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 Berlin Wall

Sixty Years Since its Construction Sixty years ago on August 13, East German leader Walter Ulbricht tried to save his regime by closing off the escape route to West Berlin. …

Queer Activism and Human Rights

During gay pride season, it is always tempting – at least from a German perspective – to focus narrowly on the German elements of queer history and emancipation. These accounts might feature the precocious …

President Biden’s Recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Will the German Government Follow? On April 24, 2021, President Joe Biden recognized as a genocide the mass killings by the crumbling Ottoman Empire of 1.5 million Armenians, beginning in …

Germany intends to restitute artworks from the Kingdom of Benin (“Benin Bronzes”) to Nigeria

On April 30, 2021, Germany’s Culture Minister Monika Grütters announced that restitution of a “substantial” portion of Benin artworks that are held in German museums to Nigeria will begin next …

The Diplomacy of Genocide

President Biden’s Recognition of the Armenian Genocide On the 106th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, April 24, 2021, President Biden issued a statement honoring the memory of Armenians who perished. …

Germany’s Memory Culture and the Alternative for Germany

Issue Brief 62 For decades, the dominant narrative about the evolution of collective memory in the Federal Republic of Germany has been that after several decades of silence, evasion, and …

On the Passing of a German Generation

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my “Nazi aunt” (actually a great aunt) as I called her. Born a century ago in 1920 in northern Bavaria, Leni was a …

Lily Gardner Feldman on Reparations as Part of Reconciliation

AGI Senior Fellow Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman recently spoke with Quartz about the German experience of confronting the past. The article notes, “If the German example can teach it anything, …

Lucky Soldiers

Part Four of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Introduction George H. Jordan, Jr. did not like the movie Commando.[1] He made this clear to me as the Arnold …

Up from the Cellars

Part Three of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Introduction In the Introduction to her outstanding work of oral history of German women who lived during the Second World …

Education for Boys

Part Two of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Introduction Rand Paul was frustrated. During a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, the Republican Senator …