(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

BENJAMIN’S POLITICS OF REMEMBRANCE
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preceding generations, and to do justice to their memory in the present.
In this sense remembrance can indeed “modify” history, for it can
renew the (utopian) claims of the past, seeking to accomplish now what
before was ignored and has remained unaccomplished. 15
Epilogue: The Politics of Remembrance Now
If doing justice to Benjamin’s theoretical endeavor means that we have
to rip his text out of its original context, projecting it onto ours instead,
we should reflect on the possibilities for a politics of remembrance in our
time. To that end I want to consider briefly — without pretending to treat
the subject exhaustively — what might be one of the most interesting
recent examples of such a politics: the impact of the imperative “nie wieder
Auschwitz” (never again Auschwitz) on German foreign policy after
the reunification. I have chosen to discuss this particular case because of
its origin, that is, the attempt to do justice to the memory of the Shoah,
and its result, that is, the justification of military violence in the present,
both of which, to me, seem particularly important. I believe this example
might serve to illustrate the critical potential as well as the limits of a politics
of remembrance in our time.
The legacy of the National Socialist atrocities has played an important
role in postwar German foreign policy. In the German Federal Republic
the prevailing idea was that Germany, because of the violence it had
caused in the past, had a particular responsibility to prevent violence in
the present. Politicians on the left argued that this responsibility entailed a
policy of peace and pacifism, implying, among other things, that the German
army would only have a defensive function and would never again
participate in military actions abroad. They summarized their position
with the imperative “nie wieder Krieg” (“never again war”), meant to
serve as a guideline for German foreign policy. This imperative led some,
particularly among “Die Grünen” (the Green Party), to conclude that,
even in cases of serious violations of human rights and genocide, Germany
had to abstain from military intervention, using other means, such
as diplomatic and economic sanctions, to end the violence instead.
In the course of the 1990s, the meaning of the National Socialist
legacy for German foreign policy was reinterpreted. After fierce debates
within his party, the Greens, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Joschka Fischer, declared, on 7 April 1999: “Ich habe nicht nur ge lernt:
nie wieder Krieg. Ich habe auch gelernt: nie wieder Auschwitz” (I have
not only learned: never again war. I have also learned: never again Auschwitz).
16 Changing the imperative “nie wieder Krieg” to include a reference
to Auschwitz, Fischer made possible what just a few years earlier
had seemed unthinkable: the first out-of-area deployment of German
soldiers in a non-defensive armed conflict since the Second World War,