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Hamburg's Public Memory of Firebombing, Defeat, and Liberation

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Hamburg's Public Memory of Firebombing, Defeat, and Liberation Malte Thießen. Eingebrannt ins Gedächtnis: Hamburgs Gedenken an Luftkrieg und Kriegsende 1943 bis 2005. Forum Zeitgeschichte Series. Munich: Dölling und Galitz Verlag, 2007. 502 pp. ISBN 978-3-937904-55-9. Reviewed by Douglas Peifer Published on H-German (December, 2008) Commissioned by Eve M. Duffy (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill) moire, and why did three in particular come to The inhabitants of Hamburg experienced dominate memory of World War II, specifically over thirty-seven air raids during the frst three the July 1943 frebombing, the Neuengamme con‐ and half years of World War II, but nothing ap‐ centration camp, and the war's end? When and proached the ferocity of the air attacks of July why did dominant narratives of Hamburg's 24-25 and July 27-28, 1943. The attack of July 27-28 wartime experience shift, and did Hamburg fol‐ ignited a frestorm that raged throughout the city low or deviate from the broader patterns of post- center, overwhelming allfrefighting efforts, and war West German public memory? costing the lives of over thirty-four thousand Thiessen's study, published as part of the se‐ Hamburgers. Some nine-hundred thousand resi‐ ries Forum Zeitgeschichte by the Forschungsstelle dents became homeless, and the city center smol‐ für Zeitgeschichte at the University of Hamburg, dered for days. For survivors, the terrible days of answers these questions in its painstakingly de‐ July 1943 became burnt into their memory, never tailed analysis of Hamburg's public memory since to be forgotten. Yet as Malte Thiessen makes clear 1945. The study rests on written sources drawn in this study, constructing a collective municipal from over a dozen archives, encompassing memo‐ memory from hundreds of thousands of individu‐ rial speeches, newspaper articles, exhibit guides, al experiences proved complex, with the concerns serialized historical specials, popular histories, of the present interacting with perspectives from memoirs, newsletters, and the scholarly studies the past. Thiessen addresses a series of interrelat‐ emanating from historical institutes, museums, ed questions in this work. Who were the main ac‐ and universities. One of the major benefits of tors seeking to attach meaning to the city's past? Thiessen's city-specific study of memory is its in‐ How enduring were the narratives they construct‐ creased granularity: while broader studies of Ger‐ ed? What were Hamburg’s competing lieux de mé‐ man memory have captured the tension between H-Net Reviews German memories of themselves as victims, per‐ with concentration camp inmates rather than petrators, bystanders, or resisters, in Hamburg German refugees from the East. Thiessen devotes these general narrative frameworks found specif‐ one sentence to summarizing what happened on ic historical expression in the memory of the Bullenhuser Damm (on April 20, 1945, SS men thousands of innocent German women and chil‐ hanged twenty Jewish children who had been dren killed in the July 1943 frebombing of the subjected to tuberculosis experimentation and city, in the brutality of the wardens and guards at were about to be liberated by British troops), yet the Neuengamme concentration camp, in the in‐ returns to the topic again and again in his discus‐ difference of Hamburg's citizenry to the vicious sion of commemoration and memory. Thiessen treatment and callous execution of prisoners as‐ explains that his study seeks to analyze memory signed to gather and bury the bodies of air raid rather than investigate the historical events them‐ victims, and in the idealized construction of selves, and he understandably does not want to Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann as a quasi-resistance fg‐ inject his interpretation of the past into his analy‐ ure during the fnal days of the war. This in‐ sis of memory construction. Yet by providing no creased granularity and specificity illustrates how assessments of the historical reality of certain his‐ memory was "constructed." Thiessen lays bare the toric events, whether Kaufmann’s actions, Cap mechanics of narrative construction. Different Arkona, Neuengamme, or the Bullenhuser Damm, groups attached competing meaning to the same Thiessen provides his readers with no sense of historical event (the Hamburg frestorm could how far the memory schemas he discusses di‐ thus be seen as terrible retribution or as bar‐ verged from the historical experience from which barous escalation). Different groups therefore dis‐ they sprang. agreed about what dates should be publicly com‐ Historians of memory may dismiss the above memorated (May 3, the surrender of Hamburg; concern by noting, as does Thiessen, that memory May 4, the liberation of Neuengamme; May 8, Ger‐ has as much to do with contemporary issues as it many's unconditional surrender?), advanced op‐ does with the historical past. Thiessen breaks his posing perspectives (the war'’s end as defeat or analysis into fve historical periods (1943-45, liberation), and mobilized the same historical 1945-55, 1956-79, 