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Holocaust Memory and Postcolonialism: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2023

Frank Biess
Frank Biess*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego, CA
*
Email: fbiess@ucsd.edu
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Extract

German commemorative culture is clearly in flux. Over the last year or so, a series of seemingly never-ending controversies have made it abundantly clear that, more than seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War, the memory of National Socialism and the Holocaust is not only very much present in contemporary Germany but also remains deeply contested. The list of controversies is familiar to everybody who has followed German public debates over the last three years: first the debate over the planned appearance of the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe at the 2020 Ruhr-Trienale in the spring of 2020; then the publication of the German translation of Michael Rothberg's book Multidirectional Memory in March 2021 and the heated controversy around A. Dirk Moses's “catechism” blog article a few months later; and finally, the recent debate about antisemitism at the documenta art exhibition curated by an Indonesian artist collective.

Keywords

Holocaust memoryhistorians’ debate 2.0postcolonialism
Type
Discussion Forum: Holocaust Memory and Postcolonialism: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Debate
Information
Central European History , Volume 56 , Special Issue 2: Bordering the GDR: Everyday Transnationalism, Global Entanglements and Regimes of Mobility at the Edges of East Germany , June 2023 , pp. 270 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Central European History Society of the American Historical Association

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References

1 For a chronology of the debate see Thierry Chervil, “‘Historikerstreit 2.0.’ Eine Chronologie,” June20, 2021 (https://www.perlentaucher.de/essay/historikerstreit-2-von-achille-mbembe-zu-a-dirk-moses-eine-chronologie.html); Thierry Chervil, “‘Historikerstreit 2.0.’ Zweiter Teil,” June 20, 2021, (https://www.perlentaucher.de/essay/die-debatte-ueber-a-dirk-moses-katechismus-der-deutschen.html).

2 Michael Rothberg, “Comparing Comparisons: From the ‘Historikerstreit’ to the Mbembe Affair,” Geschichte der Gegenwart, September 23, 2020 (https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/comparing-comparisons-from-the-historikerstreit-to-the-mbembe-affair); Rothberg, Michael, “Lived Multidirectionality: ‘Historikerstreit 2.0’ and the Politics of Holocaust Memory,” Memory Studies 15, no. 6 (2022): 1316–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Most vehemently in Friedländer, Saul, Frei, Norbert, Steinbacher, Sybille, Diner, Dan, und Habermas, Jürgen, Ein Verbrechen ohne Namen. Anmerkungen zum neuen Streit über den Holocaust (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Conrad, Sebastian, “Erinnerung im globalen Zeitalter. Warum die Vergangenheitsdebatte gerade explodiert,” Merkur 867 (August 2021): 5–17Google Scholar.

5 Maier, Charles, “Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era,” American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 807–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 On the history of these debates, see, for example, Rosenfeld, Gavriel D., “The Politics of Uniqueness: Reflections on the Recent Polemical Turn in Holocaust and Genocide Scholarship,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 13, no. 1 (1999): 28–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gerwarth, Robert and Malinowski, Stephan, “Hannah Arendt's Ghosts: Reflections on the Disputable Path from Windhoek to Auschwitz,” Central European History 42, no. 2 (2009): 279–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 “Wer ist für Sie ein Mensch mit Nazihintergrund?. Interview mit Moshtari Hilal und Sinthujan Varatharajah,” March 2, 2021 (https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/identitaetspolitik-sind-weisse-deutsche-menschen-mit-nazihintergrund-a-5da7ce95-d83c-46c5-874f-8efb0cb26d7c).