Neil Macgregor's German Lesson

Review Germany, an object lesson Neil MacGregor introduces us to a little known land, Alan Philps writes From the window in Neil is, surprisingly, Germany. newest country in Europe MacGregor’s office you can Germany: Memories of a and now the most powerful, see the swirling crowds of Nation uses 200 objects to tell economically and politically. visitors in the courtyard of the country’s history in a way We need to understand the British Museum. Seven that challenges the British it more.’ million people a year squeeze obsession with Second World The exhibition is timed through the Museum’s War images. for the 25th anniversary of narrow door – almost double It follows the extraordinary the fall of the Berlin Wall in the number in 2000. success of MacGregor’s November. But the relevance MacGregor, director since History of the World in 100 is much more contemporary, 2002, puts the rise in visitors Objects – a series of 100 going to the heart of debates down to the stunning redesign 15-minute BBC radio in Britain about how power of the Great Court inside the broadcasts in which the should be shared among the museum with its glass and director brings to life exotic UK’s home nations and in steel roof which has made the pieces from the museum’s a dysfunctional Europe. museum more visitor friendly. collection. Thanks to his The lesson of the exhibition But much of the credit must beguiling delivery, both is that German history is go to him for his passionate erudite and puckish, the not about one man seizing belief that history should be podcasts have been all power into his hands but central to our understanding downloaded 24 million times. centuries of decentralized of the world as it is today. It was a stroke of genius to authority. ‘One of the purposes of the see that radio was the perfect ‘The fundamental narrative museum,’ he says ‘has been medium to tell a story in of Germany has been of to offer the public the history pictures. dispersed power – sharing they need to make sense of the This project is a tougher power across different parts of world now’. Throughout our sell. Since 1914 Britain has the country and with different conversation, ‘history’ is often not been much interested in organizations,’ he says. ‘It paired with the word ‘need’. Germany history or culture, is also absolutely clear that In pursuit of this mission except for the period of the Germany thinks of itself he has mounted exhibitions Third Reich which is entirely in a European on Iran and Afghanistan. The relentlessly studied at school. context.’ latest country in the spotlight MacGregor wants people to There is a political point understand that those 12 years here: if Europe is going to are ‘historically a complete be led, then surely it is best if anomaly’. That was the only it is done by a country which time that Germany was knows about dispersed power. centrally controlled, yet it MacGregor will not follow shapes British stereotypes the thought to its conclusion. of Germany as a nation in ‘That’s for others to decide.’ jackboots. As Westminster struggles The absence of modern to cope with Scottish European history in the school nationalism and English curriculum is a ‘very serious Euroscepticism, there is much problem’, he says. ‘At school for Britain to learn from we don’t learn very much Germany. ‘The British about Germany other than the government and parliament first half of the 20th century. have a long tradition of the Very few people have studied exclusive exercise of power,’ One of the items from the Germany after 1945, and even he notes. ‘Germany has a exhibition: etching by Emil Norde fewer since 1989. This is the tradition of knowing there 44 | the world today | october & november 2014 REVIEWS 04.indd 44 30/09/2014 14:40 Review Germany, an object lesson Neil MacGregor introduces us to a little known land, Alan Philps writes are other centres of real power with which it works easily and comfortably.’ One of the goals of the exhibition is to revive the memory of pre-1914 Germany, which was Europe’s cultural and intellectual hub. After two world wars, very few British people read German. Such an approach may raise some atavistic feelings, while others will be looking for any sign that the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people has been whitewashed. Visitors will find grotesque German anti-Semitic posters, children’s cut-out figures of the Nazi party saluting Hitler and a look at the Buchenwald concentration camp. They will also find other artefacts from the Communist dictatorship of East Germany, which collapsed only 25 years ago. But the exhibition points up the less well-known aspects of history. Everyone has heard of the Iron Cross, and most would associate it with German militarism. Yet the medal was established in 1813 when the Prussian state had to fight Napoleon and Germany was going through a period of austerity – one much more egalitarian than our own. A medal awarded to all ranks, it was proudly made of base metal. To pay for the defeat of Napoleon, ladies at the Prussian court handed in their jewellery and received in return a plain iron necklace, stamped with the words ‘I sold gold for iron’. This egalitarian principle returned later in the century when Prussia established the the world today | october & november 2014 | 45 REVIEWS 04.indd 45 30/09/2014 14:40 Review beginnings of the welfare starts around the 1710s Bauhaus and a spirit of subtle resistance state, including the fi rst old and 1720s. The collection age pension. embodies a pre-imperial idea It is hard not to be caught of understanding, for two Two items from the up with the director’s reasons. First is so that you exhibition tell revealing enthusiasm as he delves into can trade with the world, stories about life in Germany’s history. Using but if you compare diff erent Germany in the 20th Gutenberg’s Bible, he societies, you can get a better Century. Both have a link portrays Mainz in southern idea of your own. So above all to the Weimar School of Germany as the start-up it’s about tolerance. Architecture and Design, capital of the world in the ‘The major worry for any called the Bauhaus, which 15th century. government in the early 18th pioneered modern design All the skills and century was how you stop civil in the 1920s. Because of its who got their just deserts. connections were there war on the basis of religion. socialist and internationalist Intriguingly, the typeface – advanced metallurgy One of the best ways is to look outlook, the Nazis set out is a product of Bauhaus to make the revolutionary at other religions and then see to destroy it. design. It was made by a movable type, wine presses there’s no one true way. The The fi rst item is a ceramic camp inmate, the communist to provide the model for the point of this collection is to vase, above, by Greta Marks. architect Franz Ehrlich, who fi rst printing press, and the show that we all do the same Displaying African was imprisoned on a charge Frankfurt fair, where thing in diff erent ways and infl uences, it is a striking of treason in 1934. The font Gutenberg could order high there’s no best way.’ piece even today. Goebbels, displayed what MacGregor quality paper from Italy for If you want to see a ‘trophy the Nazi propaganda calls ‘a spirit of subtle delivery every six months. museum’, the place to look is minister, singled it out as resistance’, which the inmates Most important, there was the Louvre which is about the ‘decadent art’. Marks fl ed understood to mean that a large literate population state and France’s place in the to Britain and continued one day the Nazis would linked by the trade network of Mediterranean world. The working but never again get justice. German rivers which ensured British Museum, he insists, is found the inspiration of Ehrlich was set free in he could make a profi t. about the citizen and it is ‘the her early work. 1939 and, uniquely for a ‘You have an unusually high private collection of everyone’. The second is the communist, allowed to work concentration of courts, What’s next after Germany? inscription Jedem das Seine through the Nazi period. each of them with their own An exploration of Australia – to each his due – on the At the end of the war he bureaucracy. So you have the through Aboriginal eyes, gate of Buchenwald was fêted as a hero in the public to support a growing using the Museum’s early and concentration camp, where East Germany. The story book market. There was well-documented collection many Jews and communists of how he negotiated life nowhere else in Europe of Aboriginal material. This were incarcerated, including with two kinds of tyrannical with that concentration of exhibition is being organized two prime ministers of regime does not end there, cities linked by trade routes jointly with the National France, and 56,000 people however. and rivers.’ Museum in Canberra with died. Unlike the more famous ‘We fi nd the story of MacGregor raises his voice the engagement of indigenous inscription on the gate at Ehrlich the good communist in irritation only once, when people, as part of Australia’s Auschwitz, this one faces moving. But when the Stasi I suggest that the British attempt to renegotiate its inwards and was designed to archives were opened, it Museum – ‘the world in one relationship with the past..

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