Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

communists who usually were not that fond of the remnants of the
bourgeois culture they had just besieged and were not that subtle
to do jigsaw puzzles. And by Poles, most of them taking over the
places of their German speaking compatriots who had been living
here until they were swept westwards by the forces of history.
Gdansk is one of these numerous European cities that show what
the effects of 18 th and 19 th century nationalism have been. Having
been open before to a variety of influences and having flourished as
a consequence of this openness, these cities felt the effect of the
upcoming nationalism, which brought animosity and hostility to the
foreground and caused decline. The city of Gdansk shows that it
was nationalism which brought bad things to the place itself and to
Europe.
Poczta
Gdansk is a city where history is tangible. Therefore it was the
right place for the Swiss journalist and politician Andreas Gross,
who took part in our conference, to claim, winking at Francis
Fukayama, that it is a caricature to believe in the end of history.
Such an end will never come. We only have to hope that we do not
have to live through that many catastrophes again as to learn something
from the past.
Gdansk is a city where even the sidewalks tell a story. Walk around
for only half an hour and you will come across all kinds of symbols
of revolt and oppression, of the fight against Nazism, Stalinism and
communism. The Post Office, Poczta Polska, is not only a place
where stamps are being sold, it is also a Museum. At the same time
as the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, officially being at a
visit of friendship to the Free City of Danzig, fired at the Polish garrison
of the peninsula of Westerplatte in the dawn of 1 September
1939, SS-troops attacked the main post office of Danzig. Fifty eight
Polish civilian postmen defended the place with their hands, rubber
stamps, desks and the bars from their windows for fourteen hours.
Only when the dirty minds of the SS troops got the cruel idea to
pour oil into the building, they had to give up. The few postmen who
survived the fire were either shot immediately after or ended up in
a concentration camp.
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