Article contents
East Germany's Jewish Question: The Return and Preservation of Jewish Sites in East Berlin and Potsdam, 1945–1989
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
Extract
In September 1950, Julius Meyer, head of the State Association of Jewish Communities in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), sent a letter to the Finance Ministry inquiring about the current state of Jewish communal property. Throughout the immediate postwar years, he and other Jewish leaders had requested, though with little success, the return of Jewish property and assistance to rebuild Jewish sites. With the occupation now over, Meyer hoped that the newly formed East German state might be sympathetic to the needs of the Gemeinde (a religious community of Jews). He noted that the Jewish community had “still not acquired its own property” since most of it remained “under the control of the state” or in the hands of those who had seized it during the Nazi program of “Aryanization.” Meyer also pointed out that the Gemeinde needed money to reconstruct the numerous synagogues and Jewish cemeteries that had been damaged during Kristallnacht and World War II. “We ask,” he explained, “that you take into consideration the fact that the Jewish community, because of the extermination policy of the fascist state, finds itself in a situation like no other religious community.”
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2005
References
1 CJA, 5B1, Nr. 28, Meyer to Ministry of Finance, 09 30, 1950.Google Scholar
2 Hartewig, Karin, Zurückgekehrt. Die Geschichtc der jüdischen Kommunisten in der DDR (Cologne: Böhlau, 2000), 300–12Google Scholar; Spannuth, Jan Philipp, “Rückerstattung Ost. Der Umgang der DDR mit dem ‘arisierten’ und enteigneten Eigentum der Juden und die Gestaltung der Rückerstattung im wiedervereinigten Deutschland” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Freiburg, 2000).Google Scholar
3 See the literature reviewed by Monteath, Peter, “The German Democratic Republic and the Jews,” German History 22 (2004): 448–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 The most influential book on the subject—Jeffrey Herf's pioneering Divided Memory—only mentions in passing the period from 1970–1989. Herf, , Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 199–200Google Scholar. Works that discuss the GDR's handling of Jewish issues in the 1970s and 1980s emphasize the SED's political use of Jewish sites. Although this line of reasoning is partially correct, it overlooks developments in East German society that were not politically motivated. See Mertens, Lothar, Davidstern unter Hammer und Zirkel. Die Jüdischen Gemeinden in der SBZ/DDR und ihre Behandlungen durch Partei und Staat, 1945–1990 (New York: Olms, 1997)Google Scholar; Offenberg, Ulrike, “Seid vorsichtig gegen die Machthaber.” Die Jüdischen Gemeinden in der SBZ und der DDR, 1945–1990 (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1998)Google Scholar; Illichmann, Jutta, Die DDR und die Juden: Die deutschlandpolitische Instrumentalisierung von Juden und Judentum durch die Partei- und Staatsführung der SBZ/DDR von 1945 bis 1990 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1997).Google Scholar
5 Fox, Thomas, Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 1999)Google Scholar; Herf, , Divided MemoryGoogle Scholar; Huener, Jonathan, Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Marcuse, Herbert, The Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933–2001 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Moeller, Robert G., War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Reichel, Peter, Politik mit der Erinnenung. Gedächtnisorte im Streit um die nationalsozialistische Vergangenheit (Munich: Hanser, 1995)Google Scholar; Rousso, Henry, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944, trans. Goldhammer, Arthur (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Santner, Eric, Stranded Objects: Mourning, Memory, and Film in Postwar Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Steinlauf, Michael C., Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Young, James E., The Textures of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Wolf, Joan B., Harnessing the Holocaust: The Politics of Memory in France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
6 See, for instance, Offenberg, “Seid vorsichtig”; Illichmann, Die DDR und die Juden. See also Monteath, “German Democratic Republic.”
