Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. (Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History: VI)
Is this propaganda or memorialization? This is the question I have been unable to answer after my visit to the Berlin Wall Memorial. Is it both? If so, how? Is it possible to have a memorial that doesn’t propagandize itself? Sure, the capitalist west “won,” but should that be the only narrative? What happens to our sense of self and government when we stop our public historical probing at the horror of the 136 dead and the totalitarian control of life in the DDR. How often is “respecting the dead” used as an obfuscation? What else is there? Where is this history?
I found another small horror in viewing the “death strip” as a purely aesthetic object, one possessing a minimalism that captures the Kantian sublime like no other I’ve encountered, the smooth gravel almost looking like a canvas Agnes Martin could pencil lines on.