A Day to Remember. East Germanys Day of Remembrance for the Victims of FascismGerman

7/27/2019 A Day to Remember. East Germanys Day of Remembrance for the Victims of FascismGerman

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German HistoryVol. 26, No. 2, pp. 195218

The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the German History Society.

All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/gerhis/ghn003

A Day to Remember: East Germanys Day ofRemembrance for the Victims of Fascism

Peter Monteath

As memorial days go, East Germanys Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Fascism

(Gedenktag fr die Opfer des Faschismus) was one of the more rapidly forgotten. While it took

on ever more ritualized forms over the years, ever fewer participants and observers could

recall just why it was that commemorative activities were held on and around the second

Sunday of every September.1 Some thought that it harked back to the outbreak of war in

September of 1939, but they erred.2 Others came to view it as just one of a number of

rigidly timetabled occasions on the East German calendar designed to enable the rulingSED to perform solemn and vacuous acts of self-promotion. That might have been

closer to the truth, and yet in reality this Day of Remembrance stemmed from a quite

spontaneous and widely supported desire to recall the horrors of the Second World War

within just a short time of the end of hostilities.

The history of the day, from its origins in the aftermath of war through to the

foundation of the GDR in 1949, tells us a good deal about Germany in this interregnum,

when the division of Germany into two separate states did not always appear to be an

inevitability. In this regard, tracing the history of a day of remembrance offers advantages

over other forms of commemoration. Where monuments and memorials as tangible sitesof remembrance might set the past in stone, in both a literal and a metaphorical sense,

days of remembrance carry an inherent flexibility. The central concerns of one years

activities might have faded or disappeared altogether, while new ones are identified or

are hauled from the repository of shared memories. Not only the content of remembrance

but its form too might undergo a process of evolution that grants insights into the

changing circumstances in which the past is remembered, or perhaps forgotten. For these

reasons the Day of Remembrance, in the post-communist age almost totally committed

to irrelevance as a lieu de memoire,3 can nonetheless reveal much about the processes which

1 Peter Joachim Lapp in his Traditionspflege in der DDR (Berlin, 1988), discusses remembrance days in the GDR in

some detail, including the three main national holidays: 7 Oct., the GDRs national day, celebrating its founding on

that date in 1949; 1 May, labelled International Kampftag und Feiertag der Werkttigen, with its tradition reaching

back before the founding of the GDR; and 8 May, the Day of Liberation. There were numerous other commemora-

tive days, as Lapp points out, but he neglects even to mention the Gedenktag fr die Opfer des Faschismus. A re-

cent, notable exception is a booklet entitled Der zweite Sonntag im September: Gedenken und Erinnern an die

Opfer des Faschismus. Zur Geschichte des OdF-Tages, by Hans Coppi and Nicole Warmbold (Berlin, 2006). Both the

booklet and a related exhibition were produced by the Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes Bund der

Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten in der BRD, the successor to the VVN mentioned below.2 World Peace Day (Weltfriedenstag) was commemorated on 1 Sept., though this was not a work-free holiday and

was not related to the second Sunday of that month.3 Pierre Nora by no means intended that his term lieux de mmoire be applied solely to geographical or tangible sites

of memory. Rather, he extends it to other media as well, such as painting and literature, and encompassing also days

of remembrance. The common purpose uniting them is, as he puts it, to stop time, to block the work of forgetting,

to establish a state of things, to immortalize death, to materialize the immaterial, Pierre Nora, Between Memory

and History: Les Lieux de Mmoire, Representations, 26 (Spring 1989), p. 19.

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196 Peter Monteath

shaped the emergence of two Germanies from the destruction of war, and of the

relationships with the past which shaped the identities of those two new states.

Conventionally the processes at work might be labelled the politicization of memory,

as commemorative activities in all the zones of occupation fell under the burgeoning and

oppressive influence of the Cold War. Conventional, too, is the view that in the case of

the Soviet Zone of Occupation and then the GDR, where the Gedenktag fr die Opfer des

Faschismus became a central, officially sanctioned lieu de memoire, this process of

politicization was essentially a process of the imposition of communist authority. The

source was Stalin in Moscow; the agents were the Soviet Military Administration in

Germany and the Moscow-trained Communists who, puppet-like, performed the will of

their Soviet masters.

In reality the history of the Day of Remembrance was a more complicated one than

such conventions might insist, even if the impact of the Iron Curtains descent in both

East and West is undeniable. Although the Day of Remembrance was primarily an affair

of the Soviet Zone of Occupation and the GDR, its origins were distinctly German, and

its political contours were shaped not just by the Soviets but by the Western allies as well,

since all the occupying powers had a vested interest in the question of what kind of

Germany might emerge from the ashes of the Third Reich, what kind of democracy

might be installed there, and what kind of identity it might construct for itself. The

policies and practices of the United States as an occupying power are usefully illustrative

in this regard, as will be seen below, since the Americans had little truck with the brand of

antifascism being promoted in their zone. In this sense, the Day of Remembrance lends

weight to Jrgen Kockas notion that the history of the two German states must be

understood in their interconnectedness. It is as much aboutBeziehungsgeschichte,4 about ahistory of connections in which historical developments emerge out of a complex

interplay of actions and reactions, as it is about a simple imposition of authority from

outside.

In another sense also, the history of the Day of Remembrance offers an example of

an interplay of forces or relations which resists a more conventional reading and insists

on a more complex interpretation of the development of a postwar culture of

remembrance. John Bodnar in his study of public memory and commemoration in the

United States draws an apposite distinction between official and vernacular expressions

of public memory. Official expressions stem from the concerns of cultural leaders orauthorities at all levels of society, that is, people who have a common interest in social

unity, the continuity of existing institutions, and loyalty to the status quo.5 That status

quo was intimately linked with notions of national identity, it eschewed complexity and

ambiguity, and it presented the past on an abstract basis of timelessness and sacredness.6

In contrast, a vernacular culture of remembrance encompassed an array of interests, it

could embrace diversity and accommodate change over time. The notion of an

4 For an explanation of the term and its relevance for postwar German history see Jrgen Kocka, Die Geschichte der

DDR als Forschungsproblem: Einleitung, in Kocka (ed.), Historische DDR-Forschung. Aufstze und Studien (Berlin,

1993), p. 16.5 John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century

(Princeton, 1992), p. 13.6Ibid., p. 14.