7 The writings of Pierre Bourdieu, Alon Confino, Rudy Koshar, and Edward Soja have shaped much of my thinking here. Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Nice, Richard (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Confino, Alon, “Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method,” American Historical Review 102 (1997): 1386–1403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Koshar, Rudy, Germany's Transient Pasts: Preservation and National Memory in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Soja, Edward W., Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (New York: Verso, 1989).Google Scholar
8 For an overview of the historiography on the East German state, see Ross, Corey, The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR (New York: Arnold Publishers, 2002), 19–43Google Scholar; Epstein, Catherine, “East Germany and its History since 1989,” Journal of Modern History 75 (2003): 634–661.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 Bessel, Richard and Jessen, Ralph, ed., Die Greuzen der Diktatur. Staat und Gesellschaft in der SBZ/DDR (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996)Google Scholar; Lindenberger, Thomas, Herrschaft und Eigen-Sinn in der Diktatur. Studien zur Gesellchaftsgeschichte der DDR (Cologne: Zentrum für Zeithistoriche Geschichte, 1999)Google Scholar. The quote comes from Ross, , The East German Dictatorship, 51.Google Scholar
10 I am applying to the East German case the analytical category of “Jewish communist” developed by Schatz, Jaff in his The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists in Poland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).Google Scholar
11 “Aufruf des SK der KPD vom 11. Juni 1945,” reprinted in Dokumente und Materialien zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 3 (Berlin, 1959), 15.Google Scholar
12 Keßler, Mario, Die SED und die Juden—zwischen Repression und Toleranz (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1995), 32–37Google Scholar. The studies on the origins and causes of anti-Semitism are Heymann, Stefan, Marxismus und Rassenfrage (Berlin: Dietz, 1948)Google Scholar; Kahn, Siegbert, Antisemitismus und Rassenhetze: Eine Üersicht über die Entwicklung in Deutschland (Berlin: Dietz, 1948).Google Scholar
13 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV/2.027, Nr. 20, Report written by Merker's assistant, Netball, Kurt, 02 28, 1947.Google Scholar
14 CJA, 5 A 1, Nr. 0126, VJGB to SMA, 11 4, 1947.Google Scholar
15 In the SBZ, administration was complex. The SMA and Soviet troops had the most power, but the SED and state officials also carried out administrative duties. For a detailed discussion, see Naimark, Norman, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1995).Google Scholar
16 The number of survivors comes from BLHA, Rep. 204A, Nr. 2631, Landesverband to Brandenburg Ministry of Finance, 12 27, 1948.Google Scholar
17 For an insightful analysis of the Landesverbands role throughout the SBZ, see Geller, Jay Howard, Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
18 Goschler, Constantin, Wiedergutmachung: Westdeutschland und die Verfolgten des National-sozialismus, 1945–1954 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hockerts, Hans Günter, “Wiedergutmachung in Deutschland: Eine historische Bilanz 1945–2000,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 49 (2001): 167–214Google Scholar; Takei, Ayaka, “The ‘Gemeinde Problem’: The Jewish Restitution Successor Organization and the Postwar Jewish Communities in Germany, 1947–1954,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 16 (2002): 266–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Although he does not deal directly with Jewish property and the issue ot restitution, see Naimark's Russians for the wider context of seizing property in the SBZ.
20 Spannuth, , “Rückerstattung Ost,” 136–41 and 143–47.Google Scholar
21 BLHA, Rep. 203, Nr. 1830, SMA Order Nr. 82, 04 29, 1949.Google Scholar
22 There is one important exception to this statement. In 1945, the parliament of the state of Thunngia passed a restitution law (Wiedergutmachungsgesetz); it was the only one that directly dealt with the issue of restitution for Jews in the SBZ; however, in 1952, under intense pressure from top GDR officials, the parliament repealed the law. See Schüler, Thomas, “Das Wiedergutma-chungsgesetz vom 14. September 1945 in Thüringen,” Jahrbuch für Antisemitisnmsforschung (1993): 118–138.Google Scholar
23 Timm, Angelika, Hammer, Zirkel, Davidstern. Das gestörte Verhältuis der DDR zn Zionismus und Staat Israel (Bonn: Bouvier, 1997), 70–80.Google Scholar
24 They were a piece of unknown property in Rathenow, a Jewish community home in Wolzig, the Jewish cemetery in Prenzlau, and a Jewish children's center in Miersdorf.
