“The First World War: History, Memory and Commemoration”: Commemorating the First World War in Germany: Towards a new ‘Historikerstreit’?

Warland, Geneviève
(2014) The First World War: History, Memory and Commemoration / La Première guerre mondiale: Histoire, mémoire et commemoration” — Location: York University, Toronto, Ontario (18.September.2014)

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Looking at the remembrance of the First World War in Germany at the levels of politics, historiography and culture allows the following remarks: First of all, politicians, historians and cultural actors all insist on the importance of remembering this tormented past as a way to better understand our living conditions today, in a democratic country like Germany and in the European Union which is a warrant for peace and security on the European continent. If the exhibitions tend to show the various experiences of the First World War and its impact for people as well as situate it in the historical context of the 20th century, the historiographical controversy I focused on tackles the normative questions of German responsibility in the outbreak of the First World War and of a ‘burden-free’ German historical writing. The notion of burden towards the German past is well recognise in the discourse of Germany’s highest authorities who have expressed their regrets for the crimes committed by German soldiers in Belgium and France in the first months of the war. And such a responsibility for the past will not vanish from the political discourse bearing an official memory which has to be loyal to the ground principles of the German Federal Republic. The case of historiography may be slightly different with the emerging of a transnational and burden-free German historical research leaving aside any consideration for values and norms in historical writing.However, it should not necessarily take this way as attested by Jörn Leonhard’s narrative on First World War: "Die Büchse der Pandora. Geschichte des Ersten Weltkrieges".
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Warland, G. (2014). “The First World War: History, Memory and Commemoration”: Commemorating the First World War in Germany: Towards a new ‘Historikerstreit’? The First World War: History, Memory and Commemoration / La Première guerre mondiale: Histoire, mémoire et commemoration”, York University, Toronto, Ontario. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/193560