Which commemorative culture do we need in Germany to remember dead soldiers in a dignified manner and learn the lessons of the past at the same time? While monuments, as soon as they have been built, start to become part of the everyday life, the preceding public debate on places and forms of remembrance plays an important role. It illustrates that commemoration of dead soldiers always reflects the way politics deals with the military: Which objectives are pursued by the deployment of military means and in which cases is it justified? Which casualties should be remembered - only soldiers or also civil staff? Which function should the memorial perform - should it honor the soldiers' performance of their duty until death or should it serve as an admonition to politics and the public?
Sabine Mannitz analyzes these questions and controversies in HSFK-Standpunkt 8/2014 Zwischen Ehrenmal und Friedwald: Offene Fragen des militärischen Totengedenkens in Deutschland. She uses the example of the memorial in Berlin Bendlerblock, which was constructed on the initiative of Secretary of Defense Jung and inaugurated in 2009, and the memorial "Wald der Erinnerung" (forest of remembrance), which was inaugurated in 2014 by Secretary of Defense von der Leyen. The author traces the creation of the two memorial sites, asks for their messages and examines debates on the culture of remembrance in Germany that have flared up in the context of the Bendlerblock memorial. The challenge for politics, according to Mannitz, lies in portraying Germany's military restraint and the special path of the Bundeswehr armed forces that have been developed since 1945 in corresponding forms of remembrance.
This Standpunkt is part of the PRIF publication series "1914-2014: Der Erste Weltkrieg - 100 Jahre danach" and is available as a free PDF download.