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East Germanys Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Fascism 197

idealized national community is largely lacking, however, since the proponents of a

vernacular culture are intent on protecting values and restating views of reality derived

from firsthand experience in small-scale communities rather then the imagined

communities of a large nation.7 Public memory, in Bodnars view, mediates the official

and the vernacular. In the United StatesBodnars area of special interestthe

symbolic language of patriotism became central to public memory because, as he puts

it, it has the capacity to mediate both vernacular loyalties to local and familiar places

and official loyalties to national and imagined structures.8

Germany in the immediate aftermath of war was different, not least because official

notions of an imagined national community were so divergent and contradictory, and

with the onset of the Cold War they drifted inexorably to the endorsement of a status

quo which no-one had wanted. Nonetheless, an awareness of the coexistence and

interrelatedness of official and vernacular can provide a framework for understanding

not only the emergence of a memorial culture in the SBZ and GDR, but also an

appreciation of what happens to public memory when official memory sets itself

doggedly against the diversity and ambiguity of its vernacular counterpart, with the

latters roots in the lived historical experiences of its proponents. This is not to suggest

that in the public memory of the SBZ and the GDR official and vernacular memory

were always at odds. Indeed, at first they were tightly intertwined, but the postwar period

brought with it a rapid unravelling which was never reversed, at least not during the

existence of the GDR.

That descent into vacuous ritual was, however, vigorously contested from the

beginning, was painful and disillusioning for many, and was not completed until after the

foundation of the GDR. Indeed, at the end of the GDR and beyond, some residualtraces of that initial postwar impulse to mourn and remember Nazisms millions of

victims, regardless of their political colours or creed, could still be found.

Victims of FascismThe first of the Remembrance Days was held as early as September 1945, and the

driving forces behind it were the so-called OdFcommittees, that is, the committees of the

Victims of Fascism (Opfer des Faschismus). Their origins were in the various antifascist

committees which had formed in the last weeks of the war, but were then reconstituted as

OdFcommittees with the permission of the Allies. Their primary concern was to providefor the wellbeing of the countless victims of fascism who suffered extreme privation even

after hostilities had ended. Many victims had just recently been liberated from

concentration camps or other forms of imprisonment, their health severely compro-

mised, and with little ability to care for themselves independently at a time when food

and medical supplies were severely strained. The OdFcommittees were essentially self-

help organizations for victims, and as such not merely organs of the KPD or the Soviet

occupying powers. Indeed, initially the Soviets treated the original, spontaneously

organized antifascist committees with some suspicion. However, reconstituted with

official permission as OdF committees, and integrated into the structures of localgovernment, they performed social functions which all the occupying powers found

7Ibid.8Ibid. pp. 1415.




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198 Peter Monteath

useful. Their membership consisted overwhelmingly of individuals who bore not just

physical but mental scars of Nazi oppression; their memories of the Third Reich drove

their social and political activism in the postwar era.

In Berlin, an important collecting point for many former victims of fascism, the Main

Committee of the Victims of Fascism (Hauptausschuss Opfer des Faschismus) was formed

within a few weeks of the wars end. The key figure on that committee was a certain

Ottomar Geschke, a man who could indeed speak with some personal experience of

the brutality of fascism. As a long-standing member of the KPD, Geschke had been

arrested in the immediate wake of the Reichstag fire in February 1933 and had then

spent the twelve years of the Third Reich in various places of detention, including the

concentration camps Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald.9 Geschke was also a councillor

on the newly formed council for Greater Berlin, theMagistrat. It was Geschke who, on

20 May 1945, the day after he had joined theMagistrat, appealed to the Soviet Military

Administration in Germany (SMAD) to allow the foundation of an OdFcommittee for

the purpose of exercising a duty of care over victims. With official Soviet support

assured, Geschke founded his committee on 14 June at a Berlin gathering of liberated

prisoners.10

As Geschkes own role as initiator and then as chair of the committee suggests, the

KPD was one of the driving forces, but in this instance it was neither the Moscow-

trained elite gathered around Walter Ulbricht nor the Soviet comrades in Karlshorst

who initiated policy towards Nazisms victims. Rather, the impetus came from within

the ranks of those KPD members who had endured the Third Reich. Moreover, they

were survivors who had remained in Germany and who indicated an early willingness

to collaborate closely with a remarkable gamut of Nazisms former opponents. In manyinstances, this collaboration was an extension of forms of collaboration established

both within and outside concentration camps during the period of the Third Reich.

From a background of Communist resistance much like Geschkes came Margarete

Jung, but then the Social Democrats too were represented in equal number through

Otto Brass and Gustav Dahrendorf. Others came from bourgeois resistance circles,

namely Hildegard Staehle, Andreas Hermes, Hermann Landwehr and Theodor

Steltzer, while Heinrich Grber represented Christian resistance. Finally, Robert

Havemann came from a resistance background of left-wing intellectuals, and Julius

Meyer had been persecuted as a Jew. As Elke Reuter and Detlef Hansel point out intheir study of the early organizations of former victims, The Berlin Main Committee

symbolized in its make-up the will of those who had opposed the Nazis or been subjected

to persecution to work together for a new beginning in postwar Germany.11

At the same time, one should be under no illusion about the desire from a very early

point among the highest echelons of the KPD to harness these broadly antifascist forces

for the KPDs own ends. What might have been conceived and driven at a grass-roots

level in a manner which transcended political boundaries was from the beginning closely

monitored and controlled by those leaders whoin Bodnars termsrepresented at an

9 Helmut Mller-Enbergs, Jan Wielgohs, Dieter Hoffmann (eds), Wer war Wer in der DDR. Ein biographisches Lexikon

(Bonn, 2000), p.10 Elke Reuter and Detlef Hansel, Das kurze Leben der VVN von 1947 bis 1953. Die Geschichte der Vereinigung der

Verfolgten des Naziregimes in der sowjeetischen Besatzungszone und in der DDR (Berlin, 1997), p. 78.11Ibid., p. 79.




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official level a commitment to the preservation of a status quo. Just days after the wars

end Ulbricht had written to Georgi Dimitroff in support of the spontaneously forming

committees devoted to the victims of fascism, in order, as he put it, to pull closer to us the

antifascists, social democrats, trade-unionists, Zentrum leaders, people of 20 July.12

The role of Geschkes committee and that of many others like it, attached as they

typically were to municipal councils around all of Germanys occupation zones, was to

provide for the well-being of those who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. In the first

instance that meant above all the provision of basic food, clothing and shelter to the

formerly persecuted during a period of often acute shortages in all these areas. To take

once more the influential example of Berlin, the Main Committee of the OdF, whose

members were honorary and debated issues of policy, was replicated through a

committee of the same title within the Magistrat, where it operated as a department

within the Main Office for Social Matters (Hauptamt fr Sozialwesen). Its main function was

to provide appropriate care for recognized victims of fascism. Here too there is no

question that the Communist influence was strong, above all in the person of its head

Karl Raddatz, a longstanding member of the KPD, who himself had spent four years in

Sachsenhausen as a political prisoner of the Nazis.13

The profile of Raddatz was by no means atypical of those who worked in the OdF

committees or benefited from their work. The majority in the early weeks tended to be

former political prisoners, among whom KPD members were well represented. Indeed,

within this group there was a widely-held view that they should be regarded not merely

as victims of fascism but as fighters against fascism. For them this was not merely a

matter of linguistic niceties but rather placed them, as active opponents of Nazism, in a

different moral realm from those who had merely suffered. In their reasoning, thisdistinction should have material consequences, that is, they should be entitled to higher

levels of social support in recognition of their role in defeating Nazism.

