Там, где кончается война

Rossiyskaya Gazeta — “Where the War Ends”

5 May 2016

Where the War Ends

Text: Tatyana Tkacheva (Voronezh)

Rossiyskaya Gazeta — Nedelya — Central Russia, No. 6964 (96)

How Germans and Russians are seeking a common view of the Second World War

There is a place in Europe where victory always reigns: victory over Nazi Germany and over the “stubbornness” of national memory, which eternally wants to assert its own view of the past. Two countries present a single version of history.

On the outskirts of Berlin, where in May 1945 the act of unconditional surrender of the Third Reich was signed, Germany and Russia have jointly maintained a unique museum of the Second World War for more than twenty years. A neutral strip. Whatever surprises politicians may produce, peace is maintained here. But is it an illusion? How do the German and Russian approaches to events seventy years ago differ? Dr. Jörg Morré, director of the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, explains.

Until 1994 Karlshorst was a Soviet state museum on German soil. Now it is a German state museum, but with Russian participation?

Jörg Morré:

Legally, our museum is an association (German: Verein, a public association) in which institutions from Germany and Russia participate on equal terms. Everything is symmetrical: the Central Museum of the Armed Forces and the Bundeswehr Museum of Military History; the State Historical Museum in Moscow and the German Historical Museum in Berlin; the Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Hill and a number of German institutions connected with military history. Both sides have representatives of the ministries of culture, foreign affairs and defence. Each member has one vote. Minsk and Kyiv also have one vote each, represented by their museums of the history of the Great Patriotic War. One cannot speak of any serious influence on museum policy in their case, but the Russians take their colleagues’ opinions into account. As museum director I act independently, although I always bear the Russian position in mind. Once a year, at the general meeting, any member of the association can voice criticism or wishes.

There is also an academic council, with five specialists each from Russia and Germany. They discuss all working issues. When we prepared the new permanent exhibition—it opened in 2013, replacing the 1995 version—historians from the Russian Federation scrutinized our concept very carefully and made corrections to almost every text. Oh, there were long discussions!

Our budget is financed one hundred percent with German money, although we may receive sponsorship from Russia. That was the original agreement: the Russian Federation would leave all the exhibits of the former Museum of Surrender, while Germany would finance the museum’s work. Naturally, that sometimes decides certain things: whoever pays... But honestly, without our Moscow colleagues nothing would work here.

Forgotten tank aces of the Great Patriotic War

My task is to make all members of the association feel, as far as possible, involved in the museum’s work. Naturally that does not always succeed. The political situation has become more complicated. But I think it is very important to show that we have an open platform. All four flags hang in front of the museum; colleagues from Kyiv also participate in the work, and nothing terrible happens. I am certain that the project itself will survive the present difficulties. Propaganda is propaganda, but everyone understands that Karlshorst is a historic place where a major event occurred. We preserve what is objective. Interpretation is up to the visitor.

Thank God, everything is calm within the association: we have worked together for twenty years and understand that Berlin-Karlshorst is a neutral zone. After all, our subject, put very briefly, is the Soviet victory. That is all. Germans have different memories, but “our Victory” is something important to our Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian colleagues alike. And our principal task is to preserve the surrender hall itself.

The furnishings in it—the chairs, tables and carafes—are a reconstruction, aren’t they?

Jörg Morré:

Yes. The problem is that after the war this was simply an administrative building, and later it stood empty for about ten years. People remembered it twenty years after the Victory, by which time all the original inventory had disappeared. At the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg I saw the microphone that stood on the table on 8 May 1945 during the signing of the surrender. I found a small piece of the green tablecloth—one of the servicemen had cut it off as a souvenir... In addition to the exhibits collected by our Soviet colleagues, we have many objects from the German Historical Museum. There are some personal belongings as well—for example, Marshal Zhukov’s uniform and briefcase. During the past twenty years we have actively enlarged the collection: we buy some things and receive others as gifts.

