Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 11:46:27 -0500 Reply-To: H-NET List on German History Sender: H-NET List on German History From: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers Subject: The Dead of Wars Submitted by: Walter Felscher A few days ago, the self immolation of a German WWII veteran was reported here by a correspondent from Munich. Fortunately, the attitude the man wanted to express is rare in that intensity. Still, a feeling of resentment may be present among more people than usually appears to be the case, though it remains inarticulate and does not find occasion to be voiced. The war lost 50 years ago, the realization that it was a government of criminals for which patriotism was mobilized, and for which the soldiers fought, has lead to a disassociation of the German public from its own history, back into former centuries. I have tried to exemplify this in some travel impressions which I wrote in 1993 and which I enclose as an illustration. Walter Felscher, Tuebingen ******* 1. By curious accident, I recall even the date: September 7th , 1963. We travel from Wissant near Calais to Reims, via Arras and Cambrai. The mild blue skies of September, warmth during the day, lunch on the bank of a small, picturesque canal, looking at a lock and the barges passing through. Beginning south from Arras, from time to time wide fields, going on to the horizon and covered, not with stalks of corn, but with row after row of white painted crosses. The graveyards of WW I : British, German, American. A memory to the dead, and a memory for the living. 2. During the last years, I occasionally had reason to visit the small town of Wavre, south of Brussels. One saturday noon, there were some empty hours to spend, and since there are many direction signs in Wavre, saying "Waterloo", I decided to drive into that direction, looking at the area which, on June 17th, 1814, was the scene of the battle ending Napoleon's fortunes. Coming from the Southeast, through narrow ravines between small hills, there opens a wide, rolling countryside which to the North flattens into the Flandrish plains stretching towards the sea. The first thing to be seen then on this flat land is a singular hill, apparently artificial, and looking from the distance as if it were piled up from the wastes dug out from a mine. Going nearer, you see that it rises maybe 300 ft, and on top of it you notice the huge figure of a maned lion - the "Monument Britannique". An aged building at the foot houses a panorama; there are buses with visitors, and stands selling postcards and fried potatoes. You notice the flights of stairs leading up to the lion, filled with the miniscule figures of people ascending. On the way to the hill, you pass two "Monuments Francaises", smaller of course, demicircles of stone set into the ground, even in November with a few bundles of flowers and a wreath. Finally, on the road to Charleroi, you notice a sign "Monument Prussien", and below it another one, saying "Nos amis fideles". Following the small road, after a while you enter a village, the signs reappearing and directing you into a back street on the left. You pass over its cobblestones, and where it ends and opens into the fields, "Nos amis fideles" points into a dirt road to the left. Monument Prussien ? Looking more thoroughly, the eye finally meets a wrought iron fence, up to the left where the dirt road cuts through a rise. There are grass covered steps, and climbing up, you see that the fence, painted black, encloses a square area of, say, 30x30 ft, laid out with clean black flagstones; in their midst a black pylon with a short inscription. There is no wrath, there are no flowers. The fence is about 9 feet high; in it a door which is locked, and the lettering too far away to be read. There is nobody to be seen. It is remote from the world, forgotten. "Nos amis fideles", upon further inspection, directs you to a farmhouse half a mile down the dirtroad. It turns out to be a pension for dogs and cats. 3. Last year, early September again, a warm day, we travel through the wide, green marshlands north of Elmshorn. At a distance, a small village appears, high chestnut trees standing out, and above them a baroque lantern. The village's name is Hoernerkirchen, and the lantern turns out to be the top of the small cupola of the village church. Built from red bricks, a baroque pavillon, almost playfully elegant, and recalling the idiom of Schlaun who built in the Muensterland. Unfortunately, the original structure had been destroyed by a fire during the 30ies, and the reconstruction of the interior has not been very successful. The old bells now have been set to hang in a a wooden frame, open and with only a small roof above them, standing in all their glory in front of the building. Obviously, care and effort had been taken. Set into the lawn around the church, there are some ancient tombstones of former ministers. Looking at them, we pass towards the rear. Bushes hide a wall, and beyond it we notice gardens and backyards. Looking behind the bushes, we discover, set into the wall, the memorial for the parish's dead from WW I. Grey slabs of stone, withering, a few naked, grey steps in front. Fall's first leaves on the stone, no indication that there ever may have been a flower or a wreath. No memorial for the living: hidden behind bushes. 4. Driving at night on the Autobahn, from Fehmarn southwards towards Luebeck, we often had noticed the floodlit reddish tower of a village church to the right, shortly before the Neustadt exit. A few weeks after Hoernerkirchen, on a cool October afternoon, we happen to visit the village, Altenbrande. The red brick church, founded in the 12th century, has a remarkable interior, which we spend some time to admire. When we come out, we walk around the church, looking at the stones of the old churchyard. The village, it appears, stands on the bank of rise, and towards the East the land falls down, permitting a wide view across pastures, fields and the band of the distant Autobahn, eight centuries away from the church. Permitting a wide view, but right behind the church's apsis a cluster of bushes has grown up, untended, and this time of the year, not many of their leaves are left. Hidden within the network of branches and twigs, we hardly perceive a large stone, grown over with moss, most of the lettering washed out. Climbing into the thicket, I discover the stone to be the memorial for the parish's dead from WW I. No memorial for the living. 5. In the center of Hamburg, in front of the Dammtor station, below trees and a few feet from the roaring traffic of one of the city's arteries, there stands the war memorial for the 76th Hanseatic regiment. A large square block of whitish grey, its sides covered with basreliefs of steel helmeted soldiers, planned in 1931, started in 1932, completed only in 1936. Below the basreliefs, the inscription "Deutschland muss leben - auch wenn wir sterben muessen", a quote from a minor, sometime socialist poet Heinrich Lersch. The whitish grey of the stone is sullied with the city's dirt. The reliefs are covered with large letterings in black or red paint: anti-war slogans - the latest probably referring to the gulf war. This appearance has been so for the last 20 years; at some time the paint was washed off, but as new letterings appeared immediately afterwards, the city administration has given up on cleaning. There have been repeated proposals by the Green and SPD politicians to remove the memorial altogether. A few nights ago, this February 1993, the Hamburger Staatsoper, 500 yards across the street, opened a new production of Aida. Set in ancient Egypt, the final scene is a duetto between Rhadames and his love, sung in the grave's chamber while they are being buried alive. As it is usual these days, the new production is spiced with all kinds of modernisms. In the final scene, a huge rock, the size of a small house, is lowered down from the stage's ceiling upon the grave chamber, crushing Rhadames and his love. It is a faithful cardboard replica of the war memorial, gleamingly white this time. ******* .