andreas huyssen, present pasts: urban palimpsests

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PRESENT PASTS

Urban Palimpsests and the Politics ofMemor y

Andreas Hu y ssen

STAORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STAFORD, CALIFORNA



Stanford Universit PessStanfod, Calrnia

© 2003 by the Board ofTrsts of the Leland Stnford Junior Univeity.ll rights rerved

Sevel of th says in this book appeard in erlie vesons:Chapte! " Presnt Pasts Media Politics Amnesia Public Cu, peia issu on

gobalization 12, no I (woo: 2138Chapt 2 Monumental Sduton New German Crque 69 (Fll 1996 r8200Chapte 3· "h Void of Berlin Crca Iqu 2• no 1 (Autumn 1997 57-81.Chaptr "e the War Brln a Palimpsest Harvad Des M agzne

(Spring 2ooo 7075Chapt 5· Fea of MichTranformations ofTime Sqre Havad Ds

Maae (Wint/Sping 1998) 2628

Chaptr 7 Unland h Orphan's Tuni in Nancy Pincnthal et a Dor Sace(ondon Phaidon 2000 90103

Chaptr 8 Of Me and Mimsis Reading Spiegman with Adoo New GermanCrtque 8I (Fall woo 65-82

Chapter o "Twn Mmoies Aeimags of ne/Eevn G Room 7 (Sping2002 8J

ntd in th United Stats of Amia on acid-free archilqalty pape

ibray of Congres CataoginginPbiation Dta

Huyssn ndas

Prsent pasts rban palmpsest and the polits of mmoy Inda Hysenp m(Culta mmoy n the psnt

Inluds bibliogaphal referen o804745609 (loth a pape) o8047567 (pb alk papr) Memory (Philosophy 2 itoryPhilosophy 3 MemoySoci pects

4 Ctie and townPsychologa apect 5 Memor in litatu Tie . SriesBD87H89 20030c2 2002007737

Original Printing 2003

Lt gur blow ndiats yar of ths printng2 I o 09

ypst by Heathe Boone in /5 Gaamond



For Nina, again



Contens

Illustratns x

Inouon Peen Pa: Mea Pol Amnea

Monumenal Seuon Co n Ben 30

3 e Vo o Beln

Ae e Wa Ben Palme 72

5 Fea o Me: e me Squae Reevelopmen 8 Memoy Se n an Expane el e Memoy Pak

n Bueno Ae

7 Do Saleo Memoy Sulpue UnndThe Orphan Tun

8 O Me an Mme: Reang Spegelman

w Aono 229 Rewng an New Begnnng: W G. Seba

an e Leaue on e A Wa 38

O wn Memoe Aemage o NneEleven 8

Ntes



Illustration

2.1 bert Speer, Great Ha (model 33

22 Christo Wrapping of the Reichstag Berin (1995) 34

23 Christo Wrapping of the Reichstag 37

3- hiip Johnson Haus near former Checkpoint

Charlie (1996) 52

3 .2 Former Checkpoint Charie with imitation Statue

of ibert (1995) 5

33 Wa area between Leipziger latz and Brandenburg Gate 56

3·4 Abert Speer North-South Axis model) 57

35 Instalation in the void left by the dismanting

of the Wal (1991) 58

36 Potsdamer Platz around 1930 59

37 Potsdamer latz construction site with INFO BOX (1995) 63

38 Berin Museum with the Jewish Museum (mode) 67

3 ·9 Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum plan) 68

310 Void inside the Jewish Museum 70

41 The Reichstag under renovation 76

42 Reichstag cupoa outside view 77



xii ustrations

4·3 Reichsag cupola, inside iew 78

44 The new Posdame Plaz plaza 82

5. Cuen consucion a souhwes cone o

Fotysecond See and Sevenh Avenue, sie

of he fome Disney soe (2) 90

52 N Vicory Theae acoss fom ome Disney soe

on Foy-second See 2

6 Monumen o he Vicims o he Sae Teo (mode) I02

6.2 Monumen o he Vicims of he Sae Teo (mode) I04

6.3 The Belin Museum wih he Jewish Museum (gound plan) I06

6.4 Maya Lin Vienam Veeans Memoia Washingon IJ

65 The Jewish Museum (1999) I08

7.1 Dois Scedo Unland: The Orphan' Tunic (997) II2

72 Dois Salcedo Unland: Th Orphan Tunic (deail r) I4

7-3 Dois Salcedo Unnd Th Orphan' Tunic (deail 2) IIf

7·4 Dois Salcedo Unnd Th Orphan Tunic (deail 3) II7

9 he igh om he eah o he moon: an aemp

o skech he elaions of gaity If3



Even now, when I try to remember .. the darkness does

not lift but becomes yet heavie as I think how little we can

hold n mind how eveythng is constantly lapsing nto

obvion wth every extinguished life how the wold is as t

were draning itse n that the histo of countless places and

objects which themselves have no pow er of memoy is

neve head never described or passed on

-w. G. SE BALD , Austrlitz p. 24



The Crii of Hitory

Hsoa memo oda s no wha used o be. I used o makhe eaon of a ommun o a naon o s pas bu he bounda be

ween pas and pesen used o be sone and moe sabe han appeaso be oda. Unod een and no so een pass mpne upon he pesen ouh moden meda of epoduon ke phooaph meoded mus and he Inene as we as houh he exposon of hsoa shoashp and an eve moe voaous musea uue. The pashas beome pa of he pesen n was smp unmanabe n eae enues. As a esu empoa boundaes have weakened us as he expe

ena dmenson of spae ha shunk as a esu of moden means of anspoaon and ommunaon

In mes no so ve on ao he dsouse of hso was hee ouaanee he eave sab of he pas n s pasness Tadons evenhouh hemseves oen nvened o onsued and awas based on seeons and exusons ave shape o uua and soa fe. Bu ubanspaeepee wh monumens and museums paaes pub spaes and

ovenmen budnsepesened he maea aes of he hsoapas n he pesen Bu hso was aso he mseensne of modenne eaned fom hso Tha was he assumpon o abou wo enues hso n he Wes was que suessfu n s poe o anho he



4 Introuction

en o he p and hu aben. neviaby every a o memoy ariewih i a dimenion o beraya orgeing and abene hi i wha heepiemologial dioure o onruivim whih in i egiimae ri-ique o he nauralizaion o radiion and naion oen overhoo i

mark uimaey and orrely impie.hinking abou memory in hi way make u reaize ha odayemphai inere in memory doe have onequene or he p hehioral pa one ued o give oherene and egiimay o amiy ommunity naion and ae in a dioure ha Eri Hobbawm aed heinvenion o radiion hen hoe ormerly abe link have weakenedoday o he exen ha naiona radiion and hiorial pa are inreaingly deprived o heir geographi and poiia grounding whih are re-organized n he proee o uura globalzaion may mean hahee grounding are wrien over eraed and orgoen a he deendero loal heriage and naional auheniiy lamen. Or i may mean hahey are being renegoiaed in he lah beween goblizing ore d newproduion and praie ooa ulure. he orm in whih we hink ohe pa i inreaingy memory whou border raher han naiona hiory wihin border Moderniy ha brough wih i a very rea ompre

ion o ime and pae Bu in he regier o imaginarie i h ao ex-panded our horizon o ime and pae beyond he loal he naiona andeven he inernaiona n erain way hen our onemporary obeionwih memory in he preen may wel be an indiaion ha our way ohinking and iving emporaiy ie are undergoing a ignian hih i wha he whoe aadem debae abou hiory v. memory i ubliminy al abou bu one wouldn' know i by liening in. d ye hemo inereing pe o he debae i wha i may porend or he emer

gene o a new paradigm o hinking abou ime nd pae hioy and geography in he wenr enury

Pn Pa and Ou Modny

hi book i no inereed in aking ide in he bale beween hiorian and memorian. n my dual role a uura hiorian and ieray

rii remain onvined ha he expoion o memory dioue a heend o he wenieh enuy ha added igniany o he way we underand hio and deal wih he empora dmenion o oi and u



Introuction

ural le ue o memory have beome p o publi dioure d uurl ie in way rarey ahieved by proeion hioriography alone heie eay o hi book expore ha onelaion in boh i generaive an

i probemai dimenion.

At he ame ime we need o akowedge ha he vaue o hioy ioneed oday n way ha dier rom Niezhe' rique o he ahvaland he monumen he preure on he radiion noion o hioy aobeive and diin rom memo are o mniold oday ha i would behard o weigh hem in heir repeive vidiy he riique o hioriog-raphy a a ool o dominaion and ideoogy oreuly ariulaed by uhoii hiori o he ae nineeenh enuy a Waer Mehrng in Ger

many and laer by Wer Benamin in hi radil hough overaed polia riique o ll hioriim; he poNiezhean aak on lineriyon auaiy nd on he myh o origin or eo a ariulaed in he worko Fouau yoard and Derrda he poolonil riique oWeern hiory a ndamenaly impiaed in imperii and rai Weernmoderniyhee argumen are oo wel known o bear repeaing here indeal The aak on he horymoderny nkge h beome uh an ereue in erain ineleual irle oday ha one may wel w o ome o

he deene o he embaled enerprie o wriing hio ha o my mindremain an eeni omponen o he power o memoy dioure ie

Bu omehing ele il underie he urren poiia and onepulargumen again horography he enighened noon ha one anearn rom hiory ha been o violenly diproved boh a he oi dhe poliia eve a we a in i experieni dimenion ha he very legiimay o he hioria enerprie i haen. Who oday an give a on-

den anwer a a Friedrih Shiller o he queion o wha end onehoud udy univer hiory? hough we woud probably r wan oqueion onep like univer and hiory in ine wih one or heoher o he abovemenoned rique we woud no doub oninue andengage he pa wih guo. oday urn again hiory i very unikeHenry Ford' inamou hiory i bunk. he deire or narraive o hepa or rereaion rereading reproduion eem bounde a every

level o our uure Hioy in a erain anonia orm may be deegi-imzed a ar a i ore pedagogia and phoophial mion i onerned, bu he eduion o he arhie and i rove o orie o humahievemen and uering ha never been greaer



6 Inroucion

B wha ood s he memor archve? How can dever wha hs-or alone no loner seems o be able o oer? We know abo he noor-os nreabl of memo and he fse promses of ahenc s oenendowed wh he sse oda canno be Nesches creave foren

whch wold be nohn more han selecve memor Clea for Ne-sche he "free spr was he aen of creave foren b sch arso-crac nellecasm s boh ndesrabe and nrealsc a a me whenhe hrea of socal prodced amnesa s s oo rea o noe Nor canhe solon be a smple rern o he promses of he re as he areaan ben arclaed oda n he neolbera dscorse of economc andechnolocal lobaaon Sch rmphalsm of lobal ows s nohn

b a form of ncreave foren ha nores he hsor of capalscces and he crashes of echnoloca opas read he lobalaonfanases of he 990s have hemselves become par of he memorarchve and s cabne of delsons I s all he more mporan ha a ame when an avalanche of memo dscorses seems o have overwhelmedan earler acvs manaon of he fre we acall do remember hefre and r o envson alernaves o he crren sas qo I jswll no do o repace he weneh cens obsessons wh he fre

wh or newl fond obsessons wh he pas We need boh pas andfre o arcae or poca soca and clra dssasfacons whhe presen sae of he world nd whle he hperroph of memor canead o sefndlence melancho xaons and a problemac prvlen of he ramac dmenson of lfe wh no ex n sh memo dscorses are absolel essena o mane he fre and o rean asron emporal and spaa rondn of lfe and he manaon n a

medaand consmer soce ha ncreasnl vods emporal and co

lapses space

Meia of r Memo

he essas of hs book whch were wren beween 996 and fa00 and whch appear here n slhl moded or expanded form a-emp o coner sch endences oward he vodn of me and he col

lapsn of spaa bondares he read specc rban phenomena arworks and lerar exs ha fncon as meda of crca cral memoroda he focs s exclsve on objecs and pracces n he presen ne



Inrouction 7

of he mos neresn cral phenomena of or da s he wa n whchmemor and emporal have nvaded spaces and meda ha seemedamon he mos sabe and xed ces monmens archecre andsclpre er he wann of moderns fanases abo crio x nhilo

and of he desre for he pr of new bennns we have come o readces and bldns as palmpsess of space monmens as ransformableand ransor and scpre as sbjec o he vcssdes of me fcorse he major of bldns are no palmpsess a all red onceremarked he same space canno possl have wo deren conens Ban rban mana n s emporal reach ma wel p deren hns none place memores of wha here was before maned alernaves o

wha here s he sron marks of presen space mere n he manawh races of he pas erasres losses and heeroopas he cener ofBern and s reconsrcon aer ncaon provde a ke example forhe workins of sch an mana

Lerar exs have never no even n modernsm been abe o denher palmpsesc nare and he phlolocal problem of dffern edons has alwas dsnshed lerare from bdns or monmenshe rope of he palmpses s nheren erar and ed o wrn b can also be frfll sed o dscss conraons of rban spaces andher nfoldn n me who makin archecre and he c smpno ex Readn he c of Berln or New York's mes Sqare as pa-lmpses does no mean o den he essenal maeral of exan bldns Readn memo races n he sclpre of ors Salcedo or n he archecral andscapn projec of Benos iress Memor Park does noransform hese obecs no s anoer form of wrn M concern n

al hese essas s o respec he ndamenal maeral and formal radons of he deren meda of memor I dscss M focs on readnpalmpsess s no some mperalsm of rir a reproach somemesvoced aans erar crcsm afer Derrda as wel as aans ceranforms of deconsrcve archecre s raher he convcon ha er-ar echnqes of readn hsorcall nerexa consrcvel anddeconsrcvel a he same me can be woven no or ndersandn of

rban spaces as ved spaces ha shape collecve manares In a morepramac ven he rban essas n hs book aemp o ndersand hendamenal emporal of even hose hman endeavors ha preend oranscend me hroh her maeral real and relave drabl



8 Introduction

One othe thing emains to be said as ook back on moe than adecade of citica wok on memoy My ovea choice of topics and memory media in this book is guided by the conviction that too much of thecontempoay memoy discouse focuses on the pesonalon testimony

memoi subjectiviy taumatic memoyeithe in poststuctuaist psychoanalytic pespective o in attempts to shoe up a theapeuic popuasense of the authentic and expeientia f the 980s wee the decade of ahappy postmoden plualism the 1990s seemed to be haunted by taumaas the dak undeside of neolibea tiumphalism The concen withtauma adiated out fom a multinational eve moe ubiquitous Hoocaust discouse. t was enegized in the United States as in Latin Ameicao South ica ae apatheid by the intense inteest in witness and su

vivo testimonies and it meged with the discouses about AIDS slaveyfamily violence child abuse ecoveed memoy syndome and so on Thepivieging of tauma fomed a thick discusive netwok with those othemastesignies of the 990s the abject and the uncanny al o whichhave to do with epession spectes and a pesent epetitivey haunted bythe past

Suey the pevalence of the concen with tauma must be due to the

fact that tauma as a psychic phenomenon is located on the theshod between emembeing and fogetting seeing and not seeing tanspaencyand occlusion expeience and its absence in epetition But tauma cannotbe the centa categoy in addessing the age memoy discouse t hasbeen all too tempting to some to think of tauma as the hidden coe of amemory te al both memoy and tauma ae pedicated on the absenceof that which is negotiated in memoy o in the taumatic symptom othae maked by instabiity tansitoiness and stuctues of epetition Butto coapse memoy into tauma think woud unduy conne ou undestanding of memoy making it too exclusivey in tems of pain suffeing and oss It woud deny human agency and lock us into compusiveepetition. Memoy whethe individual o geneation poitica o pubic is aways moe than ony the pison house of the past

The moe seious politica question emeges when the psychoanalyticnotion of tauma is simpy tansfeed to the histoical aena We ae used

to distinguishing beeen pesonal memoy and pubic memoy But whathappens when we talk about histoical tauma? What is at stake when weconside as we seem to do eve moe fequently, the whole histoy of the



Introducton 9

twentieth centuy unde the sign of tauma with the Hoocaust inceasingy functioning as the utimate ciphe of taumatic unspeakability o un-epesentability? nd what if this assessment is then extendedunde theguise of vaious foms of apocalyptic and anachic thinkngto the hole

history of eightenment modenity: modenity as the tauma that vicimizes the wold that we cannot eave behind that causes all of ou symptoms? The newy found popuaity of Hoheime and Adonos Dialectic

ofEnlightenment, the cult status of Benjamin's angel of histoy and thetauma wok of Cathy Cauth Shoshana Felman and othes all aise thesuspicion that we ae simply eaticuating Feudian phylogenetic fantasiesin a diffeent signicantly dake key Ultimatey this is philosophy ofhistoy enteing though the back doonot via Hege o Max to besue but via Feud This appoach to history as tauma I woud suggestdoes not help much to undestand the poitical ayes of memoy discousein ou time although it may wel epsent one of its majo aticuations

At the same time exploations of memoy in ou wod cannot dowithout the notion of histoical tauma The focus on tauma is legitimatewhee nations o goups of people ae trying to come to tems with a histoy of vioence sueed o violence pepetated. But the tansnational dis

couse of human ights may give us a bette handle on such mattes thanthe tansfe of psychoanalysis into the wod of politics and history Fo itis pecisey the nction of public memoy discouses to alow individuasto beak out of taumatic epetitions. Human ights activism tuth om-missions and juidica poceedings ae bette methods fo dealing withhistoical tauma Anothe is the ceation of objects atwoks memoialspublic spaces of commemoation as they ae discussed in this book Hee

the anaysis of how memoy and fogetting peade eal public space thewold of objects and the uban wold we ive in becomes cucial. The econstuction of Bein as the Geman capita afte unication povides apehaps unique case in which this latte dimension has poduced a paa-digmatic public memoy space even if many of the achitectual and planning esults have eft us moe than disatised

Pehaps fo that eason I could not bing myself to exclude moe

popely liteary eadings fom this book Actualy the liteay essays onSpiegeman and Sebald should seve to highlight the diffeence that petains between eading texts and eading uban space They also show howcontempoay texts that mix language and image foegound the palimp



0 Inouction

sestic nate o all witin to eat eect and in ceatively new ways. Bothae memo texts in the most emphatic sense wokin in complex ways onthe isse o histoy and its epesentationthe histoy o the Holocast inthe case o Spieelman and the histoy o the satation bombins o Ge

man cities in Wold Wa II in the case o Sebald Both athos ae ndamentally concened with hanted space and spatial imainaies. Both textsacknowlede that contay to the belie o many histoians epesentations o the visible will always show esides and taces o the invisible.Spieelman's and Sebalds texts hant s becase they themselves aehanted. A liteate that is both postmimetic and postmodenist bothhistoical and attned to the eases o the histoical ecod patakes inthe oce play o emembance and oettin vision and blindness tanspaency and opaqeness o the wold

At the same time we cannot be entiely condent that contempoaymemoy discoses and the clt podcts they eneate will ae bettethn tadition histoy in shapin pblic debate in the lon n. The paadox is that memoy discoses themselves patake in the detempoaliinpocesses that chaacteie a clte o consmption and obsolescenceMemoy as epesentation as makin pesent is always in dane o col

lapsin the constittive tension between past and pesent especially whenthe imained past is scked into the timeless pesent o the llpevasive vita space o consme clte Ths we need to disciminate amon memoy pactices in ode to stenthen those that conteact the tendencies ino clte to oste nceative oettin the bliss o amnesia and whatthe Geman philosophe ete Slotedijk once caled "enlihtened aseconsciosness. I hope that in some small mease this book may contibte to sch discimination o who wants to end p in the land o thelotseates enoyin one's own oblivion beoe the eal oney into thept h even ben that oney into the past withot which thee can beno imainin e te



Present Pasts: Media, Politic neia

ne o the most spisin cltal and political phenomena o ecent yeas has been the emeence o memoy as a key cltal and polit

ical concen in Westen societies a tunin towad the past that stands instak contast to the pivilein o the te so chaacteistic o ealiedecades o twentiethcenty modenity. om the ealy wentieth centy's apocalyptic myths o adical beakthoh and the emeence othe "new man in Eope via the mudeos phantasms o acial o classpication in National Socialism and Stalinism to the postWold Wa

II Ameican paadim o modeniation modenist clte was eneied

by what one miht call "pesent tues. Since the 980s it seems theocs has shited om pesent tes to pesent pasts and this shit inthe expeience and sensibili o time needs to be explained histoicallyand phenomenoloically

Bt the contempoay ocs on memoy and tempoality is mostlyabsent om mch ecent innovative wok on cateoies o space maps eoaphies bodes tade otes miations displacements and diaspoasin the context o postcolonial and cltal stdies. ot so lon ao in theUnited States thee was a widespead consenss that in ode to ndestand postmoden clte the ocs had to be shied om the poblemais o time and memoy ascibed to an ealie om o hih modenism



14 Pt Pt

uations that are hstorlly dstant and poticaly dstnct f rom the org-

nl ven. In the trnsnaionl mo vement of memory discourses, he Holo -

caus os ts quly ndex of the specc hstorl e ven nd begns t

nction metaphor for other trumatic histories nd memories. The

Hoocaust a a un versal trope s a prerequste f or s decenterng and ts

use a po w erf ul prism through w hich w e may look other instances of

genocde. The gob and he oca pect of Hoocust memo y ha ve en

ered into ne w constelations tht beg to be anl z ed c e by cse. While

the comparson w th the Hoocaust may rhetorcy energze some ds

courses of trumatic memory , it may so ser ve s screen memory or sm -

ply block insight into specic locl histories. When t comes o present pt memory of the Hoocaust nd ts

pace n the resessment ofWestern modernty howver s not the whoestoy My subpos mke up the current memory nrrtve n s broadestscope and dstngush our tm qute ceary from earer decdes of thscentury. Let me jut st few of the sent phenomen. Snce he 1970s nEurope and the Unted States we have the hstorczng restoraon of odurban centers whoe museum vag nd ndcpe, vrous nton hertge nd patrmony enterprse the wave of nw museum achtecture thatshows no sgns of recedng the boom n retro shons nd repro rnture,he ms-marketng of nostga, the obsessve sefmuezaon per vdeorecorder, memor wrtng nd onfessonl terure, he rse of autobiogrphy and of the postmodern hstorc nove wth ts uney negotatonbetween ct nd cton the spred of memoy prctic n the visu rtsoen centered on the medum of photogrphy and the ncrese of hstorc doumenties on teevson, ncudng (n he Unted Ste) chnnededcted entrey to hsory, the Hstoy Channe On the traumatc sdeof memoy cuture and besde the ever more ubqutous Hoocaus dscourse we have the vt psychontic erature on uma; the controversyabout recovered memoy syndrome the hstorc and current work reatedo genocde IDs savery, and sexua abuse the ever more numerous pubc conroverses bout potcy pan annversres, commemortionsand memoras; he es pethora of pooges for the pt by church eaders and potcins n Frce, Jp and the Unted Sttes And nybrngng together memoy entertanmen nd ruma, we hve hd he

wordwide obsession wth the snng of a presumaby unsinkabestemshp tht mrked the end of other gded ge. One cannot be quite



Pt Pt

sure whether the ineon success of he m Titic s a meaphor formemores of moderny gone wry or whether t rcute he meropos'sown anxetes abou he ture dspaced o the pa. No doubt, the words beg museed d we py our prt n t. Tot rec seems to behe goa So s hs an archvst's ntsy gone mad? Or s there perhapssomehing ese ske n hs desire to p these varous psts nto thepresent? Somethng that is specc to the structuring of memory nd temporty oday and that h ot been experenced n the sme way n patages?

F requeny su�h obsssons wth memory nd he pt are expned

a ncton of he aes n de sice but I thnk one h to probe deeper o come t terms wh·ht I w c the cuture of memory" that ha become so persve n North Anc socetes snce he ate 19s Whathere appears argey s an ncrengy successfu mretng of memory byheWestern cuture ndustry n the conte of wht German cu socoogy hs ced our Erbnisgeselchafcqures more expcty pocnecton n other pars of the word.11 Especy snce 1989 the ssues of

memory and forgettng have emerged as domnant concerns n poscommunst counres n Eatern Europe and the former Sove Unon hy remain key poitcay in the Mde st they domnte pubc dscourse npost-partheid Souh rc wh s Truth nd Reconcaton Commsson, nd they re presen n Rwnda and Ngeria hey energze therace debate ha has erupted n Austraia around the ssue of the stoengeneraon they burden the retonshp among Jpn and Chna and

Korea and they determne to vrying degrees the cuur and otcadebte bou the desprecdos" nd ther chdren n post-dctatur socet n an Amerca, rasng fundmenta quesons bout humanrghs voaons, ustice, and coecve responsbty.

The geogrphc spread of he cuture of memory s s wde memoys potic us are vared, rngng from a mobizaton of mythc patsto support ggressvey chuvnst or fundmentst potcs (e.g., post

communst Serba Hndu popuism n Inda to edgng ttempts, nA-

gentn nd Che, to create pubc spheres of rea memory that w: counter the potc of forgetng, pursued by postdctatorshp regm e

. ther hrough "reconcli oC' nd ofc mnestes or though repressve

· slncng But he ul lne bew een mythc pat and rel p t s not l-, : ys e y to dra w- which is one of the conundrums of ny politic of



r8 Pnt

srandale that ou secula culue today, obsessed with memoy a it is salso somehow n he gips of a fea even a teo of fogetting. Ths feaof fogetng aculate self paadigmatically aound issues of the Holocaust n Euope and the United Staes o the apaci in Latin Ame

ca Both shae the absence of a pope uial sie, so key to the nutuingof human memoy, a fact that may help eplain the stong pesence of theHolocaust n Agentnean deaes But the fe of olvion and disappeaance opeates n a deent egiste well. Fo the moe we ae asked toememe n the wake of the infomaton exploson and the maketng ofmemoy, he moe we seem to be n dnge of fogeting and the stongethe need to foget. At ssue s the disnction between able pats and ds

posable data My hypothess hee is that we ae tyng to counteact thsfea and dange of fogeting wth suval stateges of public and pvatememoalizaon. The tun towad memoy s subliminally enegzed ythe dese to ancho ouselves n a wod chaactezd y an ncesng nstaility of time and the factuing of lived space At the same time, wekow that such stategie of memozton may in the end themselves betansto and ncomplete. So I mt come back to the queson: why? And

especally why now Why this osession wth memoy and he past and why this fea of fogetting Why ae we bulding museums as if thee weeno omoow And why is t that the Holocaust has only now ecomesomethng lke a ubiuitous cphe fo ou memoies of the twentieh centuy, n ways unmaginale even twenty yeas ago?

III

Whateve the socal and polcal causes of the memoy oom n itvaous subplo geogaphes, and sectoings may have been, one thng scetan we cannot discuss pesona, geneatonal o pulc memoy sepaaely fom the enomou inuence of the new media as ces of al fomsof memoy. Th t s no longe possile fo instance to thn of the Holocaut o of any othe hstoca tauma a seiou ethcal and poliical issue

apat fom the mutple ways it s now linked to commodition and spectaculaizaton n lms museums docudama Intenet sites phoogaphybook com cion, even fa tales (Robeto Benign's La vita e bl)and pop songs But even if the Holocaust hs een endlessly commoded,this does not mean that each and evey commodcation inevtably ana-



nt at

izs s an stoial even ee is no pue space outside of commodiycltue howeve much we may dse such a space. Much depend theefoe on the specic stateges of epesentaion and commodation pused and on the context n which they ae staged. Smilaly the pesumably

tivial Ebnglchaf mssmaketed lifestyles spectacles, and eetngevents s not devod of a sustanve lved ealty that undees ts sufacemanfetatons. My gument hee s this the poblem is not solved y simply opposing seous memoy to tval memoy, the way hstoians someime oppose hsoy o emoy tout court, to memoy undesood as thesujectve and tiva stu out of whch the hstoan mak the ea thngWe cnnot siply p the seous Holocaust museum against Dsneyed

theme paks. or_this wod only epoduce the old hgh/low dichotomy ofmodenst culu�e n a new guise, as t did in the heated debate that pittedClaude Lanmanns Shoah a pope epsentation (becase a nonepesentaton) of Holoaus memoy agnst Steven Spelegs hnd$ Lt ts commec tivzation Once we acnowledge the consttutve gapetween eaty and t epesentaton n language o image, we mut npncple e open to may dieen possilies of epesenting the andt memoies Ths s not to say ha anythng goes The queston of uayemans one o e decded case by cse. Bu the semiotic gap cannot beclosed by ay othodoy of coect pesentaon To ge a muchamounts to Holocaust modensm.14 ndeed phenomena such ashindl Lit and Spieleg's vsu achive of Holocaust suvivo testmones compel us to thn of aumatc memo and enteanment memoy togethe as occupyng the sme public space athe than O see them mutuly clusve phenomena Key questons of contempoa cultue aelocated pecsely at the theshold beween aumatc memo and the commeca media I s too easy o ague hat he n events ad spectacles ofcontempoay media societies eist only to povde elief to a soci ad poltcal body haunted by deep memoies of violence ad genocide pepeated in s name, o}ha they ae mounted only to epess such memoe

o tauma s maketed as much as the fun is and not even fo dientmemoy consumes t s so oo to sugget hat he spece of he pnow hauntng moden socete n heetofoe unknown foce actualy atculate, y way of displacement, a gowing fea of he tue a a time whenthe belef n modentys poges s deeply shaken

We do kow that he meda do no tanspot pulic memoy inno



20 P P

cently. They shape it in their vey stucture ad form And here-i linewith McLha's wellworn poit that the medium is the message-it becomes highly signicat that the power of our most advanced electronicdepends etirely o quntities of memoy Bill Gates may just be the latestincarnaton of the old America idelmore is better But "more s nowmeasured i memo btes and in the power to recycle the past Gatessmuchadvertised purchae of the largest collection of origial photographseve is a cae in point: in the move from the photograph to its digit recycling, Walter Benamis at of mechaca reproduction (photogaphy)h reganed a aura of orgali Which goes to show hat Beamins mous gumet about he loss or decay of the aura in modei was awayonly half the sto; it forgot that modernization itself created the auratic effect to begin with. Today digitalizatio mes the oigil photographauatic. ter al s Beamin aso knew, the cultue indstry of WeimarGermay already then needed the auratic as a marketing strategy.

