A Lesson in Knowledge and Writing from Germany’s Der Spiegel International — Its Made-Relevant World War I Centennial Series — Not Something Major American Press Outlets Would Generally Attempt

17 January 2014

Citations — to the first four parts of the planned six-part series

Klaus Wiegrefe, Disaster Centennial: The Disturbing Relevance of World War I, Spiegel Online International (08 January 2014)

Christian Neef, Stolen Triumph: Russia Revisits Pivotal Role in World War I, Spiegel Online International (13 January 2014)

Walter Mayr, The Bosnian Knot: Conflicts Unchanged in Birthplace of WWI, Spiegel Online International (16 January 2014)

Romain Leick, World War I Centenary: The Symbolic Power of French Victory, Spiegel Online International (17 January 2014)

The appeal of Der Spiegel’s World War I centennial articles will be limited to those who think History has long-reaching effects

These Spiegel contributors think so.

For example, writing about France, Romain Leick:

Both conservative former President Sarkozy and his Socialist successor, François Hollande, saw the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I as a welcome opportunity to transfer the national unity, courage and willingness to make sacrifices of the French in 1914 to the present.

A memory intended to bolster dwindling self-confidence produces a completely different commemorative culture than in Germany, where the culture of remembrance is dominated by what French philosopher Pascal Bruckner calls a "guilt complex."

Europe simply lacks a common memory of the war.

Declarations of commitment to European integration and to the Franco-German friendship have long since acquired the tone of ritual, formulaic prayers on both sides of the Rhine, as if officials there aimed to reestablish the Carolingian Empire.

No crisis seems capable of breaking the couple apart, and yet the relationship is becoming more and more imbalanced. France is keeping a watchful eye on Germany, fluctuating between expectation and mistrust.

Germany, for its part, runs the risk that its view of neighboring France will freeze into benevolent indifference, together with a dose of condescension.

The gradual estrangement of Paris and Berlin, accompanied as it may be by constant empty talk of reconciliation, could well be the beginning of the end of the European adventure -- and a betrayal of the legacy of those who gave their lives in World War I.

Regarding Russia, Christian Neef wrote that:

Nowhere else in Russia is there such a stone, bearing the name of a soldier who fell in World War I.

The almost 2 million Russians who died in the conflict have disappeared from the country's memory -- because the "Great War," as it was once called here, long found no place in the historical narrative mandated from above.

The essential message was that it was Lenin's revolution and not the war that was the key event . . . .

[U]nlike the war against Hitler, the Russians didn't really have any idea what it was they were actually dying for in the war. Even when East Prussia fell to the Soviet Union in 1945, the very region where 160,000 Russians lost their lives at the start of World War I, Moscow had every trace of the mass graves there eradicated and simply ignored the war's history so as not to harm the myth of the revolution.

Now, nearly a hundred years later, the story is changing.

In the fight for common victory, Russia suffered more casualties than all of its allies put together, they argue.

Yet Russia, under Communist rule after 1917, was not invited to the victors' feast in Versailles . . . Only France, Great Britain and the United States profited from Allied victory.

For the Kremlin [today], World War I is a welcome blueprint for the present. Are not Western governments just trying as always to keep Russia down?

As for Bosnia and human nature, Walter Mayr adds this depressing twist about continued failures to learn from the past:

The Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, created in 1918 and . . . [composed of] Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . . . [was] conceived in part as compensation for the horrific death toll of World War I.

But the problem was that it united the Serbs with some of those who had fought against them on the other side of the front.

[T]he assassination of Franz Ferdinand on the Latin Bridge in 1914 and the murder of two female civilians on the Vrbanja Bridge, at the beginning of the war in April 1992, were events of great importance.

The first killing led to the collapse of a painstakingly structured European order, while the second shooting destroyed the hope that the end of the Cold War could result in lasting peace on the continent.

"There will be no peace in this area, as long as everyone is not living among his own people," says the Serb mayor.

A note on comparative media performance

I doubt any of the major American press outlets would publish a history-based series of this quality. The admirable performance, however, is typical of Spiegel Online International. Which sometimes makes me wonder whether we’re a nation of comparative dullards — or merely one served by such.

The moral? — If you are into History and want a partial explanation of why things are as they are in Europe, read this Spiegel series

The essays are short. Though each can be criticized for brevity working against depth, they enticingly invite one to read more about World War I — including some of the Islamic historical background underlying the Ottoman Empire (which fell during the conflict).

The invitation to curiosity and present day relevance is well worth the free cost of admission.

PeteFree.com

A Lesson in Knowledge and Writing from Germany’s Der Spiegel International — Its Made-Relevant World War I Centennial Series — Not Something Major American Press Outlets Would Generally Attempt