Why Cultural History? What Future? Which Germany?

Author(s): Michael Geyer

Reviewed work(s):
Source: New German Critique, No. 65, Cultural History/Cultural Studies (Spring - Summer,
1995), pp. 97-114
Published by: New German Critique
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WhyCulturalHistory?
WhatFuture? WhichGermany?*

MichaelGeyer

This is a strangemomentfor the arrivalof Germanculturalhistory.It

is like a train full of expectant passengers arriving at an empty and
abandonedstation. Everybodyis eager to go home, having seen what
can be done in othernationsand in othertimes. But who wants cultural
history in Germany,now? Lest there be any doubt, the arrival in the
empty waiting room of Germanhistory is the happy version of the
story because there is enough talent and wit among the passengers for
them to have a ball. If nothing else, some marvelouscarnival is to be
had in the abandonedstation. But as far as stories go, it need not hap-
pen that way. A Russianas opposed to an Americanversion would find
delight in a more catastrophicending. A Russianending - experts tell
me that they have their very own pleasures- would have Clio drown
and the magic trainof Germanculturalhistoryrunonto a land mine.
Of course, these are merelytwo images- images,however,reflecting
a certainapprehensionthat, while a Germanculturalhistory is bound to
happen, it may not be quite the way culturalhistorianshave come to
love it. As simile, of course, the trainride also invokes "an intriguing
line of discussionin contemporarycriticaltheory[which sees] cultureas
multiple discourses, occasionally coming together in a large systemic
configuration,but more often coexistingwithindynamicfields of interac-
tion and conflict."' I would second this notion of culturalhistory.It was
* I would like to acknowledgemy specialthanksto MiriamHansenfor help and
supportin completingthis essay.
1. Culture/Power/History: A Reader in ContemporarySocial Theory,eds. Nicho-
las B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, and SherryOrtner(Princeton:PrincetonUP, 1994) 4.
97
98 WhyCulturalHistory?

the notion which remindedme of what may have happenedduringlong

trainrides in Russia in the first place. I will adhereto it throughoutthe
essay as a useful definitionof what culturalhistoryis all about.But my
superimposedsimile suggests that a bit of second thoughtis warranted,
because it all dependson whetheryou end up at a sumptuousfeast, in a
genderbendingcarnival,in an emptytrainstation,or on a landmine.

German historiographyhas been slow in embracingcultural studies

approaches- perhaps less so in the United States than in Germany
but hesitant nonetheless. In the meantime, other fields in history, as
well as other disciplines in the humanitiesand the social sciences, have
produceda rich body of knowledgefor culturalstudies. There is a sur-
plus of contendingideas and suggestionsthatcould not but enliven Ger-
man historiography.Hence, nothing seems more a propriate than
moving toward a "new culturalhistory" of Germany. However, the
rightmomentfor this particularendeavormaywell have passed.
There will be a renewedculturalhistoryof Germany,takingover from
a social scientific historywhich had been the predominantparadigmof
the late Federal Republic and which in turn contendedwith and chal-
lenged a political historyof foreign affairsor militarypower. Even if it
were only for the principleof "whatcomes around,goes around,"Ger-
man culturalhistory is bound to come back. It is not as if culturalhis-
tory had just startedyesterday:it has a long and venerabletraditionin
both Germanyand the United States.It has been neglected for too long.
Its main contributionshave not been able to define the contoursof the
field. And yet, if this culturalhistory is to mean anythingat all in the
context of contemporaryGermany,it will not be able simply to adapt
the epistemological resources that have accumulated internationally.
Whereasmuch of the efflorescenceof cultual studies profited from the
wealth and privilege of academiccultureduringthe late seventies and
eighties and ran up quite literallyagainstthe walls of the prison house
of 6pistem6which protectedthatcondition,this time has come andgone.
Rather than having culturalhistory arrive in Germany,if typically
late, I will suggest in the following that culturalhistory in and of Ger-
many moves on a more volatile and dangeroustrajectory.This history,
2. TheNew CulturalHistory,ed. LynnHunt(Berkeley:U of CaliforniaP, 1989).
 Michael Geyer 99

whetherexpressedby academicsor in the feuillkton,breaksdeliberately

with conventions,academicand otherwise,and establishesits own past
in contrastto the availablemodels. It does not "imitatethe French."It
ratherstems from a ruptureof sense-securityand (postwar)identity-
fissures of those epistemicsecuritieswhich were seen, in the sixties and
seventies, to be so utterlychokingand unjust.These identitiesare crum-
bling fast in central Europe. Similar fissures of perceptionhave been
the source for compulsive turns toward culture before. The challenge
for historians,then, is not to facilitatethe arrivalof cultureas an object
of German historiography,but to engage critically the compulsion
toward"culture"thatis generatingthis turnin the firstplace.