So let me idulge here for a momet i the old cultue ndut argument that Adorno mounted aganst what he thought to b Benamns unwarated optimism about technologic media. If today the idea othe total archve males the triumphalists of cyberspace embrace goba f>tes aa McLuha the prot iteess of memoys mas marketeers seem to bemore pertinent i expaing he success of the memory syndrome Simplyput the pst is sellig better thn the ture But for how long, oe wonders

e the headline of a spoof posted o the ternet US. Department ofRetro Was We May Be Runng Out of a Pat The rst paragph reads At a press conferece Moday, US Retro Secreta AnsoWilliams issued a strongly worded warnig of an immiet Naton retrocrss, cautioig that if curret lvels of U.S reto consumption are alowed to cotinue unchecked, we may run entrely out of past by soonas 005. Not to worry. We aready have the maketing of pass hat everexisted Wtness he recet introductio of the Aeobleu poduct line,1940s ad 90s nostagia cleverly organized around a ctional Pais azzclub that eve eisted, but where all the jazz greats of the bebop age esaid to have performed a product le replete wth origa diaes, orginal cuts on Cs, and oigl memorabla, all avalable the UnitedStates at ay local Bares and Noble Original remaes are in, ad otoly as merchandise as cultura theorists ad citic we are obsessed with



P P

representation repetition replicatio and the cultue of the copy withor without originl.

With al this goig o it seems fair to ak once he memo boom is

histo, o doubt t will be wll ayoe have remembered athing atall? If al of the pat ca be made over arent we ust creating ou ow illusios of the pt while gettig stuck in an evershrinkg presentthe preset of shorttem recyclg for prot, the present of intime productoninstat entertaimet, and placebos for our sense of dread and isecuritthat lies barely uderneath th suface of this ew gilded age at noher nde sicl Coputes, we were told would ot know th dierece be

ee the year 000 andthe yea 90but do we

IV

The ctics of late capitalist amesia doubt that Wester media cultre has aythig left resembling re memo o a strong sense of hisoy Drawg o the stadard Adorea argument that commodication

euals forgetting, they argue that the marketing of memo generatesohig but amesia I do ot d this argumet covincing It leaves toomch out It s too easy to blame the dlemma we nd ouelves in on themachinations of the culte idust ad the proliferatio of the ew media. Somethg else must be at stale that produces the desire for the pasti the rst place and that males us respod so favorably to the memoymrkets That somethg, I would suggest, s a slow but palpable trasfor

maton of temporali in our lives, brought on by the complx itersec1 tions of technologcal chage, mass media, and ew patterns of cosump

to work and global mobly. There may ndeed be good reaons tothik that the drve to memorialize h a more benecial nd geerativedimesio well. However much our curret cocers with memo

• may involve a dsplaced fea of the future, ad however dubous the

poposiio may now strike us that we ca learn from histo memoyclture llls an mportat nctio the curret tansfomatio of temporl eperiece hat ha followed the wake of the ew medias mpact

on human perception ad ssibil. In the followig, then, I would like to suggest some ways to hkabout the elationship betwee our privilegig of memo ad the pst othe oe hand ad the potential mpact of the w media o perception



26 Preet Pt

one simple answer to such a question but memoy-in4ividual generational, pulic cutral, and still ineitably nationl memorymustsely e part of it. Pehaps one day thee will even emege something likea goba memory s the dierent part of the wold are drawn ee tighter

togethe B any such global memoy will always be pismatic and het'·eogeneou raher han holisic or unve

In the meantime we have to ak: how shoud een local regiona, nationa memorie e ecred, sructured, and epreened? Of coue hiis a ndamentally politicl question aout the nature of the pic spheeabot democay nd its ture, abou te changng shape of nationhoodcitizenship and identity The answe wl depend to a lage degee on lo

cal constellations ut the glol spead of memory dicoures inditesthat something moe is at stke.

Some have trned to the idea of he archive a conteweight to theeveinceasing pace of change, a a site of tempo and spatial peseation. Fom the point of iew of the archie fogeting i the ltimatetansgression But how eliable or foolpoof ae our dgitlized archiesComptes are baely y years old nd aleady we need "data achaeologist to unlock the mteries of eay pogramming just think of the notoious YK poblem that recently haunted our computerized breacacies Billion of dola wee spent to preen compute networ fomgoing into retro mode from mistaking the year fo . O conider the lmost inuperable diculies German authoitie now hae decoding the vat body of eectonic ecod fom the forme East Gemanstate a world that disappeaed togethe with its Soietbuit manfamecompues and its Eat German oce ystem. Reecting on sch phenomena a senio manage chaged with infomation technology at theCanadian achies ws recently quoted as saying " one of the geatironie of the nfomation age f we dont nd methods for enduringpreeation of elecronic recod thi may e the era without a mem�oy17 The theat of oion hs emeges from the ery technology towhich we entut the vat ody of conempoay records and data hatmost ignicant pat of the culturl memory of ou ime

The current transformations of the tempor imaginary ogh onby itua space and tme may hgligh the enaling dmenson of memoy cultue Whateve the pecic occasion, ause o context the inensememory pactices we witness in so many dieen pat of he wod oday



Peet Pt 7

aticulate a fundamenta cisis of an ealier stucte of tempoaliy thatmrked the age of high modernity wth is tut in prge and development with its celeration of the new a utopian as radically and ireducily othe, and with i nhaken elef in some elo of history Poli

icaly many memoy practices today counteact the tiumphlism ofmodernizaion toy n t aest guie of he dcorse ofgloliatonCltraly hey epess the gowing need fo spatial and tempol anchoing n a wod of inceng x n eer denser netwo of compressed ime and pace f histoiogaphy hs hed an ealie eliance onteleoogicl matenarates and ha gown moe kepic of nationlitframings of its bect matte todays critic memoy cultes with theiemphaes on hman rights, on mnoity and gender ies and on esseing vaious national and intenaionl pss go a ong way to providea welcome impet for wiing istoy n a new key and thus for guaranteeing a tre of memory In the bestae scenaio, the cutes of memory ae inimaely linked in many part of the world to prcese of democratiztion and strugge for hman ights to epanding and

tengthening the pbic phee of cii ociey Slowing down rathe thnspeeding up epanding the naure of public debate tying hea thewoun incted in the pt nurtng and epanding liale space atherthan deroy it fo he ae of ome tue promise secuing qulitytimethoe eem to e unmet cutal need in a gobizing world, andloca memorie ae ntimately lnked to thei aicuation.

But the p cnnot gve u what the te h fed delive There

i no aoiding coming back to he downside of what some old l amemoy epdemic, and hi rin me back to Nieche whoe econd ntmely meditation on he ue nd aue of hitory oen quoted in contempoay memory deaes may e untimely eer Clealy, the memoyfee ofWeten meda ocietie is not a onsming hitoic fever in Niesches sene which coud e cued by pducte fogetting It is rater amnemonc fee caued y the cyevir of mnea that at ime trea

en to conume memoy itef Therefore we now need poducie remembering more han podctie fogeting In etospect we an see how thehistol fe of Nietches ime nctioned to invent nation traditionsin Euope to egiimiz te mperil nationstae nd to give culturl coherence o conictive ocietie n te te of the Indutil Revotion ndcolonia epansion By compaion, the mnemonic convusion of Nort



t at

Atantc cuture today seem mosty chaotc, fragmentay and free-oatngacrss ur screens. Even in paces where memry practces have a vey clearptca focus such as South rca Argentna Chle and most recentyGuatemaa they are aected, and t a degree even created by internatn

meda coverage and t memo obsesons. A suggesed earer securngthe pst s n ess risky n enterprse than securng the future Memory after a be no substtute for justce and utce tef wll nevtaby be entanged n the unrelaby f memy But even where cutural memrypractces ack an expct pltc focus they do press a soce's need frtempr anchrng when in the wake f the nfrmatn rvlutin and anever�ncreasng tme-space cmpressn the relaonshp among pt, pre

sent and future s beng transfrmed beynd recgntnIn that sense c and natnal memy practces cntest the myths

of cyber-captalsm and gbazatn and their den f tme space andpace N dubt some new cnguratn f tme and space wl eventualymrg frm hs egn New tchngis f transprtatn andcmmuncatn have aways transformed the human perceptn tmeand space n moderny Ths was as true fr the ralroad and the teephne

the rado and the arpane as t w be true for cyberspace and cbertme.New technoges and new meda are s ways met by anxetes and earthat ater prve to have been unwarranted r even rdculus. Our age wbe no eceptn.

At he same tme cyberspace aone s not the apprprate mode formagnng the gobal ture. ts nton f memoy s msleadng a fsepromse. Lved memory s actve, ave, emboded n the socathat s n

ndvduals mes grups natns and regns. These are the memresneeded t cnstruct derenta oca tures n a gba wrd. There is nodubt that n the ong run al such memres w be shaped t a sgncntdegree by the new dgta technooges and ther eects but they w notbe reducbe to them T nsst n a radc separaton between "rea andvrtua memory strkes me as quxotc f ony because anythng rememberedwhether by ved or by magned memys tsef vrtua Mem

ry s aways transtor notorousy unreabe and haunted by frgettngn bref human and scal. A pubc mem t s subect to changeptca, generatn ndvdua. t cannot be stored forever nr can it besecured by mnuments. Nor fr that matter can we rey on dgta retreva systems to guarantee cherence and cntnuy. f the sense f lved



a 29

tme s beng renegtated ur ctemprary cultures f memory weshud t frget that tme s n y he pt s presevatn ad transmsson. f we are ndeed suerng rm a surfet f memory we do needt make the ert t dstngush usabe psts frm dspsabe pasts Ds

crmnatin and productve rememberng are caled fr, and mss ctureand the vrtu ma are nt nherenty rreconcable wth that purposeven f amnesa were a by-prduct f cyberspace we must not alow thefear of forgettng t verwhem u. Perhaps t s tme t remember the ture rather than smpy t worry about the future f memy



Monumenta Seduction Chrito in Bein

. Any discusson of monumentalty and modernty w nevtablybrg to md the work of Rchard Wagne: Th Ring the aesthetcs of the

Cmtkunrk the monumental atst the hstoy of the Bayeuth fesval But the noon of monumentty that Wagne repesents must be ocated n ts concete nneteenth-century hstorc aesthetc and natonacontext as we as n ts potcal and cutual effects that have come o�mnate ou understandng of the monumental n geneal My purposeS to offer some eectons on the categoy of the monumental tsefwhch, t seems to me s beng recoded n the contempoary context of oac

ous and everexpandng memoa cutue My centl concen then

S the ssue of the monumental n elaton to memorygeneatona memy mmoy n publc culture natonal memory memoy become stone archtectueand the specc contemporary context I wll addess sGermany aer uncaton heeas Gemns have been abong unde the epoach of foget-

tg or epessng the hstoc past snce 1945, crtcs for soe tme nowhave atcuated the evese reproach naton of memory. In fact snce

the 98s Gemany has engaged n a mmoy mana of truy monumentaproportons Curently there ae sevea hundred pans n the works foHoocaust monuments o memoal stes over Gemany How do we

I

Ilt



Monumntl Suction 3

read th obsesson wth monuments whch n tsef s ony pat of a muchlarger memory boom that has gpped not just Gemany and that s muchwde n scope than the focus on the Hoocaust would suggest? The questons ased by ths conuncture are nvaaby potcal and aesthetc andcentrl to them s the categoy of the onumental both n ts spat andpehaps more mportant now n ts temporal codcatons We are facnga paradox monumentalsm of but space or monumenta tendences ofany other medum contnue to be much mgned but the noton of themonument as memo o commemoratve publc event has wtnessed atumphal etun How do we thnk the reaton between monumentalas bgness and the commemoratve dmenson of the monument? I w e

ate thee events of the summer of 995 to dscuss the fate of monumentl and of monuments n our tme Chrsto's wappng of the Rechstag nBen the debate about the panned Beln monument fo the mudeedJews of Euope and Wagner n Bayeuth

Gemanysumme 995a few months before the h annvesayof natona uncaton he eghtyfouth Bayreuth Festva opened n uyunde the motto "edempton through ove An exhbt at Bayeuthscha Wagner Museum subtted Rchad Wagne and Eotcsm accompaed the Ftpil pefomances of nnhur itn n IolTh Ring of th Niblung and Prl woks that accodng to SvenFredrch the museums decto repesent a very speca knd of unty

and toaty when appoaced from the ange of eotcsm and oveFredrch descbed eotcsm and love symbos of a counterwold enegzng Wagne's damatc concepton of edempton2 Bayreuth's needfor counteorlds and edempton, t seems s as stong as eve but tganed a very specc necton n 995

Gemany and edemptony yeas ae The country was n thegp of a elentless monument mana that may not subsde untl eerysquare me has ts own monument o memoa ste, commemoratng notsome countewold of ove but the rel wod of organzed destructon andgenocde that had adopted Wagne as one of ts heoes and pophets Intodays Gemany redempton through memory s the goa It wa patculay strkng durng the events makng the eth annversay of the end



32 Monmntl Sction

of the Naz war o exermnaton that he dscourse of redempon Eln had a bu repcd

he earer dscourses o restuon rgt-

mcn and reconcan rsnn I woud seem ha he Ger-mans have eagery approprated he rs par of he od Jewsh sayng thesecre of redempon s memory as a strategy or Hoocaus managemenn the 990s. The mos agrant case: he pan for a gganc Hoocaustmemoa, a santed concree sab the sze o wo fooba eds wh thenames of ns o vcs carved n stone n the heart o Bern usnrth of Her s former bunker and hus rgh on top of he norhsouth

s hat bert Speer panned o ay eeen hs megaomanac Grea Hat norh o he Brandenburg Gae and Her's trumpha arch o the

souh .whch caed or he names o he falen of World War I to becarved n stone. Te very ste and nscrpon pracce of ths przewnnngHoocaust memoa mode, whch has snce been dched as a resu ofpubc oucry, thus appe

ared to uncon both as mmess and coverup o

anoher e memory, wth he requse monumenay o match he dmensons o Speers

orgna pan. I seems srkng ha a country whose

cuure has been gded or decades now y a deberae anascs an-monumenasm shoud resor to onumenta dmensons when t comes

to pubc comemoraton of te Hoocaus for he reuned natonSomehng here s ou o sync.

.

Bu n anohe perspecv, ths embrace of he monumenta may

�o be a ha surpsg. Recalg Rober Muss observaon that heres nothng as nvsbe as a monumen, Bernand wth a o hsmemoracrazed Germanys opng for nvsby. The more monu-mens here are, the more the pas becomes nvsbe, and he easer s

o orget redempton, hus, through orgetng. Many crcs have de-scbed Germanys curren obsesson wh monumens and memoras aste n so sube attemp at Entorgng, the pubc dsposa o radanghsocal wase.

Monumena nvsbty, at any rate was a stake durng another

maor cutural eve� tha sumer n Bern he wrappng o the Rechsag

by he arss Chsto and JeanneCaude. Ths archecturay medocremassv bung of 85 rst housed the German paramen n he days ofhe eman Empre and then payed a cruc roe boh n the found-g ad

he opg o the Wemar Repubc, whch was procamed

from ts wdowss 98 and guted n he famous Rechstag re of



Monmntl Sction

IGR Alb S Gra Hal Md Cu Arhu SldLba, Cumba Unvr

33

1933, aer he Nazs' rse o power. ter 94 sood as a run and amemora o he faed repubc. Havng een turned nto a museum o re-cent Geran hsoy and used as a cereona space, was to resume ssymboc potca vaue wth he naona unty ceebraon of Ocoer990 For two weeks n he summer o 99 hen hs udng becameemporary nvsbe s nvsbty an nernaonal meda even and pop-

uar ove es ha ceebraed Germany and Bern as ony he al o heWa had done sx years before. For a bre oent German hsory enoyed the power o he Nbeungs lm. The proxm o monu-mena memoy o monumena forgetng was there for everyone o seeBeaucaon and packagng he pas were at se boh n Chrsos poec and n he awadwnnng Hoocaust monument. Berns shortemredempon rom hsory t seemed oned Bayreuths redemptonhrough ove n eedng he underyng desre or orgeng

Predctaby enough some exuberant crtcs have caimed ha byransormng a monumenta wor of arctecure no a gganc scupure,Chrsto and eanneCaude turned a monumen of German hsory nto



FGRE Chri Wang h hag Brlin (199 h uh



Monumntl Suction 3

myth Wth suh Wnen bendn of hstoy myth nd the monument we e no one sused to nd the ojet desbed n omnent Gemn t joun s Gmtkuntwrk tht mde the Ge-mn t nto the ntenton t of t een befoe the Bonn o

enment moed to Ben uh deuson exubene s mthed ony bythe nsoune wth whh Wne Adof Htes utue heo s eduon to tute t ms fo Ben The oem oud esy beontnued but ts onte ue I woud suest s mted.

Wht I he ued so f mounts to symtomt eeye ew ofthose thee utu eents n the summe of 99 edemton thouhoe edemton thouh memoy edemton thouh foettn. No

doubt some woud fee the nteetu ostue stenthened by suh edutons of omexty. Fo othes the e questons emee ony now Is-nt ths whoe shotuted ument one mht s stutuy em-nsent of smst ntWnensm tht oses deent hstoot nd esthet estes n us nd teeoo mode tht dentes Wnes ous entey wth ts onsequenes n the Thd Reh?Futhemoe doesnt ths nd of oh ete ts own ood onsene

by ben oey ntfsst yes e the end of the Thd Reh nd of ot oetness a lmn? And thd snt t nd ofGsmtkritik tht eodues wht t tts nmey the dsuse tottnsm tht undees the onet of the Gsmtkuntwknd tht msso muh ofWnes theoet nd t wtn

To od then eodun wht one tt deent ohseems to be ed fo. e most eed tht the oyoyene-wed Rehst whose oos osted fom shnn se n sunhtto muted y on oudoeed dys to bush ue unde the sothtst nht ws seeney nd t tmes unnny beutfu ts st monu-menty both dssoed nd entued by htness of ben tht ontsted sty wth the su memoy of the heyset now eed h-tetue Cn one ey se of edemtonomhstoy when the ubdsussons bout the hstoy nd menn of ths budn wee neemoe ntense thn n the heted debes tht ed n men n the

med nd n the ub t e bout the mets of Chstos oet Thedox s tht n yes st the e Rehst my he been moe nsbesuy nd hstoythn the eed budn ws now. Vene s not the sme s an. In e dsuse nd ub on



Monumntl Suction

tet Chrsts veg fct as a strategy t make vsbe t vet revea what was he whe t was vsbe. Cceptay, the veg fthe Rechstag ha ather satay eect t mte the vce f ptcs assa, the memry f speeches frm ts wws f the rasg f Germa

r Svet ags ts rf a f the ca ptca rhetrc se. Ths pee p a space fr reect ad ctempat as we as fr memy. The trastress f the evet tsefthe artsts refse t prgthe shw p ppar emawas sch that t hghghte the temprat a hstrct f bt space the tes reatshp betwee rememberg a frgettg. the stgy vee bg tsef prce a memry qte deret frm that marked by the athtarascrpt abve ts prta VOLK, e gve t theGerma pepe frm hgh The ew ayer f pbc memry s that fa geey ppar evet f thsas f pepe mg ar thebdg day aer ay ceebratg a symb f Germa demcracy as frag a trastress The wrappe Rechstag ths became a mmet t emcratc ctre stead f a demstrat f state pwerEve f e sh t verestmate ths pbc eect f Chrsts prjectt des prve a ctervce t thse wh have merey crtce the

Hywzat f avatgarst art practces r have rece the wheevet t Bers esperate ee t sprce p ts terata mage.Thkg abt ths crtca a atmmeta mes f

Chrsts prject I was reme fWagers w prvegg f the trastry, the ephemer the prvsa Ths whe he rst mage a perfrmace f Sigi he wrte hs fre Uhg that the theater fpks a beams erecte y f the cc a meaw ear Zrch,w be smate after three days a the scre bre. I a smarve whe t came t bg the theater Bayreth Wager awaysemphasze the prvsa atre f the archtectre, a Bayreth as abg tre t ee t be as atmmeta as Chares GarersPars pera cmpete the same year f 875 was mmet Wager's bref cabrat wth the archtect Gttfred Semper shpwreckeprecsey becase Wager rejected ay mmeta esg fr hs Festspehas, whch came t be ppary kw as the Bayreth bar.

If the esg f the Gmtkuntwk ca be see as a mmetam f the ftre the t s t sme etet cterbaace by Wagersvey mer sesbty f the prvsaty a ephemeraty f stt



Monumntl ducton 7

IGR 3 Chr Wrppng h hg Cur Arhur SldLb Clumb Unvr

taze art merty Mmeta esre a the cscsess fthe ephemera, the trastry are easy tes Wagers m, afact that, amg ther thgs, may epa Baeare's eary terest Wagers art The ry f crse s that Bayreth becme meta ts w ways a that Wagers art has becme eshe stae, a package precsey the ways he f mst bjectabe

the cmpser Gacm Meyerbeer, hs emess whse cmmerca sccess Pars Wager ver cease t ere as ecaet a stere prstttea Germa The sccess f Bayreth hwever s eret frmwhat happee t the sbseqet mersms a avatgares as wecrprat t the ctre str. Bt there s st a eeper kagebetwee Wager a the emerget mersm f hs tme The grwgrecgt sce Baeare f the prvs, the trast_ the

ephemr a, yes, the fashabe as key parameters f merty geerates at the ppsg ed f a tese axs the esre fr astgmmetay what Pa Ear cad, a trasatabe phrase er sr de rer. I Wager, the aety prce by ths tes re



Moumtl Suctio

Thrd Reh we shod remnd orselves ha monmenal as an aes-he aeo s as hsoral onnen and nsabe as an oher aes-he aeo Whle he monmena ma alwas be b and awesomewh ams o eern and permanene dern hsoral perods obv-

osl have dsn experenes of wha ovewhelms and her desre forhe monmena wl dffer boh n qa and n qan. Ths he se-dve power of eran forms of nneeenhen monmen edas he were o he poa need of he naona sae and he lraneeds of he boreose learl do no mah or aeshe or poasensbles b ha does no neessar mp ha we are free frommonmena sedons per se One we fos on he hsora speof monmenal I od wel mane arrvn a a onlson ha hedenaon of monmenalsm wh fassm and he oapsn of hedesre for he monmenal wh masohsm and sefannhaon odbeome eble as self an hsoral ex raher han as a nversa ondon or a meahsora norm

On f we hsore he aeor of monmena self an wesep o of he doble shadow of a ksh monmenalsm of he nneeenh enr and he beose anmonmenasm of modernsm and

posmodernsm ake On hen an we ask he qeson abo mon-mena n poenal new was

Wha hen of he dsorse of he monmena n Waner? I wl fo-s here on he lnkae beeen monmenalsm and he ver promnen

dsorse of ahere n Waner's proramma ra and heoreawrns whh I hod o be enral o Waners overal aeshe proeIn hs brllan sd of Baale enled Agist Achitctu Dens

Holer has poned o how he searh and desre for he monmena nmodern s was he searh and desre for orns. owhere s hslearer han n he nneeenh en The searh for orns beame n-evabe one he pola eonom and ndsral revoons had beno srp awa he reos and meaphsa seres of earer aes The

nneeenhen dsorse of orns was poded b wha Geor ksaer ermed "ransendenal homeessness as he coitio mo and owhh he opposed he opa of an neraed vlaon We have ome



Moumtl Suctio

o read hs nneeenhen obsesson wh orns and her mhrondn as fln he lr emzn needs of he posrevol-ona boreos naonsae n he p of aeleran modernzaonA he same me as he exampe of ks ndaes he searh for orns

and a new emeren lre od aso ake on an anWesern anapals and anmodern neon. The obsesson wh orns and mhwas no s reaona sae deoo or s lra deooa reeon.Is rh as Adorno ared was ha demonsraed how nneeenhen modern self onra o lbera and proressve beefs re-maned bond p wh he onsve dale of enhenmen andmh Waner s a ase n pon.

To beer ndersand he lnk amon mh he monmen and or-ns s mporn o remember ha for he nneeenh en nd onra o or own me he monmena was rs and foremos emboded nhe monmens of lassal anq monmens ransmed more oenhan no n framenar form Alhoh lassal monmens provded Eropean naons wh an anhorn n her ral roos hnk of herann of Greee over German) he searh for naonal monmens rsreaed he deep naonal pas ha deenaed a ven lre from boh Eropean and s nonEropean ohers ever more monmens werenearhedShleanns exavaons and he romane of arhaeolo aahed o hs name are paradma herehe monmen ame o aan-ee orn and sab wel as deph of me and of spae n a rapdhann wod ha was experened as ranso proon and nsable.nd he pma monmen n he nneeenh en's admraon for lassal and prehsor anq was ahere Ths was no on-

dene ha Heel paed arhere a he ve bennns of ar. Monmena arhere espeahnk of he l of obelsks pramdsemples and memoral and bral owersseemed o aranee perma-nene and o provde he desred blwak aans he speedp of me heshn ronds of rban spae and he ransorness of modern lfeRhrd Waner wa ve mh of hs nneeenh en no gist arhere lke he moderns Baale b nhesan ; no gist

orns b ve mh n searh of hem; no n favor of he pleasres ofransorness and fahon as Badeare w) b volenl opposed ohem and n prs of a new and permanen re ha wold brn ofron wha he aled he arwodhora ask kusltgschichtlich



42 Monmntl Sdcton

Ab) f ms a nep ay magnae wn Fen menssse T see a as pefmng a wsal mssn s nee apeay Geman penmenn a ese fm e vepvegng fa an e n e pess f sapng nana eny n a pe pe

eng e fman f e Geman nansae Ts nn f as mssn ane Wagnes sefmage f e gens ae pn y s Noth(nee) gve e Geman Vlk a new le

Anyw Wagnes nepn f a ama an ms papaesn s wespea nneeeneny magnay f mpa aee sabe gns an my gnngs f e nan A e sameme e senas mnmenay f s as pje w e a

ms eay n essays f e ae 1840s an eay 8s k sapeagans e akp f Wagnes vfes ppsn a ean knf nneeeneny mnmenasm Hs wn mnmena pe fngng lfe e a f e e an a a w ansen e en sage f eaene an pn an w be ensne n e anna Ftpf Baye was eay peae n assmpns ejen f meess asss nms a fa n s eyes aknwege ev empa an spaal neness f a a an sen ejen f

e szng ae syes a e ae e pns fy an fasn Ts we ea n Te Ak f e Fe

She [aheue] prod he uldng whh eale eh had duedfm he fel need f eau he ee gehe he ndvdual dea f heew adng he wann fanc u f a ele lngng f alean hehe eve nan le f uldng hughu he wd n he me dnneed he n hhe flw he ae f Fahn whe fvlu

aw he need mu mae he wn eaue he nwhee hea he a f nneeaul Nee.

