Sites of Democratic Awakenings in Berlin: 1848, 1918, 1968 and 1989

Abstract

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Abstract

Like no other city in Germany, Berlin’s urban landscape offers a boasts a myriad of historical sites of memory in the form of commemorative plaques, memorial and documentation sites, such as the Topography of Terror, Stolpersteine, the history mile on Wilhelmstraße or remnants of the Berlin Wall. Yet in Germany’s dealing with its own past, there is also widespread evidence of historical amnesia. This loss of historical-political memory of democratic achievements is particularly obvious in articulations of authoritarian, and often times anti-democratic, positions in the political arena. To be sure, the historical forgetting of democratic traditions has adverse effects on current political discourse. Sites of memory not only make it possible to visualize previous democratic processes, but also offer an opportunity to critically reflect on one’s own political experiences. Learning can take place in the actual, physical places where people took a stand for freedom and democracy. Furthermore, through a shift in perspective the various motives of the historical actors can be perceived and evaluated in a new way. The democratic upheavals of 1848, 1918, 1968, and 1989 are among the historical events that have decisively shaped democracy in Germany today. Indeed, they also occurred in a European context, and in the case of 1968, a global one. Across Berlin’s urban landscape there are places that mark these key historical moments. This article examines these historical upheavals as constitutive lines of a democratic tradition and presents the places of remembrance still visible in Berlin and presents the places where they took place.

Keywords: democracy, sites of memory, Berlin: 1848, 1918, 1968 and 1989

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Bibliography: Juchler, Ingo: Sites of Democratic Awakenings in Berlin: 1848, 1918, 1968 and 1989, PCS – Politics, Culture and Socialization, 2021-2022, pp. 120-145. https://doi.org/10.3224/pcs.v12-13i1-2.08