Thesis
The politicization of Holocaust memory: a comparative study of the use of Holocaust and World War Two memorials by American and German heads of state in 1985 and 2009
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2012
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101353
Abstract
The use and manipulation of Holocaust and Second World War memory by American and German heads of state through ritualized visits to Holocaust memorial sites displays how the politicization of collective memory can occur. This thesis will compare the visits of two American presidents accompanied by German chancellors, to former Nazi concentration camps on German soil during and after the Cold War. First, it will examine President Ronald Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmet Kohl’s contentious visit to the German military cemetery at Bitburg and grounds of the former concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen in May 1985. It will then look at President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s more popular visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in June 2009. This essay will utilize German and American newspaper columns, magazine articles, interviews, speeches, and other media accounts to analyze and contextualize public discourse surrounding these events. By connecting collective remembrance, Holocaust memorials, and politics, this thesis seeks to show why concentration camps, deemed “places of horror,” provide strong stages for the propagation of postwar ideologies. It argues that geopolitical considerations, varying degrees of consciousness about the power of collective memory, and the current stage of national memories of WWII and the Holocaust affect how politicians approach their use of Holocaust memorials—designed to remember the victims of National Socialism—as ideological arenas. As my two case studies illustrate, even when politicians pay homage to the memories of Holocaust victims (both living and the dead) at these sites, the necessary rhetoric required for the successful political use of these sacred places often leads to the distortion or simplification of the Holocaust into an easily understandable event rather than an incomprehensible tragedy.
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Details
- Title
- The politicization of Holocaust memory
- Creators
- Sasha Rosemary Kanick
- Contributors
- Raymond Chien Sun (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- History, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525187601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis