posted 12-05- 01:53 PM
"To cut or not to cut"Well, given that I'm not German and have never lived in Germany, let alone visit there I, of course, have no grounds to speak on the issue, but there is something that strikes me about all this. What if you were to leave the trees? I mean cutting them down doesn't change the fact that at one time Germany's government was lead by the Nazi party. If the trees are really that offensive, why have they lasted this long? Are people only now starting to fly over this part of the forest? I realize that they are being cut down because no government in its right mind would put itself in a position to be viewed as sympathetic to the aforementionned fascist regime, but from a psychologically detached standpoint this is really an interesting question.
In regards to the issue of disappearing tangible legacies of the regime, and of keeping some things (like the camps) and not others, my guess is that those places/things which represent the horrors of the regime are kept to remind us of the horrors, while pure symbolism has no such emotional connotation so they are removed. In a sense one could compare the trees to a nazi banner hanging in a German city. Their function was purely to glorify and legitimize the regime. The only difference is that the trees are a little more out of the way. During the post-war denazification, the allied plan included, among many other things, the removal of such visual cues. I guess they missed this one.
So, on the one hand you could argue that the trees should be considered part of a long term denazification mop-up operation and that the trees should be removed without much though (...banner #10986, banner #10987, banner #10988...), but on the other hand you could argue that the time for denazification has long since come and gone, and that really what's going on is the media latching on to a story that will generate headlines, thus putting inescapable pressure on the Schroeder government to act.
In the long run however, does removing these trees add to the relegation of the nazi memory to history books alone? Well if people hardly noticed this in 60 years, I doubt they'd notice them more in the next 60. I mean it's not as if you're going to get CNN camping out near this grove... "Wolf Blitzer here on day 31 of denazification 2000: the latest this hour? Well the trees are still standing, um, back to live coverage of the Florida Supreme Court battle now..."
The underlying question of tangible reminders is an interesting for me in another way, because I had this debate with my father last easter when we were in Normandy. While travelling in the general viscinity of the coast, we made numerous stops at places where coastal batteries and emplacements had been. All but two of the seven or eight concrete defense networks we visited were either bricked up or filled with sand, and basically left to rot. No interpretive signs, nothing. As the trip progressed my father was really disturbed that the remains of the war were so rapidly disappearing. Now understand that my father really isn't much of a war buff (nowhere near to the extent I am) so his reaction to all this really surprised me. I, on the other hand, was surprised with myself because I tried to put myself in the shoes of a local resident, and so my argument in reply was that you can't turn a whole region into a living museum! These things cost money to maintain, and I certainly wouldn't want tax dollars going to maintain the entire atlantic wall when social programs were threatened. On the other hand I think the French have really done a good job addressing the issue four ways:
1. Not removing (as far as I could tell) any of the bunkers/pillboxes/etc. Even bricked up and/or filled with sand, the reminder is still there
2. Certain places, like Pointe du Hoc (yes I know this is maintained with US funds in part, if not in its entirety, but the French could have asked for it to be abandoned instead) and another place near PdH (I forget the name - four heavy calibre anti-shipping gun emplacements, 1 of which you can enter and explore) - cetain places are being kept up and serve as subregional focal points for remembrance of the occupation.
3. Memorial pour la Paix, Caen. This place changed my father's mind about the state of war relics in Normandy. To use his words, "even if everything else turns to dust, this museum alone will protect the memory of what happened". I couldn't agree more. That place is absolutely incredible. Brilliantly conceived, brilliantly executed, and more reassuringly still is that while we were there (midweek, near Easter) more than a thousand school children, Junior and Senior High, visited. More on this later.
4. To the west and south a bit more, in the general viscinity of the Cotentin down towards Mont St. Michel (likely elsewhere too, but this is where we were driving) there is a fabulous system of roadway signage for landmarks in each phase of the Battle of Normandy. This signage led us to a German ossuary near Mont St. Michel with the remains of over 15000 (yes, fifteen thousand) Wehrmacht soldiers who died in the Normandy area in 1944. Very surreal atmosphere inside the place.
Anyhow, a bit more about Caen and then I'll shut up. In the second part of the museum are some incredible audio visual presentations. The first is a wide screen, that starts with two, parallel-running propaganda reels of pre-DDay allied on the left and German on the right (interesting, I had seen most of the allied in films before but very little of the German). As DDay hits, the two merge into one big battle sequence, which splits back and forth into two, then three, then back to one, until the surrender sequence. Then you see the beaches from the view of a low flying plane "today", you hear and see the birds flying, the surf rolling in and out. Every ten seconds or so it switches to an identical shot of roughly the same location (interesting, they cut the film so the surf comes in just as far too, really adds to the "here now, here 60 years ago" effect) with soldiers madly scrambling up the beaches, and a near-continual rat-tat-tat of aerial machine guns. Oh, did I mention this is guncamera footage from 109s "combing" the beaches? anyhow my dad and I watched this one twice. The first time the auditorium was about 1/10 full with tourists and 9/10 full with high schoolers, who sat in reverent silence. We went back for a second go because it is incredibly hard to soak it all up in one pass because of the split screen, except this time I wanted to scream because the 9/10s were junior high kids who were making immature comments and generally not feeling the emotional consequences of what they were watching. When I thought about it some more though, I was really happy because a)The French remember! b)Remembrance has become a part of the curriculum, and is reinforced, so that by the time they mature somewhat and are in high school, they have a better understanding of the breadth and consequence of it all. Now I know I'm coming off sounding a bit pariah-ish, especially to those who know roughly how old I am, but I stated a) and b) because these are two things NOT done in Canadian schools, and even in the exceptional cases where they are, it's not NEARLY as much as in France or enough, imo. Our history texts and curriculum allow for (at least in alberta) a whopping ONE WEEK to cover ww2. In this time they gloss over BoB, El Alamein, Stalingrad, DDay, Canadian internment of the Japanese and the wartime confereneces which is really a lead-in to the cold war unit. No field trips, nothing. Even if there were field trips, there is nothing in Canada that is a patch on Caen, let alone what I imagine the Imperial War Museum in London to be. I guess my point is that I have the utmost respect for the French and for how they have handled the legacy of the war, particularly in Normandy.
Well that was a whole lot longer than I intended so my apologies to you unfortunate readers. Just finished my bio lab final so I'm in somewhat of a contemplative mood.
Werner 
------------------
Visit Abbeville Field Today!
[This message has been edited by Werner Molders (edited 12-05-2000).]
FSIC Messageboard
UBBFriend: Email This Page to Someone! 
posted 12-04- 01:21 PM
posted 12-04- 01:50 PM
posted 12-04- 02:48 PM
Or maybe just some evergreens as replacements for the larch.