In s genee pes an s mens pwn f e nneeen enys sessn w s syes s passage an e ea as a kn fqe vnt l f Vennas Rngsae w eame s ena e emegene f aea mensm n Asa a few eaes eneF Wagne as f e n e se Venna menss fms f emnmenae asss an e ssfae jse eemans f e pesen b Wagne en aae tese emans emseves n a nvesazng mnmenazng e

I s easy see w Wagnes qe f e mnmena aeay



Monmntl Sdction 3

anpae Nezses eens n mnmena sy b wasNezse w n ne f s psmsy pbse agmens m878 s pne e neyng nan n Wagnes gagans mnmenay: Wagne gs e mnmenal eeves n

e nvesay man In a smay nay way Wagne ses anvesazng an my mage f aee gn s wn ams an aese mnmenay aeqae an emegng new e af e ms ama as e new Gmtkntwk. F e vey nn fe Gmtkntw s my ams namenay aea

Te meap f aee nns ke a emv n a Wagnes key pgamma s"A an Revn "Te Ak f e

Fe Opea an Dama an A Cmmnan my Fenswen a e me e was nepazng s eagy Despe s enan qe f e mnmena an f asss nms s pmayme f e awk f e fe s Geek agey an e my fAngne emes e fnng sne f Wagnes egy f asean eeemng ve as e penn f e apse f te esng saes ea Wagnes eams f a aaly new e B n a mve ypa f psHeean a sy e nmave aae f Geekagey s fame y a sa naave f eay an eb a eevess mnneeeneny spn fm a ey f apalsm as eaenepn an pn f e Geman Vlk. Ts nn f eay ane s aae n e s pages f "A an Revn:

Handnhand wh he dun f he Ahenan Sae mahed he dwnfalf Taged A he f ommn ef ang a huand ne f eg- leavage, wa he Gesamknswrk f Taged dnegaed n ndvd-ua fa Ave he un f ag a w head he f he mad laughe fAhane, he mae f mede ad a he e end, eve mue f Ad efe hlh wh ead wh gm men he hme un heeeng a f human engh and eau

Wagnes wn mnmena am e fm e ns fagey an eeae e Gmtknwk agans 2000 yeas f wsy peeve g a Hegean ens s s peae n a w n

ns n n e e n e eep pas If weve e gn selfs aeay nepaze as n s a magne w e pjeefe f e Gmtkntwk w av a sma fae An en Wagneakes a sen sep a ansaes e sa ps f e se an fa f



44 Monumental Seduction

cuures ino a painy myhic dimenson ha poss some dsasrous endng aready in he very ac of foundaon In a key passage from The Art-work of the Future he compares he ruins of ragedy o he runs of heower of Babe:

Just as in the building of the Tower of Babel when their speech was confoundedand mutual understanding made impossible the nations severed from each othereach one to go its separate ay: so when a nationa solidari had pit into athousand egoistic particuarities, did the separate arts depart from the proud andheaven-soaring buiding of Drama which had lost the inspiring soul of mutuunderstanding.14

The heme of buding a new cuure and creang he ar adequae o

he comng age s aways predcaed n Wagner on desrucon and runs.The discourse of ruins is nscribed ino Wagner's projec from he begn-nng and no ony since his Schopenhaueran urn, as some woud caim.Wagnerian musc drama rses programmacay from he runs of opera,jus as he "fues ower ofpure Humanlov' (a reference o Angone,Segmund and Segnde, and Siegfred) sprang "amid he runs of ove ofsex, of parens and of sibings In a eer o Uhg of November 12, 1851,which menions he e of he projeced eraogy for he rs me, Wag-ner has hs o say abou a performance of he Ring:

I c ony conceive of performing it after the revolution only the revolution canprovide me with the artists and th audience Inevitably the next revolution mustbring an end to our whole theater business The theaters must and will all colapsethis is unavoidable

From their ruins I wil then call up what I need only then wil I nd whatI need. I shall erect a theatre on the bank of the Rhine and issue inviations to a

great dramatic festiv Mter a year's preparation, I shall produce my completework in the course of four days. With this production I wil then convey themeaning of this revolution in its noblest sense to the people of the evoution.This audience will understand me; the current audience is unabe to.16

Thus n ae 1851, ess han a monh before Lous Napoon's 8h Bru-maire, Wagner magnes he fuure as a Bonaparis aeshec pusch acedwh Bakunnan anarchs desre and reacionary German popusm. Jus

as Louis Napoon camed he mane of hs grea unce, Wagner's ambiion was o be perceved as a successor o he wo owering arss of heprecedng period Goehe and Beehoven. Bu his reveas precsey he de



Monumental Seduction 45

sre for monumenalty, a monumenay characerzed by an nense nferory compex oward hese predecessors whose achievemens Wagner ofen despared of machng. Thomas Mann spoke eoqueny of Wagnersar as of a "monumenaed . . . dieanism.7 Bu conray o he mon

umena works of eher Goehe or Beehoven, Faust and he Ninth Symphony respecivey, Wagners fanasies of he fuure are aways predcaedon deah, desrucon, and disaser, boh in hs heoreica wrings and nhs musc dramas. The new word promised by Segfred woud rse fromhe runs of Vahaa, runs of a case of he dead o begin wih: archecure as bura se and memora of heoic deah or faure sandng a bohhe begnnng and he ending of me. The key funcon of hs vson of

monumenliy emerges here guaranees he presence of he dead wih-ou whose sacrice here can be no new cuure. The emov of archiecure in runs provides myhc cosure o Wagner's romanic ques: wha sbeng bu s aways aready a omb a memora o faure and dsaser.Wagner's anpahy oward he monumena as casscs norm s groundedin hs maging he monumena as rn ony, for ony runs have permanence. This is where a nineeenhcenuy dscourse of he monumen asruin mees wih Aber Speer's ruin heoy of archiecure, whch had heexpress inen o bud n such a way ha he greaness of he Third Reichwoud si be visibe n is runs a housand years hence I was he assage of a Romancism of runs in whch an orginay meanchoy andconempave mpuse was ransformed ino an mperalis projec o conquering me and space. Here, oo Wagner appears Janusfaced, ookingboh backard o Romancsm and forard o a voen, engung fuureThe smuaney of he desre for permanence and he anicpaon of de

srucon s remniscen of Eas Cane s reecion on Her's hesaonover wheher or no o desroy Pars. In Mases and Power, Cane readHiers diemma as he wofod degh n permanence and desruconcharacerisc of he paranoac Of course, Wagner saw himsef as he"penpoenay of down, and n anoher eer o Uhg of Ocober22 1850 , shory aer pubshng "Judaism in Music he wroe "In oacam and wihou any hoa I assure you ha he ony revouon I beeve

in s he one ha begins wh he bunng down ofParis 9n he end Paris ws no burned, no even by he Nazs Bu he Ger-man sae has coapsed four mes in one cenury And ye, forunaey, henew monumena cuure Wagner inended o found wih his musc dra



Monumnl Sucon

on he rns of he sae never arrve nor he new Asophanes whowo s ng an aghng aop he rns ofWagners Gmkunwrk.Insea Bareh as an exempar seor of he nernaona opera ns-r s we an ave We have he Ring of h Niblungas a om book an

he programnoe esrpon of a 980s Me proon as lls on hRhin. We ma no nee anoher Arsophanes an ha ma be js aswe

B wha hen of he monmena oa? Or own wa of enong

an aeshes of monmenaf we an brng orseves o am ha nsome forms he monmen an be enoe an ms no be reee aa ossseems o me aeqae emboe n Chrsos wrappng of heRehsag: a monmena ha an o who permanene an whoesron one ha s namen nforme b he moerns spr ofa eeng an ranso epphan b ha s no ess memorabe or mon-mena for The proes monmena was ha of a grea raeven ssemnae an memorae b he mea an even ha wasmonmen an anmonmen a he same me B he Chrso pro-e was an ar even a noma nsaaon I was no esgne as permanen b spae b raher as s empora ssoon Ths s ee-braon begs he qeson of wheher a monmena arhere spossbe oa or even esrabe

Ths brngs me o a na reeon ha opens p anoher se of qes-ons nheren n Chrsos proe an mporan o he sse of mon

men n or re In 94 n New York he paner ernan Lgerhe arhe an own panner os Ls er an he hsoran egfreGeeon ae for a new monmena n arhere. In her onahore programma saemen ene Nne Pons on Monmen- he arge agans he pseomonmen of he nneeenh en-r as mh as agans he pre nonasm of he Bahas an he In-ernaona e Ther heses are nforme b he emora onvonha here s a egmae esre for monmen pb spae Monmensare seen as expressng he hghes ra nees of a peope an hs heahors amen he evaon of monmena whn moernsm To-a her manfeso reas ke a ash aemp o rensrbe a emo



Monumnl Sucon 47

ra monmenay no he moerns proe an mpes ha an behsore as beongng sqare whn he New De era The fa has rheor now sons hoow s esmon o he frher ene of monmena pb spae n he pas eaes. Neher Rem Koohaass reen

rmphsm of exra arge n hs book SMwh s eebraon of bg-ness n pannng nor he few sess new pb monmens shas he Venam Memor n Washngon an he he fa ha we arewang n van for he resrreon of a pb monmena Perhapshe wrappng of he Rehsag whh an now be seen on n repro-be mea mages on posars Tshrs oee ps an he Inernes smpoma of he fae of he monmena n or posmoern mes

has mgrae from he re no he mge from he maera no he mmaera an mae no he ge omper bank so ofen n mea pos he Nas ha he rgh nsn when

he masssrbe mages of peer's moes n he form of posarsThe monmena ee of arhere o s as eas perhaps evenbeer be aheve sa b a hghange oang img of arhereo nee even o b he rea hng. or ears afer he war man Ger-

mans msaken beeve ha peer's Bern proes ha aa beenb an hen esroe n he as sages of he warThs an some ears aer or own monmen seon ma

be no onger e p wh rea b spae a a eran no wh hemammoh shoppng mas n he me of nowhere nor wh nerna-on arpors an her mass raon of peope an ommoes bohof whh are phsa nope &om he raona se of pb paehe vng No woner hen ha some w ook for he n pb

spae on he Inerne or ve own monmena seon ha hos hepromse of onqerng boh me an sae an ha gves new meanng oMLhan's phanasm of an eerona ne goba re Mon-mena oa ma a be n berspae an he nformaon hghwaThe Germans a an rae n seamess an obvos onn wh anoher monmena Na proehe bng of he Aobahna Infobahn an Deshe Teekom n a reen a n he Nw rk Tims

has esrbe who hesaon as he fas ane o he fre Monmena s ave an we We ma n fa have o onser a monmen-a of mnaraon for he wor we web s n prnpe he mosggan nerakng of or age as promsng o some an hreaenng o



48 Monumntl Suction

oter a any monmentalm a eer been Sgncantly oweer, teelekom a cannot o wtot a natonal monment: t ent te Bran-enbrg Gate a a traemark for mae n Germany Weter te nformato trfc to te ftre wl be n te fat ane or weter t wll gener

ate bra am on a monmenta cae reman to be eenOnly te ftre wl tel weter t wa wort beng ece



The Void of Bein

gt year aer te fal of te Wl een year after te ncatonof at an Wet Germany, an jt a coe of year before te na

tranfer of te natona goernment from Bonn to te cy on te SreeBern a cty tet frantcay beng wtten an rewrtten Berln aeft ben t eroc an roagantc ole a a ont of te olWar an trggle to magne telf a te new catal of a rente natonte cty a become ometng lke a rm trog wc we can foc e of contemorary rbanm an arctectre natonal enty antateoo torcal memory an forgettng Arctectre away been

eely nete n te ang of oltcl an natonal entte an tereblng of Berln catal of Germny ge gncant cle to tetate of te German naton aer te fal of te Wal an abot te way troject t ftre

a lterary crtc I am natraly attracte to e noton of te cy atet of reang a cy a a conglomeraton of gn Mn of taoavno maeoly ggete Inviibl Citi, we know ow real anmagnary ace commngle n te mn to ae or noton of ecccte. No matter were we begn or con of te cy of gnweter wt Vctor Hgo reang Pa n Nor m Pri a a bookwrtten n tone wt e Dbn' attemt, n Brn An to



52 Th Vi of Bli

FIG -1 Philip Johnson Haus ner former Checkpoin Charlie (1996) Phoo auhor.

cnuy d gby a muc on vb ma o bu pac aon mag and mmo pd and upud by aumac vn. Papamp pa rblock, Bn now nd n a nzy o upocon and n n w gna mmoa obon o 1990n md o quay nn dba abou ow o ngoa Naz andcommun pa now a a dcoom o Cod Wa avvand. T cy obd w accua and pannng u a dba a ncon a pm acng pa o uban dvopmn a un o cnuy. o n md o a govnmnand copoaonun budng boom o uy monumna popoon.Nong goa an o ca capa o wn cnury bu von nd pny aund by pa.

Bn a man and omo oca x mad amuc no mo by abnc a by vb pnc o pa om

pomnn un uc a dcnc a nd o amouKundamm o Wod Wa I bu and apn ma n many o budng. wa n mon a coap o Ea mana a ou nby o pa o cy w pap mo acu a



Th Vis of Brli 53

IG Forer Checkpoin Charie wh imiaion Saue of Libery (1995).Courey Eisabeh Feicella.

cy a o o ong ad ood n dad y o om o poc n cnuy. Emp wa and vouon dmocacy acm anmand Cod Wa a w payd ou . ndby cd no oummory da o Bn a capa o a dconnuou upudory o coap o ou uccv man a Bn a goundo ary ponm and vo agan od od Brn a p

cn o vban cuua avangadm oWma and mnaonby Nam Bn a command cn o wod wa and ooau;and nay Bn a ymboc pac o EaW cononaon o nuca ag w mcan and ov an ang a o down aCcpon Car wc now bng und no an cn buncn wacd ov mpoay by a owng poogapc cuo oPp Jonon and a unn gdd au o Lby pacd aop

om Ea an wacow a a conng and xaang m a o WaBn md auad w mmo ya nc n av aoaug u mup on abou poc o wu ong mpod and on py namng o n Ea Bn a w gvn



Th V fBrl

a ther resoast and oen dededy antsoalst ast the dsman-tng of monuments to soasm the asurd deate aout tearng donthe DRs Paae of the Reu to mae room for a reudng of theHohenzoern aae and so forth. Ths as not just tnerng th the

ommunst ty text. It as a strategy of oer and humaton a naurst of Cod War deoog ursued va a ots of sgns muh of thoy unneessary and th redtae ota faout n an ast er-man ouaton that fet nreasngy derved of ts fe hstory and of tsmemores of four deades of searate deveoment. ven though not athe ans to dsmante monuments nd to rename streets ame to frutonthe damage as done. DR nostalga and an usurge n ouarty for therevamed Communst Party (PDS ere the nevtae ota resutseven among many n the younger generaton ho had een atve n theooston to the state n the 98s

orgettng s equay rveged n an oal ad amagn of 996 t-eray rtten al over the ty ERIN WRD-ERN ECOMS. But eomes hat Instead of a roer ojet e get a veral vod. Ths hras-ng may reet se reauton for n the urrent haos of uannng adoor shemng and ontradtory otng th many

arhtetural deveoments (Sreense and Aexanderatz among themst hangng n the ar and ther feas and nanng nseure noodyseems to no exaty hat Bern eome. But the otmst su textof the ess s qute ear and raday oosed to Kar Sheers 90ament that t s the trag destny of Bern forever to eome and neverto e. Too muh of the urrent onstruton and annng atuay asthe very dynamsm and energy of turnoftheentur Bern that Sheerever the utural essmst amented Sne muh of entra Bern n themd990s s a ggant onstruon ste a hoe n the ground a vodthere are ame reasons to emhasze the vod rather than to eerateBerns urrent state of eomng.

The noton of Bern as a vod s more than a metahor and t s not

just a transtory ondton. It does ary hstora onnotatons. Already n935 the Marxst hosoher Ernst Boh n hs Erbch r Zt de-sred fe n Wemar Bern as ntons n a vod He as referrng tothe vauum e y the oase of an earer nneteenthentuy ourgeos



Th V fBi 55

uture hh had found ts satal eresson n the heavy ornamentalstone arhteture of Berns unque aartment udngs the ejoratveyaed Mtkr (rent arras th ther mute ngs n the ather soaed Htrhr enosng nner ourtyards aesse from the

street ony through tunnee arhays. The ostWord War I vauumas ed y a funtonalst and to Boh nsustanta uture of dstra-ton: Wemar modernsm the move aes the sxday ye raes thene modernst arhteture the gtz and gamour of the soaled stazaton hase efore the 1929 rash Bohs hrase funtons n the vodaso artuated the nsght that n the age of monooy atasm utty sae oud no onger ommand the reresentatve funtons of an

earer age As Breht ut t n those same years hen he dsussed theneed for a ne ostmmet reasm reay tsef had eome ntonathus requrng entrey ne modes of reresentaton.

A tte over a deade ater t as e to fssm to transform Bernnto the tera vod that as the andsae of runs of 194 . Esealy nthe ener ofBern Brtsh and Ameran omers had joned fores thAert Seers reng rs to reate a taua rasa for ermana the renamed ata of a vtorous Reh. d the reaton of vods dd not stothen; t ontnued through the 950s under the headng of Srghen entre quarters of the od Bern ere razed to mae room for thesmst versons of modern arhteure and annng araterst ofthe tmes The major onstruton rojet of the ostar erod the Waneeded another vod that of the nomansand and the mneeds thatound ter ay through the very enter of the and hed ts Wesernart n a tght emrae

of West Bern tsef alays aeared as a vod on Eastern uro-ean mas: West Bern of the Cod War as the hoe n the astern uro-ean heese. Lese eather mas on West erman teevson for a ongtme reresented the DR as an asene a an sae surroundng therontstadt Bern the atalst heese n the rea exstng vod.

When the Wa ame don Bern added another hater to ts narratve of vods a hater that rought a shados of the ast and

soo revenants. or a oue of years ths very enter of Bern thethreshod eteen the Eastern and the Western arts of the ty as aseventeenare asteand that extended from the Brandenurg ate donto Potsdamer and Lezger Patz a de streth of drt grass nd remnants of former avement under a g sy tat seemed even gger gven



The Vid of Berlin

FIGUR J.3 Wall area between Lepziger Patz and Brandenburg Gate CortesyArchitecture Slide Library Coumbia Uniersity

the absence of any highrise skyline so characteristic of this ciy. Berlinerscalled it aectionately their "wonderful ciy steppes, their prairie of histoy 5 It was a haunting space crisscrossed by a maze of footpahs goingnowhere One slight elevation marked the remnants of the bunker ofHitler's SS guard which aer havng been reopened once the Wall came

down was soon sealed shut again by the city authorities to avoid making itinto a site of noNazi pilgrimage Walking across this space that had beena mined noman'sland framed by he Wall and that now seed occasion-aly as a staging site for rock concerts and other transitory cultural attrac



IGU 3·4 bert Speer North-South s Model Courtesy Archtecture SdeLibrary, Columbia Unversity.



Th Vis fBrlin

FU 35 Instltion in he oid le y he dismnling o he Wl (991)Phoo: uhor

on I co no hep eeeng ha h aa aa ha once eenhe e o He Rechkanze an he pace o e occpe Speeegaoanac nohoh ax wh he Gea Ha n he noh anHe pha ach n he oh he powe cene o he epe o ahoan ea a o e copee 9.

In he e o 99 when o o he Wa ha aea een eoe acone o o o o o n an pece he aea wae w he Wa ee o e he Murspcht he wa peke an ecoae wh coo anga pape eae ha wee owngan ng n he wn he powe ake he o a econ nae an a eoa.

The naaon nceae he ncann eeng: a o aae whne hoy wh eoe o achece oh an n gae e o he ee o eae a wa he eoa a epy page ghn he cene o he ene cy he cene ha wa an awa ha een

a he ae e he e heho eween he eaen an wee pao he cy he pace ha now n e anohe ae o gncaon eee



Th Vi fBrlin 9

to be caed upon to represent the invisibe wal in the head" that stil sep

arated East and West Germans and that was antcpated b the novelist Pe

ter Schneder long before the actual wa came down. 6

Snce hen, he rebdng o h ep cener o Bern ha becoe

a ajor oc o a dcon abo he Berin o oorrow. Wih he new

goernen qarer in he bend o he er Spree nex o he Rechag in

the north and the corporate developments at Potsdamer and Lepzger Patz

at the southern end of this space Bern wi indeed gan a new center of

corporae and goernena power

But how mportant should the ciy center be for the ctes of the fu-

ture? After al the city as center and the centered city are themselves in

question toda Bernard Tschum puts it wel when he asks,

FIG 36 Posdmer Pltz round 1930 Couresy Arhieure Slde LrryCoum Unersy.



6o Th Vid ofBrlin

ho an rchiecture whose histoi role was to geneate he appence of s-be Images (monuments ode et. deal with tody's culture of the dispeanceof unstable images (twenyfouimageperseond cnem, video nd omputegeneted imges)?

For some world wide web surfers and virual ciy aneurs, he buil ciy iself has become obsolee. Ohers, however, lke Saskia Sassen he NewYork urbanis or Dieer HomannAxhelm, a wellknown Berlin archi-ecure criic, have argued persuasively ha i is precisely he growh ofglobal elecommunicaions and he poenial dispersal of populaion andresources ha have creaed a new logic for concenraion in wha Sassencalls he global city. Indeed, he ciy as cener is far from becoming obso

lee Bu as a cener, he ciy is increasingly aeced and srucured by ourculure of media images. In he move from he ciy as regional or naionalcener of producion o he ciy as inernaional cener of communicaionsmedia, and serices, he very image of he ciy iself becomes cenral o i�success in a globally compeiive world. From New Yorks new TimesSquare wih is culure indusry gians Disney and Berelsmann and wihis ecsasies of ashing commercial signage, o Berlins new PosdamerPlaz, wih Sony, Mercedes, and Brown Boveri, visibiliy equals success.

No surrisigly, hen, he maor concern wih developing and re-buldng key es he hear o Berlin seems o be image raher han us-age, a�r�civeness for ou:is

s and ofcial visiors raher han heeroge

neous lvg space for Berl s inhabians, erasure of memory raher hanis imaginaive preservaion. The new archiecure is o enhance he desired image of Berlin as capial and global meropolis of he wenyrscenury, as a hub between Easern and Wesern Europe, and as a cener of

corporae presence, however limied ha presence may in he end urn ouo be. Bu ironically, he concern wih Belins image, foremo on heminds of poliicians who desire nohing so much as o increase Berlin'sabiliy o arac corporaions and ouriss, clshes wih wha I would de-scribe as he fear of an archiecure of images.

IV

This ension has produced a very sharp debae in which he balelines are rmly enrenched beween he defenders of a naional radiionand he advocaes of a conemporry highech global archiecure. The



Th Vid ofen 61

radiionaliss champion a local and naionl concep of urban culure hahey call "criical reconsrucion. Is represenaives, such as Hans Sm-mann, he ciy's direcor of building from 99 o 996, and Vicor Lam-pugnani, former direcor of Frankfurs Museum of Achiecure, cal for a

new smpliciy ha seems o aim a a mix of Karl Friedrich Schinkels cs-sicism and Peer Behrens's once daing modernism, wih Heinrichessenow as a moderae modernis hrown in o secure an aniavan-gardis and aiWeimar poliics of radiionlism. Berlin mus be Berlin,hey say. Ideniy is a sake Bu his desired idenity is sympomaicallydominaed by preWorld War I archiecure, he Mitkasrn and he no-ion of he once again popular radiional neighborhood, aecionaelycalled he Kiz. In he lae 970s, he Kiz emerged as counerculure inrundown, closeoheWall quarers like Kreuzberg where squaers oc-cupied and resored decaying housing sock. In he 980s, i was embracedby he city's mainsream preseraion eors Now, i dicaes key parame-ers of he new archiecural conseaism. Forgoen are he archiecurland planning experimens of he 920s, he grea Berlin esaes of MarinWagne and Bruno Tau. Forgoen or raher repressed is he archiecureof he azi period, of which Berlin, afer all, sill harbors signican ex

amples from he Olympic Sadium o Gring's aviaion minisry nearLeipziger Plaz. Ignored and o be quicky forgoen is he archiecure ofhe GDR, which many would us like o commi in is enirey o hewrecking ballfrom he Stalinal all he way o saellie housing projecslike Marzahn or Hohenschnhausen. Wha we have insead is a srangemix of an originaly lefis Kiz romanicism and a nineeenhcenuy vision of he neighborhood divided ino small parcels, as if such srucures

could become prescripive for he rebuilding of he ci as a whole Buhis is precisely wha bureaucras like Hans Simmann and heoriss likeDieer HomannAxhelm have in mind wih criical reconsrucion Pre-scripions such as ciy block building radiional window facades a uni-form heigh of twenywo meers (he riualisically invoked aujoh),and bilding in sone are vociferously defended agains all evidence hasuch adiionalism is wholly imaginay. Building in sone, indeed, a aime when he mos sone you'd ge is a hin sone veneer covering heconcree skeleon underneah.

There is no much of ineres o say abou he oher, he corporaeside, of he debae Here we have inernaional high ech, facade ecsasy,



62 The i of Bein

pefeence fo mosly anal hghses an oos of compuegeneaemagey o convnce us ha we nee o go wh he fuue. Bu hs -choomy of Sone Age vs. cye age s msleang: he gh s ove magean mage alone on oh ses of he ssue. The new naonally coe sm

plcy s us as mageven as he mage ecsases of he hghech campexcep ha poss anal mages of a naonal pas agans equally analmages of a gloa fuue. The ea Beln of oay s concs an aspaons emans a vo n a eae ha lacks magnaon an vson.

Take Hans Smmann an Vco Lampugnan. Lampugnan sappoves of easy pcues . supecal sensaon . . omene lghness . . . wl gowh . . . nosy new nepeaon. Smmann n un

poess ha "Leanng fom Las Vegas s ou of place n a cenaEuo

pean cy a pogammac saemen as much ece agans posmoensm n achecue as s qe laanly anAmecan n he aonof consevave eman Kuii. Bu hs aack on a wenyveyeaol founng ex of posmoen achecue an s epue magepolcs s sangely ou of place an ou of me. Las Vegas posmoensmhas een efunc fo some me an nooy has eve suggese a Belnshoul ecome casno cy. The hen oec of Smmanns moazng

poes s Wema Beln. Fo Beln n he 920s we mus ememe ene s moeny as qunessenally Amecan Beln as a "Chcagoon he Spee an as such ffeen fom ole Euopean capas an ffeen also fom he Beln of he Wlhelman Empe The emace ofAmeca was an emace of pagmac echnologcl moeny funconalsm mass culue an emocacy. Ameca hen offee mages of henew u memoes of Wema achecueEch Menelsohn Waleopus an he Bauhaus Buno Tau Man Wagne Hannes MeyeMes van e Rohesmply o no gue n he cuen eaes aou achecue n Beln. In he anmoensm he consevaves hemselveshave gone posmoen. Small wone hen ha Smmann's pefeence focc econsucon s self pmaly concene wh mage an avesng he mage of ul space ceang a sense of aona enyfo Beln whose vos mus e lle an he moe nangle ye economcally ecsve nenaona mage of he cy n an age of gloal se

vce economes uan ousm culual compeon an new concenaons of wealh an powe. Bu he ese mage s ecely pe914.The ccal econsuconss fanasze aou a secon Gndeei



The ids ofBein

GU 3 oame az oso se wh NFO BOX 995). CoesyEisaeh Feea

gous to the founing years of the Secon Reich aer the Franco-Prussian

War Never mind that the gold rush of the rst Gronderzeit quickly col-

lapsed with he crash of 1873 and the beginning of a longterm depression.

The issue in central Berlin, to use Venturi/Scott Brown/Izenour's by

now classical postmoern terms from Learning fom as Vgas in this ver

dierent context is about how best to decorate the corporate and govern

mental sheds to better attract international attention: not he ciy as multiply coded text to be lled with life by its dwellers and its readers but t�e

city as image and design in the seice of displaying power and prot Ths

underlying goal has paradigmaticaly come to fruition in a project on

Leipziger Platz called INFO B OX a huge red box on blac stilts with windo:

fronts several stories high and with an openair roof terrace for panoamc

vewng.

This NFO B OX,

attraction to some ve thousand visitors per day, was

built n 995 as a temporay installation to serve as a viewing sit ono the

construction wasteland studded with building cranes hat surrounds it

With its multimedia walls, sound rooms, and interactive computers, it



The i of Bein

seres as an exbton and advertsng ste for te corporate developmentsby Meredes Sony and te A+ T Investment Grop on Lepger andotsdamer lat cyber aner n "Vrtal Berln 2002," yo can enoy aytrog trog a compter smlaton of te new otsdamer and

Lepger lat developments or arrve by ICE at te tre Lerter Bano£ Yo can watc te constrton ste on a wraparond ampeatrcalscreen nsde wle lstenng to an anmated Dsneyed Berln sparrow de-lver te prod narratve cast n a yply streetsmart slgty lowerclassBern ntonaton Or yo can admre plater casts of te maor arctectste lt of te master blder s alve and well as smlarm al te moreso as arctects ave become mere appendages n today s word of rban de-velopment More mage box tan nfo box ts spae oers te ltmateparadgm of te many Schausteen vewng and spectacle stes) w tety monted n te smmer of I996 at ts maor Bausteen constrtonstes) Berln as a wole advertsed tself as Shaustee te slogan "Bhnen Bauten Boueva stages bldngs bolevards) and moned a ltr program ncldng over wo ndred gded tors of constrctonstes egt ndred ors of msc acrobatcs and pantomme on nneopenar stages trogot te smmer From vod ten to mseenscne

and to mage mages n te vod: Bein wid Berln beomes mageIs t only pererse to compare te gae from te INFO Box's terrae

onto te constrcton wasteland ofotsdamer lat to tat oter gae we allremember te gae from te prmtve elevated wooden later met) plat-form erected near te Wall west of otsdamer lat to allow Western vs-tors to take a long look eastward aross te deat strp as emblem of commnst totataransm It wold be perverse only f one were smply toeqate te two stes And yet te memory of tat oter vewng platformwll not go away as t sares wt te INFO BOX a certan obnoxos tr-mpalsm te polt trmpsm of te Free World n te old Warnow avng been replaced by te trmpalsm of te free market n te ageof orporate globaaton

eraps te box and te sreen aeor tre er al te ompleteddevelopments on Fredrcstrae tat maor commercal artery crossngnter den Lnden look frgtenngly smlar to ter former ompter sm-

latons wt one maor dfferene wat appeared ary sometmes even el-egant and generosly spacos n te smlatons now looks oppressvelymonment massve and forbddng especaly wen experenced nder



The i o Belin

te leaden Berln skes n mdwnter all t te revenge of e real In ad-dton some of te new fancy mls on Fredrcstre meant to ompetewt te KaDeWe Kauaus des stens) and te soppng area on andnear Krrstendamm are not very scessfl and Berln already a sr

pls oce spae for rent as more s beng blt day by day Ts mr fea frte ftre of otsdamer and Lepger Plat: st as te NFO BOX mmob-les te aner facng te screen te tgt orporate strtres despteter gestrng toward pbl spaces and paas wll encag and onneter vstors rater an reate anytng lke te open moble and mlt-ply coded rban cltre tat once aractered ts pvota tra b beteen te eastern and western parts of te ty Tere s good reason todobt weter Helmt J ans appy platc tent overng above te entraplaa o te Sony development wll make p for te loss of rban lfe tattese developments wll nevtably ental

v

Lookng at te fores and pressres tat rrently sape te newBern one may well fear tat te ensemble of arctetral soltons pro-posed may represent te worst start nto te twentyrst entry one coldmagne for ts ty Many of te maor constrcton proects t seemsave been desgned aganst te y rater tan for t Some of tem looklke orporate spaesps remnscent of te conlson of Cose Enountesof the Thid Kin Te troble s tey are ere to stay Te vod n te cen-ter of Berln wll ave been lled Bt memores of tat antng spacefrom te monts and years after te Wall ame down wll lnger Te one

artect wo nderstood te natre of ts empty space n te center ofBerln was Dane Lbesknd wo n 992, made te followng proposal

Rike oe said a eeyig is aeady ee We oy ms see i ad poei We ms deeop a fee fo paes sees ad oses w eed o sppoTae e ope aea a e osdame az sgges a wideess oe omeeog wi wi eeyig a say s. Te see simpy eds i eses Wodef e l s aea is e es of oday's diie aa aw:

oody waed oody paed ad ye s my impaed i a omids d ee o mids is mage of e osdame a oid w emai fo deades Someg ike a ao e easy eased ee f e woe

aea wi e deeoped •



66 The V fBen

Of cose w Libeskin escbes ongenceek s o s ivnenl w s noing b e pesse of soy cee is voice Posme Plz in e s plce e sion bombings of19445 wc lef le of e ol Posme Plz sces sning

e blng of e Wl in 1961 wic eqie fe ceing of ee; e eing own of e wl in 1989 wic me s wole e beween e Bnenbg Ge n Posme Plz ino pe of isoy Belines qicky embce ws voi le wi isoy nmemo l of wic wil be ese m less sngine bo e powe ofmemoy n Libeskin by e new conscion.

n ig ofLibeskins own ciecl pojec oweve wic sccly n ciece of memoy even is sggesion o eve e vos ws n e ey 1990s ws no js omnic n mpccl FoLibeskn gve ciec fom o noe vo ns Belin eisoic vo le by e Nz escon ofBeln's iving Jewis lfen cle. A iscssion ofLbeskns msem pojec gby e snge mos neesng new bling n Bein s ppopie ee no onlybecse gves een necon o e noon of Bein s vo n elion o memo n o isoy b becse oweve necy ses

e sse of Gemn nion en n e eniy of Belin Wle le oe mjo bng ses in Belin oy e neviby ne b eps on Lbeskins biling emps o ice memoy n o elonsp o i in s vey sp ognizon.

n 1989 js few mons befoe e W ccke Dniel Libesknspsingl won compeiion o bil e expnsion of e BelinMsem w e Jews Msem s i s wkwly n e ppopely cle.