In the galleries one can listen to testimonies by participants in the war—not their actual voices, however, but audio versions of their recollections. In principle, recordings of Zhukov’s and Tedder’s speeches during the signing of the surrender should have survived. But nobody knows where they are. Only newsreel footage is available, with individual phrases audible.

For the time being the exhibition, roughly speaking, ends on 9 May 1945. If we get another building, we will create a second part of the museum to tell the story from 1945 to 1994, when the last Russian soldier left Germany. Everything is very closely connected: Zhukov, who accepted the surrender in this hall, became the first head of the Soviet Military Administration. And it was here in 1949 that the first government of the GDR received its official document from the SMAD. Documents and possessions of people who served in Germany after the war could be obtained from Russia. Quite a few such retired servicemen live in Voronezh, for example, and interviews with them have been recorded by the regional oral-history centre. In the future I would like people in Karlshorst to be able to learn about relations between Soviet soldiers in the GDR and the German population. That, too, is history now.

Do you have a favourite exhibit?

Jörg Morré:

Of course! First, there is a signal lantern from the “Road of Life,” a gift from veterans in St. Petersburg. Traffic controllers stood on the ice of Lake Ladoga with lanterns like these. Second, there is a sled from besieged Leningrad. You see them everywhere in photographs of the city—they were used to carry water, children and corpses... It is wonderful to have such a vivid, authentic object. I also like an American Lend-Lease poster showing a soldier’s portrait with the word “Russian” and the explanation: “This man is your FRIEND. He fights for FREEDOM.” Yes, the United States and the Soviet Union concluded their agreement in autumn 1941, actual aid did not begin until 1943, and the second front was awaited for an terribly long time. But the Americans printed a poster like this; ordinary people were rooting for the Red Army. Finally, personal belongings have a special appeal, such as a mess tin with a picture cut into it. It was given to a German doctor who was a prisoner of war in Ulyanovsk in 1948—apparently a fellow prisoner thanked him in this way. I am very fond of such human stories.

Nizhny Novgorod volunteers restored a prisoner-of-war cemetery

Our museum has audio stations through which visitors can hear biographies of people both famous and unknown: a Red Army soldier in captivity, women at the front, German soldiers... There are recordings of recollections by Ilya Ehrenburg and Vladimir Gelfand—a Soviet officer whose diaries about the Second World War and the first years of the occupation of Germany are widely known in the West—as well as a story about Nikolai Berzarin, the first commandant of Berlin after the city was taken by Soviet troops. This makes it possible to understand the war not only as “big history” but also as the experience of an ordinary human being.

Were there any questions on which you and your Russian colleagues failed to reach agreement when creating the new exhibition?

Jörg Morré:

Yes and no... The method used at the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum requires us to find a single version of every caption, not two or three. So our texts are always compromises. That is our misfortune—or perhaps our advantage. We did not leave blank spots in the story of the war; we covered all the key moments. But there are formulations that specialists may consider weak, vague or lacking important details.

Take the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, for example. In 1995 it was decided that it had to be included in the exhibition. We obtained a copy from a Russian archive, which at the time was a sensation, because the Soviet Union had maintained that it did not possess that document. A caption was written. Several years ago, while discussing modernization of the exhibition, we realized that finding a shared assessment of the pact had become more difficult. Positions today differ too widely; it seemed better not to touch the subject. So we still display the old copy with the old caption. As a historian, of course, I would say that this is bad. But it is natural and one can live with it.

There was a very interesting dispute when we thought it would be useful to show German visitors what kind of country the Soviet Union was in 1941, before the Wehrmacht attack. That means explaining socialism and Stalinism and describing what happened after the revolution: the NEP, collectivization, terror, and so on. We Germans proceeded from the assumption that all these things had long been described in books, that information about them was readily available and that the period had been studied. Then the Russian historians said: no, no, this is still a very live subject today; heated debates are under way, the figures for how many people died during the famine are not so clear—easy, colleagues... In the end we said that the USSR was the first socialist country, that not everything was easy but that development was rapid. In short, we phrased it so that a German visitor would understand that the war was also a crisis in the development of a very young country and a young society. It is schematic, but it makes clear why people rejoiced so incredibly at victory. One might say it was their first respite in almost thirty years. That has to be understood.

