past is honorable. It’s not easy to admit the horrors of your country’s past—many countries refuse to—but this recognition is the only way a country can move forward.

I find myself comparing Germany to the US, where it is becoming more and more difficult to discuss our country’s shameful past of imperialism, slavery, and genocide. We have a lot to learn from Germany, and I can only hope one day we’ll follow their example.

From the Topography of Terror Museum in Berlin

Germany does not shirk from its collective responsibility for World War II and the Holocaust. The German Historical Museum, for example, does not sugarcoat popular support for the Nazi Party during the interwar period. Instead, historians ask how the Nazis obtained power and why they were able to keep it. By answering these difficult questions, the Federal Republic of Germany acknowledges and wrestles with its dark past, which proves that democracy is never guaranteed in our turbulent world but it can rise out of our darkest experiences.

The Topography of Terror Museum documents the rise and ruthlessness of the Nazi Party through propaganda, intimidation, and violence. The steel building stands where the Gestapo Headquarters and Reich Main Security Office once stood. It was here at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse that Gleichschaltung (i.e. the totalitarian process of subjugating every element of society to Adolf Hitler) became a reality. To solidify their grip on power, Nazi brownshirts arrested political opponents in the Reichstag, paraded elected officials through the streets, terrorized German-Jews, and persecuted the professional classes. Under Heinrich Himmler and Reinhart Heydrich, the Reich Main Security Office fused police forces into the ranks of the SS. The Museum includes pictures of Nazi officials alongside walls of text that explain the roles of individuals in Nazi terrorism. The Nazis targeted the upper echelons of German civil society and removed safeguards that should prevent the acceptance of evil regimes and boundless war.

The Bendlerblock Memorial to German Resistance remembers the few with the courage to oppose the Nazi regime in its atmosphere of terror, especially those who sacrificed their lives in the July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. One could easily miss the unassuming courtyard where firings squads executed Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators. The Memorial consists of a stone slab, two copper plaques, and a statue of a naked and bound man. It does not make excuses for the plot’s failure or conjecture about what might have been. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt noted that key leaders of Operation Valkyrie planned to ask for a separate peace as well as other terms to which the Allies would never have agreed. Instead, the Memorial humbly and factually reminds visitors that some paid the ultimate price in defiance of Hitler’s Germany. The Bendlerblock also contains a series of exhibits on resistance from individuals in many segments of German society, including the army, churches, schools, and governments. While resistance to Nazi Germany was anything but widespread, the Bendlerblock Memorial shows that the Nazis failed to eradicate civil society.

After World War II, Germany was realistic about its culpability for the Nazi regime. Unlike postwar France, there were no myths of a vast and powerful resistance. It was undeniable that many contributed to the collapse of the young Weimar Republic into the Third Reich. The Reich Chancellery and Reichstag lay in ruins, and rubble filled the streets of Berlin until 1950. The Führer Bunker where Hitler took his own life is now a parking lot. From ground zero, Germans participated in de-Nazification and formed a new government. After its reunification in 1990, the Federal Republic of Germany was – arguably – the most modern democracy in the world. The Bundestag, formerly the Reichstag, reflects postwar Germany’s dark history and impressive progress through its design. I interpreted its open glass top as indicative of the transparency necessary for parliamentary representation. There is preserved graffiti from Soviet soldiers on the walls. Germany is a product of its experiences, and it does not intend for the suffering of its people (esp. victims and resistors) to be in vain. With democracy in crisis across the West, perhaps the future lies in remembering the darkness of Germany’s past alongside the mirrors and light of the Bundestag spire.

When we think of Germany, we often think of them as the awful perpetrators in the Holocaust and of who’s to blame for World War II. But what is their identity today? This year will be 74 years since the end of WWII. From their laws against swastikas and SS symbols to the banning of the Nazi salute in public, Germany appears to be recognizing the past and taking steps to ensure it doesn’t repeat the same mistakes. Yet, there was still one thing that stood out to me as being nonprogressive towards ending Nazism: The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.

Talks of building the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe was in the works all the way back in the 1980s, but it wasn’t awarded funding by the German Federal Parliament until 1999 and construction didn’t begin until 2003. Finally, the Memorial was completed and opened to the public in 2005. The fact that it took nearly 25 years to get this memorial established in such a key place in Germany was really striking to me. Whether this was due to the fact that many perpetrators, collaborators, and bystanders of World War II and the Holocaust were still alive during that time period or if it was Germany’s unwillingness to take responsibility for their past, this seemed like a job that was well overdue.

The name of this memorial also stood out to me because it does not disclose who murdered the Jews of Europe, when or exactly where they were murdered, nor does it include any mention of the Holocaust or Nazism. In addition, the historical placement of this site is important because it in the city center where most of the deportations took place. The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe is also located around the corner from the infamous Führerbunker where Hitler committed suicide. This could be seen as problematic in the fact that it takes the attention off of the Jewish memorial itself.

