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

Israel’s West Bank Annexation: The End of the Special German-Israeli Relationship?

Israel’s intended annexation of up to 30 percent of the West Bank is further straining its relationship with Germany, one of its most committed European allies, a key provider of …

Rubble Girls

Part One of Rubble Child’s World: Stories from Bremen’s Ruins Prelude: The End of the War Experience of a Seven-Year Old Girl I spent my seventh birthday on April 25 …

Episode 25: Defeat or Liberation: The Changing Interpretations of May 8

May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. While the displays of remembrance differed from the past given presence of the coronavirus, it …

Auschwitz is a Warning: Comments on the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Arrival of the Red Army at Auschwitz-Birkenau

I want to discuss three points regarding Auschwitz and Holocaust Memory Today. First, despite a massive scholarship on the subject, knowledge in the public and in the world of policy …

Auschwitz: History and Icon

Auschwitz has become an icon of other-worldly evil, rightly signifying a crime like no other. That monstrous camp of gas chambers and crematoria, however, is also a distinctly human creation …

The Federal Republic’s Political and Societal Responses to Auschwitz

To stand here today and address you as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany is far from easy. I am filled with a deep shame at the barbaric crimes …

Keeping History Alive: 75 Years after the Liberation of Auschwitz

One of the negative icons of the twentieth century was the Holocaust—the Nazi German persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jewish people in Europe during World War II from …

The 100th Anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles

Among the many important dates that we largely overlooked is the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended the state of war between Germany and the …

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Life and Message of Raymonde Fiol

A Call from the Past It was a Saturday in 2007. Raymonde Fiol was sitting on a sofa in her home in Las Vegas. The phone rang. She answered. The …

The Afghanistan War: Collective Memory Formation in the United States and Germany

Introduction More than eighteen years have passed since October 2001, when U.S. forces were deployed to Afghanistan after the Taliban regime refused to extradite Osama bin Laden and shut down …

The Afghanistan War: Collective Memory Formation in the United States and Germany

More than eighteen years have passed since October 2001, when U.S. forces were deployed to Afghanistan after the Taliban regime refused to extradite Osama bin Laden and shut down Al-Qaeda …