This view was put stridently in theDeutsche Volkszeitungin July 1945:

There are millions of people who are victims of fascism, who have lost their home, their apartment, their be-

longings. Victims of fascism are the men who had to become soldiers and were deployed in Hitlers battal-

ions, those who had to give their lives for Hitlers criminal war. Victims of fascism are the Jews who were

persecuted and murdered as victims of racial mania, the Jehovahs Witnesses and the work-shy

(Arbeitsvertragssnder). But we cannot stretch the term Victims of Fascism to include them. They have all en-

dured much and suffered greatly, but they did not fight.14

Had it been adopted, this argument for limitingOdFstatus to the politically persecuted,

and by extension excluding such groups as Jews, Jehovahs Witnesses, homosexuals and

those whom the Nazis had labelled asocial or work-shy would have drastically

narrowed the group claimingOdFentitlements and placed the fighters in a position of a

kind of elite. The exclusion of the Jews alone, numerically by far the most significant

group, would have severely limited the ranks of the OdF. It was an issue which was hotly

debated in Berlin and other parts of the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ) through the

12 Ulbricht to Dimitroff, 17 May 1945, in Keiderling, Gruppe Ulbricht, p. 353; cited in Christoph Hlscher, NS-Verfolgte

im antifaschistichen Staat. Vereinnahmung und Ausgrenzung in der ostdeutschen Wiedergutmachung 1945

1989 (Berlin, 2002), p. 43.13 Reuter and Hansel, Das kurze Leben der VVN, pp. 79, 578.14Deutsche Volkszeitung (1 July 1945). Cited ibid., pp. 8081.




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200 Peter Monteath

middle months of 1945, culminating in discussions at a major OdFgathering held in

Leipzig on 27 and 28 October.15 By that time the Berlin delegates, who played a leading

role, had themselves come around to the view that an inclusive definition ofOdFmust be

adopted, which indeed it was. A tangible sign of that broad-church approach was that

within Berlins Main Committee a section for Victims of the Nuremberg Laws was

established under the leadership of Julius Meyer, joined by Heinz Galinski as his deputy.

While the change of heart might at one level be interpreted as an act of moral and even

fiscal generosity, the motivation was more likely to have been mundanely political and

strategic. If the OdFwere to speak with a united and influential voice in a new and unified

Germanyas one still hoped would be the casethen the bigger the voice the better.

And if the western allies were to be prepared to listen to that voice, then the fact of racial

persecution had to be acknowledged: For the Western allies the victims of fascism were

above all the Jews.16

Nonetheless, the outcome of the debates on just who qualified as OdFwas not as

resoundingly generous as might have first appeared. In practice, although those who did

not fight were acknowledged and were issued OdFidentity cards accordingly, those who

could prove that they were resistance fighters received cards which marked them as

such. It was more than just a moral victory for them, since their cards entitled them to

higher levels of material support. Official figures for May 1946 showed that by that time

there were 15,536 Fighters against Fascism registered in Berlin and the SBZ compared

with 42,287 Victims of Fascism.17

If conditions of privation, and the need to ensure the survival and wellbeing of all

those who in many cases had barely managed to outlive Hitler, set the main agenda item

for the OdFcommittees everywhere, that did not forbid the exercise of other functions.Many former victims claimed that as the representatives of the other Germany, the

Germany which had rejected Hitler, they provided the conscience of the new Germany

being built on the ashes of the old. It was a kind of moral-political role they envisaged, to

be exercised not through just one party but in as broad and public a way as could be

achieved. One way, as Ottomar Geschke had foreseen, was through public

commemorative events at which not only would the dead be mourned but the living

would be prompted to apply the lessons of the past to Germanys present and future.

The First Day of RemembranceThat first Day of Remembrance reflected outwardly at least the many groups of victims

of the Third Reich. On 1 September 1945 theBerliner Zeitungreported that the Main

Committee of the Victims of Fascism, one of whose roles was to preserve the memory of

the dead, had nominated 9 September as the annual Day of Remembrance for all those

who suffered and died in the concentration camps in the battle against the Nazi regime.18

The timing, it claimed, was related to events of the previous year: At the end of August

15 For an overview of the debates over recognition as victims and the associated issue of restitution see especially Olaf

Groehler, Integration und Ausgrenzung von NS-Opfern: Zur Anerkennungs und Entschdigungsdebatte in der

Sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands 1945 bis 1949, in Kocka, Historische DDR-Forschungen, pp. 10527.16 Reuter and Hansel, Das kurze Leben der VVN, p. 83.17 Source of figures is SAPMO-BArchiv, DY 30/IV 2/2027/29.18Berliner Zeitung (1 Sept. 1945), p. 2.




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and in the first days of September of last year [i.e. 1944] a large number of renowned

fighters against the Hitler system were murdered.19 In other words, the day was to

provide the opportunity for those who attended it to mourn the dead. For many that

would indeed have meant the dead antifascist heroes who had been executed during

Hitlers extended fit of fury after 20 July 1944, but one might imagine that amid the ruins

of postwar German the day might also have offered an occasion to mourn millions of

other dead as well. It was a forum for a collective grieving of a kind unimaginable during

the Third Reich.

Circumstantial evidence suggests that other factors might also have influenced the

choice of date. The war in the Far East was concluded formally on 2 September, bringing

the global war to an end. In celebration the Allies staged a victory parade through the

streets of Berlin, attended by Generals Eisenhower and Patton, Marshal Zhukov, and

leading British and French officers. For all their relief that the killing had come to end,

the open display of the Allies triumphalism must nevertheless have stuck in the craw of

many Germans. In some quarters one response was to interpret the defeat of fascism as

something of a German triumph as well. More precisely, it was the triumph of those who

had resolutely resisted Hitler and his ilk, often at the cost of their freedom or even their

lives. Their commitment to the cause was surely just as worthy of commemoration as the

military triumph of foreign forces. Whether so intended or not, the first Day of

Remembrance might be seen as both a counter and a complement to the Allies victory

parade.

In 1945 the site for the main rally on the Day of Remembrance was the Werner

Seelenbinder Stadium, formerly known as the Neukllner Stadium and located in the

Berlin district of that name, but already renamed in honour of the wrestler and resistancehero. Seelenbinder, whose communist sympathies were long and well known, had been

executed by the Nazis in October 1944.20 At the stadium where he had fought, it was

reported, a monument created by Professor Hans Scharoun would be erected bearing

the words: To the Unknown Dead VictimsAs a Warning to the Living. Delegates

would be invited to the event from all parts of Germany, and they were to bring with

them lists of the dead, the missing, and the survivors from their districts. In the meantime

in Berlin a large placard would appear, featuring a red triangle and the letters KZ,

which would serve as a sign of honour for all those upright men and women who suffered

in the concentration camps in the struggle against the Third Reich.21The adoption of this symbol clearly connoted the central role being accorded the

former political inmates of the concentration campsthe red triangle had been affixed

to their shirts to identify them as politicals, as against the triangles of other colours

designating other groups of prisoners, or the yellow stars of the Jews. Even the letters

KZ represented a certain narrowing of focus, since not all the persecuted found their

way into concentration camps.