25 BLHA, Rep. 203, Nr. 1828, Meyer to Brandenburg's President, 07 21, 1949.Google Scholar
26 Ibid., state of Brandenburg to SMA, August 1, 1949.
27 Ibid., SMA to state of Brandenburg, November 1, 1949.
28 See the exchanges between the Landesverband and the interior ministry, CJA, 5B1, Nr. 107.
29 BLHA, Rep. 204A, Nr. 2631, Landesverband to state of Brandenburg, 12 27, 1948Google Scholar; PSA, 7982, City Council Decision, 06 20, 1949.Google Scholar
30 PSA, 381, Presentation of the City Council, 06 25, 1956.Google Scholar
31 BLHA, Rep. 203, Nr. 1828, Landesverband to state of Brandenburg, 06 21, 1948.Google Scholar
32 The following numbers that he gives are incorrect. Before 1933, Berlin Jews totaled 160,564. In 1941. when the Nazis began deporting Jews from the city, Berlin's Jewish population was between 60,000 and 75,000. From October 1941 until December 1945, the Nazis transported 50,535 Jews to the death camps in the East. He is, however, correct that about 7,000 Berlin Jews survived.
33 LAB, C Rep. 100–01, Nr. 49, Proceedings of the debate, 12 4, 1947.Google Scholar
34 LAB C Rep. 100–05, Nr. 812, Decision of the Stadtverordnetenversammlung, 02 26, 1948.Google Scholar
35 LAB, C Rep. 100–05, Nr. 811, Protocol of Magistral meeting, 02 25, 1948.Google Scholar
36 LAB, C Rep. 001, Nr. 145. Debates about the law from 06 10, 1948 to 11 11, 1948.Google Scholar
37 Kauders, Anthony D., Democratization and the Jews: Munich, 1945–1965 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).Google Scholar
38 On Adenauer's role in pushing restitution, see Geller, , Jews 219–256.Google Scholar
39 Adelson, Jozef, “W Polsce zwanej ludowa,” in Najnowsze dzieje Zydów w Polsce, ed. Tomaszewski, Jerzy (Warsaw: Wydaw. Naukowe PWN, 1993), 387–424Google Scholar; Stola, Dariusz, “Die polnische Debatte um den Holocaust und die Rückerslattung von Eigentum,” in Raub und Restitution. “Arisierung” und Rückerstattung des jüdischen Eigentums in Europa, ed. Goschler, Constantin and Ther, Philipp (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2003), 205–224.Google Scholar
40 The total amount comes from East Berlin's finance ministry estimations of 1957. See SdBARoV, Vol. 7, 205, Notes to the Finance Minister, May 1956. For the amount of communal property, see BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DO 4, Nr. 1337, VJGvGB to the Central Committee of the SED, November 5, 1959; BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV 2/14, Nr. 249, Memo of the State Office for Church Affairs, October 22, 1953.
41 See the letters sent to the Magistral and the Stockfish trust located in LAB C Rep. 104. Nr. 382, C Rep. 105, Nr. 6912, and BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30 IV/2/14, Nr. 249.
42 For petitions of the Jewish community, see BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30 IV/2/14, Nr. 249, VJGB to Magistral, 02 23, 1950Google Scholar; LAB, C Rep. 104, Nr. 382, VJGB to Magistrat, 11 7, 1950Google Scholar. Regarding Ebert's approval, see CJA, 5 A 1, Nr. 1271, Ministry of Finance to VJGB, 03 14, 1951Google Scholar. For the department's conditions, see CJA, 5 A 1, Nr. 127, Minstry of Finance to VJGB, March 14, 1951.
