The politics of cultural remembrance: The holocaust monument in Berlin

Abstract

The 1999 Bundestag decision to build a central monument for the murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin gave political sanctioning to what started out as a citizens' initiative in 1988. This article will give an overview of the lengthy debate on the Holocaust monument in order to illustrate the politicisation--and politics--of cultural remembrance of the National Socialist past in post-unification Germany. It firstly examines the history of the monument and the Bundestag debate. Whilst alluding to a negative past, as a construct of the present the monument can also be seen as an aid to Geschichtspolitik . At the same time, the project has revealed motives that muddy the distinction between victims and perpetrators and bring the purpose of the monument into question. The paper concludes with the example of the controversial "den Holocaust hat es nie gegeben" poster campaign, which resorted to marketing techniques to try to "sell" the monument to the public.