19Ibid.20 The Werner-Seelenbinder-Kampfbahn, as it was known in the period 19451949, was in Seelenbinders home

district of Neuklln. Though he was executed in the Brandenburg penitentiary, his ashes and a memorial urn were

deposited outside the stadium, which was also used in the early years of the GDR for party congresses. It still exists as

a multi-purpose sporting complex bearing the name Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark.21Berliner Zeitung (1 Sept. 1945), p. 2.




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202 Peter Monteath

Thus the first signs of the politicization of the event were present as early as in 1945,

and yet there was much in the rhetoric and the staging of that first Day of Remembrance

which pointed to an inclusiveness transcending political or other differences. It was

reported, for example, that Berlins Lord Mayor, Dr Arthur Werner, had formally

proclaimed 9 September a Day of Remembrance for All Murdered Antifascists.22 It

would begin with memorial services of both the major denominations. Then in the

afternoon there would be a great gathering at the Seelenbinder Stadium, where the

Main Committee of the OdFwould perform a grand memorial service. The event would

be, in the words of the Lord Mayor, a commemoration for Thlmann, Breitscheidt,

Leuschner,23 the men of 20 July, for all the known and unknown murdered fighters

against the Nazi system. On 9 September Berlin honours its murdered heroes, honours

the millions of nameless and unknown dead victims of fascism in all countries.24 In

order that the occasion should be accompanied by an appropriate level of gravitas and

respect for all those whose memory was being honoured, Dr Werner announced that on

the day itself public dancing was forbidden; furthermore he appealed to his fellow

citizens of Berlin that they refrain from public diversions (ffentliche Lustbarkeiten).25

As Dr Werner had anticipated, the day began with a series of religious services. An

evangelical service was held in Berlins Marienkirche, at which Heinrich Grber,

himself persecuted by the Nazis for his support for the racially persecuted, addressed

not only those present but a much larger audience on radio. Meanwhile a Catholic

service was conducted at St. Klaras Church in Neuklln in memory of those persecuted

for their religious beliefs under Nazism, while at St. Hedwigs Cathedral, and in the

presence of thousands who filled the surrounding streets, Bishop Conrad Graf von

Preysing led a pontifical requiem. Among those who had lost their lives he singled outthe figure of St. Hedwigs own provost Lichtenberg, who had protested against the

maltreatment of the Jews and prayed for them, an act which brought him imprisonment

and then death.26

Just how many participants made their way to the stadium in Neuklln that afternoon

is not clear.27 In any case, from assembly points in all the sectors of Berlin streams of

participants made their way to the venue, where they arrived to the sounds of Chopins

funeral march, viewed the iconic red triangle and listened to the official recitations and

addresses. One of them was by Maria Wiedmaier, who spoke of the suffering of women

at the hands of the Nazis. With remarkable frankness she claimed,

22Berliner Zeitung (4 Sept. 1945), p. 3.23 Former KPD leader Ernst Thlmann leader had been executed in Buchenwald on 18 August 1944, though Rudolf

Breitscheid, imprisoned in Buchenwald, died under different circumstances. According to official sources of the

time, at least, he was the victim of an allied bombing raid on 24 Aug. 1944. The trade unionist Wilhelm Leuschner

was implicated in the July 1944 plot to murder Hitler, was arrested and executed on 29 Sep. 1944.24Berliner Zeitung (4 Sept. 1945), p. 3.25Ibid.26 Berlin ehrt die Opfer des Faschismus, Berliner Zeitung (9 Sept. 1945), p. 1.27 The title alone of the chapter Der 9. September 1945: Die Kundgebung der Hunderttausend zu Ehren der Opfer des

Faschismus in the collection Hauptausschuss Opfer des Faschismus (ed.),Zwei Jahre Hauptausschuss Opfer des

Faschismus(Berlin, 1947), pp. 4247, suggests an attendance of 100,000, but the chapter suggests 50,000. The

correspondent of the Berliner Zeitung (11 Sept. 1945) put it at 60,000, while the correspondent of the Times of

London (10 Sept. 1945) put it as low as 20,000.




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The knowledge of our collective guilt gives us the strength to rebuild and to make good. In the camp we anti-

fascist women have seen how strong we are if we stand together. That is why we are convinced: we will make

it this time.28

Wiedmaier was followed on the podium by Ottomar Geschke of the Main Committee

of the OdF, who was similarly forthright: The smashing of Nazism is the work of the

victorious armies of the Soviet Union, America and England. That was the day of

liberation for us. For that we thank them, earnestly, quietly and in celebration. As for the

Germans who had fought against Hitler, they provided the avant-garde for the creation

of a new Germany: We honour our heroes if we fulfill their legacy, if we do our duty.29

The inaugural gathering to commemorate the victims of fascism closed with a selection

of poetry and song, culminatingas was to remain the tradition over many years to

comein the singing ofBrder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit(Brothers, to the sun and freedom).

Of Russian origin and with revolutionary pedigree, this workers song had become

popular in a German version in the Weimar Republic, and then was sung even more

widely in left-wing circles after the Second World War.30

When BerlinsMagistratmet on 10 September it reviewed the previous days events,

which, with the exception of some undisciplined behaviour, were regarded as an

overwhelming success. Geschke thanked the Lord Mayor for his address, Professor

Scharoun for his monument, the representatives of the churches for their comme-

morations, and the media for playing their role. Dr. Werner responded with thanks

to Geschke, the heart and soul of the entire rally.31 His words were endorsed by the

CommunistMagistratmember Karl Maron, who argued: It will be necessary to expand

the actions in Berlin to the entire country and to exploit [auszunutzen] the activity of the

former concentration camp inmates for other tasks in future.32That those tasks would be explicitly political in nature was already clear in September

1945, since Communists like Maron were well aware that not everyone was so enthusiastic

about the Day of Remembrance. An internal report prepared for the Communist

members of theMagistratpointed out that commemorative activities connected with the

Day of Remembrance had been forbidden in the French zone of occupation. The OdF

committee in the district of Wedding had nonetheless proceeded to organize for the

occasion a wreath-laying at a cemetery, attended by some 400 participants and three

French officers. The presence of the officers was taken as tacit approval, and yet two days

after the Day of Remembrance the President of Weddings OdFcommittee was arrestedby the French police, allegedly for not following the militarys orders. 33

Problems in Wedding notwithstanding, the willingness to repeat the experience of the

first Day of Remembrance was strong among the OdFcommittees, and it appears to

28 Berlin ehrt die Opfer des Faschismus, Berliner Zeitung (11 Sept. 1945), p. 1.29Ibid.30http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCder%2C_zur_Sonne%2C_zur_Freiheit(accessed 7 April 2006).31 die Seele und der Kopf der ganzen Kundgebung. Jrgen Wetzel (ed.), Die Sitzungsprotokolle des Magistrats der

Stadt Berlin 1945/46, Teil I. (Berlin, 1995), Protokoll der Sitzung vom 10.9.1945, p. 409.32Ibid.33 Parteiinterner Bericht kommunistischer Magistratsmitglieder ber die Entwicklung und politische Lage in Berlin (2.