Since its opening in 2005, there have also been problems of tourists and locals alike, taking pictures, posing on top of and vandalizing the rows of Memorial stones. These acts of insensitivity are extremely dangerous and give the impression that people do not know or care about the genocide of the Jewish people. Like Hannah Arendt pointed out, these “nobodies” are the most dangerous of all when it comes to the Holocaust. This bears the question if the memorial had a stronger and more descriptive name, would people be more empathetic to it?

The only thing this memorial seems to have done right would be in the actual construction and design of the Memorial. It consists of various rows of gray rectangle blocks that vary in size, shape, and texture, with an unstable ground that changes in elevation. Visiting this memorial with my comrades only intensified the experience. Walking through the blocks I would see my friends one second and then they were gone the next. There was a sense of uncertainty with no set direction as to how to walk through the memorial and a feeling of instability and chaos in the precarious ground, where you are almost never able to properly catch your footing. The exposure you feel when standing by the short blocks and a sense of isolation you feel while standing by the tall blocks was also something I encountered while visiting. These were all feelings that the Jewish people experienced during the Holocaust. You leave the memorial feeling uncomfortable and unsure, only a minute part of what these victims felt every day of their lives during World War II. This memorial does seem to be a step up against Nazism, but as we can see in the lengthy timeline of construction, vagueness in the title of the memorial and in the insensitivity of visitors, there is still a long way to go for Germany.

Although I enjoy most of the classes I take, I often have trouble applying the knowledge I learned in real life scenarios. I had never been put into a situation where I utilized the knowledge I learned from all of my classes to figure out a problem and come to a logical conclusion, but this changed when I visited the German History Museum. Here, I was amazed when I stumbled upon an exhibit which called upon what I learned in my German, history, and religion classes.

As I passed by a seemingly simple quilt, I quickly realized there was much more depth to it. It was a very large quilt with embroidered pictures of a Nazi German town with many houses, townspeople, Nazi soldiers, the Hitler Youth, and the League of German Girls marching towards a church in the center of the town. This seemed pretty straightforward until I realized there was also a long German passage also embroidered into the quilt. As I began to read it, it seemed oddly familiar to me. This is when I realized it was the Lord’s Prayer well known throughout Christianity.

Large quilt depicting the Nazification of Christianity in a German town

Once I figured this out, the entire piece seemed to make so much more sense. It was a pure example of the Nazification of Christianity which was seen throughout WWII in the Third Reich. Coming to this conclusion was very rewarding to me because I finally utilized what I’ve learned in several different classes in real life, and I hope to have more of these moments as I continue to further my education.

Part of the quilt which shows a couple lines of the Lord’s Prayer in German

Over the course of the month we visited many, many museums, each of which had its own narrative of the war to tell. The Churchill War Rooms wanted to show that Churchill was an exceptional man of the people and a crucial asset to the People’s War. The museum did this by showcasing Churchill’s everyday routines and hobbies thus making him more average and relatable. The Caen Memorial Museum in France pushed forward the idea that the French resistance was so effective that the Allies were not really needed to liberate the country… The Schindler museum in Krakow clearly laid out the Polish narrative of collective victimhood; our guide continuously made clear that there were good Polish people and bad Polish people, good Jews and bad Jews, and that overall Poland suffered as a whole. But the German museums I found the most interesting because they did not seem to push any sort of narrative at all. They were all very objective and fact based leaving the visitor to interpret the information as such. This objective perspective also seemed to really embody Germany’s collective memory of remorse – we did it, and we are sorry.

To me the objectivity was their way of taking responsibility. Sticking to the facts leaves no room for twisting the story into something it wasn’t. German museums were much wordier and held many less pictures; pictures tend to evoke more emotion than words do and leave more room for subjective interpretation. The Topography of Terror was probably the most word-heavy of the museums we visited in Berlin and the pictures that it had were often placed in a very calculated way – pictures of tormented Jews were often

The juxtaposition of photos in the Topography of Terror Museum.

placed in close proximity to pictures of Nazi officers doing everyday tasks or having fun and in this placement a sort of tension and discomfort was created. The museum displays were also hanging from the ceiling. If someone touched them or if the air conditioner was blowing, they would begin to sway. This also created feelings of discomfort and even made me feel as though I was going to pass out while reading them.

