Confronting the Past in Contemporary Spain and Germany

Abstract

This comparative research project will focus on current debates in Spain and Germany about how to deal with their respective highly controversial twentieth-century history, based on case studies of the memory sites of Carabanchel prison and the Valley of the Fallen in Spain, and the former concentration camps of Buchenwald and Neuengamme, as well as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Germany. My study comprises of an in-depth analysis of the history and significance of these particular memory sites, and takes an original approach by comparing sites in Spain and Germany.

The temporal parameters of my analysis encompass the timeframe from the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 until the present (2013) in Spain, and from the end of the Second World War in 1945 until the present (2013) in Germany. My thesis will explore the similarities and differences in how Germany and Spain deal with their recent past, based on my analysis of the five chosen case studies in both countries.

The primary methodological framework I use is based on recent scholarship in memory studies, including Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire, Marc Augé’s notion of non-lieux, James Young’s concept of counter-monuments, as well as Bill Niven’s notion of combimemorials. Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of collective memory, and the further subdivided categories of political, cultural and communicative memory as defined by Jan and Aleida Assmann, further inform my study. Central to my discussion of the legacy of the traumatic events in Germany’s and Spain’s history for contemporary generations are Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, as well as Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub’s and Dominick LaCapra’s studies on trauma. I furthermore draw on Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities” and Eric Hobsbawm’s notion of “invented traditions” to explore how national myths are used to create national identity. The contested nature of sites of memory during times of critical juncture is foregrounded by Benjamin Forest and Juliet Johnson, whose concept of “co-opted, disavowed and contested” sites of memory I will employ to analyse the role of lieux de mémoire in the politics of national identity.

My study analyses what functions these memory sites and the debates surrounding them play and have played in the collective memory of the respective countries (Spain, the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and unified Germany). I will argue that political memory, anchored in political institutions, influences the official perception of sites of memory which might facilitate their creation, destruction or conservation when embraced as symbols of cultural heritage. My aim is to show that the competing ways of attaching value to monuments and other lieux de mémoire are, on the one hand, influenced by the political memory of the governing body in an attempt to shape national identity and, on the other hand, by the public in an attempt to give voice to a chapter of history in danger of being forgotten.

My thesis reflects on the wide-ranging relevance of scholarship in Holocaust and memory studies for the analysis of traumatic pasts, and considers the impact of the immaterial and material legacy of this past on contemporary generations. It aims to demonstrate that a plurality of memories, incorporating both victim and perpetrator identities and the collective memories of all affected groups in a country, is necessary to form an inclusive society; this is valid for Spain as well as for contemporary Germany.