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Tendentiousness and Topicality: Buchenwald and Antifascism as Sites of GDR memory

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Joanne Sayner

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Abstract

This article examines two chapters from Martin Sabrow’s 2009 edited volume Erinnerungsorte der DDR, one on antifascism and one on Buchenwald. These two case studies exemplify the complexities of the contemporary German memorial landscape. In particular, they thematize the remembrance of the Nazi past in the German Democratic Republic and how this GDR past has, in turn, been tendentiously remembered since unification. By examining the layering of memories in these two chapters, we argue that the theoretical models which often underpin contemporary German memory work, Sabrow’s volume included, serve to obscure the role of the state as carrier of official memory. On the basis of this study, we show that concepts dominant in today’s Germany promote a unified national narrative. In particular, terms such as the “culture of memory” (Erinnerungskultur) and cultural memory (kulturelles Gedächtnis) downplay conflicting, contentious and diverse memories relating to the GDR past. As such, the article provides a timely note of caution for memory studies and memory work, which increasingly applies these models to wider, non-German contexts.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Peitsch H, Sayner J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: German Politics and Society

Year: 2015

Volume: 33

Issue: 1

Pages: 100-118

Print publication date: 01/06/2015

Acceptance date: 26/07/2014

Date deposited: 20/02/2017

ISSN (print): 1045-0300

ISSN (electronic): 1558-5441

Publisher: Berghahn Books Inc.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/gps.2015.330108

DOI: 10.3167/gps.2015.330108

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