1980-95, and the sixtieth an‐ events to support diametrically opposed contem‐ niversaries of Hamburg’s destruction and libera‐ porary agendas. tion/defeat in 2003 and 2005), and clearly shows While Thiessen’s approach is to be commend‐ how contemporary concerns colored the con‐ ed for clearly illustrating how municipal memory struction and celebration of public memory. is constructed and changes, a word of caution is Thiessen’s chapter on the period 1943-45 is partic‐ in order for the non-specialist. Thiessen assumes ularly interesting, as he explores how two narra‐ that his readers have a good deal of pre-existing tives developed during this period persisted for knowledge about the events and fgures associat‐ decades: a narrative of a Gemeinschaft (or coming ed with the memories he explores. He assumes his together) and tone of hope, rebirth, and renewal. readers know who Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann and Thiessen asserts that although church officials Kampfkommandant Alwin Wolz were and what stressed Christian Gemeinschaft, and religious role they played during the fnal phases of the hope, these narratives paralleled rather than con‐ war in northwest Germany. He assumes his read‐ fronted the regime themes of Volksgemeinschaft ers know about the sinking of the Cap Arkona on and the promise of a physical renewal of the city. May 3, 1945, and understand that the loss of some Nonetheless, after an initial period of limited tol‐ seven thousand lives had little resonance in Ham‐ erance for religious commemorations for bomb‐ burg’s public memory because the ship was flled ing victims, within a year the regime answered a 2 H-Net Reviews pastor’s request that he be allowed to hold a ser‐ though students protested against the persistence vice at the mass grave for bombing victims with of old elites in the Federal Republic, Hamburg's the response that religious commemorations public memory remained largely wedded to the should take place inside churches. The pastor's historical narratives, commemorative dates, and church was among the many churches that no perspectives established in the 1950s. Only as the longer existed. intellectual descendents of 1968--the Greens, the The chapter on 1945-55 focuses on the estab‐ tageszeitung, and the Hamburger Rundschau-- lishment of memory. Thiessen notes how early came to the fore in the late 1970s did Hamburg'’s post-war commemorations embraced the left and public memory shift (p. 3). Rather than viewing the right; they included concentration camp sur‐ 1968 as a watershed moment in Hamburg’s rela‐ vivors and homeless Germans. Attendance at pub‐ tionship with the Second World War and the Nazi lic events dedicated to the victims of Nazism fell past, Thiessen posits that 1968 began a process precipitously by 1947 and 1948, in part due to the that only gradually changed Hamburg'’s percep‐ critical food shortage which forced the average tion of its past. As 68ers became teachers, as “Bar‐ citizen’s to concentrate on the daily grind of sur‐ fusshistoriker” published alternative accounts of vival, but also because these events did not res‐ the past, and as the generation of 1968 progressed onate with the public. Instead, two narratives be‐ through the institutions, Hamburg slowly adjust‐ came increasingly popular in print and speech: ed long-standing narratives. the frst was a narrative of Hamburg’s surrender The fnal sections of the study deal with on May 3, 1945 as an expression of a practical “memory boom” of the 1980s and 90s, and the six‐ Hanseatic spirit resistant to the irrational Nazi fa‐ tieth anniversary of 1943-45. Thiessen rejects Jörg naticism (and Gauleiter Kaufmann as a quasi-re‐ Friedrich’s assertion that remembering German sister who had risked his life rejecting orders to victims of the Combined Bomber Offensive had destroy all infrastructure during the fnal phase of become taboo by the end of the twentieth century. the war). By the 1950s, the second narrative Carefully analyzing the fortieth (1983), fftieth emerged, this one a story of Hamburg’s destruc‐ (1993), and sixtieth (2003) anniversaries of the tion and rebirth as proof of its unique spirit and 1943 frebombing of Hamburg, Thiessen docu‐ of Germany's Wirtschaftswunder in general. ments a wealth of speeches, newspaper accounts, Thiessen’s analysis of the 1950s and early 60s exhibits, and books dedicated to the topic. While echoes the fndings of Norbert Frei, Robert rejecting the concept that German bombing vic‐ Moeller, and others in that he substantiates a tims had been pushed to the fringe of public growing focus on Germans as victims.[1] If in the memory, Thiessen affirms that the narrative of immediate post-war period many public speeches Germans as victims had come under increasing acknowledged the suffering of those groups and attack during the memory boom of the 1980s and individuals who had been persecuted, tortured, 1990s. On the occasion of the fftieth anniversary and exterminated by the Nazis, by the 1950s the of the frebombing, demonstrators disrupted the Hamburg Senate asserted that soldiers, POWs, memorial service in the “Michel” by unveiling a and bombing casualties had likewise been victims banner proclaiming “Operation Gomorrha.
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