Te Bein Msem ws one in 196 s locl isoy msemfo e wesen p of e vie cy clely ecion o e bling ofe Wll wc me e fome locl soy msem e Mksces Msem inccessibe. Snce e m190s e Belin Msem

s Jews secon ocmens e oe of Gemn Jewy n eiso of Beln Wi e new expnsion e msem ws o onsis ofee ps genel soy of Ben fom 180 o oy Jewis soy in



The V fBen

FIG 38 Bei Mem wih he ewish Mem Moe. Coesy BoDie ibesi

Bein n n inbeween spce eice o e eme oJews in socieywic wol ice e elons n cossoves beween e oe wocomponens. Lbeskins popos ws s ciec ing s i wsconceplly pessive n even og miple esisncespoliicesec economic o be ovecome e msem s been bl ncelebe is opening in Sepembe 001

Te expnsion ss nex o e ol Beln Msem boqe pce

se o ose e Belin Cmbe Co befoe i becme msemin 196 Te o n e new ps e ppenly isconnece n eonly ennce o e expnsion bing is negon fom e olbling. Libeskins sce s ofen been escibe s zigzg s gnng o becse is o ose Jews collecion s fce S ofDv e imself clle Beween e Lines

Te mbgiy beween n cieclly spil n ley

menng one es beween e ines is nene n i sggess e concepl coe of e pojec Te bsic sce of e biling is fon ine elion beween wo lines one sg b boken no peces ivieino fgmens e oe mlply ben conoe b poenlly gong



68 Th Vi of Bli

FGUR Bln Musum wh h Jwsh Muum an Cousy BoDnl bkn

on ad inntum chitectuy this ongitudna axis tansates into a thnsce oempty space that cosses the path of the zgzag stuctue at each nesecon and that eaches fom the bottom of the buding to the top ts seaed to the exhbtion hals of the museum t cannot be enteed but itis ccssibe

to viw fom the sma bidges that coss it at evey evelof the

budg t sa to an abyss extending downwad and upwad at the

same me Lbesknd cas it the voidhs facted and mutipy inteupted void nctions ke a spne toth b

ui? t s both conceptu and itea d cleay it signies as a

od sges absence, the absence of ens Jews, most of whom pe-ed m t?e Hoocaust a ard void it sgnes histoy a bokenhstoy wthout continuity the histoy of Jews in Gemany of GemanJews, and theefoe aso the hstoy of Gemany tsef which cannot bethou

�of as sepaate fom Jewish hstoy in Gemany Thus, in ne wth

the ogal demand of the competition the void povdes that nbetweenspace between ens hstoy and ewsh hstoy n en insepaabe as



Th i ofBrli

they ae, except that t does t in a fom adicaly deent fom what wasoginay imagned by the competition y eaving this inbetween spacevod, the museum's achitectue foecloses the possibiity of ehamonizngGemaJewsh histoy along he discedited modes of symbiosis o assim

iaton ut it also foecoses the opposte view that sees the Hoocaust asthe inevitabe teos of Geman history Jewsh ife in Gemany has beenndamentaly ateed by the Hoocaust, but it hs not stopped The voidthus becomes a space nutuing memoy and eecton fo Jews and foGemans ts very pesence ponts to an absence that can neve be ove-come a uptue that cannot be heaed and that can cetany not be edwth musea stu ts ndamenta epstemoogica negativity cannot be ab

sobed nto the naatves that w be tod by the obects and nstaationsn the showooms of the museum The vod wi aways be thee in theminds of the spectatos cossng the bdges that tavese t as they movethough the exhbtion space The spectatos themseves wi move constanty between the nes Oganzed aound a void without images, Lbesknds achtectue has become scipt Hs buidng itsef wites the discontnuous naatve that s en nscibes t physicay nto the verymovement of the museum vsito, and yet opens a space fo emembanceto be atcuated and ead between the ines

Of couse the voids have been juxtaposing in this essay ae of afundamenty dieent natue One s an open uban space esuting fomwa destucton, and a seies of subsequent histoica events the othe isan achtectual space, consciousy constucted and sefeexive to thecoe oth spaces nutue memoy, but whose memoy The very notonof the void wi have dieent meanng fo Jews than it wi fo Gemans

Thee s a dange of omanticizing o natuazing the voided cente ofein just as Lbeskinds buidng may utmatey not avoid the epoachof aestheticizing o monumentizing the void achtectualy ut thenthe vey aticuation of this musel space demonstates the achitectsawaeness of the danges of monumentality huge as the expanson is, thespectao can neve see o expeience it as a whoe oth the vod insideand the buding as peceived fom the outside eude the totalizing gaze

upon which monumenta eects ae pedicated Spati monumentali isundecut n the nevitaby tempoa appehension of the buiding Suchantmonumental monumentaiy, with which the museum memoazesboth the Hoocaust and Jewish fe in ein stands in shap contast to



FIG JO Vo h wh Muum Couy D Lb



Te Vids of Bein

the usefcoscious moumetaity of the ocial govemetsposoedHolocaust Moumet, which is to be built at the othe ed of thathighlychaged space bewee the adebug Gate ad eipzige Platz o those who fo good easos uestio the abiliy of taditioal mou-

mets to keep memoy alive as public o coective memoy ibeskid' sexpsio of the eli Museum my be a bette memoial to Gema adewish histoy, the histo of the livig ad of the dead tha ay ociafueeal Holocaust moumet could possibly be

achitectue the, Libeskids museum is the oly poect i hecuet eli buildig boom that explicity aticulates issues of atioaad loc histoy i wys petiet to postuictio Gemay. its spa-

tial emphasis o the adical uptues discotiuities ad factues of Gema ad GemaJewish histoy it sta i oppositio to the citical ecostuctioists attempts to ceate a seamless cotiuiy with a pe914atioa past that woud ease memoies of Weima, Nazi d GDR achitectue i the pocess. a chitectue of memoy it also opposes thepostatioalism of globa copote achitectue a a Potsdame adLeipzige Platz a achitectue of developmet that hs eithe memoyo sese of place to begi with a uitetioal maifesto, the mu-seum poits to the coceptua emptiess that cuetly exists betwee aostalgic pe94 udestadig of the ciy ad its post22 etopic copoate maig The histoy of eli as a void is ot ove yet but he pehaps a city as vast ad vibat as eli will maage to icopoate its ltestwhite eephats at Potsdame ad Leipige Platz ito the lge uba bic. f Pais is able to live with Sace Coeu, who is to say hat ei caotstomach Soy Cop? Oce he cue image fezy is ove the NF BX

dismaled ad the citical ecostuctioists fogotte the otio of thecapital s a motage of may histoical foms ad spces will easset itselfad the commitmet to the ecessaily palimpsestic textue of uba spaemy eve led to ew ot yet imgiable foms of achitectue.



Aer the War: Berlin as Palimpsest

When the Geman Rechstag, enovated and cowned wth a stunnng glass cupola by S Noman Foste was nauguated wth a plenaysesson of palament on Apl 19 , 999, the Beln Republc was at wa nKosovo A fact that could only have caused evulson ten yeas ago nowmet wth boad publc appoval. Two months late d decades afte theGeman Wehmacht last moved hough these ugged Balkan mountans,beatng a eteat fom southeasten Euope, Geman gound toops haveoved nto a southwesten swath of Kosovo as pt of NATOs peacekeepng sson, and they ae celebated as lbeatos by the Kosovo Abanans t s the cunnng of hstoy that all ths should be happenng unde

he stewadshp of a socaldemocatc chancello and a Geen mnste offoegn aas, epesentatves of the very poltcal foces that vocfeouslyopposed NATO and the GulfWa n the ealy 990s But t ndcates howuch the Fedeal Republc of Gemany has expanded ts geogaphc andpoltcal hozons snce uncato n 990

Ten yeas afte the fall of te Wall the Beln Republc s pat of anew constellaton n Euope No majo antwa demonstatons haveocked Beln as they dd dung the GulfWa, when whte bedsheets ut

teed fom Beln balcones pgs blood was splled by deonstatos nthe steets n angy potest and the county was caught up n convulsons



Afer the " 73

of pacsm At that tme of mountng nneGeman tensons, the EastGeman and West Gean Le coud evel n the common antAmecanslogan no blood fo ol The scene n all Gemany then was n stak contast to the publc suppot the GulfWa enoyed n London o Pas To-

day, Gemany s poltcally n sync wth othe NATO captals, eventhough opposton to the Kosovo Wa s stong n East Beln among thesuppotes of the evamped Comunst Paty, the PDS But especaly nthe st month of the bombng campagn, the epublc emained eelyquet, and commentatos marveled at the supsng change of heat tatseemed to have ovecome Geman publc opnon whch used to be quteadamant n ts pncpled antwa stance

But s that ely what t sa change of heat? Sue the decson toon the wa eot was now ade by a socal democatcGeen coalt�ngovenent bedevled by a oc sta n domestc poltcs and bady need of poltca success And though some called Schde the "wa can-cello, many on the Le and among the Geens gudgngly kept up hesuppot fo the new govenent But undelyng the acceptace of �e-many' s ole n the Kosovo conct was soethng else The two meangsof Gemanys categocal peatve "neve again have come nto econ-

clable conct wth each othe ove Slobodan Mlosevc s pesstent pocesof ethnc cleansng The "neve agan of deployng Geman toops n anoutofaea msson not geaed towad puely defensve gos standsaganst the "neve again that ecognzes Gean esponsblty fo theHolocaust, emphatcally equng acton at the advent of any ciss en emotely emnscent of e Holocaust The antmltay mpeatve not to deploy Geman toops outofaea thus clashed wth the mo mpea:ve to

nteene n the Blkan genocde If the poltcs of memory have domatedthe Geman consensus of "neve agan, ten t w pecsely emoes ofWold Wa II that whttled away at the undestandable eluctane to useGeman toops outofaea: televson mages of endess steams of egeeseeng ethnc ceansng women and chlden packed nto tans fo de�otaton, stoes of mass executons ape, lootng, and wanton destucton

Of couse, t s not entely clea what Gemans eembeed. Was t

the egees fom Nazsm and the vctms of Geman occupaton? Or ddvewes have Gemans n mnd, Gemans as egees fom the Red Amy,expellees fom Slesa and fom Czechoslovaka O was t both olled ntoone the poblematc unvesalsm of vctmhood ateve the case may



7 4 Afer he Wr

be, the stength of memoy legiimized the inervention fo the vast majoiy of Gemans, even at the pice of having o betay one of thei womost dealy held convictions. Fo many, it was a painful choice to makeand a blow o he selfigheousness tha had accued to the oint litany of

"no moe wa and no moe Auschwiz ove the yeass the bombing campaign failed to poduce insant success, voices of

poest aose and became inceasingly vocifeous They wee fed by he oldaniAmeicanism of he Le and by a new, equally antimeican Euo-nationaism on the Righ, bu conay o he Gulf Wa, hey lacked boadpublic esonance. Nevetheless, NATO's blundes beahed new life intohe "no moe wa position No supisingly, one fault line divided the esoluely aniwa sance of the PDS fom he poNATO posiion of theohe paties, a eplay of he continuing EsWest divide within GemnyBu a i so appeaed not ust among intellectus, who afe al had beendivided abou he GulfWa as well (Hans Magnus Enzensbege and Bie-mann agains the antiwa Le in 1991) but beween antiwa inellecuassuch as Pee Handke and Kaus Thewelei on the one hand and publiclysuppoed govenment policy on he othe The dieence is hat in 1991he pointevention lieati boke wih the national aniwa consensus,

while his ime the opposiion to interention emained the minoiy voice.Even as thee ae good easons o be skepticl in pinciple abou a militayhuman ights intervention and ciica of longtem Westen policy in theBaans, insisting on he pinciple of national soveeignty in he face ofMilosevic s seial was of ehnc cleansing had to appea ouight cynical Anew politics of memory and histoical auma has emeged at he coe oftansalanic cultue in he past ten yeas, and in he case of Kosovo, i wonthe song ye uneasy suppot of the public despie seious doubs about heunivesl applicabiliy of human ights inervenion in he aas of sove-eign staes. But his was Euope, he continen whee he Holocaust hadken place Euope would have lost all political legiimacy in is dive o-wad unication had it lowed he Sebian genocide to coninue Hee, theGeman poliics of memory and he poliics of he new Euope megedThe poliicl change is stunning.

The Kosovo W has shaken up Geman politics, and it will have an

impact on the new Euope A a minimum, the Bakans and its Muslimshave now been ecognized as a consitutive pa of a unied Euope. Tenyeas ae the fll of he Wal, which was geeted at he time with a mix of



Afer he Wr 75

genuine iumph and subliminl feas of a esugen Geman naionlism,he emeging Belin Republic is a Euopean epublic and Belin a Euopean capial among ohes. And the new Bein, he nw eunited Gemanyis new in ways hadly imagined ten yeas ago when the iumphists of na-

tional soveeignty deamed abou a selfconden nation (selbsbewue tion) hat would naly ovecome its pas, while the deactos of natonalunication pained the hoo vision of a Fouth Reich. Today, Gemanyis neihe. Two wee afe Geman toops moved ino Kosovo, the Ge-mn paliament med he Belin Republics commitmen o commem-oate the Holocaust The muchdebaed though still contovesil Memo-ia to he Mudeed Jews of Euope will be buil in he very hea of

Bein Only time will ell whehe this memoia will nutue commemo-aion o fose oblivion, but he decision o go ahead wih he poect ispoliically signican, even hough he decision iself was eached wih asense of exhausion ae a welveyearlong debae.

II

If memoies of the pas and an evolving pesent have mixed in un-foeseeable ways in he politics of he Belin Republic, then the same cn besaid about he achitectul econsucion of Berin as Gemanys capialt a ime when many building poecs ae coming o fuiion, he assess-ment of he new Belin has become moe uid and ambiguous han i wasve yeas ago. The stiing achiectu debate hen pied he adiionaists of citical econsuction against he iumphiss of posmodenhigh tech, and both faced he adical skeptics who diagnosed a oal lack ofany pesuasive uban o achiectua vision on eihe side of tha debae.Today he boundaies ha separaed he vaious facions seem bledCitical econsuction wih its esicive egulaions and is ideology ofbuilding in sone has nve become as dominan a Pocusean bed fo henew Belin architectue as some had feaed Some highech poects havebeen absobed ahe well ino he ci bic. nd even though hee maysill no be anthing esembling a cohesive uban vision, a deceneed ne-

wok of new building sites and changing neighbohoods is emeging tha isinceasingly being acceped by he public and ha has begun o shape heimage of Belin as a paty ceative, paly imid mix of old and new

The ebuil Reichsag may serve as an emblem fo this mix of he e



76 Afer the lr

FIGUR 4.1 Reicha under enovaon. Achec Noman oe (998)Phoo: auho.

ative and the timid at this time Its facade and shell are the only residuesleft from Wilhelmian times: p to threemeterdeep stone walls, pompouscolmns, a lot of monmenta stone permeated by historical reminisences. The inside of the biling has been totaly rippe out and prag-matically, though coldly, refrbshe in muted materials an olors, butthe grati left by Soviet soliers in 1945 are still visible and highlightd on

several walls The only real · arhitectral attraction is the Reichstag scupola, destroyed by arson in the rst year of Nazi rule and redesigned byNorman Forster as a giganti glass dome, odly reminisent of a beehiveor an oversize spae egg

The doble winding ramps on the inside are publily accessible, pro-viding panorami views of the srounding city and setting the open interior spaces of the building into slow motion for the walking spetator, averitable aner dans lair" Bu it is espeially the illuminated ome at

night that has been embraced by the media and the publi as a symbol ofthe new Berlin. oster's overall renovation may not satis on pely aes-theti grounds, but it scessflly embodies the tensions between the



Afer the Wr 77

GUR 2 Reichsag cupola, ousde view Achite Noman Foser (1999)Phoo: auhor

nloved imperial past (the building's outside shell), a bureauati fntiona present of the German repblic (the plenary hal for the Bndestag),and the esire to have a ashy iage o demoratic transparency markingBerlins relaimed stats as capita

At times in the early 1990s, it seed that the old wol overwhelmany ne depatre The consensus was that Berlin ws primaily a mem

oy spae, hanted by the ghosts of its past Berlin as the center �f a disontinos, uptred histoy, site of the ollapse of four suessve Ger-man states, comman enter of the Holoaust, apital of Germancommnism in the Cold War, and ash point of the EastWest onfrontaton of the nlear age Obsessed with its memories as they werestirred p aer the fall of the Wall, the iy simutaneosly plnged into afrenz of urban planning an arhitetral megaprojects that were to o-

i the new beginning and to garantee Berln's metropolitan image fordecades to coe Ghosts o the pst and the spirit of tue glory strggledon the same terrain wihot rospects for reoniliation With the emergene of major new bilding plans in the historica center of Berlin for the



43 hg uo d vw hoo uho.



Ar t r 79

governent qarter and the Reichstag, the corporate center at Leipzgeand Potsdaer Patz, the restoraton of Pariser Patz, the eerging pansfor the sesinse, Aexanderpaz, and for the preseraton of the tnist rans of the arMarxee (forery tanaee, now Frank

rter lee), presence and asence, eory and forgetting entered into afascnating ix. Heated conct erpted even over the argnlia of ranreorganzation. Const onents in ast Berin were knockeddown and street naes were changed, trggering a pc deate aot theegaces of the sociaist state and the potics of forgettng. oe wanted toraze the ast Geran Paace of the Repc, paged y asestos t qitepopar aong ast Beriners, and n ts stead red the Hohenzoern

Paace, whch was oed ot n Word War and razed y the consts in the 950s. Tak aot the vods of Bern ecae coonpace. The vast epty space in Bern Mtte etween the BrandenrgGate n the north and the Potsdaer Patz n the soth, which had eenoccped y the ne strp and the Wa, now ceared away, captred theagnation. Visity and nvsiiiy ecae categories of archtectradiscose aot the it egaces of the fascst and conist states.Whch dngs shod e gven over to the wrecking a and whichshod e retzed once the governent oved fro Bonn to Bern?ven the nt past, ert peers egaoanac pans for the tripha northsoth xis and the transforaton of Bern nto Geraniaas capt of the hird Rech, exerted ts power over any visions of the ftre Ths the pans for the new governent strip in the end of the preeRver jst north of the Rechstag stdosy avoded a northsoth ayot,optng nstead for an eastwest axs that had the additona advantage of

sggesting reconciiation etween the two parts of the city separated froeach other for so ong y the Cod War Bt then Christos wrappng ofthe Rechstag n 995 provided a stnning reprieve fro the rden ofdark eores. he dalectic of the visie and the invisie fond ts exerant and ceeratory expression n this teporary instaaton thatchared Beriners and the word an that now nds its conterpont nNoan Foster's radant gass doe.

Bt visity and nvisiity, eoy and forgettng have yet another dension n the deate aot reconstrcting the Geran capitlAt stae s the qeston of the center of the centered city any saw thevod eft y the dsanted Wa in Berins dde as a scar that ight



8 Ae the

nv hl th rhttuly hstly Hstly f us thssp nv ws nt Inst t mr th bunry btn th Brn st f th Bnnbug t n ts wstn xpnsn thughth Tgtn stt n byn. vn th Rhstg but s th mp

l plmnt n th 8s ws bnn fm th nn sntum f mp Bln hh bgn nly st f th Bnnbug t Ahttuly ny ly nw vsn f ths sp by th vnsh W wsquly b by th pltl lg f vlpng th nw gvnmntstp n th pbgn n by th hsty ppv f th pt vlpmnt pns t Ptsm n Lpzg Pltz Th mpty sp n thnt thus hs shun but t stll suggsts v smthng tht mnsuns n th ubn txt

In tn wy ths v ght n tp f ps nthsuth xsnjus up th v tht uts thugh th fmus zgzg stutu fDnl Lbsns Jwsh usum Lbsn's v s n httu nx f th stutn f Blns Jws n th h ultu ung thTh Rh Th v btn Bnnbug t n Ptsm Ptzn th th hn btn th gvnmnt mll n th pt hquts my n th n nt sgn th lss f ptnt nw ubn n

t tht ws nt t b. It th uggsts tht Bn nnt b nt nth sm wy tht Lnn Ps Th nng pw f ths symbl sp n th ht f Bn s

nly xbt by th ft tht t s psy n ths v just suth fth Bnnbug t n vry ls t wh Ht's Rhsnzl nst tht th Bln Rpub s t bul th ml t th uJws f up A twlv yrs f pub ntvsy mutpl mpttns hngng us pltl nuntns n butf fsvl f th ptpnts n th bt but th plts sthts npups f suh mnumnt th mml sgn by Pt snmns bynthn l f sm 500 stn slbs f ng hght nmplmnt by umnttn nt wll ny b t Th pmnty bt ws unnsp but pltl sn ws n tlgtmz th pjt mtly n t put n t pub wn-glng vryby gnzs tht th n b n pft sutn t

mmzng th Hust n th unt f ts pptts But t mustb mmmt thugh n t f plt w n wth mmtmnt t th mt futu vn thugh ny mnumnt w lwys



Ae the 8

un th s f bmng just nth stmny t fgttng ph fnvsblty Thus n th vry nt f th nw Bln th wl b ntnl mml t mn ms gnst humny tht ultmt uptu f Wstn vztn whh hs m t b sn by sm s m

blmt f th wntth ntuy s whl us n th hus fmnty tht w nw nhbt wth nmus tptn

Tl f th vs f Brln hwv sms lss ptnnt nw thnt ws fw ys g In th ubn tbu s fntss f th ly

0s hv f fst nthussm but bulng th nw Brln fmsth s gvng wy t m pgmt ut Nt mtphs f thv but mptnss s th ssu t tm whn s mny nw nptmnt bulngs stll lng f upnts At th fl lvl nn utns hv f sng b f mny pns mntngutlztn th thn stutn f svl mj fsst bungs nth ht f Brln (ngs vtn mnsty n th Rhsbn

Ovbwn mgs f nw gbl Bln s pt f th twntyst ntuy hv m wy f m mst ty Wht s nw mgng sth m ntgung ntn f Bn s plmpsst spt tytxttht s bng wttn wh pvus txt s psr ts stsus umnt l f t sutng n mplx wb f hstms tht pnt t th ntnung htgnus lf f vt ty thts s mbvlnt f ts bult pst s t s f ts ubn tu

Bn s nw pst th pnt whn th bt fus pmly n

th vst pt nstutn st t Ptsm n Lpzg Ptz gnt vlpmnts by Dml Bnz n ny m g s ths tth ubn fb s whl Th mlng f Ptsm Pltz tht mythtf hub f th Wm Rpubl mnys Py Cus nTms qu l nt n sm fgn nusn n symblf l b thngs t m. Ptsm Pltz hs n bn mll n thhttu suts s pt th pplng Its ltnshp t

th nghbng ultufum wth th ttsbblth th Phlhmn(bth by Hns hun) n th Nu N tnlgl s vn Rh) s l n Th nw Ptsm Ptz wll nv mth th mythf th squ s n mbm f Wm mnty Th ntv f Pts



8 Ae the

IU h w otsm tz z hoto: uho

dae Plaz as he magna ene of a meopols expes n s aades,whh, as a wosor dab shoppng mall sued wh mnbouques andfasfood uns, esembles he nsde of a pson moe losel han a on-sume paadse.

d e, Posdame Plaz n s new nanaon has eeved a su-psngl posve pess, and he publ seems o aep wh open ams.To some, he s nssene on mananng he old see plans fo he

Posdme Plaz aea has uned ou o be a blessng n dsguse Fo he na-ow sees, alles, and pazzs alow fo a ean nens of see lfe, aslong as one oges ha s he see lfe of he lae weneh enu haof he pedesan shoppng mall. Ohes feel ha he opoae nd om-mea buldngs ae deen enough n sze, mael, and desgn a leaso sugges a eal ubn spae. If s a mal, o hem s aso sll PosdmePlaz. uh wll depend on how hese buldngs age and how aavePosdame Plaz wll eman s a publ spae one s uen novel has

won o I eman skepa, bu Posdame Plaz oda ma well embodhe suual eonlabl beween onsume soe and publ spae.

A an ae, he Posdame Plaz developmen, he whe elephan of



Ae he 83

Beln eonsuon, has been oned b ohe aheua aaons.Thee now s a web of ses of ver deen sze and non ha eshesou he aheual landsape of he new Ben: he new Pase Plaz useas o he Bandenbug Gae, n ena no lass Beln; he Hak-

eshe Hfe, an magnave eulzaon of one of he mos fabled mulplenne ouads of he old Beln; he Aldo Ross omplex o apamenbuldngs and oes a Shzensae, wh s souhensle ouadsand oloful and vaed faades ha loosen up he blok buldng pespons of al eonsuon; he faspaed enovaons a PenzlaueBeg, n he old Jewsh quae known as Sheunenveel, and n oheneghohoods of Eas Beln. In a, Eas Beln s aheuall a an

advanage. Sne he pove o he Es Geman sae pvened wholesaledesuon of old housng sok, he peseaon and esoaon of nebohoods s now possble n a wa foeve baed o mos of he wesenpas o he . The polal ons beween as and Wes Belnes,howeve, lnge on. The have even nensed as he new s slowlakng shape and as pas o Eas Ben ae beng gened. Bu hen none wa o anohe, he easen pa o Beln was alwas sepaaed foms wesen pa, and he uen wal n he head ma us be he laesmanfesaon o a long adon. Aheuall negleed n mos dsussons ae of ouse hose sos mass housng poes (Plaenbau nas Beln known fom all ove Easen uope. nd e would be quehallengng o magne was of negang housng poes suh asazahn, Hohenshnhausen, and espeall Hellesdof no he new u-ban fab, now ha he have los he goundng n soas noons ofolleve lvng. hehe he wll sand as uns of soalsm and uban

dea o whehe he an be moded n some eave om, onl mewll ell. The lage queson hee s o wha exen he soals exwll eman pa of he fashangng pampses ha s Beln. anelLbesknds plan fo Alexandeplaz poned eavel n ha deonbu has no hane of beng eazed.

A mx of he old and he new, he eave and he mdha doesno seem all ha bad a onsellaon fo a ha has neve had he luseof London o he aua of Pas. Buldng on s hsoal deeneedness as



84 Afer the �r

n rhitetural urbn spe nd mintining the ity s pimpsest ofmany different times and histories my ctuly be preferabe to the notionof a centered Berlin tht woud inevitaby revive he ghosts of the past notust in the minds of Germns but in the imgintion of Germanys neigh

bors east nd west Berin s plimpsest implies voids, ilegibiities, nd ersures, but it so oers rihness of traes and memories restorations andnew contrutions that wil mrk the city s ived spe. Bernhard Schlinkuthor of the bestseling nove The Reader is ertainly right in suggestinght Berin stil lcks physicl and psychologil enter I see this as andvntage nd in that sense the tie for the rhitectur sighseeingtours orgnized by the ity in the summers of the lte 1990s my not beinppropriate er all: Berlin-one Stadt, Berlinopen iy



Fear of Mce: The Times Square Redevelpment

I

Cats the longestrunning show on Broadwy was approahing itstwentieth yer at the Winter Garden ust a few bloks north of Times

quare in the lte 990s, but the fer of mouse hd beome the doi-nant trope in the debte bout the Times Squre redeveopment Listening to some critics wax poclyptic bout the eects of Disney's invsioninto the inner snctum of New York ity's popar culture reminds me ofhow muh the Nzis hated Mickey s a symbo of the pollution of uthenti German culture To the Nzis the mouse ws dark thy a carrierof disese a threat to the body poitic and to the body of the nation 1

Within Germany of the 930s of course the mouse ws the Jew In the1940 propaganda m The Eteal jew the Jewish dispor is representeds swrms of migrting rodents invading, destroying nd ontroling everypart of the globe It ws a theory of globlization avant lere: intenseyprnoid conspiratoril and murderously ideologica Reacting to the suess of Disney movies in Germany the Nzis focused on Mickey's bakness warned of the "negroidiztion (Vrnieung) of Germn culureand thus conted Disney with their ttck on jzz s tht other mode ofAmerican i e unGerman cuture tht needed to be exised: Louis rmstrong nd Benny Goodmnthis backJewish combination representedthe utimate overdetermined cuturl thret to the ryn re Given their



86 Fea Mce

phb bt mc th Nzs wr nbl t s hw wll Dsny t ntthr wn dlgcl prjct clnlnss ntrbnsm chvnsmxnphb cmbnd wth prvlgng f grnd spctcl nd mss n-trtnmnt s t ws rgnzd y Gbblss mnstry f llsn Th

Aryn ty cld hv cm t lv th lttl Amrcn bst bt thmtch btwn Dsny nd Nz Grmny nvr cm t pssTh Nzs hd thr wn vrsn f Dsnyrld wrld wtht

mc t b sr bsd n ddly srs mnmntlsm rthr hn ncmcs bt ls prdctd n cntrl spctcl smlcrm nd mglmn In rchtctr t ws Albrt Sprs Grmn th nw cptlf h Thsndr ch dsgnd n th lt 930s nd schdld tb blt by 950 Wll Amrcn nd Brtsh bmbrs clrd th grndfr Grmns nrthsth xs n th cntr f Brln bt n sch wys t grnt tht t wld nvr b blt Instd Grmny lk vrybdy ls n Cld Wr rp gt Dsny And jzz nd bls nd rckn rll T Grmn tngrs n th 950s ll ths Amrcn cltrl m-prtsnly ltr dcrd s Amcn cltrl mprlsmwr brthf frsh r Thy pnd wndw t th wrld nblng whl gnr-tn t dn tslf ntrdtnlly n th mdst f th rbbl nd rns l

frm th Thrd ch vn rdng Mcky Ms nd Dnld Dckcld cnt s n ct f rsstnc t tht thntc Grmn pplrcltr tht hd srvd th Thrd ch ws frcfd n th schls nVed chrs nd dmntd th lm ndstry n th frm f thHemam Dsny nd ts ctsts cmplctd sty nt sly r-dcbl t hmgns plt

Of crs th cmprsn btwn tdy s Dsny crtcs nd thNzs s nfr Anthr tm nthr pltcs tr ngh And yt hwwll th Nz mg f th ms ts crtn Tms Sqr mgnrynt tht f th Sqr f tdy bt tht f tm be th crrnt rdvlpmnt sx shps slz drgs prstttn chld bs rbn dcyFrtyscnd Strt mbdd t ll vr snc wv hd th rrcncl

bl ntgnsm btwn th dlgcl clnp crws f th ght ndth rmntcs f mrgnlty n th ft Bt s n th cs f th Nzs mythc mg f bttr pst s cnjrd p n thr cs t fnd ff



