“Wartime” Ephemera from the Family Home in German and Austrian History Museums: A Counterexample to the British Case

Author:

Paver Chloe1

Affiliation:

1. Department of Languages, Cultures, and Visual Studies, University of Exeter, Queen’s Building, The Queen’s Drive, Exeter EX4 4QH, UK

Abstract

When discussing “wartime ephemera”, of the kind that has been passed down through families since the Second World War, Germany and Austria could be considered as a counterexample to Britain. In German and Austrian historical memory, “wartime” cannot be separated from pre-war Nazi society (beginning in 1933 and 1938, respectively). Moreover, what we might loosely call the “Antiques Roadshow experience”—discussing family objects from the Second World War in a sympathetic public forum—has never been open to the majority of Germans and Austrians, who were rather inclined to hide and forget such objects in the family home. Even so, mundane Nazi-era objects survived in their millions and this essay discusses their display in German and Austrian history museums. There, they serve to illustrate a history of mentalities during and after the Nazi regime. Austrian museums are currently playing a proactive role in the transfer of objects from the private, family archive to public, cultural memory. This article considers how notions of “family” are constructed in museum discourse and asks how the millions of German and Austrian citizens and residents with no family connection to the Second World War can be included in a form of national family storytelling that arguably “re-ethnicizes” memory.

Publisher

MDPI AG

Reference44 articles.

1. Erll, Astrid, and Nünning, Ansgar (2010). A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, De Gruyter.

2. Shameful Exposures: Ordinary Germans and the Nazi Past in Contemporary German Documentary Film;Bangert;New German Critique,2014

3. Baynham, Mike, and Lee, Tong King (2019). Translation and Translanguaging, Routledge.

4. Sommer, Monika (2021). Hitler entsorgen: Vom Keller ins Museum/Disposing of Hitler: Out of the Cellar, into the Museum, Haus der Geschichte Österreich.

5. Sommer, Monika (2021). Hitler entsorgen: Vom Keller ins Museum/Disposing of Hitler: Out of the Cellar, into the Museum, Haus der Geschichte Österreich.

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