In situatingGermanculturalhistory we are witnessing and confront-

ing what one might call, in a ratherold-fashionedterminology,a struc-
tural crisis of the cultural domain. While academia, the media, and
politicians clamor for a revival or returnto culture reminiscentof the
interwaryears, the actual domains of culture during the past half-cen-
tury - institutions,publics, and dominantdiscourses- are undergoing
a radicalregrouping.An inflationarydebateabout a new Kulturkrise-
the currentterm for this paranoiais Wertekrise,a crisis of values and
norms - challenges the authorityof postwar German culture. Three
brief observationsmay help elucidatethis situation.
First, the turn to culturalhistory comes at a moment of retrenchment
of culturalactivities after thirty years of rapid and exponential expan-
sion. The turn to "culture"occurredduringthe 1970s and 1980s, and it
happenedoutside of academia.In Germany,this turnwas largely state-
sponsoredand supporteda class of freelancewriters,directors,perform-
ers, artists,and intellectuals-at-large.
They constituteda sphere of genu-
ine "liberalarts,"whetherthey were associatedwith public institutions
(such as museums,radio, and television), publishing,or the art market.
They exhibited distinctly "high cultural" ambitions which they set
againstcommercialandprivateentertainment.
Culturalhistoryreturnsto Germanyat the very momentat which this
sphere is in jeopardy. The art market has been folding, publishing
houses are scaling down or closing, and the 1970s and 1980s boom of
mini-presseshas come to an end. Public sponsorshipof culturalaffairs is
not simply decliningbut is being slashed.This retrenchmenthas affected
100 WhyCulturalHistory?

municipal culture such as theaters, operas, symphony-orchestras,and

regional film festivals as much as nationalculture such as radio, film,
and television. While large and well-publicizedmuseum exhibitionsare
still lucrativeenterprises,such block-bustershows are becoming increas-
ingly difficult to stage. More importantly,the regulardisplay of artifacts
has been curtailedand openinghourshave been reducedin many muse-
ums. In the much more sensitivearenaof education,the overallexpendi-
ture, for higher educationin particular,is said to be still expanding,but
the boom in the humanitiesand the social sciences has come to an end.
The concomitantshift towardtechnology(both as researchand develop-
ment and as skill-oriented,professionaleducation)is still more rhetoric
than reality;but togetherwith a varietyof initiativesto regulateuniver-
sity education,the politics of efficiency in higher educationsuggests a
concertedeffort to reign in the liberalarts. This is especially obvious in
more marginalfields which, in many ways, have been the most exciting
arenas of cultural production. The radical slashing of public-work
projects has not only wrecked a great number of everyday history
projectsbut has also cut down the size of a significantfloatingintelligen-
tsia in (West)Germany.A similardownturnis evidentfor the most char-
acteristic efforts during the last twenty years to expand cultural
activities, furtheringculturalwork from below througha varietyof local
activities and outlets. Seventies and eighties initiatives,both in the East
and the West, envisioninga projectof "democraticculture,"had labored
hard to expandculturalactivitiesso thatthey could reach and be shared
by all. These projects have stagnatedfor a while and are now at the
point of being phased out. In easternGermanyboth state-affirmingand
dissidenteffortshave completelyvanished.3
Hence, the returnof culturalhistorycomes at the tail-endof an era that
many would characterizeas one of (excessive) culturaldisplay. While
this retrenchmentis uneven, it has clearlyaffectedpublic institutionsto a
largerextent than privateones. It has least affectedsecondaryeducation,
but it has cut culturein the public sector to the core. In the meantime,
commercial entertainment-oriented enterprises such as Bertelsmann,
3. The situationin East Germanyis, in fact, only an extremevariantof the West
Germanphenomenon.One mayjustly doubtwhetherEast Germanywas ever the land of
readers[Leseland]the regime had made it out to be. But this says nothingyet aboutthe
post-1990 collapse of the publicandinstitutionalinfrastructure
for culture.In manyways,
the currentransackingof the EastGermanculturalscene mightvery well be takenas a lab-
oratoryfor westerntendenciesas well.
 Michael Geyer 101

RTL, and Kirch are rapidlyexpandingand consolidatingin transnational

oligopolies. The effects of reshapingthe culturalsector are more evident
on a municipallevel (theaterand opera)thanon a state and federallevel
(universities and nationalmuseums),but it is an effective trend every-
where. Public culturein postwar(West) Germanyas we have known it
is in jeopardy. Cultural history or, for that matter, cultural studies
returnsin Germanyat a momentwhen the presumptionof the universal
provisionof cultureas a publicgood has been all but abandoned.
Secondly,the returnof culturalhistoryoccurs at a momentwhen Ger-
man intellectualsdiscover that theirpowers of raisingpublic conscious-
ness are no longer quite as unequivocalas they once were. The actual
power of the criticalintellectualpublic duringthe past twentyyears or so
is, of course,a matterof considerabledebate.But the existenceof a thriv-
ing, progressive"publicculture"in West Germanycan hardlybe denied.
That it has always been the subjectof attack(and, in turn,has counter-
attacked) should not surpriseanyone. Attacks on this critical cultural
sphere have been stepped up in the process of unification, when the
theme of "nationalunity" was successfullyused against a hesitant and
skepticalintellectualclass. But the main challengestems from the inter-
nal disarraythat raises doubtsaboutthe effectivenessof this cultureand
its very abilityto compel attention;thatis, to generatethe argumentsthat
stitch and hold togethermedia-publics(print-mediaand television) and
state-sponsoredpublics (universitiesand exhibitionculture),and to gener-
ate models andimagesto graspandunderstand a changingGermany.
Take Beruf Neonazi (1993), a much discussed and much con-
demned documentaryabout a young neo-Nazi, as an example of what
has gone wrong. The condemnationof this documentarycomes mostly
in response to the fact that the neo-Nazi under scrutiny is allowed to
mouth the Auschwitz-liewithout editorialcommentand to do so at the
crematoriummuseum of Auschwitz. This was a deliberate choice of
the filmmaker W. Bonengel (whose progressivistpedigree is beyond
doubt), because he believed that a verit6-styleportrayalof the subject
matter(a neo-Nazi propoundingthe Auschwitz-liein Auschwitz) is suf-
ficient to unmaskthe lie - which it clearlyno longer does. The contro-
versial sequence reveals first and foremosta long-standingproblem of
German progressivistculture.It is nothing new in the history of Ger-
man antifascismthat a directorcannot even conceive of the possibility
that this particularportrayalmight add insult to injury for the victims.
Both West and East German progressives have proven notoriously
102 WhyCulturalHistory?