Fea Mce

chng Thrght hstry ths trp f nstlg hs prvn t b s snglrly ttrctv s t hs bn lsv n th lng rn fr t s nbl tnchr ts mythc ntn f thntcty n th r wrld Athntcy tsms lwys cms ftr nd thn prmrly s lss In cty cltr pr

tclrly th rsstd nw s bnd t cm h bss fr nhr glr-d pst sm tm n th ftr Thrfr t sms prfrbl t sdwth Brtlt Brcht gnst h gd ld dys nd n fvr f th bd nwns Fr t ws nt vdnt t ll tht th mr prsnc f Dsny nTms Sqr wth str nd tht wld trnsfrm tht whl spcnt nthr Dsnylnd Nw rk r ll nt Anhm nd th rcnt trnsfrmtn f Tms Sqr nvlvs mch mr thn jst th

prsnc f ntrtnmnt cnglmrts sch s Dsny Brtlsmnnnd Vcm n ts crrnt ncrntn t ny rt Tms Sqr sms lt mr ttrctv thn wht ws bng plnnd mr tn yrs gHv w frgttn Phlp Jhnsn nd Jhn Brgs fc twrs whchchrtly wnt n hld r th 987 nncl crsh thr hn trnngTms Sqr nt n c wstlnd ppltd by gry gys n thrpc sts th rcnt rdvlpmnt drctd by brt Strn cknwldgs th spc s cntr f thtrs ntrtnmnt nd dvrtsng cl-tr Tht s smthng t bld n It s lmst lrdy trdtnl

Ths s nt t mbrc Dsny s pnc nd Dsnys prsnc nTms Sqr my ndd b n ndcn f rbn dvlpmnts tht rnt ltghr sltry Bt w shld sp f thm n drnt ky Th

rctn t ny rt shld nt b ght twrd sm ntn f rsdl r ncntmntd hghr cltr pstn frm whch n wldthn g n t lmnt th rlntlss cmmrclztn f cltr nvkdwth th Dsny nm Th Tms Sqr rdvlpmnt s symptmtc f rrnttn f th xs f cltr dbt Th ssrs r n lng btwn hgh nd lw lt nd cmmrcl cltr s thy wr n th pstmdrnsm dbt f th 90s nd 1980s bt thy crck pn n th vry

rlm f th pplr tslf vn th 930s dbt btwn Adrn ndBnjmn n mss cltr whch hs bcm stndrd rfrnc pnt frll hs pplst crtcs wh smply t th ld hrrchy n ts hd cnnt b rdcd t th smplstc dchtmy f hgh vs lw



88 Fear fMice

ary , Adr dd udrad duy racary d fDy rjc, lcag wa ard a admacc gl faudc augg r ad vry m ll guy g ud r ba u Dad Duc ydrm, a cuur a ma dc

ad clcv admacm. Adr cdma f cy uwa a a a a f Naz, bu fr ra a ad d w carar a rac. War Bam famuy dagrd w Adr a, bag mr v a Mcy g wmdr mda may radcaly alr d f rc f wrd, wy ca xld xd rc f ad ac, w carmu cluld mg v rr m dramdf rccab dr cca mda ad aur u v wa mrly g v lw, bu rar w vua frm f a cmmrca macuur a wr rard ad ad by w mda. l u day. I dba abu m Squar w av arrg f dr cc f a cuur ad f uar a cla,maram, uburba, ad fcud famy vau, r varablydg ruy uar w f margay, xua lc,r, ad mry cuur. B vw ar arrw, ad a al

car wy m Squar uld xcuvy blg r .A ay ra, qu f g v. w a bd mdrm dba mly rlva fr a dcu f m Squar day wuld b ay accu r fDydmday f cry arbrg llcu ad gculura rjudc aga aur f ma cuur. Sm f r arum aga Dy mr, afr a, ar abluy arg ad d g/w -. I fac, r dgcal crqu f Dy v f a glbamas culur culd b fd rg u f Adr, a l r wwm day Amrca crc f Dy wud rfu av ay rac

V

Wa a a w Squar, my vw, rafrma f a fabd ac f uar cuur a ag wc gba

ram cglmra ar rdcvrg vau f cy ad m f ur fr r marg rag. m Squar rdvm rjc w lam f a ldr, mw au



Fear fMice

c m Squarwr algdy ay cara f 194 r grmy, Xrad, ad dcayd f mr rc vagaga w ar cag bu ur y wa cag wla rm f cmc, rafc, ambac, ad vbracy ym

bc cr f aaa. Surly, r wll b mal vr w m Squar, ad r wl b mr m arg raura ad , bu yu can v blam all f a Dy. al a vadd urba cr ad r ay. Ju wa arr arqu (bul Ragan ra a a frr aga FrycdSr az ad yu wl d Nw ry aaaa wlly uburbazd urba ac, cml w rdcabl grry, mal ca-

r ad dud gd lvar. L a vrcal Gard SaParway, ga lvar racg ly u ad dw rr yuqucy yur da vrc grd. A am m vrca uburba r f m ug vw avaab a urbac: frm gr rvlvg bar can arama fm Squar, asg blbard, g crwd dw blw cay, ram f car ad x, cy a arcal arad fcr, mvm, ad lg. vw by lf rf a ral uburba lgr a aba, w ar cg bac cy aur ad cumr arc f ram ad cac.

a wr largr rblm mrg. I wa I wud dcrb as cy a mag. I a rblm Nw Yr ar w r majr ad wcury c rugglg maa rr a cr f bu ad cmmrc wl a am m rafrmg mv mua vrm fr a cragly gbal-

zd cuural urm. dcur f cy a mag f rbalca ad dvlr ryg gara rvu frm ma urm,frm cv, ad frm cmmrca ad c ra. ral w d f urba lc ar ac ac fr culural cum,bcbur mual v, ad cacl f may d, al dd lur a w c f cy ur, urba vacar w a r-lacd dr lurly aur w wa way gurd a a dwllr

rar a a a ravlr frm afar. Surly r a dwd f cy a mag, a muum r m ar Bu d ycmar curr m Squar dvlm Sy ad Damr dvlm f Brl Pdar Plaz lay uc wrr a a



IGU 5 C oco t ow o of oyo avth Av of fom Dy to (200. Poo: to.



Fea of Mice 91

arty to rest The famous hu eween the east and west of Bern s ngreat danger of ecomng a hghtech ma The new Potsdamer Patz seng ut on a ste that has een for y years, a wasteand rst destroyed n World War I and then cut through y the Wal Tmes Suare

on the other hand has not ost ts uran enery and vrancy nor s tey to do so n the future ore toursts, yes, ut then erha asogrowng theater audences agan and a the susdary economes thatmght revtalze the area.

one of ths however reures s to ceerate the new Tes Suareas an art nstaaton, the utmate ncarnaton of a commercal oardcuture that has now ecoe ndstngushae from rea art as an artcle

n the New Yr es recenty suggested a t too trumhanly arern ths century, the Austran anguage crtc ar raus had a ont whenhe nssted that there s a derence eween an urn and a chamer otand dvded hs contemorares nto those who use the chamer ot as anurn and those who use the urn as a chamer ot But f t s now comonractce to do oth at once whch seems the case n much ostmoderncuture, then erhas we shoud reconsder such dstnctons Dstnctonsare mortant to make when dscussng the transformatons of uran sacerought on y the new serce and entertanment economes There aregood reaons to eeve that Tmes Suare w reman a ste of uran dversy rather than ecome a mere coony n the Dsney ere ets notforget hat Dsney's eas at the corner of Fortysecond Street and SeventhAvenue s temora. Dsneys ew York exerment may yet fa and heoce towers may st e ut 7 Whch mght even make a Dsney TmesSuare nto an oject of nostalga

Co

Setemer 00 ore than four years aer ths text was rst resented at a symosum on Tmes Suare at Couma Unversys raduate Schoo of Archtecture, Pannng and Preseraton Tmes Suare hasst not found ts nal new form Three cororate towers at the corners ofForysecond Street and Seventh Avenue were ut aer al durng theoom of the ate 1990s and the fourth one s currenly under constructon

a resut the uch malgned Dsney store across FortysecondStreet from the ew Vctory Theater renovated y Dsney has dsaeared



IG 5 Nw Vto at oss om om Ds sto o

Fo-so S. oo ao.



Fea of Me 9

an e Dney paranoa of a few year ago now ee even oreoverblown I ye anoer rony a e conerave ae of e 99o r anaan of e nury o reay Te Square for Snowe a only reule n rerecng e pornograpy rae o unlkely

place lke e Hacrun aon rc an even o e area arounGrace anon reence of qual of lfe ayor Ruolp Gulan

Tere are goo reaon o nk a Dney wa never a goo acw real urban pace. Bu e real rea o a lve eroolan urbanya we now know eanae fro enrely oer quarer. Te even ofSepeber II wll ve e ory of cyan no ju of cyno a before an an aer No only a e kylne of ouern ana

an been cange forever bu o a e oec an global agnary ofNew York a a wole. never que uneroo wy oe love e ol eey Te

Square o uc. Bu I o uneran ow e arcecurally lan f nougly wn ower of e Worl Trae Cener wc a been rongly oppoe by o New Yorker a e lannng age coul for o any becoe an eble of New Yorka arker of oe for e cy nab- a powerl age oflaewenecenury Aerca for nernaonalour an bune an an con for bo e bene an e owneof gloalaon Ter collape a le a gapng ole n our von of ecy lke a renal negraon n e agnaon. Alreay ere arevoce uggeng a Te Square be urne no a all o proec fro car bob Bu urnng ublc urban ace no a new kn of gaenegboroo woul ean a e error ave alreay won A anyrae e precon afer Sepeber I a e era of e kycraper a

ene now beng callenge by e rereeelopen of e four cornerof Foryecon Sree an Seven Avenue Now a roug uc of e99 Te Square a conrucon e. No ore an Dney arrvln New York erle e en of eropolan culure wll e bobng ofe wn ower cloe e caper on e arcecure of all bulng



Memoy Sites n an Expanded Feld: The Memoy Park

n Buenos Aies

I

Stuggls over public memoy involving histoica trauma, genocide,

human ights violations and thei aeeects abound in the wod today.Monuments memoils, public sculptures commemorative sits, nd mu�seums ae being ceated at an accleted pace the world ove. The poeof such sites to suppot public memory naratives rather than simply tofreze the past is vey much at issue verywhee, and thee ae no esy so-lutions to be had

Memo politics is wit large at the national nd internationlvels,

not just in the United States and Euope but in st sia Austia South ica and Latin America. In one way or another issues of memoy no

longer simply concen the past but have become part of the vey political

legitimacy of regimes today and they shape the ethicl self-undesnding

of societies visvis thei conicul histoy and the world If, in the ea

lie twentieth centur moden societies tied to dene their modenity ·

and to secue their cohesiveness by way of imagining the futue it now

seems tha the majo equied task of any sociey oday is to tke esponsibiliy fo its pas Whethe this knd of memo wok wil esult in somenw code of internationa ethics emains questionable but it does indicatesomething about our present that poins beyond the ynicism of enightened flse consciousness and mee Repolitik



Mmo St a x add Fid 9

Pint and image media contibue libealy o the vetiginous swirl ofmemoy discouses that circulate globally and loclly We ead about Chinese and Koean comfort women and the rape of Nanjing; we he aboutthe "stolen geneation in Austlia and the klling and kdnapping of chil

den' duing the dity war in Argenina we ead about Tuth and Reconcliation Commissions in South rica nd Guatemla nd e have becmewitnesss to an evergowing number of public apologies by politicins fomisdeeds of the past Ceainly he voraciousness of the media and theirappetite fo ecycing seems to be the sine qua non of locl memoy discouses cossing boders enteing ino a netok of cossnational compasons, and creating wha one migh cl a global culture of memoy

Some hisoians have expessed thei discomfot with the sufeit ofmemoy in cntempoay cutue, aising seious questions about thedeph and the ees of ou obsessions with memo Othes vey explicitly lment wha they see as the pesent being held hostage to the pst te al the desie o oget lwas seems o gow in popoion to the dsieto rememb, especially when poblematc spects of a nations pas are atstke Memoy and amnesia lways eist side by side and emain pat of apolitic stuggle Bu the debate about the surfeit o ven excess of memoy in contemporay culue ignoes one important factor: especilly since1989 and in societies ha nd hemselvs in a compl process of tsition{South ic, Latin Ameican countries, China) discussions abou how toremembr the past have morphed into an inteationl debate about human rights, estituion and ustice epete with NGOs (nongovenmental

organizations extradition equests and posecution acros borders Thisdebate depends on the recognition of specic pasts s much as it is ellyconcened with the futue My hypothesis here is that huma ights activism in the wold today depends very much on the depth and breadth ofmemoy discourses in he public media

And hen here is something ese to conside Howeve dierent themode o medium of commemoaing may be in each loca or egionl cse,

ll such struggles about how to emember a taumatic pst of genocide,acia oppession, and dictaorship play themselves out in the much lageand moe encompassing memoy cultue of this tun of the centu inwhich nationa parimony and heritage industries thive nostlgias of allkins abound, and mythic pst ae being esueced o ceated Memoypoliis indeed seems s much a gobl poject s it is aways oclly o na



Mmo t a add F

tionaly inected. Memoy projecs may construct or rvise nation narratives (South Africa, Argentina, China), but these narratives are now invariaby ocaed in a space somewhere beween the goba and he ocaThis in-between space needs to be studied in its own right The memoypark in Buenos res I want o discuss here is a case in point for a sorcurreny unfoding in Argenina, but being marked by what I woud cin shorhand a traveing crossnational memory discourse

II

Two brief words about my notion of the expanded ed and its

methodoogica impications Memoy sites have been discussed in terms

ofmonuments and countermonumens, memorias and museums ransi�

toy interventions in urban space, pubic art and even marked sites in a

andscape My tie is o course meant to be reminiscen of Rosaind

Krauss's structuraist reading of"Scupture in the Epanded Fied1 That

welknown essay of 1979 was an ambiious attempt to create a theoreica

map or some of the most chaenging scuptura practices of the 960s and

eary 1970s. Whe m observations on the memory park projec n Buenos

Aires and its forma and aesthetic dimensions wi ike Krauss's essay be

concerned with he reationship among scupture archiecture, and and-·

scape I do have something dierent in mind with the noton o the e

panded ed. The epanded eld here not ony referso the art-hstorica

terms structuring Krauss's mode It aso refers to pitic hstory (both in

its impicit tracngs and in is expicit articuation) and thus o empora

it and memor, neither of which was centra o Krauss's work at at

time which was concerned with e logic of scuptura form� Second I woud aso ke to expand on Pierre Noras notion of u

d mm or, ransated as "reams o memory in the American verson.'Certainy, Noras u do have a tempora and historica dimension Forthe ux d mmor emerge ony once coective memoy has ost it

power. Thus Noras approach conveys a romantic sense ofloss and meancholy that I nd counterproductive in the case I am concerned with Forhim the u mmor come into being ony aer the mux mmo at energized an earier socia and cultur ormation have vanishedut as the retreating sea at ow ide eaves isoated shes and rock on thesandy botoms a probematic natur metaphor that Nora actuay shares



Mm o t a xa dd Fd 9

w Habwachs s classa work on olecve memoy. Moe mportantand this is the second point of my variance from Noras otherwse veysuggesive workhis proec of mnemohisto is ndamentay tied o heidea of nationa memoy whereas I am precisey interested in the ways inwhich gobal dimensions intersect with he naiona or the oa in he cnstruction o memo ites in the contemporary word The epanded edI am ting to construct thus invoves the cossng of borders not ony withregard to artistic medium Krauss but aso in reation to geographies, poitic, and he discourses of raumatic memory hemseves Nora) n hisway, e u mmore today unction not ust in an panded ed butin a ed atered by gobaizaion.

(III

So et me briey introduce l Parque de a Memoria in Buenos Ares,or which ground was broken in eary 2001. The proect or this parkemerged in Argentina ou o the intense and ongstanding poitica strug

gle about the fate of the daardo the thirty thousand or so who disappeared before and during the miitay dictatorship o the years 197 to98J. Ever since 9· the pubic proests and weeky demontrations o eMothers and Grandmothers of the aza de Mayo in Buenos Aires havekept the teror of the Argentinean state against its own popuation in thepublic eye Internationa coverage o these protests, beginning with thesoccer wod championshp of 198 has povided a knd of securiy ban

ket at least or some of the protesers during the years of th dictatorshipise. Neither direct threats nor vilicaions o the mothers a the madwomen of the Paa de Mayo (Las joa were abe to distract this group ofcourageous women fom their goa of estabishing what happened to thedisappeared who was responsibe for ther incarceration and death andwho should stand trial or basic human rights vioations.

When civiian rue was reestabished after Argentinas war againstBritain over he Mavinas had gone awy investigative commissions, documentations retroactive aws, and amnesties under presidents Aonsinand Menem in the late 98s and eay 990s attempted to absolve gentinean society fom its responsibiity or the state terror. But neither he1986 aw that became kown a theuoa Ful Stop Law) for initiating new prosecutions nor the 198 law of obda bor Law o Due



Mm it i p Fi

Obedience, nor ven he gener amnes of 1990 ha Menem granted

he members of he various junas ried in 1985 was able o sop he mothers from seeking jusice hrough he cours. For rape, hef, and the lsication of civil satus of he kidnapped children of he disappeared were notcovered under any of hese atemps achieve what enem caled reconciliaion. Thus he paien and persisten work of the mohers and grandmohers o nd he mssng children wih he help of genetic databankhas forced he couny to keep facing he reliy of sate error, and his aemp was heped in 995 by a series of specacular confessions by miiarmen regarding heir own partcpaton n kdnappngs, orture, and muder. Thus neiher he legl conc regarding how and whom to prosecutenor he culura and poliical conic of how o commemorae has everdied down hs even inensed in recen years. Thus whie here havebeen many events over he years such as performances and public demonsraions commemoraing he disappeared, oral histories, tesimonies, andthe inernaionally accaimed lm Th Ocl t he park projec,sponsored by the cit of Buenos res, is one of he rs maor instances inwhch public memo of the error is given permanen shape in an urban

seting in Agenina.A he same ime, here is a global dimension o the local conroversy

about he pas. It is he dscourse abou he Hoocaus and abou Hoo-caus represenaions and memoy ha haunts or shadows the rgentineandebae. The poin is no o compare he Holocaus· he Argentineansae eror agins lefist "subversion, a poiis bon fom the pahologyof he Cold Wa combined wih an ideoloy of purit and cleansing of h

naiona body ha arguerie Feiowiz has receny described in persuasive deail in her book A xic r3 n his conex, one is of coursereminded of the long history of aniSemiism among the Argenineneles; one could menion here ha Argenna seved s haven for Nazislike Eichmann and engee or one could poin o he disproporionaelyhigh number of Argeninean Jews among he disappeared But the relaionship o Holocaus discourse is no by way of comparson of he mili

a dictaorship wih Nazi Germany. t is raher by poducive inscriptionof cerain tropes and images, ehicl and political evaluaions. Here s insome oher cases Holocaus discourse ncions like an inernationaprism ha heps focus the loc discourse abou .parc in bohs egal and is commemoraive aspecs.



Mmy t p 99

Thus from he very beginning of he ocil documentaion of thedrty war waged by the mltary una on ts own populaon, the memoyof he Holocaus has played an imporant role in he Argeninen discourse. The ie of he rs ofcial colection of esimony, published in984 by CONADP, he Agenine Naiona Commission on he Disappeared ws Nunc m Nvr Ai) an eplici and emphaic referenceo Holocaus discourse. The bombing of he sraei embassy in BuenosAis in 1992 and the impac in the folowing year of Seven Spieberg'slm chir Litin rgenina represen oher instnces in which Holocaust memoy made its mark on the nternal Arentinean debae. nd i isno coincidence ha the scholly memory debae emergen since he mid99s has drawn time and again on scholars of he Holocaus and hastaken many of s cues fm the internaonal debae abou Holocaus represenaions and commemoration

Wha mean by productive inscription of Holocaus discourse hen issimpy his: s in Souh fri or gain dierenly in Ausraia, he poiicsof Hoocust commemotion (what o remember, how to remember when

remember), so prominen in he globa media nd in the counries of henorhern transalantic since he 980s, has ncioned like a motor energizing he discourses of memo elswhere ere is reason o wonder wheherwhou he pomnence of Holocaus memoy since he 980s, mos of hememo discourses he wold over woud be wha hey are oday.

Distinctions of couse need to be made bu maybe we should hesiatebefore we lament the relaviaon of he Holocaus when aaches tslf

like a oating signier to hisorially vey dierent siuaions. We shouldlso be awe ha references o he Holocaust may ncion s memoyscreens in radicly opposing ways either enabling a srng memoy discourse and bringing a raumaic pas o light or bocking any suh publicreckoning by insising on he absolue incommensurabiiy of he Holocuswih any oher hisoria case. is the uniqueness argumen itself ha mayncion in a poiially reativiing wayrelaivizin, ha i, atrociies om

mied n he present, posHolocaus world Bosnia R Es Timor).While much of he sruggle for public memoy in genina nowanspires in he cours and focuses on reclaming he idenities of childrenborn in captivity or kdnapped fom heir murdered paens he emergennaion debae abou monumens, museums nd memorial sies i s becoming the errn o� which Agentina grapples wih is ps nd aemps



100 Mm Sits in an pand Fi

o onstruct what Jan smann would call cutural memo. Lega and cutul dimensions of this struggle tus reinforce and need eah other That is why he debate about a memoy park within striking ditance of the inmous ESMA he Mechanil Shool of the Nav and a major torture

hmber dung the diy w c be indissolubly tied to ams articulatedaganst members of he milita in the ourts nd in the public sphere Indeed, therew a debate about ESM itsel whether to erase e building •

entirely a proposal by President Menem that triggered mssive publicprotest ort transform it into a museum of the terror which naturally met wih strong oppositon by the mlitay In the meantme, the Parque de a ·

Memoria gains its symboic weight in the context of ongoing legl>

ru�

' "

and the attempt to articuate a national memoy of state teror At the same :

time, its design itsef speak powerlly to the issue of the sinU!tae}globl nd loa horizon of contemporay memoy culture

IV

an obsever fom a distance and a nonLatin mericanist, I mnot in a posiion to anayze the ocal controversy and public debate about ,

the redsign ofthe cosnea nor te, the north shore ad the universiy

rons where the park is to be built, in all its historicl and political er.·

But a fw things mut be said. The vey poject of the park itself has

become a bone of contention not just, to be pected b\ween the

itay and the regime's victims and their families but amog the oppone1�

ofthat regime themseves who wory hat the park may become justother gure for forgetting Thus some oppose the park project becausewanted to transform the ESMA itsef into a museum of the teror, aposa whose time may come several decades from now at the eariestsurprisingy, he idea w stilborn Others think that the park is tooto the ESMA and wil therefore be shunned by those most

d

i·ec

ly a

<

t

by the teror Yet others gue that projects such as the park or a mSemj

woud take away from the active politia strugge still being waged byMohers and Gadmoters of te Plaza de Mayo. And then there are

for whom even a memoy park is too much memo of the dictalofhi]

;

Clealy, this debate gos t the heart of Agentina's inescapable need o

pubicly wih the egacies of state terrorism during the milita nl<taJoi

a need that s exacerbated by the current nancial and politicl criss



Mm Sits in an Expandd Fild IOI

county. s such the debate about the memory park ha become pat of aomplex oca hist of cover-up nd amnes, pubic potest and ontinuing lega struggle, and he nature of the park and what is to be commemoated in it has itself become a bone of contention

At stake, as always in such ses, is the power of a commemorativesite to keep the s alive opposed to entombing it in he realm of theunspoken of a past that is made to disappea yet once again.

•�Of course, many have written eoquently about the faught questionof how to represent historica trauma, how to nd persuaive means ofpublic remembrance, and how to construct monuments that vade the fateof imminent invisibiliy How can such a monument be made to nctionas part of a nework of urba relations rather than standing disconnectedfom ciy life and ultimately refeing ony to itsel None of the variouanswers suh as countermonuments, transitoy monuments, or disappeang monuments can ly satis. Ultimatey the memoy pak project may

ot satis either, bu the design for the "Monumento a la victimas del' terrorismo de Estado, a proect ofBaudzone Lestd ara Studio and

he sociated achitects Caudio Ferrari and Daniel Becker, does rase a: ew dimension of commemorating national trauma in globa context.Their design model, which won rst priz in a competition of1998, strkes

· me a one of the more interesting and potentially satisfactory solutions tois dicult poblem

Many of the most compelling pojects to nurture and to secure public memoy involve inteventions in urban space This is only naturl, be

cause cities remain the main battleground on which societes aticulate their sense of time past and time present. Once embodied in memoriat sites as active parts within an urban fabric remembrance of traumatic

events seems less susceptbe to the vagaries of memoy Memo thus has chance to inscribe itsef into histo, to be codied into national con sciosness Cities, aer al are pimpsests of histoy, incarnations of ime; n stone, sites of memoy extending both in time and space The creation

·of an urban memoril site to a national trauma such as the Parque de a; eo1ia is a lieu d mmoir in a sense dierent from that advanced by

Nora i is a residue and reminder of a shamel and volent nationlmore in the spirit of Derek Wlcott who wote in his Caibbean epic

the weight ocities that I found so hard to bea in themw the:terror

ofTime By resisting the desire to forget the memorial s a site of



102 m d F

FIGUR 6.1 Mnun the Vs f h Sa Trrr M CusyBauzzn Lar, Varas Su Bun Ars

ineenion in e pesen may become an agen of poliicl ideny oday. Fo memo is always of e pesen even oug is osensible conen is of e ps. Sil one mig ask: ow can ee be a memoy consensus abou a naionl auma a pied e majoity of a sociey againsa elaivey small minoiy dawn fom ll enic and soca backgounds,a divided e naionl body ino pepeaos and vicms, beneciaes

and bysandes? Te ask jus seems oo dauning.Tere ae severl cosely connected reasons wy e pak's design is

so pesusive and moving Te reasons ae topogapic poliical and aeseic, and ey do ve a global dimension

A lready ndiced, e pak is located n e immediate neigbor-



my xdd Fd 3

ood of e ESMA wic seved s a cenl oue cabe of e miliay dicaosip, and c e iver a cies su symbolic nd isoicl signicance fo e ciizens ofuenos Aies Te diiona meaning of e La Pata as source of life is now ovelad y e c e

rive ecame e gve fo undeds of deaad- eay brownopqu ws a symol of e uneievaity of drugged nd torturedbodies dumped from aplanes and swep ou o e sea Sepaed fomte coast road and from a set of universiy bidigs y e srigt ineof a eelined pawy of sbs of coloed concree, e monumen cusdeep ino the elevaed grassy surface of e park a fces e iver in ealf ound is ike wound o sc runs e ful dimeer of eaf circe n zgzag formaion from e sraig line of one wkwy towad noter pved pat tat frames e wole eng of e prk esoe Visiors wil ene e monumen underground from e city sde ofte wl and move roug e gg sucue uni e sie reeses temowd t rvr and t shorene wakway. Te open view oward theive is a key eemen in e desgn wic is classicaly modens in is

geomeric congurion and felciousy mnimaist in ts lack of ornamenaion and monumenal miion I is orougly imued wi anaesec sensiiliy bu neve approaces e risk of aeseicng umaic memo n s syled smplcy of desgn i oes a place of eecion o its istor-reetio on te relationsip betwen river and cityisory nd poics.

