How should you remember who? Plötzensee Memorial in Berlin
Photo: imago/Jürgen Ritter
“There wasn’t just July 20, 1944” is the title of a series of events organized by your German Resistance Study Group 1933–1945. Is this still so omnipresent in German historiography and in the public historical consciousness?
Werner Hartl: When we ask young people about the resistance against the Nazi regime, the names Stauffenberg and Sophie Scholl come to mind first. In post-war society, hardly anyone wanted to know anything about the left-wing resistance, especially from the workers’ movement. That has already changed, but it still has an impact today. In research, the understanding of resistance has become much broader. In public remembrance, however, commemoration still focuses on a few people or groups. We would like to change something about that.
Ulrich Schneider: What is significant for the German reception of history is that this slogan has a 40-year tradition. In 1984, WDR even broadcast a series under this heading. To this day, it is always necessary to point out that anti-fascist organizations were already resisting the advance of the NSDAP before 1933 and that there were forms of resistance, particularly from the workers’ movement, in all years of Nazi rule. It is gratifying that young people today – given the advance of the AfD and other extreme right-wing parties – are showing interest in such historical perspectives without falling into false analogies.
Interview
Werner Hartl is a sociologist and speaker at the IG Metall education center in Lohr am Main. He has been a managing board member of the German Resistance Study Group 1933–1945 for six years.
Ulrich Schneider is federal spokesman for the VVN-BdA and general secretary of the FIR, the International Federation of Resistance Fighters – League of Antifascists. He worked as a German and history teacher, is a non-fiction author and is also a member of the study group.
What do you mean by resistance to the Nazi dictatorship?
W. H.: If we want to be strict, resistance against National Socialism means acting in word, writing and deed, at the risk of life, with the aim of bringing about a regime change. For me, refusal, protest and non-conformism are also part of it. For example, the cultural self-assertion of young people who refused to subordinate themselves to the Hitler Youth. Many groups organized their own space with trips into the countryside. This is an act of resistant self-assertion. Added to this is the so-called rescue resistance, which has finally been noticed for a good 20 years. These are often about supposedly apolitical people who have helped those being persecuted in individual cases.
Where do you still see gaps in resistance research and documentation?
U. S.: I see fewer gaps in research and more blank spots in reception. Who else knows about the diverse regional studies of the “Working Groups of Young Historians” and the publications by GDR scientists on the subject of anti-fascist resistance, especially from the ranks of the workers’ movement? But the “grey literature” of the history workshops in the Federal Republic of Germany is only known to “initiated people”. Here it is important to overcome perceptual blocks; there is potential for knowledge here that can be used for today’s communication. And this is where the study group that has collected such publications has great potential.
W. H.: There is great interest in regions and companies in learning more specific stories from the National Socialist era. Those interested often come across stories of resistance here. For me that is a strong and emotional connection, especially since contemporary witnesses are hardly available to us anymore.
On the homepage of your study group there is a quote from Joseph Rossaint that it doesn’t matter what motives led to resistance. The Catholic chaplain and himself a Nazi persecutee and resistance fighter was one of the founding members of your study group on the eve of the 1968 revolt. And other prominent names were also included…
W. H.: In 1967, a so-called “textbook conference” took place with representatives of the textbook publishers, people from the resistance and from science. Among them were some prominent figures from the resistance. The unifying idea was the criticism of the inadequate and one-sided communication of the history of National Socialism. And at the same time the knowledge that knowledge about National Socialism, but especially about anti-fascist resistance in all its facets, is a necessary basis for an enlightened policy in the Federal Republic. The common goal was to appreciate the various forms of resistance, regardless of their ideological or political stance.
U. S.: What was special back then was that it was the contemporary witnesses themselves, women and men from resistance and persecution, who worked to ensure that their perspective was heard in historical research and communication. That is the biggest problem today, that we are missing this generation of contemporary witnesses and we, who have worked with contemporary witnesses, have to act as “witnesses of witnesses” today.
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I suspect that your study group was in a pretty lonely position in the Federal Republic for decades, supported certainly by the VVN and some civil society initiatives. Was there a kind of fixed date for your breakthrough in public perception? Or is this still a long time coming?