oblivious to the feelings and concerns of victims and survivors. But

they have succeeded in puttingtogetheran effective Germananti-Nazi
and anti-rightistalliance which could be expectedto read statementsof
a neo-Nazi with a self-evident, critical distance. The main problem of
the sequence is that this stance is no longer self-evident. The sequence
no longer compels the audiencethe way the directorwould like it; that
is, it is not capable of creating its own critical spectator.Beyond the
charge that some audiences may turn the display of the Auschwitz-lie
against the criticalintentionof the authorand use it as neo-Nazi propa-
ganda, the more common reaction(at least of young Berlin audiences)
was no less sobering. They could not care less about all the fuss that
was made about the Auschwitz-lie and about Auschwitz. What is
"wrong" about the film (its portrayalof a seemingly unmistakeable
scene), had been "right"only a shortwhile ago. The directorstaged the
scene in Auschwitz for a public that simply no longer exists or, at the
very least, cannotbe taken for granted.In fact, the main protagonistof
Beruf Neonazi is a good example of this phenomenon.The grandilo-
quent young man is not only the son of a liberalprogressivesixties cou-
ple, but he himself grew up engaging in the kind of consciousness
raising whose intentionsthe directormakes the prerequisitefor a politi-
cally correctreadingof his film. If one adds that the criticalpublic was
unable to deal with the film on the level of debate and called for cen-
sorship instead, that the film was effectively bannedin several German
states, and that the case of the film was used to demandthe slashing of
film funding,the full dimensionsof the crisisbecomevisible.
This case says nothing aboutthe multitudeof contestationsof a criti-
cal public. Those who thoughtthat the Historikerstreitwas over were
clearly mistaken. It was just the beginningof a whole series of attacks
on what was deemed culturalhegemonyor criticalorthodoxy.The His-
torikerstreithas mutatedinto a multiplicityof debates about the "nor-
malization"of Germanyas a sovereign nation state. It is accompanied
by an across-the-boardchallenge to seventies and eighties culture of
sentiment [Betroffenheitskultur]. They have largely succeeded in dele-
gitimizing the consciousness-raisingefforts of the past and have been
instrumentalin demobilizingthe New Social Movements as a distinct
brand of grass-rootspolitics with nationalappeal and the capability to
act upon nationalandtransnationalissues.
Again, the reasons for this success cannotbe solely attributedto the
concertednatureof the attackor, for thatmatter,to politicalcircumstance
 Michael Geyer 103

of Germanunification.Rather,the enlightenedpresumptionof univer-

sal bettermentthroughpublic educationand the provision of public cul-
ture has failed. At stake here is the postwar figure of a "therapeutic
intellectual"4 and the presuppositionthat the labor of intellectuals
could generate the kind of recuperativeinitiativesto save or salvage a
Germansociety ravagedby Nazism. In the past, these labors have pro-
duced a numberof sincere efforts, some of which will remain as mani-
fests of a peculiar postwar conjuncturethat has now become historical
and of a recoveryof "critical"traditionsdestroyedin the Nazi era.
It is easy enough to see that therewas also a lot of breast-beating,an
identificationwith victims across the world which only extraordinary
privilege can afford.While the latteris the targetfor an intellectualand
political anti-critique,the criticalpublics-at-largeare the preferredobject
of hate for a new youth-revoltthat fights its own anti-culturewars
against the culturalrevolutionof the sixties and seventies. The returnof
culturalhistoryoccurs in a time in which the enlightenedpostwarpublic
in West Germanyis in profounddisarray,while the dissidentpublics in
East Germanyhave all but collapsed.The challengeconsists less in out-
right attacks against this culturalsphere than in its declining power to
compel its audiences- and,hence,to forma publicin the firstplace.
The thirdphenomenonis by far the most painful. It is the irrelevance
of all intellectualpublics to the extent that they still exist. Some, like
Wolf Lepenies (Wissenschaftszentrum), FrankSchirrmacher(FAZ),Karl-
Heinz Bohrer (Merkur),and Antje Vollmer(Greens), simply may take
this as another indication of the collapse of the culture of sentiment
[Gesinnungskultur]of the old FederalRepublic- and they cherish it,
contrastingwhat they describe as the sentimentalculture of yesteryear
with their own agenda of cultural (moral, value-oriented) renewal.
They overratetheir own importanceand underratethe central issue at
stake,the systematicmarginalization of intellectualsas opinionleaders.
Two examples may illustratethis condition.First, there was the non-
debate over the Neue Wachein (East) Berlin which was reconfiguredas
a general memorialfor "the victims of war and violence," thereby col-
lapsing the differencebetween victims and perpetrators.The use of an
enlargedKithe Kollwitz pieth as memorial,ChancellorKohl's personal
4. FrankTrommler,"GermanIntellectuals:PublicRoles andthe Rise of the Ther-
apeutic,"Public Culturein ContemporaryGermany:ThePower of IntellectualsBetween
State SecuritySurveillanceand MediaSociety,ed. MichaelGeyer(forthcoming1995).
104 WhyCulturalHistory?

