The Burden of History in Germany

 Fr Michael Lapsley, SSM

From October 29 to November 12, 2002 I was in Hanover and then in Hamburg in Germany. The first engagement was to speak at a Symposium on Violence and Reconciliation.  I had been invited by Dr. Christina Kayales of VELKD. Most of the speakers were German academic theologians.  I could not help coming to the conclusion that German academic theology attempts to answer questions that nobody is asking.

After the first weekend we spent a week in Hamburg hosted by P. Michael Dülge of the Haus am Schüberg.

This included addressing meetings with pastors, meeting those involved with the anti-apartheid movement.  I also spoke at a small public meeting at a memorial site that used to be a Jewish school, organised by Jens Michelsen.

Finally we held a small but successful Healing of memories workshop – the first on German soil.

After a morning meeting with the pastors of two different Lutheran Church districts in Lübeck, one of the Deans  wrote to me and said: 

“…So I choose this way to thank you very much for, not just for coming to us, not just for sharing your memories and experiences with us but mainly for sharing your heart.  You know we got all these problems, too, you were talking about..  There are still deep wounds, which were torn in the past. 

We, the generation born after World War II, found it hard, even impossible to talk with our parents about their memories. We know that they were involved in the conflicts of World War II and the holocaust but they were not able, maybe not willing to talk about it.  And so, my generation is living with the severe wound that our parents still owe something to us which – as most of them are dead by now – we will never ever get. This produces much hatred, much poison. You showed us a way to deal with it. 

We also have to deal with the memories of the German Democratic Republic. >From my first memories as a very young child I  remember the brutality of the system with barbed wire and mines and people with guns driving away from those they love, separating brother from brother, sister from sister, and parents from children.  I admit that the hatred towards these people who are responsible for this cruel and inhumane system was accompanying my thinking from the very first beginning. 

Maybe you gave me the courage for the first step this morning, the first step towards healing the memories…” 

I was also able to explore further co-operation with the German Lutheran Church including future workshops. 

Bishop  Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter, Bishop of Holstein-Lübeck held a reception for us together with many local leaders of her church.  One of her predecessors as Bishop was a leading Nazi during the Second World War. She is a former General Secretary of German Council of Churches married to Dr. Philip Potter a former General Secretary of the WCC.  Bishop Barbel was instrumental in our invitation to Germany.  The visit was also strongly supported by Hartwig Liebich, Dean, Kirchenkreis Stormarn. 

We heard about three different new exhibitions which to my mind provided a backdrop to the ways in which Germany is confronted by its past today. The first exhibition highlights the role of the German army during WWII in contradistinction to the SS. One pastor told us of how this has raised issues in his parish for some elderly people, who were part of the German army and speak of what they did but also how if they didn’t they would be shot.  Apparently some of the captions in this exhibition were not accurate which in some ways sidelined the central debate about the support of the German nation for “National Socialism”  The second exhibition documents the role of the  church during the Nazi period and the kind of complicity of the church at a local level with what was done to the Jewish people.   The third exhibition documents what happened to black people under the Third Reich and how black people also ended up in concentration camps. 

During the Healing of Memories workshop we all went to a recent film about a massacre of more than a thousand French prisoners of war at a small town in Germany just before it was liberated by Allied troops. 

Some of the evaluation forms of the healing of memories workshop included the following expectations and whether or not they were met 

·           training in listening to other people’s stories and my own 

·           to be faced with life in different places and contexts 

·           there was a much more personal and warm atmosphere than expected 

·           listening to stories in which I realise crucial points in some people’s 

lives – crucial points which made them take a stand 

·           getting my own history and my work closer connected 

·           work on my biographical experiences, learn new ways of healing and reconciliation, and get to know new methods for my professional work 

·           compare the experiences of different contexts 

·           I wish to thank you for the space of sharing stories  

·           The method of healing of memories 

·           The workshop was a big gift for my work and for myself 

·           A different view on my life’s history, possibilities to reframe some important situations, new ideas for my own concept to heal memories 

·           Michael and Barry are a good team because of their different ways to work in healing memories 

Highlights included: 

·            Storytelling in the small group, to be faced with the depth of other peoples lives and in their lives with my own – the community 

·           The group work of listening to life stories 

·           The stories/experiences of the participants, reflecting also parts of my life 

·           Sharing stories together and forming the symbol of hope and peace

·           Getting close to people quickly, discover that shame is a common issue which needs to be addressed 

·           The creative actions and the telling and listening, the warm atmosphere, the authenticity 

·           To link my own German history with the history of our South African partners 

·           To learn methods of healing of memories 

·           Hearing and telling our own stories and feelings about the history in a small group 

·           Sharing our personal histories and moments of reflection about the question of how to create a culture of remembrance 

·           The exchanges and the way the group worked together 

Throughout our time in Germany we were constantly confronted with the burden of history:  How does this generation cope with what was done by our parents and grandparents. How do we cope with shame and guilt?  

One of our workshop participants suggested that a future workshop might concentrate on how to deal with shame. At some workshops in South Africa, some white South Africans have also spoken about their shame concerning what was done under Apartheid.

Perhaps we could bring together people from South Africa and Germany to explore creative ways of confronting and overcoming “shame". How do we deal with neo-Nazi and enduring Nazi attitudes today? How do we redeem the past?