43 LAB, C Rep. 104, Nr. 382, Proposed decision of the Magistrat, Department of Finance, 09 1951.Google Scholar
44 Herf, , Divided Memory, 109Google Scholar. The SED purged a number of non-Jewish veteran communists, but Jews were among the most prominent targets. See Epstein's, Catherine important chapter on the topic in her The Liist Revolutionaries: German Communists and their Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 130–157.Google Scholar
45 Monteath, . “German Democratic Republic,” 455.Google Scholar
46 Herf, , Divided Memory, 112 and 158.Google Scholar
47 Haury, Thomas, Antisemitismus von Links. Kommunistische Ideologie, Nationalisms und Antizionismus in der frühen DDR (Hamburg: Hamburger Ed., 2002).Google Scholar
48 Recent research has uncovered important links between Christian-based and modern anti-Semitism. See the literature reviewed by van Rahden, Till, “Ideologic und Gewalt. Neuerscheinungen über den Antisemitismus in der deutschen Geschichte des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts,” Neue Politische Literatur 41 (1996): 11–29.Google Scholar
49 I am applying to the East German case Shulamit Volkov's concept of anti-Semitism as a cultural code. Volkov, , “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code: Reflections on the History and Historiography of Antisemitism in Imperial Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook (1978): 25–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
50 On anti-Semitic violence in modern German history, see Bergmann, Werner, Hoffmann, Christhard, and Smith, Helmut Walser, ed., Exclusionary Violence: Anti-Semitic Riots in Modern German History (Ann Arbor; University of Michigan Press, 2002)Google Scholar. The term “redemptive anti-Semitism” comes from Friedländer, Saul, Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).Google Scholar
51 Langmuir, Gavin I.. History, Religion, and Anti-Semitism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 275–305.Google Scholar
52 “Lehren aus dem Prozess gegen das Verschwörerzentrum Slanksy,” Dokumente der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands, vol. 4 (Berlin: Dietz, 1954), 202, 204, 206, and 207.Google Scholar
53 LAB, C Rep. 101, Nr. 1816, Office of Church Affairs to Ebert, 04 21, 1953Google Scholar; LAB C Rep. 104, Nr. 382, Ebert to the Department of Finance. 06 5, 1953.Google Scholar
54 SdBARoV, vol. 7, 227, Decision of the Magistrat, 03 11, 1958Google Scholar. On the debate, see the letters in SdBARoV, vol. 7, 201–226Google Scholar. See also Spannuth, , “Rückerstattung Ost,” 226–231.Google Scholar
55 BARoV, Nr. 513, City Department ot Finance to the GDR Ministry of the Finance, 09 19, 1955.Google Scholar
56 The five pieces were the war-damaged synagogue on Oranienburger Straße 28. the Jewish cemetery on Schönhauser Allee 22–25, the Jewish cemetery on Herbert Baum Straße in Berlin Weißensee, the retirement home on Friedrich Wolff Straße 20–38, and the synagogue on Rykestraße 53.
57 LAB, C Rep. 101–04, Nr. 64, City Council decision, 02 16, 1948. On negotiations between the Gemeinde and the Magistrat about reconstruction efforts at Weißensee and other locations, see LAB, B Rep. 002, Nr. 4860; LAB, C Rep. 101–04, Nr. 64; LAB, C Rep. 110, Nr. 1078.Google Scholar
58 Märkische Volksstimme, 04 14, 1951, 6.Google Scholar
59 On Nuschke and his support of the GDR's Jewish communities, see Geller, , Jews, 165–168.Google Scholar
60 Neue Zeit, 09 2, 1952. Newspaper clipping located in BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DO 4, Nr. 2128.Google Scholar
61 PSA, 381 City Council Presentation, 06 25, 1956.Google Scholar
62 Ibid., Letter to Institute for Historic Preservation. 06 27, 1956.Google Scholar
63 Ibid., Letter of Potsdam Interior Ministry, 05 29, 1957.Google Scholar
64 See Nothnagle, Alan, Building the East German Myth: Historical Mythology and Youth Propaganda in the German Democratic Republic (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meuschel, Sigrid, Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft: Zum Paradox von Stabilität und Revolution in der DDR, 1945–1989 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992)Google Scholar; Sabrow, Martin, ed., verwaltete Vergangenheit: Geschichtskultur und Herrschaftslegitimation (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 1997).Google Scholar
65 On historic preservation and urban reconstruction in Potsdam, see Meng, Michael, “The Politics of Antifascism: Historic Preservation, Jewish Sites, and the Rebuilding ot Potsdam's Altstadt” in Cities of Memory: Urban Space and the Nazi Past in Postwar Germany, ed. Gavriel Rosenfeld and Paul Jaskot, forthcoming.Google Scholar
