Monuments of Wilhelmine Germany in Memel

LTKas motyvuoja paminklų statybos, jų griūčių ir vėlesnių atstatymų idėjas? Iš ankstesnių tyrimų jau žinome, kad paminklai, kurie patys savaime yra „nebylūs“, tampa „įkaitais“ konkuruojant ideologijoms, keičiantis politiniams režimams, skirtingomis žmonių grupėms bandant primesti savo dominavimą, konfliktuojant atmintims. Šiame straipsnyje siekiama parodyti, kad visi šie veiksniai gali kassyk „įkrauti“ paminklus naujomis reikšmėmis, kurių jo statytojai ir sumanytojai nežinojo arba kurios jiems buvo svetimos. Ir atvirkščiai, sumanytojų paminklams jų statybos metu suteiktos reikšmės ateities kartų gali visiškai nebedominti. Nutrūkus kultūros tęstinumui, pasikeitus politinei situacijai, tos kartos gali suteikti paminklams visai naujas reikšmes, transformuojančias tai, kas „svetima“, į „sava“. Šie argumentai straipsnyje plėtojami rekonstruojant Memelio / Klaipėdos trijų paminklų, iškilusių vėlyvuoju kaizerinės Vokietijos periodu, likimą XX a. kovų dėl atminties kontekste. [Iš leidinio]

ENIn 1907, the Borussia monument was solemnly inaugurated in Memel (to day, Klaipėda). It was one of several dozens of so-called national monu ments (Nationaldenkmal) in the German empire, along with Walhalla in Bavaria, the Kyffhäuser monument in Bad Frankenhausen, the monument to William I at Porta Westfalica, the monument to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig, and others. As a testimony to its importance, the emperor William II took part in the monument’s inauguration ceremony. However, it was not for long that the monument performed its function as an “eternal reminder” of Prussia’s resurrection during the Napoleonic wars. It was demolished in 1923. Although thanks to the efforts of the local public activists, the monument was rebuilt in 1938, several years later, at the end of the Second World War, it was again removed. The short lifespan of this symbol had to do with political changes. During the first half of the 20th century, the city changed hands five times. Having signed the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War, Germany ceded its region north of the Neman (Nemunas, Memel) River to the Allies that “won” the war, and from 1920, France administered the region on their behalf. At the same time, in Lithuania restored after the end of the war, politicians voiced claims to Klaipėda in the hope of turning it into a national port. In early 1923, the Lithuanian government acted upon these claims, first by launching a military operation (a staged uprising of the local residents), and later, by regulating the aftermath of the operation by diplomatic means. As a result, on February 16, 1923, the Allies decided to cede their rights to the Klaipėda Region to Lithuania. However, in 1939, the Nazi Germany claimed it “back” by an ultimatum. On March 23, the Klaipėda/Memel region became the last territory occupied by Germany before the outbreak of the Second World War.It was not until the Allies renounced the appeasement policy and finally put an end to the Nazi ambitions in 1945 that German soldiers finally retreated from Klaipėda. Like the rest of Lithuania, the city became part of the Soviet Union. All these political changes had a direct impact on the population dynamics. Forced migrations, including politically and economically motivated ones, fleeing from the war, and deportations were a composite part of the twentieth-century experience of the Klaipėda residents. Major shifts took place in 1938–1960, with a radical change of residents in the city. Due to forced evacuation, at the turn of 1944–1945, almost 100 percent of the residents of Memel, both Germans and Lithuanians, found themselves in the depths of Germany and abandoned the city for good. After the war, Klaipėda was repopulated by new residents – Lithuanians, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians etc. – from all over the Soviet Union, above all from the Lithuanian SSR. Despite these fundamental changes, in 2002, almost six decades after the end of the Second World War, the residents of Klaipėda got involved in a public discussion about the restoration of the Borussia monument lost during the war. At first sight, this kind of discussion might seem surprising. It would seem that there is nothing in common between the present-day residents of Klaipėda and the monument that once asserted the myth of Prussia’s German mission: it was not only generations and ideologies, but also the dominant national culture in the city that have changed. However, the discussion was not limited to theory only.In 1989, by the joint efforts of the city’s current residents and Memel’s pre-war communities now based in Germany, another monument erected in the Wilhelmine Period that had met a similar fate – a sculpture of Ännchen von Tharau dedicated to the 17th century Prussian poet Simon Dach – was rebuilt in Klaipėda. In 2002, it could be used as a reference point for the discussion of what can be achieved by joint action. All that makes “the Klaipėda case” suitable to discuss the question that is being raised today by many politicians and public figures worldwide. What motives stand behind the ideas of construction, demolition and later restoration of monuments? As we know from previously conducted research, monuments, which are naturally “silent”, become “hostages” of competing ideologies, changing political regimes, attempts by different groups to impose their domination, and conflicting memories. The aim of this article is to show that all these factors each time can “charge” monuments with new meanings, which were unknown or even not intended by its builders and initiators. And, on the contrary, the meanings imposed by the initiators at the time of construction can lose their relevance for the future generations. If cultural continuity ceases or the political situation changes, these generations may give entirely new meanings to the monuments, reuse them, helping to transform the “alien” into “one’s own”. Keywords: German nationalism, Lithuanian nationalism, contested memory, appropriation of the past, reuse of monuments, continuation of memory, remaking of memory. [Extract, p. 11-13]