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A Reflection on the Scale and Scope of Disaster Memories

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A Reflection on the Scale and Scope of Disaster Memories INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR HISTORY, CULTURE AND MODERNITY www.history-culture-modernity.org Published by: Uopen Journals Copyright: © The Author(s). Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence eISSN: 2213-0624 Betwixt and Between: A Reflection on the Scale and Scope of Disaster Memories Felix Mauch HCM 7: 110–141 DOI: 10.18352/hcm.552 Abstract This paper shows that disaster memories not only develop over differ- ent circuits of time, but also involve multiple spatial layers. In the par- ticular case presented here, remembering Hamburg’s ‘Great Deluge’ of 1962 followed patterns in which national politics intermeshed with dis- tinctive local legacies and competing memory actors in changing inter- pretive frames. Tracing the flood’s multi-faceted reverberations along these intersections, this article suggests, firstly, that a long-term analy- sis of selected memory narratives can offer insights into the broader political implications as well as the unique characteristics of place- based disaster cultures. Secondly, by taking into account commemora- tion events, politics of remembrance as well as symbolic and material lieux de mémoire, the article shows that disaster memories are shaped by historical actors both ‘outside’ and ‘on site’. As a result, the article traces an eclectic panorama of co-evolving disaster memory cultures – not only local and (inter)national, environmental and social, and ‘from below’ and prescribed at the same time, but ‘betwixt and between’ them as well. Keywords: environmental history, floods, Hamburg, memory, natural disaster HCM 2019, VOL. 7 110 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 11:20:30AM via free access BETWIXT AND BETWEEN Introduction Hamburg’s Große Flut (‘Great Deluge’) is firmly anchored in German public memory.1 A wealth of monuments, high water marks and a pleth- ora of documentary films, media outlets and personal testimonies from contemporary witnesses keep the incidents that occurred in early 1962 alive. During the night of 16 to 17 February, a massive storm flood shook the young Federal Republic to its foundations. Hailing from the North Sea, storm front Vincinette, the victorious, forced massive tidal waves into the lower reaches of the Weser and Elbe for several hours, washing away vast areas along the coastline between Cuxhaven and Geesthacht and causing billions of deutschmarks of material damage. Once the tidal waves crashed through dykes and embankments, a chain of events took its course that triggered what disaster experts consider the most devastating natural catastrophe in modern German history.2 The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg suffered the most. More than 12,500 hectares – approximately one fifth of the entire urban landscape – were submerged. The water masses trapped more than 100,000 residents; over 15,000 lost their homes and 315 people lost their lives. One area accounted for most of the fatalities: within hours, Wilhelmsburg, a working-class district surrounded by two branches of the Elbe, was literally drowned. Here, the flood caught many local resi- dents by surprise, and transformed the river island into a watery grave. Despite unprecedented rescue efforts, help came too late for many. After the water receded, emergency services reported 222 people dead or missing.3 So much for the undisputed history of events. The figures arguably paint a picture of a mainly local event. The inundations’ physical impact and its destructive outcome were restricted to specific geographic areas located in a high-risk zone, in which natural hazards pose an enduring threat. Within the North Sea’s sphere of influence, life is and has always been shaped by the rhythm of high and low tide. Storm winds, down- pours and high waters are very common. Accordingly, Hamburg’s envi- ronmental history is that of a distinctive ‘disaster culture’.4 Municipal archives are replete with reports and popular tales of the city’s struggle with the elements that at least go back to the Middle Ages.5 However, floods are never limited to a specific place. In both their origin and their outcome, they transcend particular spaces. Like the HCM 2019, VOL. 7 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021111 11:20:30AM via free access MAUCH River Elbe itself, which mutates from a small source in the Czech mountains to a river that reaches a length of 1245 km, covering a water- shed of more than 148,300 km2, the ‘Great Deluge’ had humble origins. A deep low-pressure system and strong west winds was all it took to send Vincinette on her way to Hamburg. Once there, the storm’s gusts transcended all cultural, political and national borders, as did the waves that it pushed into the German Bight and down the Elbe