Wa I ave descibed as a wound cu ino e ea is famed along

is igag aecoy y fou nonconinuous wls a will cy e naesof te disppeared Te walls made of Paagonian popyry e locaedeac on only one side of e sloping walkway us ceaing pespecivend guiding e gae down e amp ae an focing e visio o eaduning back and fo fom one side o e oe. Te iges elevaionof e acial elevaion is six mees and e lael wlls go down fomfou o one mees in eig Tee will be iy ousand nme plaues

and ey wll be seuenced lpabeiclly nd by ye. Many nae paueswill emain empy, nameless, us commemoaing e violen voidig ofidenity a was e oues' plici goal and a ways peceded dsppeaance. No doub more names will ave o be added in yeas o comeas e documenaion of e sae eo epnds

Tese wals wi ei inscibed nmes wil documen e een of



Mmo t d F

GUR 62 Mnument h Vs he Sa Model Ctesy

Budne esad, Vras Stdi Buns Ares

stte terror nd provide site for mourning boh personl nd fmilial

well s socil nd ntionl Ning nmes is n ge-old nd ve1erabl�;

strtegy of memoriliztion, bu the nming in ts monument is no

he rdition heroic nd mrtyrologicl knd We re not reeJ

o

•

g

eroes of wr or mtyrs for the fthelnd We re remembering studen nd wokers, women nd men, ordiny peope who hd soci vision

odds with h of he ruling elites, the church nd the miliy

shred by mny young people cross he globe t th tme ut th led

imprisonment torture ape, and death only in a few countries of

word. Thus te memoy prk in Buenos Aires is more hn nticma



Mmo a pdd ld 105

nun. i l p f gb lg f 1968, g wi ing d udn in Mxi Ci nd Si inn Clki pp i d nd gi p

v

Ti d dinin f f i puilpud in glb nn f i iu nd d·ign Su i n plii fn 96 n i n dic Hu T r p pn up

gb izn dwing n w np in f ulu

F i nn inidn i in dign n f w n ppl w f uful il i f ndd Ji Muu uil in Bin b Dni iind nd Vin Vn Mi (VVM) dignd b M Lin in Wign Agin pin n u Agninn u wi in w in Vin iil

n idl din nd up din p in iR pwul nn pn up in pi u d Agninn in g nx f nw inninl ulu f nd i nlin in uilding i i nd nun

Tu fu f Libkind uu nd f ini il pppid nd nfd in V nun pi d ra i i n iiin i iu

u n f f ii knwldg w l uul:

plii i iningl nd glbldiiO nd pi Ti wa ld u f 960 iin f

u nd u wld bnd Cld W id wi k ll in uni f un n And i i u gin d

n g in i gliin pdu nw f f lli ill nd iin f n fuu n d b nlibal

idlg nd di iupli M f p p in p f n iginin f n u

Bu l g bk nun dign nd i nne Twi ind d i Bin building "bwn lin.T igg uu f wi Muu i d n

sl ht

in gi u p id ing



06 Memo Sies in an panded Fiel

GUR 63 T Bel Msem wt te Jewh Mse Go planCte B Dae Lbsk

museal space The buldng k to be read "beween he lnes Achec- ·

ture becomes scrpt. Analogously, but qute derently, he Var monu ' ment travees a space beween wo lnes, the stragt lne of the pedestr

pathay separating the monument and the park from the cit and the

round lne that forms the other alkay aong the shore The monument

can then aso be read beteen wo nes, on one sde of whch you have he:

cty and on the other the rver Memo of the dsa pa r ecis ntevenes



Memory ites in an Expanded Fiel 107

FIGR 6.4 Maya Lin, Vienam Veerans Meora, Wngtn Cey

Archtece Slde Libay, Coumbia Uvey

beeen: beteen Buenos Aies and the La Plata ve, but the space beween the ines te memoy space l aays be fragle and depend onepetation It s a space or readng-reading te names on the waland eading te past. Ony en te visto appoaces the ve l eg

biy end he te sense o dsappearance akes ove·

Tee ae no acitectura void n te Vaas design a thee ae n thebesknd budng. The voids o absences ae n the lie o the city and n

o o te ve and hey ae maked on those name plaques that stll···

.

empty The zigzag stuctue te o coue vokes totued dscn tnu. dscontnuous all thn so deent om he contnuous

o Maya Ln's angled als, suggest agmentaton And gven that the�onil t s cu into the eat athe ha sng above t a a buildng t

he addtonl emphatc sense o a ound to the ath o a sc to theo the naton much moe so than te VVM Thee s aothe eso

both te bknd buildng d e Va monument ae to be enm blowdescent nto the undeold the wold o specte o

memoes that need to be peseed t secue the contnu adf-



ro8 Mem o Stes a Epaded Fe

FIGUR 6.5 T wih Mum (1999). Couey BUr Dane Lekd

t of ocl l. lo d an nv b rd, t ond llnot l, bt t onnt povd pac fo t knd of cto.ay to go on lvng and to fd t docratc pb pt

onc t t V.V. a qly pol Bot ol a blo fa lvl tog t aya Ln trt n t plopn-angld topogapy do not qt ggt t volaton of a odo portat bot fat ll t nrbd na at llofo pronl and natonl ong In bot vtor a to lk long ttajctoy of t all tat boe a pa fo contplaton, prappryr. It an to b tr t onnt n Bno llgv to t knd of ovng poplar daton t VV.t y br dpotng or pctr, lt ad andl r t na of to o lot tr lv n an tatly tl Cold War ntrp gon ary a a tat dd at abot t a t tat t A-

gntnan ltary bgan do capagn of natonl pcaoand poltl canng

Fnally, anot parlll lnk t Pa d a oa to t J n Brln and t oal n Wngton l tr prot



Memory e in an Eanded Feld 9

nt trog xrcatgl otv dbats ad draot pbl ontovy a plannng tag. n Wangton dbat d to a doaddton to Ln' nal and powly actv ok a blnt gatv lp pad on a pdal a ntan o V.V.. a obvoly at t o adoal xptato o a wa oal. nBln i oo ay o tl ow conly wi il nton ft and t oovy ov o to l xbton al til n l wig. Only w l ow Monueto a la Vad oo d Eado w b acptd and d by pb. log I dont Jam Young's hyprbolic agnt ha an b of ay onn o oal pot ay b pl dba t na ag at cpbl dbat an nta coponntof fo any oa pot o a od pb p andto bco pa of a oa and polal agnay ubonnt ntnnt ta t t bolvad and pbic pa of ciy of Bno A a ofo Eopan ct nd as t ta novt Rob o ad at notng ay b s n

vbl a onnt. Wat l ad n nd, tog gatvclpt o a pdt at old pact, ov, bn rplad byt pfd contcton of ory t n t pndd ld a obn clpt landcapng, actctr ad dgn and r ncopoato nto an ban fabr tt appl fol ontrcton ad pav xton ra t qa non fo a oy t to anta avbl prn n t ban pb p. o Vaa pro

ll to ta. B t l b p to gntan pbl to bact and to a lll ltat ppo.



Doris Salcedo's Memory Sculpture

Unlnd: he Ophan' Tunic

A strange lotn wapalpably pnt, mostyou wouldhav id.

-Paul Clan

rc yar hr b h urprg mrgc pom-mal ar of wha would avly call mmory culpur: a kd ofculpur ha o crd o paal cogurao alo bu ha pow-rfully crb a dmo of locazabl v corporal mmoy oh work Th a arc pracc ha rma clarly dc from hmoum or h mmoral plac h muum or h gallyrahr ha publc pac. addr h dvdual bholdr rahrha h ao or h commuy hadlg of maral ad o�

cp rla o a pcc rado of allao ar ad mphacrlac o a xpral dmo much l cod by grccovo ha hr h moum or h mmoral would b Moum arcula ocl mmory ad hr fa vably o b oppldor o bcom vbl Lvd mmory o h ohr had alway locad dvdual bod hr xprc ad hr pa v wh volvcollcv polcal or graoal mmory. Acpag rud Nz-

ch ackowldgd ha mpl fac wh h ad "ly ha whch doo ca o hur rma mmory Sculpur xpadd oward allao ad corporag mmory rac rl o h rado of h



Doris Saedo' Memory Sre

culpd huma body h work quo howvr h humabody vr forgo hough u a ab ad luv a wouldb ay mmoy of h pa

Sculpur by ar uch a Mrolav Balka from Polad la

abakow from Rua Rachl hrad from glad Vva Sudaramfrom da or Dor Salcdo from Colomba hu prform a kd of mm-ory work ha acva body pac ad mporaly mar ad maga-o prc ad abc a complx rlaohp wh hr bholdrThr hr prc courac our culur rumphalm abou mdamag ad lcroc mmaralzao vrual pac ad hy pakcompllgly o h cocr wh mmory ad abc ha hav mrgd

doma h pa dcad or wo h work h maral obc vr u lao or culpur h radoal bu workd uch a way ha arcula mmoy a a dplacg of pa opr org a rac of a pa ha ca b xprcd ad rad by hvwr hu op up a xdd mpac challgg h vwr omov byod h marl prc of h culpur h muum ad or o dalogu wh h mpor d horcal dmo mplc h work A h am m h culpur do o fall for h dluo of

auhcy or pur prc h u of o old or dcardd) mar-al ad hr arragm hy dplay a awar ha all mmoy r-collco rprao oppod o much avagard arc prac-c h cury h h kd of work o rgzd by h oo offorgg mporal bly dcddly poavagard far ooly h raur of a pcc proal or polcal) pa ha may of courvary from ar o ar rahr work aga h raur of pa lf

whch projc rma dolubly lkd o h maraly ofhg ad bod m ad pac would lk o ugg ha h varouform of mporal ad paal dplacm h culpur of ucha Salcdo Sudaram Balka ad Whrad mark a pcc plac hbroadr culur of h 990 a culur ha would b frvolou ad ma-gl o cl popomodr bu ha vrhl gcaly dr from h pomodrm of h 90 ad 98 Th o o ay ha

uch mmoy culpur ar omhow xprv of om ud oalzg Zeiet; dp a hard pommal laguag h work a oodr rm of h polc hor ad local ha gav r ohm o ugg howvr ha hy ar par of a largr problmac



Dori Saedo Memo Scuture

FIU 7 Dos Sao Unnd The Orphan' Tn (997 Cousy:Dos Sao

whih is the restrtrig of the sese of spae ad time i or age of massmedia yberspae ad obalizatio Respetig the speiity of eah idivid artists work this essay foses oy o oe otstadig example ofwhat all memory slptre a work by Doris Saledo

he work is oe of three i a series of slptres etited nnd7), ad rst exhibited far from their pae of origi i the New sem i New York City i 18 f the ad is the site of life and tre ofommity ad atio the "lad wold be its radial egatio apoeti eologism it impiitly retrats he promises otaied i its igisti k "topia the opae of a imagied erative ftre hs farfrom embodyig the imagiatio of aother ad better word ad is theobverse of topia a ad where eve "orma ife with l its otraditios pais ad promises happiess ad miseries has beome ivabea artist workig i a oty that is beig tor apart by a selfperpetatig

ye of vioee ad lawlessess Saledo eaves o dobt as to the idetityof this lad that seres as her meaholy ispiratio t is her homeladCoombia



Doi Sacedo' Memo Scuture I3

f sh a readig of the work's tile sggests a expiit ad straightforward poitial art pratie othig old be rther from the trth Sal-edos slptre aptres the viewers imagiatio i its expeted hatig visa ad material presee i a way that does ot easiy reate o its

mysterios tite ad sbtite nnd The Ohan Tunic he hatig ef-fet is ot there at rst sight as the viewer approahes what from a distaelooks ike a simpe remarkable tabe with some eve srfaes t omesbelatedy nachrich, as Fred wold say t deepes as the viewer egageswith the work he mted bt expressive power of this sptre growsslowly it depeds o dratio o sstaied otemplatio o visa igisti ad politial assoiatios wove togeher ito a dese textre of -

derstadig d it raises the qestio of sptre as material obet iovel ways that sidestep the mh debated isses of abstratio vs gra-tio obethoo vs theatriaizatio plasti atio or istllatio

f assial sptre aptres the saiet momet or rystaizes aidea or idel form from the ow of time the Saedos memory slptreoks itsef oy withi the ow of ime bease temporality itsef is isribed ito the work t dramatizes its materials yet holds o to a em-phati otio of work obet slptre rather tha dissolvig work ito

performae t embodies a expaded temporality ad as obet it performs the proess of memory The Ohan Tuni is obet trov kithetable sed ad absed material reside ad witess he obet that appears simple ad assmig at rst sight begis to ome alive po oserispetio ts omplexi has as mh to do with »hat is there before thespetaor's eyes as with what is abse hat whih is heimih ad famiiar the everyday piee of fritre beomes unheimich, ay bt the

homely is both presered ad deied i the unheimich, st as ad is ithe Ceaispired tie of d For oe realizes that what looked likeoe tabe with dieret level srfaes is ataly made p of o tabes ofdieret legth widh ad height violety ammed ito eah othe thesmaer somewhat wider ad higher table shiig i a whitish miosgray the oger tabe dark brow with blakeed marks of heavy se

Both tables are mtilated Where they ash ad are moted ito

eah other the ier wo sets of legs are broke os the spetators gaze sas the srfae the whitish shie reveas itsef to be a silk overig the ti very thi atral silk that overs thesrfae ad rs dow the side boards ad overs the wo remaiig egs



Il4 Dois Saedo' Memor Scutue

FGU 7 Dors Sedo Unlnd The Orphan Tunic (detal r).

Couesy Doris Slcedo.

The silk is so thin that the eye is dawn to the cacks visible undeneath, gaps between the ve wooden boads that make up the tablesathe ough suface, and othe smalle cacks and gouges attibutabe tothe tabes fome use. The sik fays ove the gap between the middleboads, suggesting pehaps that the tabe is stil expanding, and it fodsinto some of the smale cacks as if it wee gowing into them, attaching

itself ike a potective skin to the unevenness of the wood. Examinng thesuface of this table is like looking at the pam of a hand with its lines,fods, and winkles The effect is coseness intimacy, and at the same timea sense of fagiity and vuneabiiy that contasts with the studiness ofthe wooden table. Suddenly the tabe appeas to be no moe than a tacea mute tace. But a tace that has now been so heaviy woked ove by theatist that it has acquied a poweful anguage. It speaks a anguage that isaesthetically compex without being aestheticizing and subty poiticalwithout esoting to a diect message.

Sacedos wok on the homeiness of the kitchen tabe that has be



Dois Salcedo' Memoy Scutue l5

come the uncanny is not tied to individual psychoogy, no ae we meeydealing with a negative aesthetic in an Adonean o avantgardist sense ofdistoion o defamiiaization At sake is athe he conscious atistictanslation of a national pathology of vioence into a scuptue hat aticu

lates pain and deance by bearing witness The wok is not simpy thee asobject in the pesent, even though it is very much ofthe pesent It leadsthe viewe back to some othe time and space that is absent, yet subty inscibed into the wok: Celans stange ostness that is papably pesent"Dois Sacedo's at is the at of the wtness, the atist as seconday witnessto be pecise, the witness to ives and ife stoies of people foeve scaedby the expeience of vioence that keeps destoying family, community, na-

tion, and ultimatey the human spiit itself.Fo some yeas now, Slcedo h taveed the land, seaching out andistening to the stoies of people who have witnessed and suvived gatu

FIGUR 7-3 Dors Sedo, Unlnd: The Ohan' Tunic (detail 2)Courtsy Dors Sedo



8 ois Sacedo Memo Sutue

bee muaed No he eas of he vaous muaos ae he housadsof hoes ded hough he suface wh a d b befoe he ha coudbe sched hough The vey dea of he pasag abo voved gvesoe pause Wha a uey absud acvy, schg ha, ad os of ,

hough a woode suface Bu s oy absud? O s pehaps aso aac of medg? If he abe sads fo commuy, famy, fe s em-poa exeso, he he schg of ha, he ogac ace f a humabody, of he vcm of voece, hough he abes suface s e heheadg of pa ad s memoes hough he suface of hsoy

Bu pehaps he mos sug pa of he scupue s he hc badof ha ha oos as f wove acoss he abe jus a he heshod beweehe s uc ad he bae suface of he bow abe Hee he uc appeas sched dow ad hed dow by he ha, secued paceha,s, exue, body, a come desey ogehe hs pa of he scupueI s cose o whee he wo abes ae ammed o each ohe, cose owhee he fou mdde egs have bee boe off, he heshod ha maeshe abe sucue oo vueabe Hee mgh cave f pessue weeapped fom above Ad pecsey hs euous heshod seems foedby he bad of ha, desey wove fom oe sde of he abe acoss o he

ohe sde ad dow o he sde I mas he ed of he uc o oe sde,he ed of he bae bow suface o he ohe; becomes hc exueHa appeas hee as povdg segh, whe he abe seems vueabea magave evesa of he basc aue of he maeas Howeve ab-sud hs poec of schg ha hough wood s, aso has a a of de-ace dees he mpacaby of he wood, bu aso dees he absudy ad gauousess of voece Coomba

Le a of Sacedos wo, Te Opan Tunic s abou memy ahe edge of a abyss I s abou memoy he el sese, boh he coe of specc memoes of voe acs ad memoy as pocess ad assucue as he wo ees o daogue wh he vewe Ad s aboumemoy a spaa sese, appoxmag , eve que geg o , com-peg he vewe o evae somehg ha emas eusve, absehe voe deah of he mohe ha e he chd ophaed, he ophapese oy ha esdua uc, whch ow seems moe e a shoud

coveg pa of he abe Foeve abse ae he commua o famyeves ha oo pace aoud hs abe, he chas, he peope, he foodad d seved hee If he peope, especay he dgeous peope, be



ois Sacedo' Memoy Scutue 9

og o he ad, as Sacedo has suggesed oe of he ae eews,he Unndmas he absece of he peope fom he commua se Bu s a oced absece acheved hough deah ad dspaceme

If Unnd Te Oan Tuni s adequaey see as a memoy scup-

ue, evaby he queso w ase wha of hope, wha of edempo?Ad wha d of a pocs of memoy, f ay, does Sacedos asc pac-ce mpy? Cealy, he wo dees a pocs of edempo, ad suggessdeace a eve boade sese: deace s of ay dec epeseaoof a sefpepeuag voece woud be oo egmzg o ca poca;deace aso of a ceasgy specaculazed cuue of memoy ad sobsesso wh pubc ses of commemoao, moumes, ad memo

as Sacedo ows how pubc moumes ad memoas ae boud oseve as cphes of fogeg hough aesheczao o dec pocacomme He wo does o us mechasms of pubc memoy, whe ahe same me despeaey deses o uue such memoy Ths s hemm hope he wo does sugges Scupu fom, ahe ha moume o memoa, he wo addesses he dvdua specao, scbes scompex message, ad eaves he specao moved by he memoy of a pow-e mage Bu he eay of vioncia, we ow, coues uabaedThee s o ed sgh fo he cyce of voece ha feeds o sef Coomba, e Choos devoug hs ow chde ee myh

Fay, hee s Sacedos deaceo shoud oe say ovecomgof he always pese dage of aesheczao, due pmay o he use ofsmpe, eveyday obecs ad maeas Ad ye, eve f ou gaze s o a-esed aeshec peasue, Unnd Te Oan Tunic haus us scompeg beauy ohe successl asc wo acuag hso-

ca auma uque meda ad maeas, Sacedos scupue moves hespecao o he edge of a abyss oy hy veed by he beauy of hepece sef The ve, howeve, s dspesabe fo us o come face o facewh he auma ad o become wesses of a hsoy we mus o goe

emoy scupues such as he oes by Dos Sacedo ae cueybeg poduced may dee paces he wold Ida ad SouhAfca, he coues of he fome Sove boc ad La Ameca

The wos may be ueced ad coded o vag degees by he Wesea sysem, whch s sef becomg goba, bu he scbed ados admemoes w be vaaby ocl ad spaceboud, chaegg he behode o egage wh hem The demse of he uomeca mode pv



120 Dois Sae Memo Scutue

egng he laes avangade acualy facaes a hybd egng of deen es and deen spaces n asc pacces and he ecepon Thegeogaphc and epoal splneng of conepoay a wl of cousegeneae pobes ofegbly when such wos ae hen exhbed n ohe

places ha have ohe hsoes u hen a has always neaced benecly wh ways of eadng, coenay, and nepeaon ha coud be-coe geneave of he specao's dalogue wh he wok Readng n agobalzng culue eques new slls and new knowedge, and woks suchas Slcedos fose a dogue beyond he fones of Wesen a.

u apa fo he nvaably specc hsoes, locaes, and copo-eal eoes ha he woks ask he behode o ace, as a edu by -self eoy sculpue asses he need fo a sowdown, and deandsecognon of he basc ae of eveyday fe. scupue nsss onhe nsupeable aealy of he wod, of objecs as wel as of bodes snscpons of e and dspaceens of space need o be ead paeny.They ae usualy no o be found on he suface, n he way of docuen-ay o pocally expc a. Ths copcaes ecepon. The vewe ayhave o ely as uch on assocaon, analogy, nneaon of he wok as onexplanaons ha ay o ay no be oeed wh capons, caalogues and

evews. Paly, of couse, he ass wl wan o ge o he agnaonof he vewe hough he anguage of he aeas, he suggesveness ofangs, he uses of space and conguaon. f he wok s successful nengagng he aenveness of he beholde, f suggess eanng ye efuses easy consupon, f yeds peasue n s aeshec conguaonwhou denyng cognve gan, hen does s ob. woks agans hesucues of fogeness n ou conepoay wold, whehe such fogefulness s enfoced by a ay sae and s syse of dsappeang

people (Salcedo, ggeed by he ansfoaon of a foely counssocey n whch publc and pvae eebance and fogeng aehown no uol (alka o Kabakow, o sply bough abou by heplanned obsoescence of obecs (and peope? n he consues of ouown Wesen socees Such a also coness he danng of space ande n hypespace. nuues he basc huan need o ve n exendedsucues of epoay and n ecognzable space, howeve hey ay be

oganzed. And enches he beholde by dawng us no s sow wokon he ndssolube eaonshp aong space, eoy, and bodly expeence. Lus uuel once sad You have o begn o lose you eoy, f



Dois Sacedo Memo Scuue 121

only n bs and peces, o elze ha eoy s wha akes ou lves.The a of Dos Sacedo and ohes wokng on eoy and space nscupue and nslaons heps us no o foge ha and, pehaps, o lookwh fesh eyes a he way we ouseves negoae space and eoy n ou

own eveyday lves.



Of Mie and Mimesis Reading Spiegeman with Adorno

I s bcomng h ElWs of h comc book

At Sglman

Since he 980s he quesion no longer is whh bu raher how orepresen he Holocaus in lieraure lm and he visual ars. The earlierconvicion abou he essenia unrepresenabiliy of he Holocaus ypi�

cally grounded in Adorno's famous saemen abou he barbarism of po�ery aer Auschwiz and sill powerful in some circles oday hs los muchof is persuasiveness for laer generaions who now of he Holocaus onlyhrough represenaions o begin wih: phoos and lms documenariesesimonies hisoriography and cion. Given he ood of Holocaus rep�resenaions in all manner of media oday i would be sheer volunarismo sick wih Adornos aesheic requiremen of a ban on images ha rans�laes a heological concep ino a very specic ind of modernis aesheic

I seems much more promising o approach he issue of Holocaus repre�senaions hrough anoher concep ha holds a key place in Adornoshough a of mimesis

In his recenly published book eniled In h Shaw of CaophGman Inua bwn Apoaps and Enlihnmn, nson Rabinbach has persuasively shown how Adorno's undersanding of Nazi ani�Semiism is energized by his heory of mimesis. More imporan howeverhe has linked Adorno's discussion of he role of mimesis in ani�Semiismo Hokeimer and Adorno's hisorical and philosophical reecions onmimesis as par of he evoluion of signiing sysems as hey are elabo



Of Mi and Mimsis 123

raed in he rs chaper of he Diali of Enlihnmn HereHorkheimer and Adorno discuss mimesis in is rue and repressed formsis role in he process of civilizaion and is paradoxic relaionship o heBivbo he prohibiion of graven images A he same ime he con

cep of mimesis in Adorno (and ake i ha Adorno raher hanHorkheimer was he driving force in ariculaing his concep in he coauhoed work) is no easily dened as severa recen sudies have shown.I acually ncions more like a pimpses in ha i parakes in a leas vedieren ye overlapping discursive regisers in he ex �rs in relaion ohe criique of he commodiy form is powers of reicaion and decepion a horoughly negaive form of mimesis (Mimsis ans h sec-

ond in relaion o he anhropologicl grounding of human naure ha asAdorno insiss in Minima Moaa is indissolubly linked o imiaion;hird in a biological somaic sense geared oward surival as Adorno hadencounered i in Roger Caillois' s work some of which he reviewed for heZish Soziashun four in he sense of idenicaion andprojecion indebed o Freud's m and boo and las in an aesheicsense and wih srong resonances of Benjamin's lnguage heory in relaiono he role of word and image in he evoluion of signiing sysems I is

precisely his mulivlence of mimesi I would argue ha makes he concep producive for conemporay debaes abou memory rauma and represenaion in he public ream Thus i is more han merely a paradox hamimesis seres Adorno o read Nazi aniSemiism whereas i seres me oundersand he ehics and aesheics of approaching Holocaus memory inour ime

n his essay hen I will focus on one specic aspec of memory dis

course namely he vexing issue of in Timohy Garon Ashs succincwords) if how and when o represen hisorical rauma My exampe forhe reresenaion of hisorical rauma is he Holocaus a opic on whichas aready indicaed Adorno had provocaive hings o say ahough henever said quie enough abou i Bu he issues raised in his essay perainas much o oher insances of hisorical rauma and heir represenaion:wheer we hink of he dsapaidos in Argnina Guaemala or Chile

he solen generaion in Ausralia or he posaparheid debaes in Souhricain all hese ces issues of how o documen how o represen andhow o view and lisen o esimony abou a raumaic pas have powerlly emerged in he public domain



128 Of Mice and Mimesis

momen of unadueraed despar a dsrups e norma frame of eneewng rocess e quesonng and answerng bckerng and gngbeeen faer and son. Tese pages gve esmony of e emoon breakdown of boh faer and son a Ajas bur: n As case s overad by a

knd of suvor gu n e second degree once removed rom e orgnarauma of s parens. Te memores o Auscwz do no ony cam jaey aso enveop e son born years aer e war. Tus A draws msefrougou s epsode n srped Auscwz prsoner garb wc gves asurrea quay o ese sarky execued woodcuke groesque mages Ins momen of secondary Hoocaus rauma Spegem performs a knd ofsaa mmess of dea n e sense of oger aoss work of e 930swc Adorno read and commened on crcy n s corresondence wenjamn Spegeman performs a compsve magna mmess ofAuscwz as a sace of mprsonmen and murder a mmess owever nwc e vcm e moer becomes a perperaor we e rea erperaors ave vansed. Tus a e end of s raw and parayzng passageA ncarceraed bend magnay bars reproaces s moer for avngcommed e erfec crme: You u me ere . . sored a my crcus . . . cu my nee endngs and crossed my wres . IYou MU

DD me Mommy and you e me ere o ake e rap!!! (I103) Tedrawngs re expressons e ex crude oug n a ceran sense "auenc bu s easy o see a Spegemans comc woud ave urned nodsaser ad e cosen e mage and anguage mode of "Prsoner for eaer work. I coud ony ave urned no psycocomksc Spegemandd need a deren more esrangng mode of narrave and gurave represenaon o overcome e parayzng effecs of a mmess of memoyerror He needed a pcor sraegy a woud manan e enson beween e overemng reay of e remembered evens and e enuousways eusve saus of memoy se£ u as an nser n Maus ese pagesfuncon as a remnder abou e represenaona dfcues of eng aoocaus or posHoocaus soy n e form of he comc. u ey asopowerfuy supor Spegemans srae o use anm magey n e aeronger work Te coce of medum e anma comc s us sefconscousy enaced and used n e narrave sef. Drawng e soy of

s parens d e Hoocaus s an anma comc s e Odyssean cunnnga aows Spegeman o escape from e error o memoyven posmemory n Maranne Hrscs sensewe mmecay reenacng



Of Mice and Mimesis 29

u e queson ngers. Wa do we make of he ngusc nd cora punnng of Maus Mauscwz and e asks n reaon ommess Te decson o e e sory of Germans and ews as a soy ofcas and mce as predaors and prey soud no be msread as a nauraza

on of sory as some ave done. Spegeman s no e Godagen o ecomc book. Aer a e comc does no preend o be soy More serous mg be anoer objecon: Spegemans mage sraeges probemacay reproduce e Naz mage o e ew as vermn as roden, asmouse u s smpy a mmcy of racs magery And even f mmcrydoes mmcry o racsm nvaraby mpy s reproducon or can sucmmcry sef open up a gap a derence a depends on wo performse mmng and ow Mmess aer a s based on smude as mkngsmar (Aneichun n Adornos ermnoogy) e producon of "esame bu no que as om aba descrbes n anoer conexAnd Aneichun mpes dfference. Tus Spegeman msef draws ereaders aenon o s conscous mmec adopon of s magey Tevery op of Maus Is copyrg page feaures a Her quoe "Te ews areundoubedy a race bu ey are no uman And Maus II rg afer ecopyrg page begns w a moo aken from a Pomeranan newspaper

arce from e md930sMiky Mous is th most msab ia . . Hthy motios ty it you ma a y hoorab youth that th ry a tho mi th atst batia a th m kom aot tha ty of aim Away wth Jwsh brutizatio o th o! Dow withMky Mous Wa th Swastika Coss

Maus us gves copyrg were s due Adof Her and e Nzsu a may s no be enoug as an swer o e objecon More

cruca s e way n wc e mmess of anSemc magery s andedHere woud be enoug o compare Spegemans work w e 190N propaganda move The erna jew wc porrayed e ewsword conspracy s e nvasve mgraon of paguecaryng swarms ofrodens wo desroy eveyng n er a. Suc a comarson makes cear ow Segemans mmec adoon of Naz magery acuay suc

ceeds n reversng s mpcaons we smuaneousy keepng us awareo e umaon and degradaon of a mageys orgn nenon.Insead of e er represenaon of desrucve vermn we see persecued e anms drawn w a uman body and wearng uman coes



4 Of Mice and Miesi

how beyond the mutipy fractured ayering of anguage and narativetime, the vey pictoriaity of the anima comic is signicanty disrupted aswe We see Art in proe, sitting at his drawing tabe, but now drawn sa human gure wearing a mouse mask It is as if the image track coud no

onger sustain itsef, as if it had coapsed under its own weight Artie'smimicy reveals itsef to be a sham The mask reveas the imits of his pro-ject The ruse doesn't work any onger The task of representing time inAuschwitz itsef, ust begun in the preceding chapter, has reached a crisispoint This crisis in the creative process is teingy connected with thecommerci success ofMaus I: the Hoocaust as part of the cuture indus-try Crisis of representation and crisis of success throw the author into adepressive meanchoy state in which he resists the marketing of his work(transations, m version,T through a t of tota regression He avoidsthe annoying questions of the media sharks such as: What is the messageof your book? Why shoud younger Germans today fee guity? Howwoud you draw the Israeis? II42) by iteray shrinking in his chair fromframe to frame unti we see a sma chid screaming I want I want my Mommy! II42) The pressures of historical memory are ony inten-sied by Hoocaust marketing, to the point where the artist refuses any

further communication The cuture industrys obsession with the Hoocaust almost succeeds in shutting down Spiegelman's quest The desire fora regression to chidhood, as represented in this sequence, however, is notony an attempt to cope with the consequences of commercia success andto avoid the media This moment of extreme crisis, as cose as any in thework to traumatic sience and refusal to speak, aso anticipates somethingof the vey ending ofMaus II

On the vey ast page of Maus II, as Vadeks story has caught upwith his postwar reunication with Anja, ironicay described by Vadek inHoywood terms as a happy ending and visuay rendered as the irisikefadeout at the end of sient ms, Artie is again put in the position of achid27 In a case of mistaken identity resuting from a merging of past andpresent in his father's mind, Vladek addresses Artie as chieu Arties ownoder brother who did not surive the war, whose ony remaining photohad aways stared at him reproachfuy during his chidhood from the par-

ents' bedroom wa, and to whom Maus II is dedicated A Vadek asksAtie to turn o his tape recorder and turns over in his bed to go o seep,he says to Artie Im tired from takng, Rchieu, and its enough stories



Of Mice and Mimesis 135

for now . II :36) This misrecognition o f Artie as Rchieu is hghyambiguous it is as if the dead chid had come alive again, but simutane-ousy the traumatic past proves its deady grip over the present one asttime For these are the ast words a dying Vadek addresses to rtie Ths

ast frame of the comic is foowed ony by an image of a gravestone withVadek's and Anjas names and dates inscribed and, at the very bottom ofthe page and beow the gravestone, by the signature "art spiegeman197899, years that mark the ong traectory of Spiegeman's proect ofapproaching an experience that ultimatey remains beyond reach

Much more coud be said about Spiegemans mimetic memory pro-ject, but I hope to have made the case that the Adornean categoy of

mimesis can be made productive in a reading of Hoocaust remembrancein such a way that the debate about the proper or correct Hoocaust repre-sentation, whie perhaps never irreevant, can be bracketed and the criteriaof judgment shifted If mimetic approximation, drawing on a variety ofknowedges historica, autobiographic, testimonia, iterary, musea), wereto emerge as a key concern, then one coud ook at other Hoocaust representations through this prism rather than trying to construct a Hoocaustcanon based on narrow aesthetic categories pitting the unrepresentabe

against aestheticization, or modernism against mass cuture, memoryagainst forgetting This might open up a ed of discussion more produc-tive than the rituaistic incantations of Adorno regarding the cuture in-dustry or the barbarity of poety after Auschwitz