choice, also did not inspire much confidence, leading to altercations

over the gendered(a pieta as memorialfor women as victims of bomb-
ing and rape in WorldWarII?) and Christian(a pietAas memorial for
Jewish victims?) natureof the memorial.There was a huge debate, led
by ReinhartKoselleck, but it effected absolutelynothing. It is not just
that the intellectualsdid not succeed in voicing their objectives. They
were not even heard, letters were not answered, and public forums
remainedunattendedby the politicians.The debateon memoryand rep-
resentationdid not takeplace. It brokeapartat the interfacebetweenpol-
itics and culture.For all intentsand purposes,this was a minor incident
which gains its edge from the fact that the Kohl governmentengaged in
yet anotheract of symbolicpolitics, as it were, withouteven so much as
nodding (or having to nod) to a diverse intellectualpublic and its con-
cerns. The latterwas unableto mobilizeopinion.This was decidedlydif-
ferentfromthe responseto Bitburg.
It also remainsto be said thatthe Neue Wacheappearsto be quitea suc-
cess - at least in the sense thatan older generationof veteransand war
widows has taken it on as their memorial.In orderto read this gesture
right, one would have to add that (former)communistsnow have "their"
Rosa LuxemburgMemorialand Jewishsurvivorswill soon get their own
nationalmemorialat the site of the Fiihrerbunker(the real estate being
providedby the Kohl government).It is not, in otherwords,thatveterans
are necessarilyfavored.Rather,thereis no longera nationalpublic, intel-
lectual or otherwise,but only discreteconstituenciesof whom some are
more privilegedand can be mobilizedmore readilythan others.Contrary
to the seventiesandeighties,intellectualpublicsare quitedifficultto mobi-
lize these days, and the contentionover memoryand history has faded.
There is an unmistakableyearningfor a consensus- that the German
past was not "good"but not so bad either,a sense thatSpielbergcaptured
with Schindler'sList much as HelmutKohl did with his choice of a pietA
for a memorialfor Jews and Germansas the victims of what now seems
to becomea verydistant,alienculture:the"ThirdReich."5

5. The uses of the "ThirdReich"and of "theNazis" as floatingsignifier for alien

evil everywhereis worth noting in this context. Examplesfor this usage aboundin the
United Statesas well. The most visible one is the Scientologyadvertisingcampaignin the
New YorkTimes.Otherrandomexamplesare the claim of the OregonCitizens Alliance
thatthe Nazis were gay and,hence,the anti-gayMeasure13 wasjustified (Register-Guard
[Eugene, Oregon] 10 Oct. and 7 Nov. 1994) or the exchangebetween Jesse Jacksonand
JosephA. Morris(Republicancandidatefor Cook CountyBoardpresident)over the Nazi
qualityof the ChristianCoalition.(ChicagoSun 7imes 3 Dec. 1994).
 Michael Geyer 105

The Neue Wachefracas,however,is only a minor affair in the annals

of disenchantment.The monstrousdimensionsof the irrelevanceof an
intellectualpublic sphereare most of all reflectedin the helplessness in
the face of the genocidal atrocitiesin formerYugoslaviaand especially
in Bosnia-Herzegovina.If this helplessnesswere for the sheer disinterest
of Europeanswho have other things to do, or merely for the follies of
some initiatives,it would be a relief. But it is not. Europeanintellectuals
have been, by and large, very conscientious, very alert, and very
6ngages, and they have had considerablepopularsupporton this issue.6
There were and are critical intellectual publics (for the intellectual
classes played a centralrole in the variouslocal contexts),but they had
no longer quite the same nationalpresencewhich they once possessed,
as in the days of anti-nuclearmobilization.Again, this is not merely a
matterof the commercializationof the media or of a political backlash.
Intellectualpublics fail to gain publicity,becausethey have no good (that
is, plausible and generalizable)explanationsof what is going on and
what can be done. Hence, they fall back on local supportand charity-
and on avant-gardedocumentaryandtheateras formsof representation.
What is lost in Germanyand, for that matter,in France is the hope
that intellectuals were and are capable of stitching together alliances
that could indeed correct and sway power, whenever the latter was in
danger of following an uncivil course. It should be rememberedthat
this was the source for the most prominentpostwarinterpretationof the
role of culture.It was the mainstayof what is now denouncedas Gesin-
nungskultur.The new defiance highlightsthe fact that this culture was
successful only to a very limited extent underthe very special circum-
stancesof postwarGermany.
Lepenies has characterizedthis situationwith some glee as "the rise
and fall of intellectualsin Europe.''7This argumentfirst and foremost
reflects upon the remarkablepower that postwarintellectualshave had
in shaping public culture far beyond the academicdomain. In the case
of postwar Germanyone might add that "history"was crucial in this
empowerment, because critical cultural publics formed around their

