Reconciliation, Civil Society, and the Politics of Memory : Transnational Initiatives in the 20th and 21st Century

From Foe to Friend? Veterans as a Driving Force of International Reconciliation After the Second World War

“…After all, the veterans of World War I had turned out to be revanchist warmongers. Nevertheless, it is one of the paradoxes of the second post-war period that former combatants assumed an important role in the process of international reconciliation in the early 1950s; my argument is that they did not put the recent war to the back of their minds, but rather adjusted what they had experienced during the war to the constellation of the post-war period at home and abroad by ascribing to it a specific meaning and making it "suitable for reconciliation" (Schwelling, 2012). 1 As far as Germany is concerned, I will focus on the fields of activity, forms of action, mental dispositions, patterns of interpretation and argumentation, and symbolic practice in the specific historical context which enabled "reconciliation" (Wienand, 2013) to take root.…”

“…Another reason for criticising other countries was the state of German war graves on former battlefields. In their publications, associations made every effort to promote "war grave trips" to Western and South-Eastern European countries, and later also to North Africa (Der Heimkehrer (8 Sep 1955) 9, p. 7) 10 . Again and again, the associations' publications deplored the poor state of war graves on former battlefields.…”

“…Against this backdrop, the home comers returning from imprisonment were able to develop a self-image which allowed them to see themselves on the one hand as "victims", and, on the other, to a certain extent also as experts, with a very special insight into the conditions and consequences of war and violence because of their experience of suffering. They regarded their experience of imprisonment as vital, not only for the societal integration of a German republic, but also for European unity in peace and freedom (Echternkamp, 2014;Schwelling, 2012). "Comradeship" and "honour": these often quoted key categories of a soldier's self-description could also be applied beyond their nationalistic elevation and used for other soldiers, like a set of professional ethics that took no heed of borders.…”