Septemberhlfte 1945), SAPMO-BArch. ZPA, NL 99/1, Bl. 3447. Reproduced in Wetzel (ed.), Die Sitzungsprotokolle,

p. 450.




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204 Peter Monteath

have been their resolve, channelled by Geschke, that prepared the path for future

commemorations on the second Sunday of September each year. At a meeting of the

OdFcommittees held in the month after that first Day of Remembrance, Geschke told

those gathered before him:

When we held our great memorial rally in Berlin on 9 September there was not just the celebration at theHermann [sic!he meant Werner] Seelenbinder Stadium, where thousands laid wreaths, but in countless

buildings small altars or plaques or emblems of one kind or another were set up where Victims of Fascism

had been recorded. We need to preserve and cultivate this thought and make sure that we make these days in

early September, around the 9 September, into the traditional Remembrance Day for our dead. You here in

Saxony staged commemorations twice in some places, but if the entire German people on one day makes a

pilgrimage to its heroes then that will have a huge impact, and that is why we are preparing now for the first

days of September in 1946.34

Predictably, perhaps, the report published in The Timesof London was less enthusiastic.

Having just witnessed the first rally in Neuklln the correspondent pondered: It was

remarkable that, although the ceremony was essentially anti-Fascist, its trappings werethose of any Nazi rally, minus the Swastika.35

Remembrance and Cold War 19461949The development of the Day of Remembrance over the following years illustrates

how the political circumstances in which it took place changed, most notably through

the onset of Cold War, but also how the day itself adjusted to those circumstances.

With the flexibility that a designated day of commemoration provides, the annual

event accommodated the changing political climate. In doing so it changed, not only

in its forms but also in its functions. The element of mourning so evident on the firstDay of Remembrance receded, as did the open acknowledgement of collective guilt

through complicity in the crimes of Nazism, so eloquently expressed by Maria

Wiedmaier in 1945. Moreover, the tendency to limit the range of antifascists being

rememberedalready evident in 1945was driven further over the following years,

to the extent that not only were the passive victims marginalized, but even active

resisters of unfashionable political persuasions similarly found themselves on the

outside. In short, the diversity, the emotiveness, and the appeal to the actual historical

experiences of those gathered, so evident at the first Day of Remembrance, gave

way to commemorative activities which focused on an analysis of the political

problems of the present, which eschewed diversity, and which rested on an ever

more tenuous link with the experiences of those who attended them. Vernacular

memory, in other words, was being subsumed by official memory, and not just in

the Soviet zone of Berlin where support for the Day of Remembrance was at

its firmest.

In Berlins western sectors few were under any illusions about the roles Communists

played on the OdFcommittees, in the work of the Main Office of the Victims of Fascism

in the BerlinMagistrat, and in the organization of the first Day of Remembrance. There

34 Speech by Ottomar Geschke, Oct. 1945. Wortprotokolle der Konferenz der Ausschuesse Opfer des Faschismus

27.10.1945, SAPMO-Archiv, DY 54/277/1/1.35 Victims of Fascism, The Times (10 Sept. 1945), p. 4.




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was, moreover, every expectation that they would continue to do so in the following years.

In the aftermath of war the open invocation of an antifascist legacy could hardly be

condemned, yet the Western sectorsas so tellingly illustrated by the French response in

1945were wary of this Communist influence and of any attempt to politicize the

activities of the OdFcommittees.

In 1946 Western powers received further evidence that a politicization of the OdFwas

taking place. On 3 March in that year the Main Committee staged a rally in Berlin in

support of the amalgamation of KPD and SPD, and its secretary, Karl Raddatz, used an

official letterhead of the BerlinMagistratto announce the rally. For the American city

commander Barker the use of theMagistrats letterhead for this blatantly political purpose

was intolerable; he had the Soviet city commander arrest Raddatz and initiated an

inquiry into the Main Committee and its functions. The result was that Raddatz was

dismissed from his office of Secretary of the Main Committee.36 Clearly the American

authorities were not prepared to accept any extension of the social activities of the OdF

into the thorny realm of politics.

Nonetheless the amalgamation of the KPD and the SPD to form the Sozialistische

Einheitspartei(Socialist Unity Party, SED) did take place, as did the second Day of

Remembrance. For reasons unclear it was not staged on the second Sunday, but on

22 September. The formation of the SED earlier in the year provided part of the

backdrop for events, as too did the ongoing trials of major war criminals taking place

in Nuremberg. As in the previous year, a range of events were organized at and

around the main gathering in Berlin. In the four sectors of the city commemorative

activities were staged, school students were addressed on the Saturday before the

main event, a brochure was prepared by the main committee of the OdFwith thetitle Das heimliche Deutschland (Secret Germany), and two plays, both with Jewish

themes, were staged: Professor Mamlokat the Volksbhne and Nathan der Weiseat the

Deutsches Theater.37

In contrast to the previous year, this time the major gathering took place not in

Neuklln in the American Sector but in the Lustgarten in the Soviet-controlled heart of

East Berlinbordered by the Old Museum, the Cathedral and the still-standing remains

of the Castlewhere it was to remain for decades. The stairs outside the Old Museum

provided a stage for speakers, while the crowds gathered on the open space before the

museum. Flags of all European nations decorated the museums faade, whilst a flameburned in a huge bowl.38

Proceedings commenced with the laying of a wreath. There followed the playing

of Beethovens Eroicaand the Egmont Overture, before, as in the previous year, the

Lord Mayor Dr Werner delivered the opening speech.39 Geschke followed in

addressing the tens of thousands gathered before him on issues relating to both the

past and the present. He commended the 100,000 brave fighters who had lost their

36 See Hlscher, NS-Verfolgte, p. 43.37 Letter from Hauptausschuss Opfer des Faschismus to Margarete Junj (16 Dec. 1946), SAPMO-BArch/DY 54/277/1/45,

Bestand Opfer des FaschismusAusschsse, Hauptausschuss und Landesausschsse, p. 154.38 Gelbnis der Antifaschisten, Berliner Zeitung (24 Sept. 1946), p. 6.39Ibid.