6. In passing one might note a strikingdifferencebetween Germanand French

responses.The Germaneffortswere distinctlyless visible thanthe French,but they point
to a dense, local supportnetworkfor refugees.
7. Wolf Lepenies,AufstiegundFall der Intellektuellenin Europa(Frankfurt\Main:
Campus,1992).
106 WhyCulturalHistory?

ability to dissociate the presentfrom the past.8An extendednotion of a

"crisis of intellectuals"also suggests that a culturalconfigurationis at
stake that may well be representativefor the entiretwentiethcentury-
the 6ngag6 intellectual as the productof a century which so strongly
believed in the ability of the intellectualclasses to remedythe social ills
of the past, including the crass materialismof the nineteenth-century
bourgeoiselites which was the animusfor this class in the firstplace.
We should think twice before simply discardingthis configuration.If,
indeed, the currentsituationmay point to the demise of these intellectu-
als, their role as by now historical actors remains to be thought
through.For as instigatorsof postwarpublics, these intellectualclasses
reflected a peculiar twentieth-centurymoment in the formationof cul-
ture in Europe. These distinctly secular, public, state-employed, and
academicallyorganizedclasses were acting in an environmentin which
culturewas considereda commongood, albeit one mediatedby special-
ists. They were a constitutiveelementin Europe'smodernity.
These travaillesof the Germansmatterfor our considerationof the
returnof Germanculturalhistoryat the tail-endof a boom in culturalstud-
ies in the United States. For I would suggest that these culturalstudies
were partand parcelof this vanishingconfigurationof intellectualpublics.
It is true, culturalstudiesin the United Stateshad abandonedthe "thera-
peutic"ideal of Europeanintellectuals,followingthe Frenchlead in this
respect.Culturalstudiesmade it into one of its foundingpropositionsthat
intellectualsnever shapedculturein the broader(anthropological)mean-
ing of the word, as some of the modernistpioneers(architects,the left and
right"engineersof the soul"amongthe writers)had intended.Hence, cul-
turalstudiesmay well be seen as a revoltagainstthese masterintellectu-
als, as for example the historiesof experience[Erfahrung]of everyday
life historianssuggest.9Nonetheless,the notion of culture as discourse
remainedheavilyindebtedto the traditionof 6ngag6intellectualsas media-
tors in imbricatingpartialpublics. When it came to stitching together
"multiplediscourses into larger systemic configurations,"l0intellectual

8. This was both a matterof signification,i.e., the interpretationof the past as a

"wrong,"anti-modernpathinto the present,andof the simultaneouspoliticalmobilization.
9. They were increasinglysuspectedas the instigatorsof twentieth-centurycatas-
trophes.This suspicionis expressedamongothersby Detlef Peukert,"TheGenesis of the
Final Solution from the Spiritof Science,"Reevaluatingthe ThirdReich, eds. Thomas
Childersand JaneCaplan(New York:HolmesandMeier, 1993) 234-52.
10. Dirks, Eley, Ortner4.
 Michael Geyer 107

publics remainedcrucial.But they now are a distinctlyvanishingbreed

andmay well be "history."
Hence, my contentionthat a revival of culturalhistory emerges from
a differentconfigurationthan the one that had producedculturalstudies
in the first place. It is in this situationthatwe observe the rebirthof cul-
tural history. This is a transitionfrom postmodernthought (which as a
rebellion against modernist intellectuals remained deeply indebted to
them) into postmodernity.One of the key sites for this transitionis Ger-
many where the ruptureof 1989/90 has generateda widespreadacceler-
ation of time and a profoundinstabilityof identities.

Who and what replaces the older configurationof critical intellectual

publics as mediatorsof culture?The short answer is television and its
instant celebrities. For television is the place where the positions of
"calculablesubjectivity"and images as "profoundlycalculatedapproxi-
mations of verisimilitude" (in Godard's phrase from Passion) are
finally combinedinto a single differentialcircuitof representation.Tele-
vision's calculationdoes not consist in the perfectibilityof its program-
ming but in the thoroughness with which it translates values into
representationalterms, so that all traffic (of politics, aesthetics, and
desire)passes throughthe televisualpost.11
This citationwas meantas a conceptualizationof what television does,
but I picked it because it says a greatdeal aboutGermanyand the repre-
sentationof the Germanpast. To begin with, thereis the notoriousprob-
lem that Germanculturehas been unableto find its own representations
of the most signal event of the twentiethcentury,the annihilationof the
Jews within the contextof genocidalwar.Despite an extraordinary, schol-
arly, and artisticflurryof activitiesand, in the end, the receptivenessof a
Germanmass audiencefor a pubic debateon the Holocaust,it took the
TV docudrama,The Holocaust, and then Steven Spielberg'sSchindler
s
List to convey to Germansthe events of the ThirdReich and their mean-
ing; that is, the filmic image achievedwhat history and literature,once
upon a time, set out to do and what historiansand writers labored to
accomplishduringthe past fortyyears. Thereare manypossible readings

11. RichardDienst, Still Life in Real Time: Theoryafter Television(Durhamand

London, 1994) 140.
108 WhyCulturalHistory?

