Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik by Aleida Assmann

Abstract

MLR, 103.2, 2oo8 6oi level ofmediation in the reconstruction of the past (Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau, Katja Garloff, Ben Hutchinson). None of them, however, deals explicitly with aspects of intermediality. The final section on questions of history and trauma is the strongest of the book. Karin Bauer examines Sebald's adaptation ofBenjamin's and Nietzsche's concepts of history and his rejection of anyMessianic or utopian potential they might contain, ar guing thatconcepts such as the 'good European' or thefianeur fail towork in relation toAusterlitz. JanCeuppens offers an insightful examination of the ethical dimen sion of the respectful distance thenarratormaintains fromhis characters and objects, which leaves him constantly negotiating between a factualwritten discourse which adheres to a 'Bilderverbot' and a visualizing of individual fates.David Darby's ex cellent essay contrasts Fontane's, Benjamin's, and Sebald's projects of (re)integrating memories by inscribing them in the spatial order of landscapes bywalking, a project which is seen to fail in the disintegrating landscape of Sebald's Die Ringe des Saturn. Peter Fritzsche and Mark Ilsemann explore very convincingly the unresolved ten sions in Sebald's writing between nature and history, the generic and theparticular, melancholy and trauma, between continuous human catastrophes and theHolocaust as the finalchapter of history. Susanne Vees-Gulani and Christina Szentivanyi both address the central quest inSebald's text togain access to an event one has not lived through, but whose repercussions have nevertheless shaped one's life,by applying concepts of postmemory and trauma. A few contributions echo the reverential tone of the foreword,others pay only fleetingattention toSebald. Mark McCulloh's intro duction makes a valuable point indrawing attention to the twofoldnature of Sebald's ceuvre in its 'tandem existence' in theEnglish and German languages. Since Sebald is by now ubiquitous not only inGerman Departments but also inEnglish orHolocaust Studies, contexts inwhich theEnglish translations are often not treated as such, it seems appropriate to remind scholars of thedifferences between theoriginal German texts and theirEnglish translations as well as of some deliberate deviations made in these transitions from one to the other. The transcript of an interviewwith Sebald conducted byMichael Zeeman is an interestingbonus; an indexwould have been an evenmore useful addition to an otherwise very illuminating collection of essays. BIRKBECK, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SILKE ARNOLD-DE SIMINE Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik. By ALEIDA ASSMANN. Munich: Beck. 2oo6. 520 pp. ?19.90. ISBN 978-3-406 54962-5. The request that a line should be drawn under Germany's critical engagement with itsNational Socialist past is as old asGermany's post-war memory politics. In recent years, theSchlussstrichdebatte has been accompanied by a public discourse onGerman wartime suffering which pitches private war memories against thepolitically correct discourse of contrition. The contemporary triumph of the private over the political indicates a reconfiguration ofGerman collective and cultural memory that requires detailed critical attention. This isprecisely theproject ofAleidaAssmann's latest study, which offersa careful analysis of the multiple transformations ofGerman cultural memory and its memory politics since the early I990s. Setting cultural memory in dialogue with the ques tion of a specifically German politics of remembrance, the study is divided into two parts. Part i elaborates Assmann's earlier work by differentiating theHalbwachsian notion of collective memory in fourways: she now distinguishes between individual memory, thememory of the social group, thememory of thepolitical collective (na tionalmemory), and, finally,cultural memory. For example, individual memory is 602 Reviews a dynamic medium of processing our experiences on the basis of 'ich' and 'mich' memories (pp. 1I9-24); it isnevertheless contingent on the social memory of families and generations. Assmann argues that thenotion of collective memory has taken the place of thecritique of ideologies andmyths thatdominated humanities debates in the I960s and I970S. The new focus on collective memory reflects the basic insight that human beings are socially constituted and thus dependent on images and collective symbols as carriers of identity. In thisway, Assmann brackets off thenotion of 'false consciousness' in favour of the critical analysis of all the symbols and images that define our changing cultural horizons. Assmann details her theoretical road-map further through the analysis of a range of topoi thathave dominated memory debates...