Vergangenheitsbewältigung II Bernhard Schlink’s

Transcript:Vergangenheitsbewältigung II Bernhard Schlink’s:
Vergangenheitsbewältigung II Bernhard Schlink’s Der Vorleser, the Student Movement and the Legacy of National Socialism Nazi Victims Holocaust (6 Million Jews, Sinti & Roma, Homosexuals) Death camps in Poland (Todeslager) Konzentrationslager in Germany (KZ) with 1.6 Mio detainees and 450.000 documented deaths ‘Vernichtung durch Arbeit’ ‘Euthanasia’ – ‘Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens’ Political prisoners (communists & socialists) Issues arising for Germany Guilt (individual/ collective) Responsibility (individual/ collective) Denial & Repression (Avoidance) Damages - ‘Wiedergutmachung’ ‘Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit’ Vergangenheitsbewältigung German deaths - Civilians Luftkrieg – every city over 50.000 bombed - estimated deaths: 450.000 - 600.000 Flight from East & Expulsions: Estimated 300.000 deaths during flight from advancing German army in East Prussia 1945 Estimated 14 mio expellee Germans between 1945 and 1950 Estimated 2 mio women raped mainly by SU soldiers Estimated 140.000 women die as consequence of rape German deaths - Soldiers Estimated 3.2 Million dead soldiers 11 Million POW’s (3.3 in SU, 42% of whom die) German expellees after WWII (‘Heimatvertriebene’) The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, 30 Jan 1945 Ex cruise ship marked as military vessel Transporting refugees from East Prussia Sunk on Baltic coast by Soviet submarine Over 9000 dead Issues for Germany ‘Opfer’: Victim Sacrifice Who is a victim? Who is a perpetrator? What is a victim? What is a perpetrator? Is victim a psychological or political category? Remembrance: How do nations remember their war dead? Alexander & Margarethe Mitscherlich Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern (1967) Question: Why Germans so little empathy with Nazi victims? Thesis: Germans loved Hitler – should have mourned loss of Hitler Germans failed to mourn Hitler – instead withdrew emotional energies from themselves and their past and channelled them into Wirtschaftswunder Result: emotional distance towards their own past as responsible actants involved in Nazism (‘de-realisation’). Insistence on innocence and own suffering in 1950s and 1960s. A. & M. Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern ‘Instead we Germans should extend the empathy with ourselves, so that we can at last recognise ourselves in such scenes […] and on those appalling occasions when one hundred, five hundred, or one thousand bodies lay in front of us, bodies of people we had killed. This would imply a compassionate and poignant acknowledgement of the victims long after the time of horror.’ Sigmund Freud, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ Mourning Process of working through loss ‘erinnern, wiederholen, durcharbeiten’ (Freud) Letting go – Ability to re-cathect Melancholia Refusal to acknowledge loss Denial,