In reading through one of my German newsfeeds -FAZ.net, which is the web edition of one of the largest German conservative newspapers FAZ- I ran across a film critique about Quentin Tarantino’s latest flick Inglorious Basterds. The critique had not been written by some pop-culture teenie-bopping Mountain-Dew-snarfing fashionista-type, but the director of the FAZ’s feuilleton himself.
Reading the piece reminded me yet again how much Germans, especially the “older” generations, continue to struggle with the guilt of their most recent and most dark history. The scarlet letter that seems to be emblazoned on our collective national soul burns brightly and painfully, and I remember as a child an adolescent how any sentiment and display of nationalism and national pride was frowned upon as an almost unspeakable act of resuming the pounding sounds of thousands of Knobelbecher on the pavement. The few neighbors that had the ‘audacity’ of flying the German (FRG-German, that is) were whispered about to be covert neo-Nazis.
As late as 1990, when Germany was headed for the unification of a people divided by the consequences of its own recent history, the opposition by its neighbors to the north and even to the west was substantial for the fear of what role a strong and unified Germany would play in the heart of Europe and whether Germany’s past could possibly repeat itself, rather than following in its new democratic tradition started in 1949.
“Even Margaret Thatcher could not prevent the German people from following their destiny.” Helmut Kohl, November 18, 1989
But it all came down to looking at the blueprints that were publicly laid out to the world. Just as Hitler had laid out his plans of eradicating Judaism and wiping it off the face of the world in Mein Kampf, others (who actually were Germans) had laid out a blueprint for Germany, its future and its relationship to and roots in its past. Most strikingly, the German President Richard von Weizsäcker’s speech in front of the German Congress to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of WWII pointed out the importance of remembering the past.
“The young [Germans] are not responsible for what happened [back] then. But they are responsible for what history will make of it. We old [ones] owe our youth not the fulfillment of dreams, but honesty. We must help the young [ones] understand why it is vital to keep the memory alive.” Richard von Weizsäcker, May 8th, 1985.
Remembering the past is vital, because forgetting it becomes the first step towards repeating it. But remembering it and carrying it close to your heart does not imply you have to do it with a sense of guilt for what atrocities have been committed by our ancestors.
The beat-down of the German soul and national conscience and pride after WWII was severe and took several generations to heal –both for Germany and those that the Third Reich had impacted so grievously- a healing process that I sometimes feel has not successfully concluded yet, as shown in the film critique of Tarantino’s latest work.
Why else would the author not come straight out and state that he is sick and tired of Germans being portrayed as a grossly exaggerated persiflage of Colonel Klink, as the eternal bad-guy-gone-worse-gone-cannon-fodder, as the soul- and brainless drone that simply followed orders in true Germanic efficient and thorough manner? Why instead try to shroud it behind pompous artistic comparisons of Tarantino failing to measure up to Godard’s genius of film-making? Why respond with indignity to the falsification of historical events and taking artistic liberty and license with it? Why state the obvious and belittle that there are no German villages nestled at the base of Piz Palü and that Bohemia does not border an ocean?
But most importantly, why act with so much sensitivity and indignity in the first place and not just simply enjoy the movie for what it is: a silly and light-hearted screwball comedy with very faint and distant roots in fact and history?
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