A a work by a member of the econd generation, Maus may marka shi in the ways in which the Hoocaust and its remembrance are nowrepresented It is part of a body of newer, "seconday attempts to com-

memorate the Hoocaust whie simutaneousy incorporating the critiqueof representation and staying cear o ocia Hoocaust memoy and itsrituas I have tried to show how Spiegeman confronts the inauthenticityof representation within a mass cuura genre whie at the same timeteing an autobiographic stoy and achieving a power eect of au then�tication Like many other works of m, scupture, monuments, iterature,theater, even architecture, Spiegeman rejects any metaanguage of sym-

boization and meaning, whether it be the ofcia anguage of Hoocaustmemorias or the discourse that insists on thinkng of Auschwitz as a teosof modernity. The approach to Hooaust history is sought in an intenseypersona, experiential dimension that nds expression in a whoe variety of



Rewiins and New Beinnins W. G. Sebad and the

Lieatue on the Wa

he poltca dvde of 989 nevtaby rases the queston how German terature has been aected after the fall of the Wall. he questonwhat remas artculated by Chrsta Wof n her controversal book bleibt, publshed n 990 nevtably rases the other queston of what has

changed on the German lterary scene n the 1990s But t also compes usto reconsder the whole course of postwar German terature snce 194 nthe lght of uncaton Change nevtably ponts to erosons to forgettngeven to endngs as t ponts sometmes to new begnnngs he phrase beibt (what remans) carres al these connotatons fadng resdue stable and shftng canon and new departure

We l remember the longng for new begnnngs at the tme of un-caton. he feuletons conured up new begnnngs n lterature m the

vsua arts and ntelectual fe oday such memores are ust hatmem-ores en yers aer those ntene and ehlaratng tmes t seems to memore sense to ask whether ths desre for ways new begnnng snt asmuch of a problem as the pralle desre for the stably of a cnon er althe ongng for new departures has long snce been the p sde of the desrefor that whch remans one of the permanent tures t seems of the culture of moderny snce Romantcsm nd yet n postfascst Germany the

desre for new begnnngs has aways taken on very specc connotatonsCleary potcal uncaton n 1990 dd not produce a vbrant upsurge n terature and the arts nor w t ever plausble to assume that the



Rewriting and New Beginnings 139

return to natonal uny woud produce anythng surprsngy new n lter-ature and the arts to begn wth Only at great per to each have pol andaesthecs ever marched n ockstep and today the naton no longer provdes the prmary nurturng and securng frame for lterature that t dd

provde at an earer tme a result some have begun to lament the decne of German terature generally hus engagng n a dscourse of culturaoss that has ts own deep hstory Others wll happly forget terature andceebrate the new meda nstead I wl do nether but wl focus on the desre tsef for repeated new begnnngs a pecular German repetton compuson of the postfascst decades that s only now comng nto fuler vew

More than a decade aer the fl of the Bern Wal and the coapse

of the ovet Unon we may ndeed want to consder how these eventsmay force us to reassess the ed of post1945 German terature and culturefrom todays perspectve uch reassessment was at ste n the ChrstaWof debate of 990 wth ts crtca broadsdes not ust aganst Wof butaganst the Gruppe 47 and the chershed noton of a littrare engage 1nce then the attempt to recode the terary and hstorcal past n servceto the present has wtnessed further dscursve eruptons such as the onetrggered by Botho trauss wth hs essay nschwelender Bocsgesang n

992 r by Martn Wlsers 1998 speech n the Frankrt aulskrche andby the clams he made for the nnocence of hs generatons Na chldhoodn the nove Ein pringender Brnnen But every one of these debates haremaned mred n scanda and n the cutural poltcs of the day The Ger-man desre for new begnnngs tself however has not receved much sus-taned attenton even though the hstorcal watershed of 98990 now offers nterestng ponts of comparson wth other key moments of the

postwar perod.n ths essay I rst suggest some of the probems any such broader

reassessment of postwar German terature wl encounter n the contet ofpostuncaton culturl potcs econd I draw on W G ebds bookength essay Lkrieg nd Literatr ( The Air r and Literatre 999)whch lends tsef partcularly wel to a focus on the obsesson wth endngsand new begnnngs that pecular structure of repetton n postwar Ger

m terature and culture at largeo focus on the repetton entaed n new begnnngs s not to denyteray evouton and change snce 94 Rather t s to counter an approach to lterary hstory that operates wth stabe and bounded terrtora



Rwriting an Nw Bginning

niis and fws dy cngy f dcads and gnains,us bcking fm viw muip wiings and cssxua ainsa a pa and pac f ag isica fam f pswa Gmancuu. Uimay, my ading f bad is man as a cas sud f w

wiing f a iay and isica pas sinc 194 is id a sucuf naina mmy a scs acss gnains and dcads

Rcongrng Ltar Htor: Roraton v. 1

Fis, n, sm cmmns n issu f cnguing pswaGman iau Alug isy f Gman iau, Eas and

Ws as bn win and appas faiy sab in is gna uins, inpain f a isy mains vy muc cnsd. Unicainas iggd a wa f inpains a is ngid by sva fms fmymaking and mmy piics gading n jus 1990s bu ay pswa dcads msvs in ain psn Tis is, fcus, n ny a qusin f iay isy

T fac a 198990 psns suc a cnvnin mak f csu pswa iay dvpmns sud b cnsidd a pbm

a an cu f iay isy F w nw av an a cnvnin and gical bck naaiv Gman iau fm 194 1990, fm capiuain/ibain via dividd nain naina unicain Of cus, was ai discussin f n, w, vn fuGman iaus iau win in Gman; Eas Gman iauand Gman iau win in Ws Ws Gman, Eas Gman,Ausian, and wiss iaus T als a wsabisd subdivisins

by mpa maks suc as 19449, 19499/61 68, 196889. Bun suc mak as bcm a maj bn f cnnin in Gmany incn yas 1968 T pubic dba abu gacis f 1968, n dubxacbad by pximiy f ii annivsay f 1968 in 1998and, in 1999, i annivsay f funding f Fda R ·

pubic isf, as ad is iayisica snancs wi ambiius1998 annivsay xibi a naina iau aciv in abac, nid Prot! itraur um 6

Biy, issu is is T 1990s av winssd an innsid amp giv a m psiiv spin ay pswa yas and Ad-nau cancsip Tis viw clngs ib cnsnsus f



Rwriting an Nw Bginning

pvius dcads a 190s w a id f sain. T vuain f ay yas f Fda Rpubic f Gmany (FRG), ui-may in nam f a aciv nmaliain, is ca Adnau yas fm fu d f sain pac Bu is iddn

agnda is dny a 1968 payd a maj in cuual, iay, andpiica dvpmn f pswa Gman dmcacy T is ningwng wi dismaning cain mys abu 1968, bu n if ny su is pacmn f n my by n

ympmaic f is ndncy is a sim bk f iay ciicismpubisd in 1997 and did by W Ea and Dik Nifang, nid Zwi Wnzitn: Blick au i utch itrar un .

T ad ssay by Hmu Kis, w as cnibud a ma ssay caagu f abac sw n iau f 1968, ppss a cncp f a sain pid in FRG was puy a iay invnin, a an a isic aiy6 Ks amns inging c fis cncp amng s ay isians w main icn auwy accping amnius mssag abu acivmns f Adnau pid Cmpy igicly, Ks n mbiis ciica au-s f 190s (Wfgang Kppn, Gn Eic, Hans Wn

Ric), sm f saps ppsina vics f sain, aspf a cann av bn a l sain bgin wi f -wis s aus wud n av bn ab wi wa y wTis is a kind f agumnaiv Glichhaltung (syncniain) f iau and piics if v was n as if a saiv gim and isadica ciiqu cud n av xsd sid by sid

T agumn is bia psnc f a sng ciiqu f

sain, say, in Kppns nv a ibhau is usd as pf aa wic is ciicid did n xis T bn f cnnin bviusy s in wd rtoraon wud ik mak pins auis agumn

. On can asiy ag a cain 1960s axis fms f sa-in sis a saw FRG as a pfascis sa dsv b ciicid;bu a was dn ng ag b RafDndf and piica scniss

f diing psuasins, and vn by Hans Wn c imsf ucagmn ds n qui a w abandn nin f san g as a dscipin f 190s Cay, us m rtoraon isn suggs a fascis sa w sd in Ws Gman i



42 Rring and Ne Beginning

mpy h he cuure f he Feer Repulc epecly u n ny nhe prve mn f fmy fe n he Stammtih w l pere y rn f cnere uhrrn n nnl hnkng h h r n he Wlhelmn per n h cerny een pr f he N-

n Sc cuur ynhe We hu rememer h m fhe erry prucn f he 90 eg he lerure f upcn f egy [iterar de eologieverht]) n even f h f he 960 egnguge expermenlm) w n epenen n uch Lef plcl cr-que egn wh By mng he rern he n wrer n ler crc Kee mke n egcl rher hn lerry rgumen. Buwhy nw gn n why wh h vehemence? h ke here fr hewrng f pwr lery hy?

2 Th e revnm regrng he 90 whch l we-pre n he me h w purpe me unercung nycm h 968 hrhn fr he le 960 even n e) rep-reene kn f hrcl werhe n We Germn cuure n plc cpre he nde (urn) f 98990 The rern he f-er l w he fr he emphc clm h 968 w key urnngpn n Germn ery hry Furher y emnng 968 cn-

uve pr f he pwr nrrve f Germn cuure n emrcy heren vew uccee n gvng funn ccun f he lFRG ccrng whch he grun fr Germn emcrcy were l nhe le 940 y wh c nmenl mernzn (drhende Moderniiern�, n he el f evelpmen w reche n heecn urnng pn ( ndezeit) f 98990 wh uncn Themyh f 968 h grune wh hve eewhere clle he eerlcnenu f he 970 n 980 h hu een repce wh he cne-ve mh f w urnngpn (zei ndezeiten) whch re hel grun he egmcy n culurl uhency f emcrc Germny

3 · Mnmzng he mprnce f 968 y h ye nher funcn. w he 96 h r rugh he Hcu peny n pucee n he FRG ex y Frch Hchhuh We Wler KlugeHehemer n mny her cme mn e he nfcm fhe 960 Le my n he en hve een premc n hepe he

helpe nfcm f he er genern he Le w ckng whe 960 h r rugh he Nz p ck Germn cnunen pulc ee n wy h he reprn plce f he Aenuer



Reriting and Ne Beginning 43

gvernmen n he 90 h een egne v Hwever crcl wemy wn e y f he pecc wy n whch wrer n he 960repreene he Hcu I'm hnkng here f Peer Hnke ckperfrmnce he meeng f he Grppe 47 n Prncen n 966 r f

he prlemc nrumenzn f he Hlcu fr crque f cp-lm n Peer We n her he pulc memy ee n Germnyreceve r mr mpeu precely n he cnex f pre me-men h h ng eec n ery evepmen hereer Th myn e he wy n whch he cr f 968 meure y her wn nen-n wne e rememere eher lerry r pcy u cernly mke he 960 n nlenle pr f Germn pwr cuure 0

A he me me we nee he crque f he 960 h f he ece f he Gruppe 47 andf he vru rc un prpe vercme he cr f Germn elle lete u h crque nee ercue n wy h g eyn emp cree prper nn nr-rve y mpy erng he 960 n rrelevn errn frm hecure f Germn hry n lerue Perhp eng h heFeerl Repuc f Germny culy ck rng funnl nrrveThe cnnung qurrel u 94 968 n 990 my pn plcrengh n wekne The mre mprn erenn f he preenfrm he p my er l n e chee wh reference ny f heee u rher wh vew he errng re f lng pAuchwz A n ner recenly uggee Auchwz h ecmemehng ke cvc relgn n Germny n fr eer r fr wre my y nw hve ecme funn myh f he new urpe

rn Pints

The en f Wr Wr I w urnng pn ndezeit fr lGermn The en f he wr he efe f he Nz e n fe n herun f he me ce prve Germn wh cmmn y f experence even hugh cnn vre mewh uner fferen ccu-pn The yer 98990 w gn urnng pn fr he nn u

w experence y Germn whe everyy e h cnfrnwrenchng umen n chnge n rclly eren mnner frmWe Germn fr whm nhng much eeme chnge he mer- leve f eveyy lfe n he flwng cu he mer f urnng



144 Rewritings and New Beginnings

poits as the affet the West Germa perspetive M argumet, espeia as regards 198990 (but also 1945 ad 198, woud have to be madedifferet for the Germa emorati Repubi (GR) ad postGR,where the obsessio with ew begiigs was equall saiet but was

oded differetl from the WestM suggestio here is to take the otio of a ew begiig as a ke

mth of postar Germa iterature ad trae it over the postar deadesM purpose is ot to ivet a kid of bildugsroma of the Germa repubi, whih is what the "zwei ndezeiten approah iteds Rather, itis to isist o the otiued ad otiuig reisriptio of that whihomes before the post (postar, postShoah, postuiatio The wordreinscrtin poits to a historial oditio ad to a literar operatio, aswel as to a set of geeratioal ad literar memories that aet writers adwritig i ompex ad dieret was et this should nt result i themora demad that the writer be s Gewissen der Natin (the osieeof the atio), or, as we might put it toda, the witess ad arrier of a-tioal memor

I retrospetive, the isistee o ew begiigso NeanngeNnkte, tab rasa Wndepnkte ad the ikeappears a peuiar

Germa obsessio that iks suh seemig dieret imagiaries as thoseof 1945, 198 ad 1989 The mutiplii of ew begiigs results oto from historia evets ad ostelatios but also from the absee ofthe kid of foudatioal arrative that Gaulist Frae reated aroud theResistae ad that th East Germa state produed with its dogma of atifasism The paradox of the West Germa ase is that eve emphatilaim about a ew begiig a aso be read as a repetitio

For some, there ma be somethig outerituitive about a argumet that reads 198 as a repettio b reversal of 1945, a ear that, i themids of the sixteighters, had faied to provide a lea break with asism From this perspetive, 198 woud be the reewed attempt to ahievea degree ero ofliterature ad uture, a radia fresh start beod bourgeois bees ettres, ad thus a repetitio of the Nnkt of 1945 with adifferet ast of haraters ad differet goas Separatio from the pt, ata rate, was the primar goal i both ases

Perhaps ess outerituitive after the debates of the 1990s s the suggestio that 198990 a be read as a repetitio b reversa of 198 a alet agai for a ew literature his time oe embodig a purer aestheti



Rewritings and New Beginnings 145

beod the aleged domiat Gesinnngssthetik (aesthetis of ovitio of the previous period, as artiuated iuetial i the eal 990sb Kal Heiz Bohrer ad i the feuiletos of the Pad ie eit Ia three ases, however, the emphati demad for the ew ver soo

proved to have bee iluso at bestCouterituitive or ot, there ae several methodologial advatages

i fosig o the oti of repetitio as a tempate through whih toook at poswar Germa iterature at hese ruial utures Suh a fousavoids metaarratives of evolutio ad poitial teeolog It avoids oatig the phatasms of origiar foudatios ad authetiit i the immediate postwar period or at other turig poits i Germa histor Ad

most importat, it alows us to lik together auhors who would otheiseremai separated b riteria of hroolog, deades, geeratios, or writig strategies I show later, Sebads memor texts revolve ruialaroud suh repetitios

Obviousl, the fous o turig poits is itesel ivested i otios of edigs ad ew begiigs Ever sie the 190s, we have ometo see the idea that 1945 was a litera Nnkt a deusio or a sefsevig ideologial plo Ad 198 ever was the radia litera rupture it preteded to be More importat, reet iterar theor has give us oeptsthat alow us to uderstad al literatureideed, al writigas ostitutive itertextua rhetoria wove of traes ad supplemets, isertios ad eraures, liatios ad aiatios that would make the ve ideaof a Nnktobsolete to begi with Ad et the mh of Nnkt theWnd, the ew begiig, keeps omig bak i differet guises i theNnkt ad the literature of the ruis ( Trmmerirar) aer 1945 i

the muhtouted death of literature ad the emergee of operative writig doumetar, ad reportage i the 19os i the farewe of 1990 tothe iterature of the FRG ad i rak Shirrmaher s thi veiled attako he Gruppe 47 wet ad some ears after the groups expiratio,ombied with his a for "a ew wa of tellig time i stotelig aswe i short, for a ewer ad purer aestheti

Wh this repetitive obsessio whih is learl fueled b muh more

ha simp the avatgardist aim for the ew There are spei historial ad ideologi expaatos for eah oe of hese "turig poitsBut there is perhaps aother dimesio oe ot so easi aptured a dimesio that has somethig to do with the doubeedged desire simulta



Rwrtgs ad New Beggs

pae uh duon wa pehap oe pevalen n he pvae han nhe pu phee, u funoned powefuy n oeng he wa gen-eaon a o havng een ved and he aep o ne epony Both he Hooau and he aeg ong wee vey

uh pa of he powa oa agnay n Geany fo he vey e-gnnng, and nehe oud e had whou he ohe

Wha neeng n ead ook no he phenoenon he pu-po o eah a ye anohe epeonhe aene of eay exaou he ong I ahe he way he ead he ex aou heong ha do aualy ex pay Eh Noak Der Utergag98, exande Kuge Der A af Halberstadt 977, and, oeagnay, Hue Fhe etevs Imtatoe Grspa (97 u-pngy, ead neve aknowedge he wdepead heoe doueof he 990 aou aua, epeon, and he apoa of epeenaon,ahough h awaene of he ue pevade he naave of De Asge-waderte, whh wa wen n 99 woud ke o ugge ha e-ad kreg d terar ef a epeon, a ewng of hoe ea-e ex aou he expeene of aeg ong and, eond, ha oey eaedn deep uue, onepua faewok, and

anguage (hough no n naave opexyo he naave aneof De Asgewaderte ef The edang nk eween hee wo veydeen ex, eween he hoa a eay and he fou oe,whh oe onde ead o powefu eay wok, he eoypoea of he eond geneaon, of Gean who wee on andgew up ae he wa Noak, Kuge, and Fhe peened he ong eald dd no

Meoy and ewng, hen, ae he ue Noak naave aouhe devaang aak on Haug n he ue of 9 ha alway eenead a ypoa of ehe e of he a phae of he wa andof he new egnnng ade neeary Fhe nopoaon of he aeong of Haug no h novel wa ovaed y he wenyfh annveay of ha ong, n 98 The penen paage n Detevs m-taoe Grspa ae eay aked n he wng aegy a a oun-eex o Noak Th wa eay a ewng y a we of he nex

geneaon who had wneed he ong a a hd ahe han a anadu and whoe eay ene wee hoe of a ae geneaon No-ak eonged o he geneaon gd Wege ha eeny deed a he



Rewrtgs ad New Beggs 49

"ee geneaon, hoe who ade up he oe of he Guppe 7 andwho had aed he wng aee dung o even efoe he wa BohFhe on n 9 and Kluge (on n 92, on he ohe hand, ae gen-eaonay oaed eween he ee geneaon and he eond gen-

eaon pope, hoe ke eald (on n 9 who do no have eayhdhood eoe of he Thd Reh

Kuge A afHalberstadt, wen n he eay 970 and pu-hed n 977 n he voue Nee Geshhte, wa pa of Kuge anaywng aou wa, u ao wa an aep o appoah an neaaehdhood eoy va douenaon and onalaon ualy,Fhe and Kluge ex oh ued a x of on nd douenaon,

ale n gnany deen way a a e when he douenayode wa vey uh n vogue. Bu n he 90, he ao phaeof he pu Hooau eoy doue n Geany, douenaonwa foued pay on he e of he Na and he oaoao,no on he wa expeene of he Gean van popuaon 20 Thu nehe Fhe no Kuge ex had uh eonane a he eeanye han ead kreg d teratr dd n he ae 990 nd No-ak wa a u fogoen y he ae 90

kreg d teratr pefo a knd of eonday aua epe-on ae he W of 98990, u a Kuge and Fhe ex had en-aed ypoa epeon ae he a e of 98, and No-ak gh afe he ong of Haug n he ue of 9 WhNoak, wh Kuge and Fhe, and hen wh ead hef, we havefou ex aou he oaden, eah of whh ooey eaed o oneof he hee ao unng pon n powa Gean hoy 9, 98,

and 98990 hough eah epeon ha o e ead on own e, ea ha hey epeen hee dn geneaonal oen: auaaon hough de expeene wh Noak a adu and wh Fheand Kuge a hden, angeneaona auaaon aen he expeene ef n he ae of ead2

Fo unakay, ead eay no u an analy of hoe eae we wok u a hdde ewng of oh Noak and Kuge

ex Thu ed eaen of eoy and h nopoaon of pho-ogaph no al h ex eay enen of Kluge ex/ageaege n Nee Geshhte In oh Kluge and eld wng, hefeuen ak of apon o pue eave he eade unue of he au



Rwriting and Nw Bginning

of hoograhe mages a her relao o he ex. A he same meSebals ow arrae syle a use of laguage a ex lke i Aug-wandrtn rely o slowerace wrg sraeges of he eeeh ceuy(remsce esecally of Aalber Sfer) sraeges ha clash esrang

g ways h he sychc caasrohes ha make u he coe of hesores. Here he sace from Kuges moers sraegy of fasacescourse moage s mos ee. A ye he sores of i Augwandrtn coul also be escrbe wh he e of aoher colleco ofuge's sores prz it tdh Augang arning Pr withthal Conqun)

I he ea of a aural hsory of esruco Naturghht drZrtrun ha grous hs magao hoeer Sebas coceualframeork clues elemes of a raoal meahyscs of aure lackg Kluge bu oerbeargly rese Nossacks arrae. A he sameme Sebal res o ga a cera sace from Nossacks exressosrumaos abou war as a reo of aure. Isea he coes hs auralhsory of esruco wh he hel ofWaer Beams aocalyc mage of he agel of hsoy quoe exesely a he e of he booksseco maor chaer whch coclues he Zurch lecures of 997 from

whch he book was reworke. Bu I oub wheher he really oes morehere ha roe a resecable egree o wha remas a meahyscs ofaure hs ow wrg.

hese are oly some of he mos obous asecs of a ese erexuay ha bs ogeher hese hree exs o he ar war by NossackKluge a Sebal a erexal o whch Sebal hmself eer reecs hs ex I s as f hs ma hess abou he falure of he oler geerao of wrers whch woul resumably clue boh Nossack aKluge were ee o he hs eeece o her aroach o heoc. Bu may o be a queso of eo a all. Isea hs maywell be Sebas bl so. Hs reuce aack o Germa wrers of anearler geerao a o her falure o rerese a commemorae hear war becomes a of comesaocomesao I woul suggesfor he fac ha Sebal a member of he rs osforye geeraobor he lgu 19 far away from he sream of bombers has o ac

cess o he exerece or memoy of he ar ar exce hrough hese earler exs ha he s comelle o rewre a k of lerary erso ofrasgeeraoal raumazao.



Rwriting and Nw Bginning

A he same me hs rewrg os owerlly o he fac hahere was always somehg uresole Germa memores of he warIrocaly he feulleo crques of Seba ha reerae he ol lefsaboo agas makg he ar war ar of ublc scourse ee hus o

corm he reresso hyohess aoher sese. Wha may be sublmally a sake here s o he sychc reresso of he ar war by hosewho exerece bu s olcal reresso by he seco geeraoSebas ow. hs may ell exla he ehemece of hs accusaos.

Bu Sebals ex s o oly eee o hese earler wrers exs ha he races her comlex ocumeay moes of wrg. Hs olcalsace s curously remsce of he 96os reresso reroach self whch

was he cocere h he reresso of he Holocaus raher ha whmemores of he ar war. Bu us as he sxyeghers clame ha bourgeos leraure was uable o come o erms wh he hr Rech Sebaaccuses ha same geerao of oler rers for o ee hag re o recall s cosequeces. I s ye aoher reeo from ye aoher agle

osaumai e Begnnngs

l suors of raumac exereces face he fcul ask of ebeggs. Bu he eso beee raumac symom a ew begg wll ecessarly rema uresole geerag eer ew aems aresoluo I s r oo smle o belee as Sebal eely oes ha heresece of a grea war a osar eos coul hae reee colleceamage o wha he calls (roblemacally) as Seelelebe er euscheNao (he srua lfe of he Germa ao) he grea wrer of e ar

war o as he coscece of he ao a la Bll or Grass bu as he aos shrk er all we kow ha eery osraumac ew beggbears he races of raumac reeo eve hough creasg emoraa geeraoal sace from he orga exerece may aler he scurse srucure of he osraumac symom.

Hsoras hae escrbe how he urba oaos of oswar Germay reace wh umbess a aahy o he exerece of lss a e

sruco oly o hrow hemseles o he freec acy of recosruco a o embrace cosumersm as a way o forge. Such sraeges ofcomesao ca also be fou he exs o he ar w hemseles a he ways hey ss o ew beggs. Sebs ow aayss ofNossack



4 Rewriig ad New Begiig

emve m e i w i tis iscussi I m stuck by is cice vi-sul imge Bt te cket te epesetti gvitti pul suels gviy ( Gvitatiorhter) w wu t ik ee te em w bmb ctes Bombeihter te ee bck

t te eltis isty te i w tt me tis bstct iscussi te bic pit t begi wi. A yet uike Nssck Kuge s illusis but cievig y bc pit i te spee isty epei-ece is epesets uttibe i I is tet te i w teweigt istic etis emis mit isupeble.

Sebl es t ticute eelig ppiess Nssck we te eqivet bic pit i is witigs. Die Age-waderte is eetlessly mecly cugt i web tumticmemies Hweve mmet eem my ccu i te ctictyepeiece ees ue utue by Sebls eceptivey ti-til beuti pse espite te melcy ctet te -tives. A k petic eem emeges pecisely m Sebls eetlessepltis iiviul ie sties cugt i te sw et eile.But tis is t te utmy te estetic mbilie i te ely 990sby K Heiz Be tes gist ire egage te es

tetics cvicti. N tese sties esteticie te iiviu ctstpes tey epict. Aesteticly isticly pecise Sebl's ives-tigtis te pst i Die Agewaderte pemit te ee t evisite ctstpes te etiet cetuy witut setimetlity wit-ut ielgy bstcti Sebls is uique vice te liteyscee te vice tecme (Nahgeboreer) i ew sese e wewites te tets te pst w emembes te ccete tetue te ives st us it is t supisig tt tee is stg i ew begiig i Sebl's witigs wic e s we te pimpsestictue a rire Ws suc s Neag de t seem t bept is vcbuly. But te Sebl imsel pits t mj ieece betwee imse te tee le wites e iscusses B iy 94 i te Apie egi Agu I m e tse w e-mie s g s utuce by te ctstpe tt ws te tkgpce i te Gem Reic. et e ckweges tt te ctstpe

le tces memy tt e tie t ticulte i sme is te wks.us i rtigo (Shwide Ghe) we e



Rewritig ad New Begiig

in nearly every weeky new ree we aw the mountain orubble in pae ikeBerlin and Hamburg whih or a long time I did not aoiate with the detrution wrought in the loing year o the war knowing nothing o it but onidered them a natural ondition o all arger itie

ive tis pes isty it becmes ce wy Sebs w ue-stig te i w ws cetly spe by te elie itey tets. Butit is te ti uis as tual citi l bigge cities tt pitsbck t Sebs w ci memies ccuts is ieecem Kuge. At stke ee is Sebl's mve m isty a pitics t teti tul isty estucti

Iteestigy Sebs Lkrieg d Literar is itsel ewite

eie essy etitle Bewee Histy Ntu Histy A Essy te Litey Descipti tal Destucti wi Ntes Ksck Nssck Kluge e ieece betwee tis tet 982 te bk 99 is teig I i 982 Sebal cte imsel te tesl betwee isty tul isty i te me ecet wk e clelycmes w te sie te tte. Symptmtic is is eeig Kuge t te e te sec cpte Lkrieg d Literatr, wee e

ws M's Kluge's yses iusti isty t sk eticl questi but estucti

The hitory o indutry a the open book o human thinking and eelingan themateriait theory o knowedge or any and every theory o knowedge be maintained in the ae o uh detrution or i thi not the irretable warning thatthe atatrophe deveoping under our noe and then breakng out with eemingabruptne antiipate in a ort o experiment the point at whih we hal nkbak rom our alegedly autonomou phere o hitory into the hitory o nature

O cuse tis is eticl questi te suggeste swe ttlespi is t e tt Kuge wul ve embce e tet te eswit te mii pssge m Wate Bejamis tesis but te gel isty but te messiic imesi ieet i Bejmi's tugt evet its mst espete pessimistic lge s plce i Seb Itis s iisty itse bee bmbe it blivi.