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206 Peter Monteath

lives in concentration camps and prisons as they battled the Nazi regime. He

recalled also those from other countries who had served on the International

Committees in the camps and who had sacrificed themselves in resisting Hitler. But

in addition he spoke of Nuremberg and the trials taking place there, demanding

Figure 26.03: Poster for the 1946 Day of Remembrance. The red triangle had already established itself as

the main symbol. The text above it reads, For you the laurels, for us the duty below it reads, Day of

Remembrance for the Victims of Fascism, followed by the date on which the commemoration was held that

year. It was the only occasion on which it was not held on the second Sunday in September.

Source: DHM, Berlin. Used with permission.




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that justice be delivered.40 After Geschke, surviving members of various resistance

groups spoke of their experiences, indicating that the inclusiveness of the previous

years commemoration had been preserved. The proceedings closed once more

with the singing ofBrder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit.41

By 1947 developments in domestic politics in the SBZ had further altered and

politicized the environment of the commemorations in that year. In February 1947 the

various OdFgroups in the SBZ were gathered into a single organization representing

their interests, the Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes(hereafter VVN, Association of

the Nazi Regimes Persecuted). 42 The VVNs broad function was to unite antifascist

elements and to provide a platform for the construction of a united and antifascist

Germany. In pursuing its goals it sought hard to depict itself as a supra-political

organization, representing the full gamut of victims. Karl Raddatz, who had reemerged

after his brief detention to become the first General Secretary, affirmed, Our

organization has to stand above party politics and religion (muss eine berparteiliche und

berkonfessionelle sein), because otherwise it would lose all meaning.43 Among the Western

allies there was a strong scepticism concerning such claims, not least because Raddatzs

own affiliations were well known. For this reason, although the VVN was able to establish

itself in all zones of occupation, it never achieved its goal of becoming a national

organization. And it was only in the SBZ that it was permitted to exist as a zone-wide

organization; elsewhere in the West it was permitted to exist only on a regional level.44

One of the specific tasks the VVN adopted from the beginning was to continue the

practice of remembering the victims of fascism.45 At a conference of VVN delegates

from all zones of occupation in Frankfurt am Main in March 1947, it was resolved that

the victims of fascism should be commemorated on the same day in all parts ofGermany.46 Indeed, in some quarters the day became known as the VVN-Remembrance

Day, although the VVN continued to rely on the permission and collaboration of

numerous organizations to ensure that the event did indeed take place. Crucial above all

in Berlin, once more at the centre of events, but where political complexities and

sensitivities delayed the formal founding of the Berlin VVN until early 1948, was the

active support once more of theMagistratof Greater Berlin and of the SED.

In the SBZ the first president of the VVN was none other than Ottomar Geschke, an

honour which would assure his continued prominent involvement in the Day of

Remembrance but also strengthen fears about the Communist appropriation of theevent. In allowing the event to be heldas members of the Allied Kommandatura

exercising control over Greater Berlinthe Americans were nonetheless eager to ensure

40Ibid.41Ibid.42 On the history of the VVN see especially Reuter and Hansel, Das kurze Leben der VVN, passim.43 Archiv IVVdN, Akte VVN 19461947, Delegiertentagung der VVN Gross-Berlin am 23.11.1946, Referat Raddatz.

Cited in Reuter and Hansel, Das kurze Leben, p. 127.44 For a (rather uncritical) history of the VVN in the West see Ulrich Schneider,Zukunftsentwurf Antifaschismus: 50

Jahre Wirken der VVN fr eine neue Welt des Friedens und der Freiheit(Bonn, 1997). From Feb. 1950 the VVN had

a rival in the West in the form of the Bund der Verfolgten des Naziregimes (BVN).45 Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB) Omgus 4/1271/2.46 SAPMO im Bundesarchiv. DY 30/IV 2/2.1/77 Protokolle der Beschlsse des Politbro des ZK der SED, 1946 49.

Anlage Nr. 1 zu Protokoll Nr. 87.




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208 Peter Monteath

that the Communists would not appropriate the Day of Remembrance for their own

political ends. For this reason American authorities banned as part of the 1947 Day of

Remembrance a procession through their zone into the Soviet zone, where the Lustgarten

rally was to occur. Participants from the American sector consequently had to make their

way individually across the intersector border, unfurling their flags and banners only

after they had reached the eastern sector. Similarly, the Americans forbade the erection

of unauthorized monuments47 and the use of other OdFsymbols in public places. Their

position was made clear in an order from the Office of Military Government US Berlin

Sector in Kreuzberg, which stated:

The unauthorized erection of monuments in the US Sector by the Victims of Fascism and the proposal by

the Victims of Fascism that flags or posters be put on dwellings and in public places commemorating the

achievements of victims of the Nazi regime is forbidden. All red insignia will be removed at once from all

monuments erected in the US Sector and no flags or posters will be permitted on said monuments nor will

they be used in any other way in connection with the 14 September demonstrations by the Victims of

Fascism.48

American actions did not go unnoticed in other parts of the city. An article in the

Soviet-licensed Tgliche Rundschau of 17 September, three days after the Day of

Remembrance, gave an eyewitness account of events on the Saturday morning in the

American Sector before Sundays commemoration:

In fact, the importance of the day is nowhere to be seen externally. And yetin front of the Town Hall of

Steglitz inhabitants had laid down flowers and wreaths at the commemorative tablets of one of those brave

men who had enough courage at that time to say no. We are just arriving in time to see gentlemen in dark

suits remove the wreaths and flowers. Policemen in civilian clothes. They said it was forbidden. The

Sectorassistent of the American Sector had given the order. It is the German chief of police of that sector.

The spectators are upset, can hardly understand how that is possible. For years they have been calling for

our resistance against the Nazis by radio during the war and now they take down the flowers from the me-

morial stone and threaten to punish us. What is one still to believe? A common woman is saying these words,

and she has misty eyes. In Zehlendorf we learn that banners, posters and leaflets against Fascism are not al-

lowed to be pinned or distributed publicly. Is one afraid of the colour red?49

Some of the American thinking on what was becoming an increasingly vexed issue is

revealed in a memorandum from the Office of Military Government Berlin Sector Civil

Administration Branch dated 6 September, when attitudes to the approaching Day of

Remembrance were being considered. On the one hand, it was noted, the celebration

had been approved by the Allied Kommandatura. On the other, however, as the authornoted, We all regard the V of F [ie Victims of Fascism, by now VVN] with suspicion

47 In the district of Schneberg the OdF section in the Social Services Department (Abteilung Sozialwesen) proposed

the erection of a monument to the Victims of Fascism in Schneberg on the Kaiser Wilhelm Platz. The plan was out-

lined in a letter to the Americans Information Services Control Section in Dahlem. It was to be in the form of an obe-

lisk 7 metres tall and 3.5 metres wide, topped with a triangle and the letters KZ. There would be plates on each of

the four sides of the base: one dedicated to active fighters, one to the six million European victims of the Nuremberg

Laws, one to the 130,000 Berlin victims (including 11,000 children) of those Laws, and one to the 34 mill ion overall

war dead. The proposal was accompanied by a sketch of the design by Fritz Hucke. Letter, Bezirksamt Schneberg

Gross-Berlin Abteilung Sozialwesen Opfer des Faschismus to Information Services Control Section (1 Sept. 1947).