And the crimes of Soviet soldiers in Germany?

Jörg Morré:

Here, too, we reached a compromise with the Moscow side. For balance we placed them alongside crimes committed by the Wehrmacht, to show that war is war and violence against civilians occurs on both sides. From a historical standpoint, however, violence during military operations cannot simply be equated with violence after peace has been concluded. Yes, violence by Soviet soldiers is acknowledged by society. Everyone knows that in May and June 1945 German women were afraid to go out into the streets and that children were later born as a result—how those children were integrated into society is a separate subject. At the time, naturally, women were ashamed to speak. The subject began to be discussed when Marta Hillers’s autobiographical book appeared in the 1950s. A new round of discussion began several years ago after the film based on that book was released. Call them tales, myths or legends if you wish: they are alive, and that in itself is a historical fact. The other issue is that facts must be placed in context. We lack sufficient documents, objective evidence of what happened and on what scale. We believe information exists in the Defence Ministry archive in Podolsk, but it is closed. They do not even want to admit Russian scholars. That would supposedly tarnish the image of the victor... Our museum displays an extract from the archive of Berlin’s Charité hospital recording cases of rape. But we do not know, for example, whether the Red Army had any official policy toward this before May 1945. Under the occupation regime after May, tribunals issued judgments in such cases. But before that? In the German army we know that violence was prohibited. One can therefore ask how that prohibition was enforced and how offenders were punished.

How “Stars of Victory” helped frontline soldiers’ families find awards that had never been presented

How do visitors—German and Russian—usually react? Do they accept the version of history presented by the museum?

Jörg Morré:

Most often, yes. There are very few dissatisfied comments in the visitors’ book; most guests note that the exhibition is very solid and the documentation is good. Veterans have told me that, of course, it is impossible to tell everything about the war, but what we tell here is correct, “it is true.” Though what is truth?... In general, Russian-speaking visitors also mostly approve of what we have achieved. Several years ago one member of our academic council brought a group of museum directors from Russia and told them: we debated this for four years, the result is excellent, look and see for yourselves. I do not know what the colleagues actually thought, but they were very polite. And if a Russian member of the academic council evaluates the permanent exhibition that way, he probably regards it as his own achievement too, rather than merely thinking, “Well, the Germans made something here; let it be, it is not so bad...” I think it is wonderful that there is a sense of joint success. Perhaps that scholar thinks differently now; that is entirely natural. I know that success is temporary, but it exists. At least it existed two or three years ago. Views of history change, as do trends in exhibition design, and in ten or fifteen years the exhibition will need to be changed again and the wording discussed again.

“In Russia the tradition of remembering the Victory and preserving everything connected with it remains very much alive.”

Unfortunately, the museum does not yet have a museum educator on staff. I hope we will be given such a position. Otherwise, in my view, we have no future: it is increasingly difficult for schoolchildren to grasp the history of the Second World War because it is too remote from them. We cannot take children through the entire exhibition because some photographs are quite brutal. In Germany people debate whether children should be shown, say, a tank. I think they can be. But ten-year-olds should not look at such photographs. In any case, those photographs are on our second floor, so children can stay on the first.

At museum level you managed to reconcile two cultures of memory. At the level of society, clearly, that has not happened. In your view, which stereotypes divide us most?

Jörg Morré:

For example, purely military history occupies a very important place in Russian perceptions, whereas Germans in general are unfamiliar with it. Here even a schoolchild can name five or ten battles of the Great Patriotic War. In Germany people know only Stalingrad. Our perception of the Second World War is always connected with the history of the National Socialist dictatorship—with fascism, roughly speaking—and the Holocaust stands at the centre of attention. In Russia that plays virtually no role. The emphasis there is on defending the homeland against invaders, and from that viewpoint the enemy’s ideology makes little difference. Today in Russia one often hears: “Well, our grandfathers and yours fought; that was bad, but it ended, thank God.” For me as a historian that is not enough.

