AGI

Memory Politics

Germany’s approach to acknowledging and providing redress for past crimes has offered other nations around the world a guide to reconciliation. While Germany’s efforts resulted from a unique situation and are not considered a blueprint for other nations to emulate, they have nevertheless informed and impacted other countries dealing with the difficult processes of memory, commemoration, and rebuilding bilateral relationships.
Reset

The Not-so-Sudden Death of Weimar Democracy

January 30, 1933, the day that Reich President Paul von Hindenburg appointed the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany—and a day whose 90th anniversary we marked last month—was …

Partisan Divides and Popular Fronts

We are pleased to inaugurate the AGI 40th Anniversary series with the following article, which coincides with the 90th anniversary of the Nazi seizure of power (Machtergreifung) when Hitler was appointed chancellor …

Reparations Reprise

Poland Presses a Perceived Advantage The leader of Poland’s governing conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has escalated his demand for compensation from Germany for the World War …

The Ngonnso Statue

Germany Moves Forward by Facing its Past If you have been to an ethnological museum, you might be familiar with walking through exhibits titled “Africa” or “Oceania” and seeing a …

Documenta 15 and Anti-Semitism

Documenta 15: Curating the Meta-Collective, Translocating Art, and Anti-Semitism Artist collectives have gained heightened visibility in the twenty-first century, not only as a platform for virtual collaborations but also as …

The Anti-Semitism Scandal at Documenta 15

Documenta is one of the highest-profile contemporary art exhibitions in the world. Dating back to 1955, the exhibition runs for several summer months in and around the small central German …

Language of Remembrance

Over the last few years, American society has been entrenched in a debate about how to remember the past. Demonstrations calling for the removal of Confederate statues and the backlash …

The Entertainer: Mark Newton’s Raison d’être

When the door opens at Mark Newton’s condominium in Yardley, Pennsylvania, it is as if a curtain has been drawn back from the stage. One is immediately met with movie …

Catherine the Great and the Limits of German Memory Culture

Catherine the Great. Yes, the eighteenth-century Russian Czarina, who was originally German, is back in the news. As reported by Katrin Bennhold in the New York Times, the former chair …

How to Resist the Merger of Anti-Vaxxers and Anti-Semites

If International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 has any meaning, it is to prevent the banalization and memory loss of the Shoah. Yet sadly, Nazi-coronavirus comparisons have proliferated on …

On the Possibilities and Pitfalls of German Holocaust Memory Today

In the past week, we marked the eightieth anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, in which Nazi bureaucrats coordinated the murder of millions of European Jews in a beautiful villa outside …

Black Lives Matter

Activism for Reconciliation in a Divided Country Since a policeman killed Michael Brown on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, the United States has experienced a new phase of dealing …