German Studies Canada

Oliver Schmidtke, University of Victoria

Welcome to our latest edition of the GermanStudies.ca Newsletter 2010. For the first time this January edition includes a section entitled Comments on Current Issues. Based on the online forum www.GermanStudies.ca/berlinwall, colleagues across country were invited to comment on the contribution of Laurence McFalls on the ‘False Memory Syndrome’ related to the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Wall. Willi Goetschel from the University of Toronto discusses the meaning of choosing November 9th as the date of celebrating German unity and the symbolism attached to this date in German history. Christian Leuprecht, Royal Military College of Canada (currently fellow at Yale University), puts the celebrations of the collapse of the Wall into an international perspective, portraying Germany as the country that benefitted greatly from the end of the Cold War but is at the same time confronted with new expectations. Willem Maas from York University draws our attention to the fact that 1989 saw many important historic developments and turning points. In this respect, the focus on the dramatic events in Berlin reflects how selective collective memory is. Elaborating this perspective, Alexandra Hausstein, professor from the University of Toronto, shows how the memory of the fall of the Wall is not necessarily shared in West and East Germany. Rather, as Hausstein argues, the memories and experiences of East Germans are often marginalized in relation to the dominant western narrative. Addressing a different aspect of modern Germany’s past, Rebecca Wittmann, University of Toronto, discusses the current Demjanjuk trial as a – controversial – element in the long account of Germany’s attempt to ‘master the past’.