LAB OMGBS 4/1282/2 Akten der Amerikanischen Militrverwaltung in Berlin. It was rejected by Colonel Babcock.48 Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB) REP 280 Nr. 6869. Order dated 9 Sept. 1947.49 Fear of Red Flags? Tgliche Rundschau (16 Sept. 1947). Translation is based on that provided in Akten der

Militrverwaltung in Berlin, LAB OMGBS 4/1282/2.




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because it is being made a political football; in Berlin is heavily SED. In many respects

they are phony. In some they represent a sound move toward rehabilitation.50

Those who did make their way to the East or who came from within the Soviet zone on

the afternoon of Sunday 14 September witnessed a scene in the centre of East Berlin

strongly reminiscent of that of the previous year. From one oclock in the afternoon long

columns of participants made their way to the Lustgarten. At about four oclock the

survivors of Nazi oppression arrived, among them the few surviving members of the

Berlin Jewish community, Berlins fighters from the Spanish Civil War, delegations from

factories and youth groups.51 They delivered some 400 wreaths to the steps of the old

museum and around the flame, forming a colourful carpet of flowers.

This time it was the deputy mayor, the Social Democrat Louise Schroeder, who

addressed the crowd, recalling the sacrifices of those who had fought against fascism.

She was followed by the ubiquitous Geschke, who proudly proclaimed, In all the cities

and villages of Germany millions are thinking of those who lost their lives in the hell of

fascism.52 Once again he did not eschew the opportunity to address topical political

issues, and in 1947 that meant above all the hardening of divisions in Germany as the

Cold War threatened to impede moves to re-establish a unified Germany. He pleaded:

Let us be united not only in commemorating the dead but in all questions concerning

the German people. We are one Volk, one nation, we have one homeland, our Germany.

With an eye already turned to the forthcoming Allied talks in London he demanded of

the worlds statesmen: Give Germany the peace it desires as an economic and political

unity.53 His words addressed sensitive domestic issues as well; those who expressed anti-

Semitic views, he contended, were enemies of humankind.54 This year, once more,

proceedings closed with the common singing ofBrder, zur Freiheit, zur Sonne.55By 1948 the stamp of Cold War divisions was even clearer, the most tangible

manifestation being the blockade of the Western sectors of Berlin and the Allied airlift to

service them. The Allied Kommandatura, which had had to approve the staging of the

event in previous years, was now dormant, theMagistratwas divided and did not involve

itself in the event. It did, however, organize a modest memorial service held on 12

September at the Pltzensee prison in the Western part of the city, a site where thousands

of Nazisms opponentsmost prominently some of the participants in the 20 July 1944

plothad been executed. At the same time the Berlin VVN found its operations heavily

compromised through the political climate but devoted itself to the maintenance of theannual commemoration in the East. With the permission of the Soviets it was indeed

able to stage the main gathering once more in the Lustgarten.

As it happened, activities in the East experienced a provocative prelude in the Western

part of the city. At a rally held on 9 Septemberthree days before the main rally in the

Eastern part of the citya West Berlin rally was held in front of the ruins of the

50 Memorandum Office of Military Government Berlin Sector Civil Administration Branch (6 Sept. 1947). LAB OMGBS

4/1282/2.51 Berlin gedachte der OdF, Berliner Zeitung (16 Sept. 1947), p. 6.52Ibid.53Ibid.54 Der antifaschistische Kampf geht weiter, Tribne (15 Sept. 1947), p. 2.55Ibid.




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210 Peter Monteath

Reichstag, immediately adjacent to the intersector border. The West Berlin Lord Mayor

Ernst Reuter spoke his famous words, Peoples of the world look at this city and

recognize that you must not and cannot abandon this city and this people.56 He went on

to warn the 300,000 Berliners gathered before him against participating in the Day of

Remembrance on the coming Sunday. Some saw this as a direct affront to victims of

fascism; at the very least it indicated that the Day of Remembrance was dividing the city

just as was the blockade.57

The East responded with a series of events on and around the Day of Remembrance on

a larger scale than ever before. Just how extensive it had become is evident from the VVNs

preparations. Over 3 days11, 12 and 13 Septemberthere were to take place:

a congress of resistance fighters on the morning of the 11th;

a welcoming rally at the State Opera on the evening of the 11th;

a main rally in the Lustgarten on the 12th;

meeting of the concentration camp groups on the 13th; cultural events for domestic and international delegates on the 12th and 13th;

rallies and excursions in the Soviet Occupation zone.

In all this, it was stressed, it was crucial that the international representatives of FIAPP

(Fdration Internationale des Anciens Prisonniers Politiques, International Association of Former

Political Prisoners) spoke so as to underline the international character of the occasion.58

To the larger scale was added the sensitive political climate created by the fascist

provocation led by Reuter in the West, which might well have increased attendances. For

the main rally in the Lustgarten on Sunday 12 September (Fig. 26.04), Berlins Vorwrts

newspaper put the number of participants at well over 300,000, trumpingif thenumbers are correctthe Reichstag rally addressed by Reuter.59 Moreover, the

newspaper was at pains to emphasize that many of those present had come from other

parts of the world to be present. In giant letters across the top of the Old Museum hung

the rallying cry for that year, Battle against FascismBattle for Peace. If speeches in

previous years had drawn parallels between past and present, the appropriation of the

past for the political circumstances of the by now fully fledged Cold War was now plain

for all to see. As the main organizers of the event, the VVN had appealed to Germans

not only to commemorate the victims of fascism but also to give the right response to the

neofascist efforts in Berlin.60None of the participants could have been surprised that one of the main speakers was

once again Ottomar Geschke. He pointed to the ongoing struggle being waged in Greece

and Spain, where American wealth, he claimed, was supporting the fascist cause. He also

referred, inevitably, to the events of the previous Thursday in West Berlin. Geschke,

however, refused to be intimidated by news from the other side of the city, because

56 Cited in Reuter and Hansel, Das kurze Leben der VVN, p. 200.57Ibid.58 Protokoll der Sitzung des Zentralvorstandes der VVN vom 9.1.1948, SAPMO-Barch. Unterlagen des ZK der SED/

Sekretariat Lehmann DY 30/IV 2/2.027/31, p. 236.59 Die gewaltige Kundgebung im Lustgarten, Vorwrts (13 Sept. 1948), p. 3.60Ibid.




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Figure 26.04: Scene from the 1948 Day of Remembrance rally in the Lustgarten. Note the flag of Israel below

the ubiquitous red triangle.Source: G. Gronefeld/DHM, Berlin. Used with permission.