As I visited more museums in Berlin, I began to notice that many of them seemed to use this method physical discomfort through layout and

One of the void spaces in the Jewish Museum of Berlin that was intended to evoke feelings of isolation that the Jews would’ve felt.

architecture which I found most interesting. The Jewish Museum of Berlin used tilted floors and dark, empty rooms with 24m high ceilings to create feelings of discomfort and loneliness that the Jews may have felt while in isolation and under oppression. These rooms reminded me of the “sunken place” from the movie Get Outif you are familiar with the film.

Overall, I thought that the German’s most effectively conveyed the message of WWII. The factual perspective exuded a sense of honesty and responsibility that none of the other museums in any of the other countries seemed to acknowledge, especially not Poland and France. I so appreciated seeing that the Germans took this viewpoint because, honestly, I was little nervous to see what they’d say.

Acknowledging and learning from mistakes is no easy task even in everyday life. The German people are faced with recognizing how they were a part of one of the most evil and violent regimes the world has ever known, a role in which they whole-heartedly accept. The German National Museum, the Wannsee House, the Topography of Terror Documentation Center, and other sites and museums provide evidence that the German people seek to admit total responsibility for the actions of Nazi Germany. Endless paragraphs of text, factual documentation, and displays fill these museums, no narrative or excuses present in any way.

The German National Museum gives an excellent exhibit on the Weimar Republic, Germany’s democratic government in the inter-war period, and the conditions that allowed Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise to power. The Germans are not deceiving on the support they held for Hitler, one quote from the German Resistance Memorial Center states, “Most Germans welcomed the new authorities and their politics. Only a minority mounted resistance…” The same museum also maintains that the Nazis were the aggressors during the war, definitively explaining that the Second World War began when Germany invaded Poland. A quote from the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, holds the same sentiment by asserting, “The Second World War unleashed by the German Reich claims over 50 million lives.”

The exhibits at the Wannsee House continue to refute the claims of Holocaust deniers by providing the document formed there on January 20, 1942 surrounding the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Translations in multiple languages give readers the opportunity to digest the rhetoric that Reinhard Heydrich and other Nazi officials created when determining the fate of all European Jews. Further displays give evidence of how this plan was put into action and the end result of its implementation – the extermination of millions of men, women, and children.

Germany explains how many Nazi officials, party members, and war criminals were able to return to everyday life following the war. They also indicate how widespread acceptance of their nation’s past did not arise until later generations of Germans began learning the full truth about the Nazis. Germany today takes full responsibility for their sinister role in this period of history and seek to educate others about it.

Thinking about World War II from a modern-day German’s perspective is certainly complicated. How do you go about studying such a painful chapter in your country’s history? Throughout the museums and monuments I visited in Germany, it was clear that Germans take responsibility for the war. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is one of many examples of remembering the Holocaust and acknowledging the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. Small “stumbling stones” along sidewalks and streets mark the locations of Jewish victims’ homes prior to the Holocaust and collectively may be more significant than any giant monument or museum. Other museums such as the Topography of Terror and the German Historical Museum explain how the Nazis consolidated power and launched Germany into war. They seem to serve as reminders of what can happen when civil liberties are suppressed, and dissent is punished. Additionally, the museums are not hesitant to admit the widespread support for the German war effort or the quest for dominance over Europe. Still, they honor those who spoke out against Nazism and defied Hitler; people like Claus von Stauffenberg and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The Reichstag building is the perfect representation of modern Germany. The chamber was not the home of democracy for nearly six decades and architecturally it does look like there is a sixty-year gap between the old and the new. From the outside, it is an old building with a long history. The interior, however, represents the future of Germany; with fresh looking blue chairs and a spiraling dome that rises above Berlin, it is an architectural marvel. The Wannsee House, where the Final Solution was finalized, was one of the more memorable sites I visited. The house is gorgeous, surrounded by gardens and looking out over the lake. It is hard to miss the irony while walking on the grounds. How could such a beautiful place be most known for one of the most wicked conferences ever held? It is also fitting that Hitler’s bunker, where he spent most of his final months in Berlin, is now a parking lot. A large sign describes the significance of the location where he committed suicide, but otherwise, you could drive by without having any idea.

Overall, Berlin taught me a lot about Germany both in the mid-20^th century and today. Fortunately, after nearly fifty years of division following the end of the war, Germany has come together over the past three decades and become a world power once again. I believe the rest of the world can learn a lot from the way the Germans remember their past and how they prepare for the future.

By the end of our time in Berlin, I couldn’t handle the huge paragraphs of text that German museums presented me at every turn. I often thought that several museums would be more effective with their information placards printed and bound in a book rather than hanging on walls. Why do the Germans dote upon documents and details? Why don’t the French or British?

It’s hard to be peppy in Germany when museums are filled with chilling thoughts instead of glowing triumphs. The Topography of Terror museum, for example, exhibits the below photo of Kurt Meyer, commander of the 12^th SS Panzer Division and supervisor of war crimes in Normandy, celebrating at a reunion for Waffen-SS soldiers. Like many SS men convicted by West Germany and the Allies, Meyer’s sentence got his sentence commuted. He was free by 1954.

Kurt Meyer (front left), war criminal, celebrates with other former members of the Waffen-SS in July 1957. The Topography of Terror museum prominently displays this photo along others of Nazis who “got away with it.”

The French deal with war criminals in their museums, but not with their Meyer equivalents. Moreover, they almost never mention their own men who participated in the Holocaust (save Laval), let alone draw attention to the leniency that the Republic showed the perpetrators. Instead, they choose to overstate the role of the Résistance in liberating France, despite the group being militarily irrelevant for most of the war. Funnily enough, the Deutsches Historisches Museum and Topography of Terror exhibit had greater documentation of French collaboration with the Nazi occupation than did the French themselves. Recent French media, like the film La Rafle (an account of the Vel d’Hiv Roundup in Paris), have begun to deal with the realities and complexities of resistance and collaboration, but most museums lag behind.

In this candid, a French gendarme confers with an SS officer. Source: not a French museum, but the Wannsee House, in Potsdam. The French prefer to devote space to the Maquis of the Resistance.

The French also have a messy totalitarian legacy in Pétain, dictator of the “French State” in World War II, but they don’t have Germany’s neo-Nazi/Holocaust-denier problem. Germany has volunteered its leadership in combatting the bad history of those above plus others who perpetuate myths like the “clean Wehrmacht.” That added anti-Nazi goal can alone explain why the nation’s museums stick so closely to documents: it’s hard for an apologist to argue with a huge body of primary sources. Like the Poles at Auschwitz, the Germans seek to warn the world far more than entertain: the Deutsches Historisches Museum spends as much space on the rise of Nazism as it does on its effects of the war.

“Officers of Tomorrow.” The Germans do not point at old propaganda with glee, as many French may with old signs for Free France, but with abjection. One might remember that boys were indoctrinated in the Hitler Youth so that they would die for the state by the millions. The most glee propaganda in the German museums is also the most chilling.

The Wannsee House’s exhibit ends with a series of quotes from Holocaust survivors and their families. One stuck with me, from Joseph Wulf: “I have published 18 books here about the Third Reich, but this had no impact. You can publish things for the Germans until you’re blue in the face, there may be the most democratic government in Bonn, but the mass murderers wander about freely, have their little houses and grow flowers.” Mr. Wulf, perhaps not enough Germans had learned the lessons of the National Socialist dictatorship by the 1960s, but today, the Germans go to the ends of the earth to disprove Holocaust-deniers and apologists with exhaustive and unflinching documentation.

The German narrative presented at the German Historical Museum is detached in comparison to the German-Russian Museum which pushed a triumphant narritve. The German Historical Museum was not being deceptive but lacked a definitive narrative. The museum presented plenty of facts but failed to tie together the uniqueness of the Nazi’s. The German Historical Museum was full of new information for me, particularly in the areas of the Weimar Republic and the political atmosphere leading up to the war. The depth of information almost overwhelmed me with so much text and visual evidence. World War Two is presented as a piece of a larger conflict that began in 1914. World War One, the Interwar period and World War Two are taken as a single piece of history. The method shows how the rise of Hitler, the concentration and death camps and ultimately the extermination of millions occurs. The German narrative gets across how normal people can be twisted and manipulated into evil. In certain ways though this narrative scrutinizes the Allied moral position in regard to strategic bombing and Soviet atrocities. The museum expressed how the Nuremburg trails were a “victors justice” and if the same standards were applied fairly Allied commanders would be war criminals.

The Soviet narrative within Berlin portrays the magnificent victory achieved by the Soviet Union against fascism. We went to see two Soviet monuments, both of which were huge, blunt and glorious. The Soviets felt very highly of themselves, as we stood beneath a Soviet soldier, wielding a sword, holding a German child and crushing a swastika, this conquering tone became apparent.

The Soviets killed the vast majority of German soldiers and absorbed the full might of the German military. The size of the Eastern Front is from Boston to Miami in the United States. Millions upon millions of soldiers fought in single battles, waging a war of annihilation against each other. War in the west was more civilized if you could ever say that about war, yet in the east war was unhinged. The Soviets overcame the loss of 28 million people, crushed the Wehrmacht and seized Berlin. The German-Russian museum was lighter when it came to Soviet glory but showed a narrative of Nazi atrocities and Soviet victories. Unlike western museums, this museum gave the Soviets their deserved place. The museum focused on the east and mentioned a few times the western governments and their actions. The war in reality was this way, with the bulk of German forces and atrocities concentrated in the east. Western history has been blinded by political motives to revise the way World War Two was won in Europe.