die neue wache

Has it been an entire week? I am lazy.

Today we went to Mitte and walked around. We saw the TV tower, museum island, and the Humboldt University. There is also a war memorial called the Neue Wache. Actually there are a lot of memorials around Berlin, but this is the oldest... it was built originally as a guard house for the Prussian kings in the 1800s, then after WWI they made it a memorial to the German dead of that war. Then after WWII, the memorial was in east Berlin, and the Soviets remade it (ironically) as a memorial to the "victims of fascism and militarism." After reunification it was changed again and now it is a memorial to the victims of war, and of tyrranical government.

Seeing how the meaning of the monument had changed was strangely moving. It made it clear how important it is for us to be kind to our adversaries. Their memorial might also become our memorial in the future.

Here there is quite a reluctance to contemplate the Nazi times and the aftermath of the war. There seems to me to be a deep sense of shame and really a wish that silence will make the old wounds go away. Given America's experience with slavery, I wonder whether that is a good idea. There is a resurgence of Nazi ideology in Germany as well as in America. People are very afraid that the historical remains of the war in Germany can become shrines for the neo-Nazis. How do you stop such a terrible thing from taking over? I don't know.