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212 Peter Monteath

gathered before him was the army of millions of Berlins workers. It is the honest worker,

the true Berlin.61

If the Cold War rhetoric of the event was stronger than ever before, it is nonetheless

true that some attention was turned to the victims of fascism, and not only to the politically

persecuted. Notable in 1948 was the prominence given to the recollection of the

persecution of the Jews in particular. Among the flags draped from the Old Museum was

the flag of the newly proclaimed state of Israel, created that year, it should be remembered,

with the support of the Soviet Union. One of the speakers at the event was the prominent

Jew Heinz Galinski, at that time the Deputy President of the VVN, and charged with

opening proceedings. If today we remember our dead comrades whom the Hitler regime

murdered, he said, then it is with the pledge: as we have fought against fascism, so we will

in future fight for peace and harmony among the peoples of the world.62 In the presence

not only of Berliners but also of guests from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Yugoslavia,

Albania, Norway, Denmark and other countries, the president of FIAPP, Maurice Lampe,

also spoke, as did a Soviet delegate, Lieutenant-General Godejew. In the by now time-

honoured tradition, the day came to an end with the singing ofBrder zur Sonne, zur Freiheit.

Officially the VVN proclaimed the occasion a huge success, putting attendance at

half a million.63 In the West, the newspaperDer Abendused the headline Forced Rally of

70,000 (Zwangskundgebung der 70 000), while Der Kurierran with Abuse of the Dead

(Mibrauch der Toten).64

By the time of the fifth Day of Remembrance, scheduled for 11 September 1949, the

division of Germany, an outcome which the OdFand the VVN had feared and resisted

resolutely, had become a reality. The Federal Republic had been founded on 23 May of

that year; the birth of the GDR was just weeks away. The descent of the Iron Curtainwas complete, with inevitable consequences for the staging of activities in that year.

American attitudes had hardened further so as to impose an outright ban on participation

in the event organized in the East by the VVN. Once more a kind of counter-

commemoration was organized for Pltzensee in the West. The renewed choice of that

site, with its close links with the Men of 20 July, confirmed the view that in the West any

act of remembering antifascism would focus on its most conservative variations.

On the day after the VVNs event was held as usual in East Berlins Lustgarten, the

Police Inspector in Kreuzberg wrote to the American Liaison Officer Major Melchers:

The members of the VVN (East) held a great meeting at Berlins Lustgarten on 11 September 1949. The SED

had called upon all subordinated organizations for participation. The communist organizations in the

Western Sectors had planned a demonstration from the district collection points to the Lustgarten.

Since the demonstrations were not considered a rally of those persecuted by the Nazi regime but a communist

demonstration, all demonstrations in the Western Sectors of Berlin were forbidden by the Police President.65

61 Geschke appelliert an das Weltgewissen, Vorwrts (13 Sept. 1948), p. 3.62 Die gewaltige Kundgebung im Lustgarten, p. 3.63 Reuter and Hansel, Das kurze Leben der VVN, p. 267.64Der Abend(13 Sept. 1948); Der Kurier(13 Sept. 1948). Cited in Reuter and Hansel, Das kurze Leben der VVN,

p. 201.65 Polizei-Inspektion Kreuzberg an den Verbindungsoffizier Major Melchers, 12 Sept. 1949, Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB)

OMGBS4/1271/2. Text based on original American translation.




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Not content with controlling events in their own sector, the police chose to send a reporter

into the East to observe proceedings in the Lustgarten. Information received was that

about 150,000 were present there, that the meeting had begun at about 11 in the morning

and lasted just over an hour. Its nature was, in the reporters view, less a commemoration

than a propaganda meeting.66

Another more subtle feature of the activities of 1949 went unobserved by that reporter.

In the previous year considerable attention had been accorded to the remembrance and

condemnation of Nazi antisemitism, attention which was revived a couple of months later

with official recognition of the tenth anniversary of the November pogrom. By 1949,

however, and under the influence of a renewed wave of antisemitism originating in Moscow,

Jewish suffering had largely been removed from Day of Remembrance agendas.67

Divided MemoryConvinced though they were that the annual Day of Remembrance in the East was little

more than a propaganda meeting, it was nonetheless difficult for West Germans to

condemn the event outright. To do so would have been interpreted in some quarters as a

flagrant condemnation of antifascism, if not as a sign of resurgent fascism in the West.

On the other hand, to adopt East German memorial practices would hinder the Federal

Republic in developing its own distinctive identity.

One early response to this dilemma came in 1950, when West Germanys Interior

Minister Gustav Heinemann, realizing that the VVN was planning the annual Day of

Remembrance on 10 September, suggested a pre-emptive strike. A multi-faceted Day of

Remembrance might be held on the firstSunday of the month in such a way as to

combine remembering the war dead with the celebration of the new constitution and aDay of German Unity. But Heinemann found no support in cabinet for his one-size-fits-

all solution to the question of a national holiday.68

For a short time the VVNs annual Day of Remembrance thus continued to be

observed in the West. The original timingthe second Sunday of every September

was preserved, but the location and the content were tailored to Western needs. With

modest precedents established in the previous two years, the central site of remembrance

chosen was the Pltzensee prison. The cornerstone of the memorial was laid on 9

September 1951, while the memorial was officially inaugurated on 14 September 1952.

Though the location had changed, even in the West the commitment to September for atime remained unchallenged.

Eventually the discomfort of sharing a time of remembrance with the communist East

could be averted. A new possibility was found not in the commemoration of events from

the Nazi past but one of much more recent origin. That was 17 June, adopted into the West

German memorial calendar after the events in the GDR in 1953, but of course quite mute

on the vexed issue of how the Federal Republic might relate to its Nazi past. Moreover, the

66Ibid.67 On changing official attitudes in the SBZ to antisemitism in late 1948 and in 1949 see Jutta Illichmann, Die DDR und

die Juden: Die deutschlandpolitische Instrumentalisierung von Juden und Judentum durch die Partei und Staatsfhrung

der SBZ/DDR von 1945 bis 1990 (Frankfurt/Main, 1997), pp. 7475, 8287. See also Mario Kessler, Die SED und die

Judenzwischen Repression und Toleranz: Politische Entwicklungen bis 1967(Berlin, 1995), pp. 5657.68 Peter Reichel, Politik mit der Erinnerung: Gedchtnisorte im Streit um die nationalsozialistische Vergangenheit

(Munich, 1995), p. 269.




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214 Peter Monteath

Day of German Unity, as it was called, was never able to garner much public support, let

alone enthusiasm. The more it was celebrated, the more it became a public calamity.69

As for the GDR, it maintained its commitment to its commemorations on the second

Sunday of every September over the full four decades of its existence. The almost

seamless transition from the Days of

Documents

A Day to Remember. East Germanys Day of Remembrance for the Victims of FascismGerman