66 PSA 382, Report on the reconstruction of Platz der Einheit, 02 1, 1958.Google Scholar
67 Letters located in BLHA, Rep. 530, Nr. 1265 and PSA, 480.
68 See the institute's extensive argument for preserving the Stadtschloβ in BLHA, Rep. 530, Nr. 1269.
69 PSA, 388, “Objektliste der künstlerischen Baudenkmale (Einzelobjekte),” 1956. All the buildings on the list were constructed in the 1600s and 1700s, with a few exceptions. The youngest structure was built in 1838.Google Scholar
70 PSA, 382, Decision of 02 4, 1958.Google Scholar
71 On the “nationalist myth,” see Nothnagle, Alan, “From Buchenwald to Bismarck: Historical Myth-Building in the German Democratic Republic, 1945–1989,” Central European History 26 (1993): 91–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palmowski, Jan, “Building an East German Nation: Construction of a Socialist Heimat. 1945–1961,” Central European History 37 (2004): 365–399. On the formation of the IfDP, see the files in BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DR 1, Nr. 8026.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
72 PSA, 3553, IfDP conference in Potsdam, 10 25 and 26, 1956.Google Scholar
73 “Verordnung zur Entwicklung einer fortschrittlichen demokratischen Kultur des deutschen Volkes und zur weiteren Verbesserung der Arbeits-und Lebensbedingungen der Intelligenz vom 16. März 1950,” Gesetzblatt der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: Staatsverlag der DDR. 1950).Google Scholar
74 Koshar, , Germany's Transient Pasts, 257Google Scholar. Koshar is applying here a concept developed by Kleßmann, Christoph, “Relikte des Bildungsbürgertum in der DDR,” in Sozialgeschichte der DDR, ed. Kaelbe, Hartmut, Kocka, Jürgen, and Zwahr, Hartmut (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1994), 254–270.Google Scholar
75 For an intriguing discussion of regional and local identities in the GDR, see Palmowski, , “Building an East German Nation.”Google Scholar
76 Quotations from Neuß, E., “Technische Denkmale,” in Einführung in die Heimatgeschichte, ed. Mohr, Hubert and Hühns, Erik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1959), 80–84.Google Scholar
77 Magirius, Heinrich, “Denkmalpflege in der DDR,” Die Denkmalpflege 59 (2001), 127.Google Scholar
78 Speitkamp, Winfried, Die Verwaltung der Geschichte: Denkmalpflege und Staat in Deutschland. 1871–1933 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
79 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DO 4, Nr. 883, Memo on the preservation of historically important churches in the GDR, 1955.
80 “Gesetz zur Erhaltung der Denkmale in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Denkmalpflegegesetz) vom 19. Juni 1975,” Gesetzblatt der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: Staatsverlag der DDR, 1975).Google Scholar
81 Krinsky, Herselle, Synagogues of Europe: Architecture, History, Meaning (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Kalmar, Ivan Davidson, “Moorish Style: Orientalism, the Jews, and Synagogue Architecture,” Jewish Social Studies 7 (2001): 69–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lerner, L. Scott, “The Narrating Architecture ot Emancipation,” Jewish Social Studies 6 (2000): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
82 Koshar, , Germany's Transient Pasts.Google Scholar
83 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DO 4, Nr. 1337, VJGvGB to State Secretary for Church Affairs, 03 7, 1961Google Scholar; LAB, C Rep. 131–12, Nr. 27, VJGvGB to City Regional Council of Berlm-Mitte, 09 18, 1965Google Scholar; LAB C Rep. 104, Nr. 601, VJGvGB to City Director of Church Affairs, 07 15, 1975Google Scholar; LAB C Rep. 104, Nr. 601, VJGvGB to mayor, 02 20, 1981.Google Scholar
84 LAB, C Rep. 131–12, Nr. 27, VJGvGB to City Regional Council of Berlin-Mitte, 09 18, 1965.Google Scholar
85 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV B2/14, Nr. 174, Genin, Salomea, “Die Notwendigkeit, sich zur Festigung der Gesellschaft in der DDR mit der historischen Entwicklung des Judentums zu beschäftigen.”Google Scholar
