Maja Zehfuss. Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xv + 294 pp. $95.40, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-87333-8.
Reviewed by Kimberly Redding
Published on H-German (September, 2009)
Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher
In a thought-provoking appraisal of contem‐ Chapters 1 and 2 outline the basic premise of porary German politics, twentieth-century litera‐ the book: namely, that even as politicians invoke ture, and postmodernist theory, political scientist personal memories to establish expertise and Maja Zehfuss challenges the validity of using col‐ claim authority, academics assert memory's mal‐ lective memory to defend contemporary political leability, often demonstrating that memories re‐ decisions and positions. Given what scholars veal more about present contexts than any specif‐ know about memory construction, she argues, ic historical event or experience. Zehfuss uses politicians' tendency to justify contemporary poli‐ Günter Grass's novel Im Krebsgang (2002) to cies through references to World War II-era expe‐ demonstrate how memories are perpetually rein‐ riences are fundamentally fawed. Drawing exam‐ vented as individuals negotiate--and renegotiate-- ples from both political speeches and postwar lit‐ relationships between past, present, and future. erature, she illustrates the fragility of memory In political debates, she argues, contemporary and the malleability of remembered narratives. tensions dominate; politicians' need to use the While novelists can accommodate multiple mem‐ past, usually to justify positions, sharply colors ories in their fctional narratives, politicians--and their narratives of that past. Novelists, on the oth‐ their audiences--often confuse personal memories er hand, make relatively few demands on their with authoritative knowledge of the past. The Ger‐ fctional characters' imagined memories. Conse‐ man public's sensitivity to historical references quently, literature provides opportunities to inter‐ makes this potential exploitation of memory par‐ rogate both public and private memories of World ticularly problematic in German politics, Zehfuss War II as evolving, atemporal negotiations, rather claims, because remembered narratives tend to than the established truths politicians often claim oversimplify both historical context and contem‐ them to be. porary dilemmas. H-Net Reviews
Chapter 3 demonstrates the particularly prob‐ the reduction of soldiers to the status of either en‐ lematic nature of inserting memory into German forcers (in the exhibit) or victims (in family sto‐ politics. In the mid-1990s, politicians frequently ries) of Nazi policy; rarely, she argues, was actual cited memories of World War II-era strategic wartime experience so easily categorized. Look‐ bombing to justify their responses to the Gulf ing for alternatives to such deceptive oversimplif‐ War, claiming to have drawn lessons from the cation of the past, Zehfuss again turns to war liter‐ campaigns of 1944 and 1945. Zehfuss shows that ature. Ledig's Die Stalinorgel (2000), she suggests, these politicians' narratives revealed much about not only depicts war itself as unredemptively their own attitudes and political identities, but chaotic, but also rejects the possibility of any sin‐ comparatively little about World War II or its im‐ gle cohesive narrative of wartime experience. The pact on German society. For example, opponents reception of Martin Walser's Ein springender of German intervention in the Gulf War highlight‐ Brunnen (2000), meanwhile, highlights how con‐ ed civilian casualties and social devastation in temporary needs limit memory; Walser's protago‐ their narratives of World War II. Advocates, on nist, Johann, seems hardly impacted by the total the other hand, depicted the strategic bombing war that envelopes his country. Indeed, contem‐ campaigns of the 1940s as measures that liberated porary critics accused Walser of creating an unac‐ entrapped civilian populations. This example re‐ ceptably apolitical protagonist. veals a fundamental tension: although often por‐ Having shown some of the problems that trayed as a cache of experience-based knowledge, arise when memories are invoked to justify politi‐ human memory in fact rewrites experience in re‐ cal decisions, Zehfuss devotes chapter 5 to what sponse to contemporary needs or questions. As al‐ she sees as the basic, underlying issue: human ternatives to this political misuse of personal memory, she claims, refuses to conform to the memory, Zehfuss ofers Gert Ledig's Vergeltung chronological time that structures day-to-day life. (2001) and Harry Mulisch's Das Steinere Brautbett In memory, the past is ever-evolving, shaped by a (1995). These novels, she argues, deny readers present which itself is always in fux, and the im‐ simple dichotomous answers about good and evil possibility of pinning down either the past or the or victim and perpetrator. The authors avoid present is at odds with western notions of past, drawing conclusions or lessons from individual present, and future as distinct, following one after wartime experiences, and, unlike political speech‐ the other in a temporal fashion. Novels ofer op‐ writers, make no attempt to pigeonhole individu‐ portunities to explore alternative perceptions of als based on particular narratives of the past. time, claims Zehfuss. Uwe Johnson's Jahrestage Zehfuss fnds another example of how memo‐ (1970-83) and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 ry obscures, rather than clarifes, historical (1969) for example, suggest that time is malleable, knowledge in the fervent public debates that sur‐ little more than a useful convention that can be rounded the 1995 version of the traveling exhibit quickly thwarted by conficting memories. Crimes of the Wehrmacht. By depicting the atroci‐ Chapter 6 draws together Zehfuss's critique of ties committed by German soldiers, Zehfuss ar‐ the use--or rather, the misuse--of memory in poli‐ gues, the exhibit asserted the collective guilt of all tics. While conceding that collective memories do Wehrmacht veterans. Many visitors, however, "re‐ provide common reference points, Zehfuss insists membered" the experiences of individual soldiers that the commonly held belief that memories rep‐ (their fathers, uncles, grandfathers, and so on), resent truth overdetermines their value in politi‐ whose stories shared little with the exhibit's cal debate. In German political culture, the imper‐ graphic images. What troubles Zehfuss is not the ative to remember is especially strong, and Ze‐ guilt or innocence of particular men, but rather
2 H-Net Reviews hfuss warns of the desire to limit those memories to the politically acceptable. While powerful and emotion-laden, she concludes, memories cannot guide individuals or societies attempting to solve today's dilemmas, because those very issues in fact shape the memories themselves. Although this is a thought-provoking book, readers not well versed in postwar German litera‐ ture may fnd Zehfuss's frequent references to specifc scenes in each of seven novels somewhat confusing. Similarly, her assumption of readers' familiarity with the theoretical writings of Jacques Derrida and Maurice Halbwachs may prove problematic to some audiences of the unini‐ tiated. However, for scholars trying to assess the burgeoning memoir market, seeking fresh inter‐ pretations of recent political debates, or wonder‐ ing how literary and historical scholarship might work together, Wounds of Memory is delightfully stimulating and interdisciplinary. Zehfuss's clear style, obvious mastery of wide-ranging literatures, and carefully nuanced observations invite read‐ ers to consider not only how past wars shape con‐ temporary politics, but also how politics shapes memories of war.
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Citation: Kimberly Redding. Review of Zehfuss, Maja. Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. September, 2009.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25300
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