of this phenomenon.I would suggest,followingthe above quotation,that

the success of these films has a greatdeal to do with the abilityof televi-
sion to translate"valuesintorepresentational terms."
The referenceto televisionis pertinentfor anotherreason.It is not sim-
ply the mediumthat puts narrativesinto images, but it also has a differ-
ent kind of velocity. The immediacyof the translationof values into
representationalterms is of crucial importance.The increasingdepen-
dence on faster and more unstableforms of publicitythan those gener-
ated by the intellectualpublics of the seventiesand eighties is not just a
result of the accelerationof politics which came with the collapse of
communism.To give an idea of the power of these forms of publicity,it
is worth rememberingthat narrativesof unification consist almost
entirely of television images - from the Pragueembassy refugee crisis,
the breachof the Hungarianborder,and the spectacleof the the opening
of the wall, to the fireworkfinaleof reunification.It all happenedso fast,
one might say, that therewas simply no time for a reasoneddiscourseto
develop. The rapid-firesuccessionof televisionimages is mirroredin the
extraordinaryturnoverof public debatesin which one theme chases the
other and none has more than its fifteen secondsof notoriety.The preva-
lence of televised talk shows and of a new kind of public intellectualin
both GermanyandFranceis noteworthyin this context.
Television, in short, is not - as the Americandebate would suggest
- the technical medium to transformthe world (or, in any case, the
Germanworld); but it is a most timely response to an accelerationof
politics which has overwhelmedthe intellectualpublics of the seventies
and eighties. Television in this sense stands in for the need to provide
instantmeaning and representationfor unprecedentedsituations.In that
sense, I would count Botho StrauB'scall for transcendentalmeaning
and mythology - his untranslatableanschwellender Bocksgesang
which appearedin Der Spiegel and led to an extensive nationaldebate
- among this television-likeexpressionsof an emerging"fast culture."
That StrauBmakes a plea for myth is a first indicationof what we may
expect fromculturalhistoryin a fast age.
Obviously, this argumentaboutacceleratedculture(as opposed to the
Burckhardtianacceleratedtimes that he juxtaposed to slow culture in
history) needs furtherscrutiny.I merely invoke it to point to a remark-
able contrast,which is relevantfor answeringour initial question about
culturalhistory. For as televised and flat as this new culture of instant
representationis, it always presentsitself as "deep"meaning and never
 Michael Geyer 109

simply entertainment.It is articulatedacross the board as a call for the

returnto Kultur and a concomitantscience of Kultur and Nation. This
discrepancybetween representationalpractice and discourse on repre-
sentation is a constitutive element of Germanytoday. Culture as the
imbricationof discrete life-projectsin meaningfulnational stories hap-
pens on TV, but it is encodedas a quest for Kulturand as a call for cul-
turalhistoryboth in academiaandmost certainlyin thefeuilliton.
I see two problemsin approachingthis phenomenon.The first one is
to think of this revival of culture as trivial - a temporarydelusion
ratherthan an influentialsimulationor, as may be, repetitionof what
once had been a powerful representationof the bourgeois nation. The
second problem is how to assess its place. Some would argue that the
debate on values in a fast age is simply a partisanrebuttalin a culture
war againstenlightenedmodernity.I would rathertend to see it as a self-
sustaining effort to make sense of a Germanconditionwhich is domi-
nated by a pervasivefear- indeeda panic- over the lack of cohesion
within society and the wearingthin of the nation'sculturalfabric.In any
case, the searchfor values and orientationhas produceda thick layer of
public debatewhichprovidesglimpsesof a society in turmoil.
It is my contentionthat this is the main source for the revival of
Germanculturalhistory, irrespectiveof what culturalhistory and cul-
tural studies have achieved as academic fields during the past twenty
years. I see nothing wrong with this conditionof postmodernity,but a
great deal of fault in the willingness of academics, postmoderns,and
others,to close theireyes in the face of it.

Before followingup on this argument,it is worthrecallingat least one

voice in this debatein orderto providea sense of the urgencyof the issue.
It is easy enoughfor historiansto recallthe precedentsof the currentcrisis-
talk in the Kulturkriseof the past fin-de-siacle.Much energy is spent on
this kind of historiographywhichpicks up on presentconcernsand solves
themvicariouslyin thepast- whichin my understanding is presentism.
It is, however, quite something else to encounterstatements which
insist that "we Germans remain an endangered Volk."The authors
explain - and I take their statementas a representativeexample of
what is currentlybeing argued- that,while there is no externaldanger
110 WhyCulturalHistory?