86 Two letters from the Jewish community report slightly conflicting amounts. One says 45,000 marks, while the other 52,000. CJA, 5 B 1, Nr. 496, VJGvGB to Magistrat, 06 15, 1953Google Scholar; BA-Berlm (SAPMO), DY 30/ IV 2/14, Nr. 249, VJGvGB to Berlin Regional Director of the SED, 10 21, 1953.Google Scholar
87 CJA, 5 B 1, Nr. 505, Request of the Jewish community for the funds, 06 15. 1952Google Scholar; LAB, C Rep. 100–05, Nr. 872, Decision of the Magistrat, 11 5, 1952.Google Scholar
88 Mertens, , Davidstern, 160–64.Google Scholar
89 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV 2/14, Nr. 249, Memo of Berlin Regional Director's Office of the SED, 07 6, 1956.Google Scholar
90 LAB, C Rep. 104, Nr. 382, Report by Director of VP-Inspection, Prenzlauer Berg, 02 19, 1975Google Scholar; LAB, C Rep. 104, Nr. 382, Remarks on the Jewish cemetery on Schönhauser Allee, 03 11, 1975.Google Scholar
91 For a transnational analysis of Jewish sites in divided Germany and Poland, see Meng, Michael, “From Destruction to Preservation: Jewish Sites in Germany and Poland after the Holocaust” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, currently in progress)Google Scholar. See also Alters, Thea, Synagogen in Hessen—Was geschah seit 1945? (Königstein im Taunus: K. Langewiesche, 1988)Google Scholar; Bergman, Eleonora and Jagielski, Jan, Zachowane synagogi i domy modlitury w Polsce (Warsaw: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, 1996)Google Scholar; Bergman, Elenora and Jagielski, Jan, “The Function of Synagogues in the PPR, 1988,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry (1990): 40–49.Google Scholar
92 See, for instance, Kubiak, Anna, “Zydowska architektura zabytkowa w Polsce,” Biuletyn ZIH no. 2–3 (1953): 122–168.Google Scholar
93 The most notable example was Heinrich Grüber's call on the youth of East Berlin to take care of the city's Jewish cemeteries. See “Aufruf Propst Grübers an Berliner Jugend: Wiederherstellung jüdischer Friedhöfe vorgeschlagen,” Neue Zeit, 10 18, 1956. Clipping located in BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV 2/14, Nr. 249.Google Scholar
94 For recollections by contemporaries involved in these movements, see Arndt, Siegfried Theodor and Heid, Elisabeth, eds., Juden in der DDR. Geschichte, Probleme, Perspective (Sachsenheim: E. J. Brill, 1988)Google Scholar; Eschwege, Helmut, “The Churches and the Jews in the German Democratic Republic,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (1992): 497–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
95 Ostmeyer, Irena, Zwischen Schuld und Sühne: Evangelische Kirche and Juden in SBZ nnd DDR, 1945–1990 (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2002).Google Scholar
96 Statement of the Conference for Evangelical Leadership, 09 24, 1978Google Scholar, reprinted in Rendtorff, Rolf and Henrix, Hans Hermann, eds., Die Kirchen und das Judentum. Dokumente von 1945 bis 1985 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1988), 589–90.Google Scholar
97 Aleksiun, Natalia, “Polish Historiography of the Holocaust—Between Silence and Public Debate,” German History 22 (2004): 406–432CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Work written in English on the 1968 campaign is sparse, but in Polish, see Eisler, Jerzy, Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje (Warsaw: Państ. Wydaw. Naukowe, 1991)Google Scholar; Kersten, Krystyna, Polacy, Żydzi, komunizm. Anatomia półprau'd 1939–1968 (Warsaw: Niezalezna Oficyna Wydaw., 1992)Google Scholar; Stola, Dariusz, Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967–1968 (Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Politycznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2000).Google Scholar
98 Nothnagle, , “Buchenwald to Bismarck.”Google Scholar
99 Illichmann, . Die DDR und die Juden, 239–50.Google Scholar
