Germany: Memories of a Nation

Surprisingly interesting exhibition at the British Museum looking at the historical and cultural influence of Germany. It took as it’s starting point how post-unification it has looked back to find a common memory and how over the years as its boundaries have changed it has constantly had to do this.

I must admit I went along thinking this would be quite dull with maybe a few iconic objects but I found it fascinating to put a modern country into context. Despite having studied medieval history I’d never really thought about what the Holy Roman Empire was and how it had changed and developed over the years until the core of it has become Germany. The show told this story with objects in particularly a constant returning to currency.

I loved the section which looked at cities which had been parts of the Holy Roman Empire but were now in different countries such as Geneva, Prague and Strasburg. I was also fascinated by the section which looked at the German Confederation post Napoleon which was the first time Germany had tried to define what its part was.

I thought the show dealt very well with the Hitler years. The commentary said of the Nazi’s that “they left a dark memory that can neither be avoided nor explained” which I thought was a very neat way of summing that era up. There was a display case on the Weimar Republic and rise of Hitler. A few shows recently have pointed out the harsh blockade of Germany by Britain in the First World War and the privation it brought yet it seems to be something British history has chosen to ignore.

The tape tour said the curators felt the Holocaust should not be summed up by one object and yet they picked a perfect one. There were gates from a labour camp with the words “To each his due” painted on them in red. They were in beautiful iron work and had been made by an inmate who had been a Bauhaus architect and in fact the letters were in Bauhaus font, a point the commissioners seem to have missed. In one object they showed the quiet sadism of making people read those words ever day with the implication that they had deserved what was happening and the quiet resistance of someone still using their creativity and putting their own stamp on the work.

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