Tübingen Remembers: The evolving memorial landscape in a German university town
Tübingen (pop. 85,000) will be used as an example of both the variety of forms of 20th-century collective memory as well as the layering that takes place as the interested parties of each succeeding generation seek to redefine memorial places.
The paper will:
briefly describe the city and its memorial landscape, also noting events which have not
been marked and including some background history of several of the sites, putting the
city in the larger context of German cultures of memory over the past 130 years,
describe the changing form of several of the monuments and analyze these changes
in the evolving context of German post-war society and interpretations of the past
(Synagogue Square, Holocaust memorial plaques on the market square, the university war
memorial, the holocaust gravesite "Gräberfeld X," etc.). Several of these memorials,
especially "Gräberfeld X," provide examples of how the language and symbols on memorials
have grown more specific and less ambiguous over time.
analyze the use of these memorials today (National Day of Mourning in November, wreath
laying ceremonies at cemeteries and memorials by the city administration and local
organizations, commemorations of Reichskristallnacht, Protestant and Catholic forms of
memory at these sites, general neglect and disinterest, etc.). Here too, the role and
clarity of symbols and words will be considered.