100 Knobloch, Heinz, Herr Moses in Berlin: Auf den Spuren eines Menschenfreundes (Berlin: Buchverlag Der Morgen, 1979)Google Scholar; see the catalogue on the exhibition Gedenke! Vergiβ nie! 40. Jahrestag des faschistischen Kristiillnacht-Pogroms (Berlin: Union-Verlag, 1979).Google Scholar
101 Mertens, , Davidstern, 275–88.Google Scholar
102 PSA, 4508, Letter from Potsdam Interior Ministry to GDR Cultural Ministry, 05 31, 1978.Google Scholar
103 Ibid., Letter to Goldstein, 12 19, 1978.Google Scholar
104 Ibid., Letter to Potsdam Interior Ministry, 05 31, 1983.Google Scholar
105 Ibid., Letter to Merkel, 06 7, 1983.Google Scholar
106 Ibid., Letter to Potsdam Interior Ministry, 05 8, 1983.Google Scholar
107 “Humanistisches Erbe gepflegt,” Märkische Volksstimme, 10 22, 1988, 8.Google Scholar
108 Letter to the editor by Lange, Herbert, Märkische Volksstimme, 11 1, 1989.Google Scholar
109 “Wo einst die Synagoge stand,” Brandenburgische neueste Nadirichten, 11 10–11, 1979. 1.Google Scholar
110 PSA, 4508, Speech of 11 9, 1978.Google Scholar
111 Ibid., Letter to Mayor of 04 21, 1984.Google Scholar
112 See, for instance, the article in the influential New York-based German-Jewish newspaper, Aufbau, “Was die Nazis übrigließen: Über die jüdischen Friedhöfe in Ost-Berlin,” 02 8, 1980.Google Scholar
113 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV B2/14, Nr. 180, Letter from Offenberg to Gysi, 07 29, 1985.Google Scholar
114 See the correspondences and memos in BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV B2/14. Nr. 180. See also Offenberg, , “Seid vorsichtig” 241–257.Google Scholar
115 LAB, C Rep. 104, Nr. 601, Conception for the rebuilding of the New Synagogue in Berlin, 12 1, 1986.Google Scholar
116 Ibid.
117 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30/IV/B2/14, Nr. 176, Memo on the building of the highway, undated.
118 For complete discussion of the matter, see Mertens, , Davidstern, 266–69.Google Scholar
119 LAB, C Rep. 104, Nr. 600, Letter from Gysi, to Honecker, , 01 15, 1988.Google Scholar
120 Ibid., Letter from the Department of Finance to the Office for the Legal Protection of Property in the GDR, 02 25, 1988.Google Scholar
121 See chiefly Offenberg, , “Seid Vorsichtig”Google Scholar; Illichmann, , Die DDR und die Juden.Google Scholar
122 See Martin, Terry, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Suny, Ronald Grigor, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Zaremba, Marcin, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm. Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja wladzy komunistycznej w Polsce (Warsaw: Wydaw. TRIO, 2001).Google Scholar
123 Palmowski, , “Building an East German Nation”Google Scholar; Applegate, Celia, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heitnat (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Confino, Alon, The Nation as Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871–1918 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Koshar, , Germany's Transient Pasts.Google Scholar
124 This does not apply merely to the GDR. The bulk of memory studies has largely assumed that the memories of politicians or cultural elites—as evident in political discourse, film, literature, monuments, and museums—represent a given society's “collective memory” (see fn. 5 above). This assumption largely conflicts with the theoretical analysis of “collective memory” posited by the often-cited French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. For an excellent analysis of these points, see Confino, Alon, “Telling about Germany: Narratives of Memory and Culture,” Journal of Modern History 76 (2004): 389–416CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Confino, , “Collective Memory.” The phrase “administered past” comes from Sabrow, Verwaltete Vergangenheit.Google Scholar
125 The notion of a “shut down” society comes from Meuschel, , Legitimation und ParteiherrschaftGoogle Scholar. This argument has been highly contested by historians. See Ross, , The East German Dictatorship, 44–68Google Scholar; and Epstein, , “East Germany.”Google Scholar
- 1
- Cited by