By ctst Sebas iscussi Kluge i te tet 982 still sug-gests te pssibiity eig pcess tt is t me i vce t et utcme Kluges wk is see ee s citicl lb te e-geeti clective memy tis ictic pject wic Se



&writing and New Bennin

bld shows umiigd symphy is sid o p h uho om yidigo h mpio "o ip h mos hisoi dvopmssimpy s ul hisory By h 990s bld himsl hs yildd oh mpio. No oly is h o w bgiig bu h os o

sm o b uu. bds x o 999 ds i oop b o His940 sy o o dmoiio o Lodo d o h Gm bombigo igd i Augus 94 losd iui o dsuio wih ohsuggsiv loop b o Kugs wiigs bou igd

I sum h bdwho ui Noss Kug d Fih dido xp h bombigs bu gw up i h shdow o h sophgivs us o so muh ysis s isipio o h um by

ms o uoio

suh hi is h sody um o h sodgio wys ldy mdid hough liu imgs d psios d phps o h ou o suspib o imgig wbgiigs A h sm im h disous o u hisory o dsuio ms oo osy id o mphysis d o h polypi philos-ophy o hisoy so pomi i h Gm diio d odd i viy o wys i h posw piod I ws xy his p o disous hKlug d Fih oud i hi iv pi o disous mo-

g ioy d si. I'm o s whh h u o his yp o disous i bd sys somhig bou h phoogy o Gm mmoryuu o h 990s lg o whh i is oly h imgiry o o xpi wi wog om h mgis o h Gm liry s

Howv o my sw suh usio bds ii d liy xs poi powly o o o h dm odiios o posGm liu Li h pubi ulu om whih pos Gmliu mgd d h i shpd i u his liu ivs o p-iios isipios d wiigs h m y hisoi ou opos iy dvlopms s sb pogssio hough h ddsihy poblmi Euly pobmi is h mp o shoiuih lio bw iu d poiis og h is o h hsis oo uigpois Th lioship o liu o poliis d hisoryis o pud by h oio o polii us o w bgiigs o is iduly disussd i h oio o uoomy o h shi sph

id h hs hd supisig bih i h 990s bld's ow woof soryigspiy i Die Agewanderten, bu lso hough di



Rewriting and New Beginnings

y i his mos ovl tertgis som o is pow pisly bus i mis ousid o suh duiv ivs

bld's soyig miis sog i mog iv doum d hisory d i ods h li shily i ms o liry

mmory I h ox o h o ovbig mmoy ulu o h990s i my o lwys sp h dg o mism dg h s sosiousy plimpssi wiig pos. Myb h issomhig o w bgiig i his iy highwi Bu w iy would o w o l i nde



Twin Memories: Afterimages of Nine/Eleven

In a cuture as obsessed with meory such as ours, it is not surprising that the debate about how to commemorate the attack on he wntowers began to stir soon after the traumatic shock pontaneous eori-as and missing notices replete with vital data and photographs sprang

up everywhere in downtown Manhattanin subway stations, on storefronts, at bus stops Fowers at many of these sites indicated that tere wasnot uch ope to nd any of the issing A whoe part of Manhattan hadbeen turned into a cemetery, but a cemetery without identiable bodiesand without gravesa death zone in which the work of ceanup and re-moval went on day and night.

The ruins were sti smodering with underground res when the architects and deveopers came foth, emphasizing the need to rebuid fastand big, possiby even bigger than before: no ruins aowed in the Ameri-can imagination At the same time, a consensus has emerged that theremust be soe permanent emorial to the tragic oss of ife that traumatized New York Any memorial wi so have to commemorate what ayturn out to ave been a maor turning point in word history, not just ehistory of the ciy or the history of the United States How can one reconcie he desire to rebuid a prie site of rea estate with the need to com-

memorate the dead, and with th chalenge to eoriaize a historicalevent? Anybody who knos about the frustrating debates and unsatisfactory soutions" concerning the comeoration of historica traua and



Twin Memories 159

crimina terror esewhere, even decades after the commeorated events,must fear the worst The Oklahoma emoria with its 68 empty chairssymboizing the number of the victims reinds one of the theater of theabsurd and Peter Eisenan's Hoocaust memoria in Berin, once it is

buit, as the potential of becoing a onuenta memo sore ratherthan the space for historical reection that was intended The issue here isnot the iaginative abiliy or inabili of artists, architects, and designers,but rater the obective probems of representing and memoriaizing rauatic events in buit space, especialy if that space is a death zone in livingemory And there is an added problem for the emorians in New York:How does one iagine a monument to what was already a monument in

the rst placea monument to corporate odernism No surprise thatsome sggested rebiding an exact replica of the in towers The idea isas absrd as it is intriguing in its ogic the rebuilt win towers as a onu-ment to forgetting, an erasure of history, an emblem of globa capita in adierent sense fro that of the terroris imaginary

The rea debate about ground zero, however, has moved on. Dis-cussions about how to emoriaize 9/ are gathering steam, tough they

are not yet ly pubic in New York at a time when the edia are stil sobusy with the war front No doubt, the memorial debate wil soon grow byeaps and bounds driven by the narcissism of victiization and acceeatedby its convergence with the shortter time frame of developers and citypoiticians Given such objective pressures, it sees quixotic to suggestthat it is not yet the tie to have this debate Considering New Yorks recent record of urban planning and bulding, owing down seems nkelyuness forced by the economic downturn Neither rampant nationalism

nor the raw emotions of inury and anger have ever produced persasivemonuments in urban space This, then, may be a good moent to reecton soething ese For e the ee of meory and the win towers conjures p images of events in the past aher than the ture of eoryevents that in my own imagination have attached themselves cosely to thecoapse of e in towers

n the rare oments of reection not tied to daiy news events in the

fa of 2001, Ive been surprised at how persistenty the aerimage of thetwin towers hovers in y mind Ceary they carry symboic meaning moreforcely han the partialy destroyed Pentagon But this symbolic eaning is not that of the terror of globaization and hegemonic power, as the



Twn Memes

reogne the Taban government as egtmate. Lnks were aso estabshed n the press wth the ega anttes trade n whh the Tabanwere ompt serety seng o Afghanstans tra hertage nderthe ve of sefrghteos regos onoasm

Bt as we know more now abot the extremey ose reatonshp, fnot dependene of Mh Omar onQaeda nd Osama bn Laden snehe md990s, t s dt not to thnk abot e reatonshp beween theatak on the o sbme Bmyan states nd the sbseent attak on thedereny sbme twn towers It s as f the dynamtng and oapse of thewo states ast sprng had been a arefy staged prooge to the attak onNew ork, symbo atons boh, ntended to whp p spport for bn

Ladens apoypt Isamsm n the Msm word. The pares are obvos wo gres eah, one taer thn he other ke brothers both nvestedn the aesthet of the sbme; bt not the terrorng sbme whh makeshe spetator fee sma and overhemed for both owed a vew from thetop from the top of the Word Trade Center as from the top of the Bddhas ave In both ses n the paranod aggressve word of the Tbnand Qaeda the aeshets of the sbme represents ony the demonpower of the otherthe other regon, the other way of fe the nde. Bt

we an now srmse that the nks go beyond symbosm.The domented nene of Sad Wahhabsm on the Pakstan

madas and on the Tban mkes t entrey pasbe to sggest that theWhhabst presene n fghanstan that had grown drng the Sovet opaton payed a key roe n he destrton of the Bddhas nvabe monments to the art and vaton of Afghanstn and the word. And Wahhab presene n ndahar ponts t Qaeda nd bn Laden hether ornot bn Laden took an atve part n formatng Mah Omr stwa t snot dt to magne bn Laden and hs oonsprators enoyng the nternatona proar abot the attak on the Bddhas as t payed ot overweeks n the word meda whe they were antpatng the deady attak onhe ns then ready at an advaned stage of pannng.

Of orse there are derenes. The onoasm of the Taban foows the og of a oa theoray and the regos pong of ts sbetpopaton. The onoasm of bn Laden and hs oonsprators on the

other hand stages a deady wordmeda event n order to dea a bow tothat very modernty of whh bn aden hmsef s a prodt both n hsown soaton as a onstrton engneer and n hs pota traetory



Twn Mem 6

toward terrorsm sne the 980s. Bt bn Ladens onoasm goes hand nhand wth a vey modern onoatry bn Laden posng as prophet on thetapes broadast to the Msm word va Jaeera bn Laden n front ofhs ave bn Laden shootng off a sbmahne gn srronded by hs fo

owers, bn Ladens mage on posters and Tshrts wherever hs messageresonates. The on vsbty of bn Laden ontrasts rosy wth thenvsbty of Mah Omar, whom we have ony known from a grany,nfosed photograph

Now hat we have seen he atest bn Laden tape and hat we have readthe ttery vaos and pompos transrpt of hs and hs ompanons egedy prophet drems of yng and fantses of apoyp destrton

devod of pots and nterspersed wh santmonos nantatons t seasy to see what the dynamtng of he Bamyan Bddhas has n ommonwth te attak on the n towers Ts s not the banay of ev HannhArendt one anyed as key to the brearat mndset of Adof hmann It s rather the banay of a regos eot, whh has ased somh serng nd destrton over te entres whenever t hs aed t-sef sessy wth state power. Wat s at stke here s not the morastrgge of good vs. ev, a dsorse that tsef remans deepy embedded nsefrghteos regos thnkng. Demonng the terrorsts ony reterateswhat they themseves do n ther hatred for the nde. Poted regoseaoty, whether of Isam Chrstany Jdasm or any other regon snot the other of moderny, bt ts vey prodt At stke herefore s thepot strgge to ombat regos eaotry n a ts forms, wth the goof preventng t om ntratng or aptrng state power wherever t maythreaten to do so To wn that strgge, strateges other than mtary ones

are needed Qestons of pot power and eonom devastaton need tobe addressed, s we s dets of meanng hstores of hmaton and nste, the downsde of gobaaton whh s mosty forgotten when oneooks at the word from a 990s Western perspetve ony In the meantme,te twn memores keep hantng me d f ook osey at mages of thenow empy ave that hed e arger of the wo very hman Bddha statesI tke omfort n the t that n e bak of the ave the hman otne of

the destroyed state s st vsbe, f ony barey: another aermage sp-portng another memoy that nges.



Nots

HAPE PESEN ASTS

I o e e of s essay ad e oo of "ese fes ae debedo e sema wok of ea Koseeck, Fres Pas oso MIT Pess1985).

2. Of cose a emac oo of"ese es s oeaes e eobea mas of aca ad eecoc obazao a eso of e fome,aey dsceded modezao aadm daed fo e osCod Wawod

Paadacay Fed Jamesos cassc essay "Posmodesm o e C

oc of ae Caasm, New L Revew 146 yAs 984): 5392.4· Dad Haey, The Condon of Posmodern Oxfod as acke1989)

5 See j Aada Mode a Large Clral Dmensons of Globalon Meaos d odo U esy of Mesoa Pess, 1998) es cae 4, ad mos ecey e seca sse AlerNave Modernes ofbl Clre27 (999)

6 O e comex mx of ese fes ad ese ass cf AdeasHysse, "Te Seac fo Tado ad "Ma e Posmode Aerhe Grea Dv Modernsm Mass Clre Posmornsm oomo daaUesy Pess 986) 16078 79221

7 See Caes S Mae The Unmaserable Pas Cambde Mass HaadUesy Pess 988); New German Crqe S/Smme 988) secasse o e Hsokerse ad New Geman Crqe 52 We 199) seca sse o Gema ecao

8. Cf Aso abbac, "Fom Exoso o Eoso Hoocas Memoazao Ameca sce b Hsor and Memo 912 Fa 1997) 22655.

9· Of cose, e se of Hoocas memoy as a sm fo e ees wada s y obemac sce cao ackowede e secc obemsas w a oscooa memoy ocs. a was ee e sse Wese meda accos. O memoy ocs aos as of ca cf



66 t t

Richrd Werner ed Mmo and th Postoony Aian Anthropoo and thritiq ofPowr (Lndn nd New Yrk ed Bks 998).

10. This view ws rs riculed y Hrkheimer nd Adrn in heir Dia-ti ofEnightnmnt, nd i ws ken up gin nd refrmulted y Lyrd ndhers in he 98s On he cenrlity f he Hlcus fr Hrkheimer ndAdrn's wrk see Ansn Rinch In th Shadow of atastroph Grman Intta Btwn Apoaps and Enightnmnt (Berkeley Universiy f Clifr-ni ress 1997)

11. Gerhrd Schulze Di Ebnisgsha K!trsozioogi dr Ggnwart(Frnkrt nd New Yrk Cmpus 992) The term Erbnisgsha, lierllysciey f experience" is hrd t rnsle I refers t sciey h privileges in-ense ut supercil experiences riened twrd insn hppiness in the presentnd uick cnsumpin f gds culurl evens nd mssmrkeed lifestyles

Schulze's is n empiricl scilgicl study f cntemprry Germn sciety hvids he resricive prmeers h f Burdieu's clss prdigm nd f Benmins philsphiclly ineced ppsiin f rlenis" nd rfhrung" s nppsiin etween eeting surce nd uhenic deph experience

12. On Chile see Nelly chrd Rsidos y mtras Ensayos ritia trasobr hi d f transiin (Sntig diril Curt rpi 1998); n Argentin see Arditi Sarhingr L h Grandmothrs of th P Mayoand th Disappard hidrn of Argntina (Berkeley nd Ls Angeles Universiy

f Clifrni ress 1)13. My use f he ntin f imgined memry" is indeed Arjun Ap-pduris discussin f imgned nstgi" in his Modrni at Larg 77f. Thenin is prlemtic he extent tht ll memry is imgined nd yet i llwsus disinguish memries grunded in lived experience frm memries pillgedfrm he rchive nd mssmrkeed fr fs cnsumpin

4 On hese issues cf Mirim Hnsen Shindr List Is N Shoah TheSecnd Cmmndmen pulr Mdernism nd uli Memry" ria In-qi 22 (Winer 196) 29232. Als the essy Of Mice nd Mimesis Reding

Spiegelmn wih Adrn" in his k5 Dennis Css Screleu Te zz r Is Up fr Sle Gi Merchndisers

Tke License wih Hisry" Har' Magin (Decemer 17) 70716 Hermnn Le ZitVrhiss: Zr Ktrphiosophi ds Fortshritts

(Grz nd Vienn Verlg Syri 983). Fr mre exended criiue f Lesmdel see my scpe frm Amnesi The Museum s Mss Medium" in wiight Mmoris Marking m in a r of Amnsia (Lndn nd New Yrkuledge 1995), 1336

17 Qued frm he Nw Yrk ms (Ferury 2 1998).18. The erm is Chrles S Mier's. See his essy A Surfei f Memry? Reectins n Histry Melnchly nd Denil" Histo and Mmo 5 (192)13651



t t

CAE 2 MONUMENTA ETIO

1 On he rder implicins f he recen memry m see my wiightMmoris: Marking m in a tr ofAmnsia (New Yrk nd Lndn Ru-ledge 995).

2. Quted frm Badishs gbtt, uy 24, 19953· Rert Musil Nchl zu Lezeen" in Gsammt Wrk v! 2, ed. y

Adlf Fris (Reinek Rwhlt 978), 50694· xel Hech diril" art spzia uly 1995) 3·5. Letter t Uhlig Sepemer 20, 1850, in Rihard nr Lttrs to His Drs-

n Frn, rns. y S Shellck (N Yrk Scriner nd Welfrd 89), 66 Thms Mnn Suffering nd Greness f Rchrd Wgner" Esays of

hr Dads trns H T Lwerter New Yrk Kpf 971), 315

7· Wler Benjmin Mscw Diry" in Otobr 35 (Winter 185) 658. Michel Fucul refce t Gilles Deleze Flix Guri AntiOdipapitaism and Shiphrnia (Minneplis University f Minnest ress 983),xiii

9 Denis Hllier Against Arhittr: h itin ofGorgs Batai (Cmridge Mss. nd Lndn MIT ress 1989).

o The pulished nglish rnslin is insucient I nly speks f hewrldhisricl sk" Rihard nr Pros rks, rns. y Willim Ashtn l-

lis vl:

h Artwork of th Ftr (New Yrk Brude Brthers 966), 130 Wgner Artwork of th Ftr, 6212. Friedrich Nietzsche Nchgelssene Frgmene" in Smtih Wrk, v

8, ed y Girgi Clli nd Mzzin Mntinri (Munich Deuscher Tschen-uch Verlg 1980) 50 (my trns)

3 Rchrd Wgner Art nd Revltin" in Rihard r Pros rks,vl r 35·

14 Wgner Artwork ofth F, 04 Trnsltin crreced5 Richrd Wgner Oper nd Drm" in Rihardr' Pros rks, vl

2, 18 rnsltin crreced)6. Inexplicly nly prt f the pssge is trnslted in Wgner Rihard g-

nr' Ltrs to Drsdn Frin, 140 Fr the rigin Germn cnsul WgnerSmtih Bri, I Bri dr jahr r8sr8 (Leipzig 1979), 176

17 Mnn Suering nd Gretness f Rchrd Wgner" 376

18 osima gnr Diaris II (88r883), edited nd nned y MrGregrDellin nd Dierich Mck rns y Gerey Skeln (New Yrk ndLndn Hrcur Brce Jvnvich 80), 56.

9 Letter Uhlig f Octer 22, 850, in Rihard %r' rs to DrsdnFrinds, 85.

20. Nine ints n Mnumenti" in Siegfried Gieden Fernnd Lger



68 Nte t Pages S

and Jos is Sert Arhiteture u and Me The Dia ofa Development (Cambridge Mass Haard University Press I958) 48-51

CHAPTER 3· THE VOIDS OF BERIN

r. Mihael Kimmelman That Fashing Crazy Qilt of Signs? It's Ar Newrk Time (De 31 1996): r

2 Karl Sheer BerlnEin Stadthikal (Berlin: Fannei nd Walz I989

reprint) 219

3 Ernst Bloh Erbha diee Zeit (Franrt am Main Shramp I973)

21228 Of orse Bloh's phrasing Fntionen im Hohlram (literaly fn-tions in a hollow spae) sggests a bonded void that after a is appropriate whenever one dissses a void in a spatial or temporl sense

4 See Berto!t Breht Against Georg s trans Start Hood in ErnstBloh et a! Aethe and Politi (ondon: Verso 1977) 68-85

5· A qoted by Franesa Rogier Growing Pains: From the Opening of theWal to the Wrapping of the Reihstag aembge 29 1996) 50

6. Peter Shneider The l jumper: A Berlin Story (Chiago Unversiy ofChiago Press 1998)

7 Bernard Tshmi Event Citie (Cambridge Mass. MIT Press 1994) 367.

8 Sasia Sassen The Global New Yrk London o (Prineton NJ:Prineton Universiy Press 199I)

9 Some of the ey ontribtions to the debate abot ritial reonstrtionare oleted in Einh hwierig Eine deuthe Arhitekurbae ed Gert Khler(Branshweig: Vieweg 1995)

10 A qoted in Dagmar Rihter Spazieren in Berlin aemblage 29 I996)

8o

n Hans Stimmann Conlsion: From Bilding Boom to Bilding Typein Annegret Brg Downtown Berlin: Building the Meropolitan Mix/Berlin MiteDie Enttehung einer urbanen Arhitektur ed Hs Stimmann trans. Ingrid Tay-or Christian Cal and Robin Benson (Berlin 1995)

12 Danie ibesind mit Daniel ibesind: Potsdamer Patz (992) inDanie ibesind RadMa Arhitekturen und Shen (Mnih and NewYor: Preste I994), 149

13 For a gentle thogh to me timately npersasive ritiqe ofibesind'svoid as being too determined by hisory meaning and experiene see Jaqes Der-rida Jaqes Derrda z Beeen te ines' in ibeskind RadMa, n517

14 This is impied by Derrida for whom a void that represents is no longer aproper void

15 A ompetition in 1995 with a total of 57 entries ended in a pbi otryover the winning entry a santed onrete slab the size of two football eds withmillions of vitim names ared in stone Even Helmt Kohl did not lie itthogh srey for the wrong reon The debate ontined ntil Peter Eisenman's



Ntes t Pages 858

proposa was aepted severa years later bt at the time of this writing this monment to the mrdered Jews of Erope hs not yet been ereted.

r6 I am only talng here abot the bilding as arhitetre. Its mse andratoria fntions are still too mh in fu for s to omment with any degreeof ertainty abot the ways in whih the exhibition spaes will be sed or evenwho will have ltimate ratorial ontrol over the expansion spae

HAPER 5 FEAR OF MIE

On Disney in Germany see J P Storm and M Dresser Im Reihe derMik Moue: lt Din in Deuthnd 1927-1945 (Berin Henshe 1991)

2 Eri Rentshler The Minit of Iuion (Cmbridge Mass Hrard Universiy Press 1996)

3 On the Adoo/Benjamin Disney debate see Mirim Hansen OfMie andD Benjamin and Adorno on Disney South Aanti Quarter 921 (nter1993) 2761 For another detaed Mxst ritiqe of Disney see Ariel Dorfmanand Amand Mattelart How to Read Dona Duk: Imperialt Iolo in the Dn Cmi trans. and introdtion by David Knzle (New Yor: InternationlGeneral 1975)

4 Sia Sasen and Fran Roost Te Ciy Strategi Site for the Gob En-tertainment Indstry (npbished paper)

5· Cf the essays in this boo The Voids of Berin and the later Aer theWar whih disss the Potsdamer Platz deveopment at dierent stages in themid and late 1990s

6 Mihael Kimmeman That Flashing Crazy Qilt of Signs? Its At NewYrk me (De 31, 1996) I

7 A t the time o f this writing 1997) one oe tower at the northeast ornerof Broadway and Fortyseond Street is already being bilt and a seond one hasbeen approved Two more are nder onsideration

8 Joan Oman From Sin City to Sign City: The Transformation of Times

Sqare in Pelegrino D'Aierno ed nvible e: From the Pomode Meopoli to the Citie of the Fuure (New Yor Monaeli forthoming 2003) Seealso Marshall Berman Women and the Metamorphoses ofTimes Sqare" Dient (Fll 2001) 71-82.

CHAPER 6 MEMORY ITE N AN EXANDED FELD

Rosalind Krass Slptre in the Expanded Fied Otober 8 (Spring1979), reprinted in Krass The Oinali ofthe Avantgarde and Other Modeitth (Cambridge Mass MIT Press 1985) 276-90

2 Pierre Nora Realm ofMemo The Contrution ofthe Frenh Pat Vl I,

Coit and Divion (New Yor Colmbia University Press 1996)

3 Margerite Feitowitz A Lexion ofrror: Argenna and the Legaie ofr



Notes to Pages I36-4I

2�. The ter is Chares S Maiers. See his essay A Surfeit of Memoy? Reectons on Hstory, Meanchoy, and Denia," Histoy and Memor 5 (1992)13651

29 Klaus R. Scherpe, ed, In Deutschland unterwegs 94548 (StuttgartReclam, 982)

30 Theodor Adorno, Prims (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), 34·

CHAPT 9· WRITN G$ AND N BEGNNN GS

I See dreas Huyssen, ter the Wa: The Faiure of German Inteectu-als, in Twilight Memories Marking Time in a Culure of Amnesia (London andNew York Rouledge, 1995), 3766 For a documentation of the debate, seeKar Deiritz d Hannes Kauss, eds., Der deutschdeutsche Literaturstreit (Ham-

brg Luchtrand, 19); Thoas z, ed.,"Es geht nicht um Chsta �· Der

Lteraurset m verenten Deutschland (Munich: Edition Spangenberg, 99)2 For the debate about Strauss, see the coection of essays in Wimarer

Beitrge 0 (2994) Martin Wasers speech is pubished as Martin Walser, r-fahrungen beim Verfassen einer Sonntagsrede, in Friedenspreis des deutschenBuchhan Ansprachen aus An der Vrihung( a Main Suhrkamp,998), 3751. For a subte and reentessy critica view of Walser's controversipeech and its reation to Ein springender Brunnen, see Amir Eshe, Vom ein-saen Gewissen: Die WaserDebatte und der Or des Nationasoziaismus im

Sebstbid der Beriner Repubik, Deutsche ierteahrsschr 7 (2000): 333603 On the reation of poswar erman iterature to an earlier modenism, seeKlaus R Scherpe, Die rekontruierte Modee Studien zur deutschen Liteaur nach195 (Coogne Bhau, 1992) On the probematic iteray and generationalcams of a Nupunkt in 1945, see especialy Hans Dieter Schfer, ur Perio-d

_isierung dr deutschen Literatur seit 930, in Literaurmagazin 7: Nachkriegs

teratur (Rebek: Rowoht, 1977), 955 For a recent reassessment of the StundeNlb historians, see erey J. Gies, ed, Stunde Null The End and the Beginng F Yars Ago

(Washgton, DC Geran Historical nstitue, 1997)4· Ralf Bentz et a., Protest! Literatur um 1968 ne Ausstellung s DeutschenLiteraturarchivs in Vrbindung mit dem Germanistischen Seminar der UniversittHeidelberg und dem Deutschen Rundnkarchiv im SchillerNationalmuseum Mar� ach am Neckar Marbach am Neckar Deutsche Schiergeseschaft, 998 (exibi-ton cataogue)

5· Waer Erhart and Dirk Niefanger, eds, Zwei Wndezeiten; Blicke auf diedeutsche Lteratur 1945 und 1989 (bingen Max Niemeyer, 1997)

6 Hemut Kiese, Die Restaurationsthese als Probem fr die Liter

aturgeschichtsschreibung, in Erhat and Niefanger, ibid, 1346.7 For a vey good review of the recent historica iterature focusing on theconct beween the foryvers and the sixyeighters and thus on the reation be



Notes to Pages I42-48 175

tween the restoration decade and the 196os, see A D Moses, The ForyFivers.A Generation Between Fascis and Democracy" German Politics and Socie 50(Spring 1999) 9126.

8 Kiese, Die Restaurationsthese as Probem, 36 No surprise, then, that

this account is accopanied in the foowing essay by Dirk Niefanger by a ratheruncritca reading of the Stunde Nul in pays by Borchert, Zuckmaye, andWeisenborn, or that the of98990, which is said to ark the end o post-war iterature, is paradigmaticay represented by Martin Waser in an essay byGeorg Braungart.

9· See Huyssen, n Twilight Memorie, 3766.0. For a criticay dierentiated view of the iterature of the 1960s see Klaus

Briegeb, 968-Literatur in der antiautritren Bewegung (Frankfurt a Main:

Suhrkap, 1993) so Klaus Briegeb and Sigrid Weige, eds,Gegenwartsliteraur

seit 1968 (Munich: Hanser 992) (Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deuchen Literaurvo 2)

n. A parae attack on the 960s has been waged in the US. cuture wars ofthe ate 98os ad 990s See ndreas Huyssen, Paimpsest 1968: US/ermany, in Uich O and Roman Luckscheiter, eds Bees Letres/Grai. SoziaPhantasien und Ausdruckrmen der Achnechziger (Gttingen: Wstein Verag, 2001), 3752.

12 The reevant texts are coected in Deiritz and Kauss See footnote r

13 Frank Schirrmacher, Abschied von der Literatur der Bundesrepbik,"Frankrter Agemeine Zeitung October 2, 1990. Reprinted in Deiritz and Kauss,and in A, "Es geht nicht um Christa ' see footnote r

1. On the imitations of the posstructuralist psychoanalic traua discoursethat has becoe so inuentia in iteray and cutura studies, see Doinck La-Capra, Histo and Memo aer Auschwitz (Ithaca and London Corne Universi Pess, 1998). See aso Ruth Leys, auma A Genealo (Chicago and LondonChicago Universi Press, 2000). The psychoanaytic ode ay work we when

it comes to the individual meor of the suvivor or witness, but its appicationto the pubic meory of trauatic histoica events remains probeatic. Neiterthe esis of the unrepresentabiity of traua, so doinant in the poststructuraist Hoocaust discourse in the wake of the iportant work of Cathy Caruth, northe moral demand to work trough rather than to act out experience (as focefuyposited by LaCapra) seems very usefu in anzing the constitution of pubicmeor Pubic eor depends on representations in al its edia, and it re-entessy mixes working rough and acting out.

15 On the notion of trauma as unresoved experience rooted in histoy, raherthan as something unrepresentabe and outside of time, see Urich Baer, Rmnantsof Song: auma and the perience ofModerni in Charles Baudeire and PaulCen (Stanford, Calif Stanford Univesi Press, 2000).

6 Thus severa critics have deonstrated that there are a nuber of oher



Nots to Pags 452

ex au e pc a Sea n acknege. Bu uc a ciue peae a e ame ecien eeica ee a Sea n ex.A f ucau anee en n epein aume a e exience f a age nume fex pe a ee a n epein Again epen an cue ae nmuuay excuie e empica ciique f Se agumen cncepuayimie an i mie a Sea ex acuay pefm an enac

7 W G Sea Die Agewaneren er nge Erhlngen (an amMain ice 1994 Ameican anan The Emian an. Micae Hue(Ne Yk Ne Diecn 1996)

18 . Sig Weige Die Geneain a ymce m um geneagicen Diku im Gecni nac 194 in raionen: gene liera klrn. (Augu 2000) 1873. See a e aue ee eay au e ecenae f iica an cigica ieaue au geneain y A. D Me

e yie A Geneain Beeen acim an Demcacy" Geman Poliic an Socie 0 (Spng 1999) 94126

19. Of gea nee ee ae muipe eiing f i k au Snga Aexane Kuge Schlachechreing e Oen an eiug 1964; eke eiin ank an Hamug 1968; expane ne eiin Munic1978. a upe anayi f Kuge iing aege ee Ha MeAexane Kuge anayce emuSice zu Schchechrein"i n Gpile Z Theorie n ierar er oerne (Bieefe Aiei Veag

1994) 22132.20 i n eny a ee ee pecu Hcau icue ine 190. Bu a a ime uc eae emane me ime ceain guping iin e cuce eae cuua puc uc a e Aeican payau Anne ank Aan enai m cumenay i e Broilr ighan Fo On e peence f e pa n Geman ama f e eay pa pei ee Anea Huyen Unege Vegangeneiunege Gegen-a in ein Gimm an J Heman e Gechiche im Gegenwar-rama (Suga Kamme Veag 1976) 393

21 On e pem f angeneaina aumazan ee Wene BeeDa iken e Nanaziaimu n e zeien un ien Geneainnac Aucz" Baylon 7 (1990) 7083.

22 Caape f cue aay uk n fa enea Sife ecepieyamniu y ne See Sea Veuc e Se" in W. G Sea DieBechreing eine Unglck Zr eeichchen ierar von Ser i Hanke(ankfu am Man ice 1994) 137

23. W G Se krieg n ierar (Munc Hane 1999) 8

24. Sympmaic f ie i f Scee Vig ge jngler21 (Deceme 2000) Ciica u faie Dee e Mencen eenzu Heenieen" Der Spiegel (Api 7 1999) ng Aen Sufen e AngFreiag (Ap 9 1999)



2 Sea krieg n ierar 20.

Nots to Pags 6 177

26. Eic Nack Der Unergang (ankfu am Man Sukamp 1963) 4327. i. 29 ank ee Scaz f e anan fm Nack

Kuge an Sea n i cape28. . 3929 i. 7330 See f exampe Nack . 17·31 Aexane Kuge ee Gechichen vo. z-8 Unheimlichkei er Zei

(ankfu am Main Sukamp 1977) 9·32. i. 106.33· exane Kuge an Oka Neg Gechiche n Eigeninn (an am

Min Sukamp 1981) 78934· Se krieg n ierar

3 W. G Sea Schwinel Ghle (ankfu a Man ice 1994) 213.Engi anain rgo an. Mcae Hue (Ne Yk Ne Decn2000) 187 anain cece

36. W. G Sea Zicen Gecce un Naugecice Veuc eie eaice Beceiung ae Zeung mi Anmekungen zu KaackNack un Kuge " Ori ierarm 37 (1982) 3466

andreas huyssen, present pasts: urban palimpsests

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