U. S.: No, the position wasn’t that “lonely” in the 70s and 80s. The work was of course supported by the VVN-BdA, from whose holdings many documents and parts of the library also came. But there was increasing social interest in coming to terms with the “blank spots” in anti-fascist regional history. The Röderberg publishing house published a book series “Library of Resistance,” some of which are still considered standard works today. And the study group – together with regional actors – was able to present “local history guides” to various federal states, with which resistance and persecution were located. They often opened up access to the “other history” of the region.
W. H.: Since the 1980s there has been a phase of founding and opening new memorial sites, usually as a result of the activities of regional history workshops and memorial initiatives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, we also experienced upheaval. Perhaps out of the need to counteract the perceived danger of a “new Greater Germany”. At the same time, there were now the large concentration camp memorials that had previously been part of the GDR’s anti-fascist culture of remembrance. Our study group had to reposition itself.
In recent years, the work of the study group has stabilized, primarily through the voluntary commitment of many individuals associated with the resistance. This also includes descendants of resistance fighters – the children and now grandchildren of the resistance. The archive is growing; The farewell to the generation of contemporary witnesses brings legacies of activists to the study group.
Our new exhibition “I knew what I was doing – early resistance to National Socialism” is a testament to the fact that we are being recognized in academia and by the public. It will be presented to the public by the city of Frankfurt in the Paulskirche on July 21st.
It is necessary for everyone to work together to raise awareness about the barbarism of German fascism – in view of the increasing influence of right-wing populism and right-wing radical crimes. But can organizations like yours actually stop this fatal trend? Because you can only win willing, open-minded people.
W. H.: Of course we won’t be able to do this alone, and if we had a patent recipe, that would be great! Political education at a historical crime scene offers special opportunities. With our local history guides we build on the regional reference, I already mentioned that. We strive to create opportunities for thought. For example, our exhibition project »Room for action. “Frankfurt police officers under National Socialism” to young female police officers who are just starting their police career. This exhibition was created with the aim of addressing the well-known problems that exist within the police using historical education. The exhibition not only focuses on those police officers who decided to act in resistance against the Nazi regime. Case histories of officers who simultaneously performed their duties as police officers who conformed to the system and yet helped people escape or supported those being persecuted in their everyday lives provoke today’s police officers to self-reflect.
We were sometimes harshly criticized for our cooperation with the police. Our aim is to make a contribution to promoting an understanding of democracy and an attitude critical of racism among young civil servants. If even a few people succeed, in my opinion it will have been worth it. We should try what is possible.
An interview recently appeared in this newspaper that deeply hurt and even outraged members of the study group. Why?
W. H.: The claim was made that our aforementioned exhibition “Room for Action” would subsequently clear perpetrators from the police force. This representation is simply wrong. The biographies in the exhibition show how police officers used leeway to help people at risk escape or to support the social democratic resistance network around July 20, 1944. Each of these biographies is supplemented with descriptions of the central role the police played in the Nazi terrorist apparatus. Crimes in which the officers were involved in the course of their official duties are also explained.
We are not concerned with black and white thinking. We would like to encourage you to look closely at what motivated people. When did they decide to take part in terror and how did individuals use their freedom of action to stand up to the inhumane dictatorship – or to help a person in need? It is precisely from this that we can gain insights for ourselves today. Which values are important to us? Where are we unsure and when do we say decisively: “No, from here on out I’m not going to be there anymore!”
U. S.: When dealing with a controversial historical topic, debates are necessary. What annoyed me about the interview was the apodictic condemnation, in which a certain point of view was presented as the only correct one. Of course, the study group has a clear stance in the interests of women and men from resistance and persecution. But “shades of gray” also need to be perceived and discussed. If one comes to different assessments than those shown in the exhibition, that would be a starting point for further consideration of the content, but not for a blanket condemnation of an institution that has now been working at a non-state level for almost 60 years.
In your opinion, what else should be done to defend democracy against attacks from the right?
W. H.: We see our contribution as providing historical knowledge and providing orientation from the perspective of resistance. Everyone has to draw their own conclusions about what to do today. If democracy is to work, we need independently thinking individuals. It is important for me to understand the different motivations behind resistance. This always makes me think about today. Especially when I look at the early resistance before 1933.
https://widerstand-1933-1945.de
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