Thiemeyer, Thomas. “Zwischen Helden, Tätern und Opfern. Welchen Sinn deutsche, französische und englische Museen heute in den beiden Weltkriegen sehen”

Thiemeyer addresses the memory-making power of display by examining the ways in which museums in England, France and Germany that have permanent exhibitions on World War I and II deal with heroes, victims and perpetrators. The article focuses on two primary questions: How do museums display perpetrators and victims and deal with the difficult subjects of wartime guilt and responsibility? And: Who are the heroes and victims of these wars? Particularly this latter question is combined with an evaluation of the approach the museums take to the two world wars and to war in general; Thiemeyer asks if the museums legitimize war as a political means, or rather principally reject it. In face of the complexities and stakes at play in the representation of violence in museum settings, the article offers a productive framework for critically assessing and approaching museums 

Thiemeyer sets out to show that there is a discrepancy in the ways museums deal with perpetrators of the second world war as opposed to the first, and highlights the various national perspectives in dealing with perpetrators, victims and heroes. Whereas museums in all three countries perceive soldiers of World War I as victims rather than perpetrators (and neglect the position of the civilian), museums on the Second World War perceive the soldiers as either perpetrators (from the German perspective) or active fighters (from the English and French perspective), while citizens are displayed as victims. The first world war is depoliticized, as questions of guilt and responsibilities are overshadowed by an international consent over compassion for victims regardless of their nationality. In French and British museums the interpretation of the Second World War is, in contrast, shaped by the foregrounding of “Kriegszeit”: the heroes of WWII are the allies, their antagonists European fascists, with Hitler and those condemned at the Nuremberg trials at the top. Democracy, freedom and human rights are highlighted as what needed to be protected from “Rassenhass, Unterwerfung, Intoleranz und industriellen Massenmord” (489). At the center of this stands, in all museums, the guiltless civil victim. For German museums, however, the rules of display are different: while British and French museums frame the Second World War as a necessary fight of good against evil, German museums present the war as the result of Nazi politics, thus framing it in terms of Germany’s political failure and defeat.

Finally, Thiemeyer reflects on the ways in which these museums deal with the issue of using physical violence for political purposes-arguing that they both negate and affirm such violence-and asserts if and how museums might influence the attitude of visitors towards contemporary wars and violence. By doing so, the article offers insight into the ways in which museums approach the display of violence, the structural issues found in such curation, and how various national perspectives feed into such issues and the subsequent choices. The analyses of ten different museums and their methods of display are valuable cases for those interested in curation practices, the challenges of representing as well as narrating war and perpetratorship and the ways in which institutions influence processes of memory-making.

Author of this entry: Marit van de Warenburg

Thiemeyer, Thomas. “Zwischen Helden, Tätern und Opfern. Welchen Sinn deutsche, französische und englische Museen heute in den beiden Weltkriegen sehen.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 36.3 (2014).