for Germany,there is indeed a dangerfrom within. This dangeris seen

first and foremostin leftist terrorismof the Red Army Factionand right-
ist violence against foreigners.Fair enough, one might say - but they
do not invoke a nationaldanger for naught.For terrorismon both the
political left and right is implicatedin a traitcommon to all. "We [Ger-
mans] have a tendency to excessive sentiments,to excitedness [Auf-
geregtheit] and to hubris."If these charactertraits get mixed up with
"the unexpectedly large unemployment,the huge [gewaltig] immigra-
tion of foreigners,"they may well result in "xenophobiaand moral
decay [Zersetzung]at home and a decline of standing in the world."
The remedy this fatal mix is both politicaland cultural.It involves "loy-
alty to democracy,the rule of law, humanrights"on the one hand and a
proper attitude to the Germanintellectualheritage on the other: "We
would be poor without idealism.But idealismmust not turn into politi-
cal romanticism.Insteadideas must entail the will to critiqueand self-
critique as much as the will to reason and compromise."As long as
both conditions are met, "we Germanshave yet anotherchance at the
end of this catastrophe-laden twentiethcentury."
These passages are excerptsfrom a single page of a manifesto,signed
among others by CountessD6nhoff (editorof Die Zeit), EdzardReuter
(boardof directors,Daimler Benz AG), Helmut Schmidt(formerchan-
cellor, SPD), RichardSchr6der(East Germandissident intellectualand
theologian),and WolfgangThierse(formerlyGermanStudies,now dep-
uty chair,SPD). Its title is Because the CountryMust Change.12For the
authorsthis change consists in championingwhat one might call a Prus-
sian democracy- a world of orderedand disciplined participation,
built on the bedrock of morality[Sittlichkeit].The truth of the matter,
seen from the outside, ratherlies in the sense of panic in the face of the
events of the past few years, the inabilityof political and culturalpun-
dits to respond,and the difficultiesof the Germansto make sense of it.
The resultingsense of forlorncontemplation,mirroringso many classic
texts, is best left in the Germanoriginal:
Es ist als rasedie Geschichte
wie einungesteuerter, FluBan
reiBender
unsvoriiber, wir,dieamUferstehen,diebangeFragestellen,
wiihrend
wohinerwohlfiihrenmag.

12. Ein Manifest: Weildas Landsich dndernmu.f,eds. MarionD6nhoff et al. (Rein-

bek bei Hamburg:Rowohlt, 1993) 113.
 MichaelGeyer 111

[Historyrageslike an uncontrolled,
rapidlyflowingriverover us,
whilewe, standingonitsbanks,asktheterrifying
question,wherewill
it actuallyleadus?]13
The response of the authorsto the challengeof an excessive historyis
moderate,at least when comparedto the rangeof possible answers cur-
rently circulatingin Germany.Moderationconsists in wanting to do the
history of modernity once over but to get it right the second time
around.Whoever thinks that this sounds far-fetched,better take a look
at the remakingof Berlin which is destined- as far as the city plan-
ners are concerned- to become the perfect nineteenth-centurycapital
for the twenty-firstcentury.Culturalhistoryhas come back to Germany
with a vengeance, even if historiansdo not practiceit. It has come back
as a new historicismof representationand discourses.Nineteen-eighty-
nine has acceleratedolder tendenciesin this respect.This is culturalhis-
tory as the repetitioncompulsionof a nationthatpositively wants to get
Germanmodernityrighton the way into the twentyfirstcentury.

As far as American historiansof Germanyare concerned, it is diffi-

cult to imagine how they should be able to withstand the pull of the
German neo-historicism. This assessment is compoundedby the fact
that many U. S. cultural historians have their own escapist fantasies
of giving up the American present for the grand traditions of a Ger-
man past. As far as proponentsof German cultural studies are con-
cerned, they seem to be well on their way to becoming an expatriate
culture, not unlike the 1848 liberals who settled in the United States.
German cultural studies has become the province of Germanistswho
have either left Germanyduring the heydays of modernism or got to
know it during those days and remain stuck in that particularsegment
of the Germanpast. Theirs is a differentkind of historicism, but it is
historicism nonetheless. In which direction should the study of Ger-
man culture move? This is a strange moment for cultural history,

13. D6nhoff 9. Despite the protestationsof the authors,a readingof severalof these
panic texts would suggestthat,politically,they link 1980s pacifismandthe 68ers with the
turmoilof the WeimarRepublicand the rise of the Nazis; culturally,they tie these devel-
opmentsto a permissiveconsumersociety.This critiqueis, as a more carefulanalysis sug-
gests, tropedexactlylike the old anti-capitalism.
112 WhyCulturalHistory?

indeed. It has come back at a moment of utter disillusionment over

the power and knowledge of the intellectual classes. It has returned,
in the German context, not as an academic discipline but as a popu-
lar, media-driven search for identities. Hence, it does not suffice at
this point to debate the return of cultural history as a matter of
approach (what are the rules of the game?) or as a matter of domain
(what pertains to culture?). This is how many academics seem to
think of the problem;but they may well end up, if they are lucky, in
the empty trainstationwhich I invoked initially.
Culturalhistory has, above all, a stake in the present. This is not
by chance, and it is not a new phenomenon.The rise and fall of cul-
tural (and, for that matter, intellectual)history has always coincided
with a sense of uncertaintyor crisis of self and identity. It has reap-
peared, time and again, at the crucial moments of (re)negotiating
modernityand has respondedto the attendingsense of a loss of social
cohesion. The results could be both inspiredhistory and the worst of
ideology - but cultural history has never escaped the conundrum.
Hence, cultural history better face the challenge with the scholarly
reflexivity and discipline (concerningevidence, argument,and narra-
tive) that is necessary to mediate between the past and the present at
those crucial moments when the two move apart.The present moment
is one of markedtemporaltransition.Hence, I would suggest that the
key concern is temporalityratherthanpositionality,which had been the
main issue of culturalstudiesin the past twentyyears.
Temporalitymay well turn out to be a most peculiarGermancon-
cern. The fascinationwith "time'sreason"is not by chance the subject
of the great intellectualdebatesever since the late eighteenthcentury.14
Very few nationaldiscourseswould use a word like non-contemporane-
ity [Ungleichzeitigkeit]and invest it with so much meaning. The perva-
sive uncertaintyover who lives in the past, present,or future and how
to distinguish between them has been a persistentelement of German
thought as well as of a Germansense of historicity.It is, as Reinhart
Koselleck has insisted, the very conditionof modernity.15Culturalhis-
tory is thrown into a process in which, for better or worse, historical
consciousnessis remade.

