If you believe some accounts – in the media or down at the pub – Germany is either poised to become the next world leader, or has already achieved this status. Touted as perhaps the model example when it comes to dealing with a complicated past ridden with guilt and destruction, the world is quick to point to Germany when a virtuous model of how to combat a past of indescribable horrors is needed. And as with so many such examples, where virtue must be upheld to get an intended message out to the world, this one, too, is extremely problematic, for reality and wishful thinking are frequently miles apart.
Generally speaking, any and all glorification of a Nazi past is simply not allowed. The Hitler salute is not welcome, and Nazi insignia most definitely is not. It is also easy to take someone to court if they have accused you of being a Nazi. In general, there seems to be an attitude of (almost) aggressively teaching the past to avoid it happening in the future, or so the narrative goes. Middle-aged Germans especially are more than eager to assure anyone willing to broach the subject of how deeply regretful it all is, especially if their discussion partner is foreign or / and from a country that fought Germany in the war, even more so if they are Jewish. Germany, so it would seem, has managed to deal with its past by facing it head-on, and therefore ensuring it never happens. But has it? Or have things just been nudged down to make it look like a pretty surface full of the most deliciously scented flowers, while really fertilized by well-hidden manure.
There is no way around it: in schools the Holocaust must be taught, or at least figure on the curriculum. While the media is very eager to tout how Germany has gone above and beyond to tackle its history, reality shows a different picture, in which many teachers find a way to forego literature to do with the Holocaust and instead push for German and ethnic-German writers from the mid-19th century onwards; a period during which Germany was exploring its identity as a whole, prior, during, and after the collection of dukedoms and kingdoms of varying size that eventually became a (seemingly) unified country in 1871. Frequently with those teachers – whose numbers are not insignificant – where the Holocaust has been mentioned at all in their classroom, the subject and its implications has either been glossed over completely, or just barely touched upon.
Some history teachers, when faced with neonazi students in high school, have even been known to openly come out and say that “the number of Jews killed was not as high as it is claimed to have been by the Jews.” Conflicts between those same neonazi and their Jewish classmates are either swept under the carpet, filed under “teenage drama,” or the transgressions of the Jewish students – such as calling the neonazi in question an unfavorable adjective – become the main focus of conflict resolution. Jewish and foreign students have also come forward in private citing examples of their work being marked lower deliberately, especially when it comes to German literature or language.
While some teachers will discuss the Holocaust openly with the aim of getting students to think critically, too many still gloss over the subject, rush through the material, or – as has been shown above – will even pander to Hitler sympathizers among the students. There still seems to be an either-or attitude, in which Nazi sympathizers are either completely good, or utterly bad. Yet, the subtleties of dealing with the fallout, and of everyday life in Germany – not to mention the still-prevailing attitude of “the Allies shamed us into hating our parents and neighbors” – are too frequently ignored. How people were lured into the Nazi movement is often taught as rarely as the ever-growing sentiment of antisemitism from the Middle Ages onwards. Often, where this is talked about in class, the teachers were directly or indirectly impacted by the NS regime, be it via their own experience, or that of a loved one seen as an enemy / traitor of the state. Sadly, not a new phenomenon, as students who attended school 20, 30, even 40 years ago speak of the same experience. A system more intent on regurgitating facts than enabling dialogue is also not helpful in fostering a platform from which one can truly delve into the less palatable aspects of NS times. Though it is a known fact that many writers and public figures who were initially drawn to the Nazis, before understanding their true agenda, lured by the promises of togetherness and inclusion, deeply regretted their initial affinity, and were quick to absolve themselves of any and all sympathy towards the exalted Führer.
Interestingly, the diplomatic corps is not immune to this either. While striving to strengthen ties between Eastern European countries and Germany in the ‘90s, many diplomats could be heard in private telling Jewish jokes, or commenting on the Jewishness of their local acquaintances. Says Ilana, who was working with some delegates, “they were all eager to pass on my details to each other and hire me. But after hours was a whole other thing. One was in a pub telling Jewish jokes, one told me in private that ‘they did flaunt their riches’ when discussing the Weimar Republic, and a couple told me straight out that I could not deny my Jewish roots, again in the privacy of their own home. You can’t prove they said it, so what can you do.”
Neo-Nazi marches through parts of Germany occuring with regular occurrence are one thing. There are still more subtle signs that too many still harbor hatred against The Jews, ranging from subtle references to someone’s Jewish heritage to happily blaming the recent rise in antisemitism on “the Muslim migrants,” conveniently forgetting that these displays had been going on long before the numbers of Muslims increased in Germany. As a university professor teaching German culture in the UK (who asked to remain anonymous) pointed out, “every town in Germany has a street named after resistance fighter siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl. The way to determine a town’s Nazi leanings is by looking at the size of the street.” While often these streets are part of the main thoroughfare, there are still towns in which this honor is bestowed upon the tiniest of streets tucked away in a corner off the city center.
It seems that the problem lies in the abstract understanding of this particular moment in history. Rather than discussing things frankly, teachers rush through or ignore the subject completely, the media has other stories to chase up, and when voices get louder, there is the convenient scapegoat of the latest addition of that elusive Other to German society, the war-fleeing migrant of Muslim extraction, on whom the blame can now conveniently be laid. Ignoring the fact that among those refugees seeking shelter are also Christians. Nazism never really went away, instead it was buried deep underneath the social fabric, the equivalent of administering a shot of penicillin to cure symptoms instead of the actual disease.
Image credit: analogicus