The German Memory of World War I

Although the French and English observations of the two world wars are often solemn and sometimes tragic, a bit of triumphalism does on occasion enter in. On Sunday, as I stood on the Champs d’Elysees, French President Emmanuel Macron recounted his version of World War I before 72 world leaders. He spoke of how soldiers came from around the world to fight here, “because France represented for them all that was beautiful in this world.”

This is, of course, as self-serving as it is demonstrably false. In the same speech, President spoke of how the French nation was a project, a carrier of universal values. This is a traditionally French understanding of their nation’s role in world history, World War I included.

It should go without saying, but such self-serving triumphalism is absolutely impossible in Germany. If Vichy collaboration during World War II sucked the air out of the French commemoration of World War I, just imagine what World War II did to the German understanding of their history.

A related question arose in conversations with friends after my post on the differences between French and English commemorations of World War I. How do Germans remember World War I? That is, what kind of commemorations, if any, do the German have for their millions of casualties in World War I?

The short answer: there are none.

This, of course, shouldn’t really cause any surprise. Between 1918 and 1990, Germany went through four different political systems, and five in the East. In the 1990s, lucid octogenarians and nonagenarians in Germany could tell you all kinds of crazy stories about the breathtaking events of their lifetimes…that is, of course, if you could ever get them to open up.

Last week, I asked most of my German friends how Germany was commemorating the centenary of the end of World War I. One replied, “In Oldenburg we always have the “Erinnerungsgang,” a walk to remember the Jews who were taken to concentration camps in the “Reichspogromnacht” on November 11. It’s a silent walk. They walk the route the Jews took back then when they were forced to walk right through the City Center.”

She, of course, had confused World War I with World War II and Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938) with the Armistice (November 11, 1918).

And she was not the only one. Other German friends also commented on Kristallnacht in response to my question about World War I. In Germany, the memory of the Holocaust simply crowds out other memories.

Jacob Eder, a historian who specializes in the German memory of World War II, told me, “World War I basically plays no role in Geschichtsbewusstsein [literally, “history-consciousness”] or debates about German identity…World War II and the Holocaust just overshadow everything.”

The reasons why November 9 is more important than November 11 in Germany go beyond just Kristallnacht. November 9 actually has a name in German: ‘Schicksalstag’ or ‘Day of Fate’. In the past two hundred years, momentous events in German history seem to have a habit of recurring on this date.

On November 9, 1848, Robert Blum, the left liberal leader of the revolts against the monarch, was executed, marking the symbolic end of the Revolution of 1848. On November 9, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, thus paving the way for the end of World War I. On November 9, 1923, the Beer Hall Putsch failed, heralding the arrival of Adolf Hitler on the national stage. On November 9, 1938, or Kristallnacht, the Nazis systematically destroyed large amount of Jewish property and synagogues, killing hundreds of Jews in the process, presaging the Holocaust. And finally, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

The Schicksalstag, November 9, looms large in the national consciousness. Even in 1918, November 11 was nothing more than the logical conclusion of Wilhelm II’s abdication on November 9.

And the Germans lost World War I. It’s always difficult to commemorate something when you lose, but, in this particular case, the end of World War I merely set the stage for World War II. Although General Pershing wanted to march on Berlin, Woodrow Wilson found an extension of the war excessive, too militaristic even. So the Armistice was signed before the advancing Allied troops arrived in German territory. Many Germans did not know what the generals and politicians did; they were not yet convinced they had to lose, which created fertile soil for the “stab-in-the-back” myth that Hitler used in his rise to power. In this sense, the German loss in World War I wasn’t just a loss in war. It also set the stage for the Nazi rise to power and another loss in a world war a couple decades later.

And who would want to remember that?

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