River. If the impact of the flood was not confined to a small segment of Hamburg, what does this mean for its history? That history has been told countless times and is well remembered, but it, too, should be explored in dimensions that transcend the immediate and the local. Looking more closely at the storm’s wider causes and impact brings some interesting new storylines to light. Many transgress the conventional dualisms that modernity has drawn between nature and culture, between memory and history, between the nation and the city, while others add the interplay between cityscape and natural environment to the human drama. These storylines have been propelled by nature’s agency as much as by dif- ferent historical voices, actors and political institutions. Varying per- ceptions, overlapping plots, counter-narratives and conflicts shape (and reshape) the catastrophe’s diverging interpretations.6 Whether in Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg or further afield, and whether fifty years ago, today or tomorrow, reckoning with the history of the flood of 1962 is a constructive practice. Who remembers the events, how and upon what grounds are crucial considerations comprising more than one layer of ambiguity. Therefore, disaster memories can only exist in the plural. Various forms of remembrance operate on dif- ferent temporal and spatial scales, ranging from the deep past to the future and from the most local to the unbounded global. The question remains, however: if every catastrophic event has ramifications much wider than its immediate context, and if differing plots and competing memory actors co-evolve over time, how exactly does this affect the scale and scope of disaster memories? Between the Tides: Northern German Cultures of Disaster A single answer does not exist; only approximations and interpretations are possible because memories relating to Hamburg’s ‘Great Deluge’ HCM 2019, VOL. 7 112 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 11:20:30AM via free access BETWIXT AND BETWEEN oscillated between heterogeneous actors and different locales, feed- ing on many sources. According to David Blackbourn, German water- scapes turned incrementally into ‘a screen on which a changing society projected its hopes and fears’.7 In that regard, well-established Northern German ‘cultures of disaster’ proved to be a common framework. Literary works such as Theodor Storm’s Der Schimmelreiter or Detlev von Liliencron’s ballad Trutz, blanke Hans are examples of narratives grounded in long-held common myths about the dangers of living in a harsh climate at the mercy of storm tides and flooding. They are testi- mony to a longstanding appreciation of the agency of nature in this haz- ard-prone area.8 Since premodern times, withstanding the seemingly untameable elements shaped the lives of many coast dwellers. Theirs was a frontier mentality: the shoreline resembled a ‘space of confron- tation’, where nature and culture literally clashed with each other.9 Heimat was the land wrested from a hostile sea. Ever since its founda- tion in the Early Middle Ages, the settlement that later became the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg was part and parcel of this landscape, and its cultural memory was inscribed into its geomorphology. Despite being located more than 120 km inland, its residents pictured them- selves as active constituents of a ‘coastal society’.10 The oldest and most visible memory topoi of this struggle are dykes. Building these embankments served a double purpose. On the one hand, they protected the marshlands physically and made permanent settle- ments possible. At the same time, they were of high symbolic value. Dykes drew a line between culture and mistrusted wilderness. Until the early twentieth century, every landowner in flood-prone areas was legally responsible for erecting a floodwall. Neglect would end in loss of possession. As a traditional proverb put it: Wer nicht will deichen, muss weichen (‘anyone who does not build a dyke has to leave’). A line of artificial walls that reaches seven to nine metres above sea level still surrounds Hamburg today. For the people living behind these protective barriers, however, another saying from premodern times defines their prevailing attitude towards the North Sea: ‘mind the next flood!’11 The long arm of the North Sea, the Elbe River, had simply brought too many calamities for residents to be able to forget about them. The number of both levees and memorials speak clearly of this awareness. This holds true for Hamburg in particular. The dykes never isolated the Hansestadt from its environment. On the contrary, Hamburg has HCM 2019, VOL. 7 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021113 11:20:30AM via free access MAUCH always been an ‘amphibious city’.12 The Elbe, the Alster Lake and a vast network of tributaries and canals drive its history, culture and prosperity. Hamburg’s
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