14. LeonardKrieger,lime's Reasons:Philosophiesof History Old and New (Chi-

cago: U of ChicagoP, 1989).
15. ReinhartKoselleck, FuturesPast: On the Semanticsof Historical Time,trans.
Keith Tribe(Cambridge:MIT, 1985).
 Michael Geyer 113

The condition of temporaluncertaintyis expressedin a massive reor-

dering of the discourses of the everyday.This is the subject of the
debate on the so-called change of values [Wertewandel]which has
become extraordinarilyacute as a result of the collapse of communism
and of the East Germanstate. While the latter is not the cause of the
transformationof the everyday,it has become its referent.It allows Ger-
mans and, for that matter,all central and eastern Europeansto articu-
late an immediate and very concrete sense of rupture- what I have
called postmodernityas opposed to postmodernism.What matters is
the recognition that things aren't the way they were - and the way
they were has already become a matterof elaboratememorialization.
Positionality as a sense of place and of the location of culture is
worked out in recourseto history.The second life of the GDR as his-
tory, as exemplified in the culturaland political formationof a distinct,
quasi-"ethnic"consciousness of East German identity, is one of the
more illuminatingexamplesfor this process.
The reorderingof the everydayfinds its equivalentseverywherein
advancedindustrialsocieties. In looking at Germany,one easily gets the
sense that the crisis-talkabout a loss of orientationis itself a cause for
destabilizingnormalcy.But crisis-talkin Germanyis neitheridle chatter
nor is it merely partisan.1989/90 did have its effects after all, even if
Germanyremainsextraordinarily privilegedin dealingwith these effects.
Yet if the reorderingof the everydayis so much part of a transnational
process,why does it sound(andwhatmakesit sound)so peculiarly"Ger-
man"?We might take our cue from the Manifestoand thinkthat this has
to do with a Germannationalcharacterthat resurfacedafter 1989. This
idea has become a remarkablycommon argumentagain, ironically fol-
lowing hardon the heels of the Sonderwegdebate.It is not entirelyto be
discountedas long as we do not take the notion of nationalcharacterat
face value but as a mask for somethingelse. It is the expressionfor -
the cultureof - reorderingthe everydaythat occurs, in contrastto the
United States, in the context of the political remakingof the German
state and its citizens. The Germanremakingof everyday identities has
come as a crisis of sovereigntyandis articulatedas a politicalissue.
Cultural and political discourses are inextricably bound together.
They are representedas history. Culturalhistory, as it emerges in and
about Germany,operatesboth inside and outside of this process. It may
appear as repetitionof a hypostaziedGermanpast, as fast myth about
the German character,but it may as well break out of this repetition
114 WhyCulturalHistory?

compulsion.This is the challengefor Germanculturalhistorians.

Why study Germanculture?Because in exploringa genealogy of rup-
tures, German culturalhistory marshalsthe resources for constituting
sense-security[Gesinnungssicherheit] in a terrainin which it proves to
be extraordinarilydifficult to stabilize identitiesby means of the state.
This entails narratingincidentsand explainingprocesses of the fractur-
ous remakingof the everydayin which the nation-stateproves to be an
exceedingly unstablereferent.It is the laborof cultureto negotiate this
process. Why study history?It is not simply that the past proves to be
an invaluable arsenal and, indeed, the determiningresource for work-
ing out issues of sense-securityand identity.Rather,it is the labor of
history to separatewhat becomes past from what is present so that we
neitherforgetnor go "backto the future."16
These are both ordinaryand extraordinarylabors. They are ordinary
in the sense that they breakdown into a multitudeof everydaypractices
and into pragmaticresearch.Thus, the notion of sense-securityis easily
traced back to Hegel and his notion of perception[Wahrnehmung], but
the study of negotiatingsense-securityneed not be Hegelian.Any effort
along these lines would be well served,if it took up the insistence of a
"new culturalhistory"on the "close examination- of texts, of pic-
tures, and of actions- and on open-mindednessto what those examina-
tions will reveal."17By the same token, the very pragmaticsof the
remakingof everydayculturein acceleratedtimes entails an extraordi-
nary element. Because it is not just any cultureor any everydaythat is
remade in a multitudeor practices.It is the Germannation and its his-
tory which are constitutedin this way. These are the laborsthat consti-
tute, make or unmake,modernitywith all its attendingconsequences-
no longerfor the universebut surelyfor thatparticularpartof the world.

16. Michael Geyer,"Geschichteals Wissenschaftflir eine Zeit der Unuibersichtlich-

keit," Nach dem Erdbeben:(Re)KonstruktionenostdeutscherGeschichteund Geschich-
tswissenschaft, eds. Konrad Jarausch and Matthias Middell (Leipzig: Leipziger
Universitiitsverlag,1994) 38-65.
17. Hunt, TheNew CulturalHistory22.