Here we discuss the character of the war: in the East it was a war of annihilation, whereas in the West it was an ordinary war, so to speak. The National Socialists themselves did not use the term “war of annihilation,” but their euphemisms have long since been deciphered, and society has acknowledged that those really were the intentions.

Popular memory in Germany is also connected with the fact that prisoners returned from Siberia after the war—although in reality not all the camps were in Siberia, the myth became entrenched—and told people how cold, unpleasant and terrible it had been. Then the Cold War began, and society cultivated the idea that everything bad came from the East. Propaganda sustained these stereotypes, including the notion of “Jewish Bolshevism.” Gradually, however, people began to speak about Soviet prisoners dying too, and remembered the Ostarbeiter (“Eastern workers”). After German reunification and the famous travelling exhibition of 1995 about crimes of the Wehrmacht, the discussion became much broader... The conversation always revolves around German guilt. I personally did not kill a Soviet person—but perhaps my grandfather or great-grandfather did.

New television reports in the “Stars of Victory” special project went on air

In your country, of course, victory is at the centre: my grandfather, my great-grandfather is a victor. In Russia the tradition of remembering the Victory and preserving everything connected with it, including Karlshorst, remains very much alive. It is sacred. Veterans play a major public role... For Germans, the Second World War has nevertheless already passed into history. Yes, there was such a war. Well, there was also the First World War and the French Revolution; all of that is history. One should know it well, but it is very, very far from my life today. For Russians the war is closer, and it is clear why. During the Second World War the Soviet Union lost 27 million people, according to German estimates; the entire European part of the country was devastated, and so on. You cannot simply forget that in seventy years. It will probably be remembered for centuries.

It is normal that Russians and Germans have different feelings about the war. But at the expert level it would be good to have closer ties. Today there is little exchange between professional historians; our methods are completely different, and therefore our viewpoints differ greatly. Germans always insist on archival work and believe access to documents must be equal. In Russia not all archives are open, and there are different rules besides: a prominent scholar may be entitled to work with certain holdings, while an unknown postgraduate student is not. Unfortunately, as a result, people in your country do not read what our historians write, and vice versa. Things have improved somewhat recently; I have seen translations of some books from Germany, Britain and the United States in bookshops.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta reference

The German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst is the only museum in the Federal Republic of Germany with a permanent exhibition about the war against the Soviet Union. It is located in the building where, on 8 May 1945, the Second World War in Europe ended with the signing of the second act of unconditional surrender. Previously it had been the officers’ club of a combat-engineer school; from 1945 to 1949 it was the headquarters of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. In 1967 the Museum of Surrender opened there and existed until 1994. Its exhibits remained the property of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow. After Soviet troops were withdrawn from the GDR, the exhibits were left in the permanent use of the German partners.

In 1995 the German-Russian Museum resumed its work, and in 2013 a new permanent exhibition was created. It includes thousands of documents, photographs and objects, among them children’s diaries from besieged Leningrad, records by concentration-camp prisoners, testimonies from the front and memoirs. Audio stations allow visitors to hear eyewitness stories in several languages—English, Spanish, German, Polish and Russian. In some galleries the 1967 design was retained for atmosphere—for example, the characteristic relief with the figure of a soldier and the diorama “Storming the Reichstag.” For Germans this is as exotic as the T-34 tank on a pedestal and other military equipment in the small neighbouring “Victory Park.”

Museum website: www.museum-karlshorst.de

© 1998–2016 Federal State Budgetary Institution, Editorial Office of Rossiyskaya Gazeta

Text visible in the images:

The RG.RU/Rossiyskaya Gazeta logo identifies the publication. The projected biographical slide in 3.jpg is only 310×206 pixels in the source archive; the readable portion identifies an “Ivan Andreyevich,” a participant in the Great Patriotic War, and gives military-service details including the rank of private. The remaining wording is too blurred in the original image for a reliable full transcription, so no uncertain names or unit numbers have been invented.