Promoting historical understanding beyond the traditional classroom has become an increasingly important goal for modern historians. It led to a movement of popularizing an application-oriented approach in the United States since the 1970’s. Integrating similar concepts also in the German realm and comparing their odds and challenges through expert eyes were the primary aims of the conference “Public History in Germany and the United States”. Its initiators PAUL NOLTE (Berlin), ANDREAS ETGES (Berlin) and ANKE ORTLEPP (Washington DC) exemplified in their salutatories that the widely transforming status of history over the last decades has put a large demand for professionals on the agenda, who should not only be skilled in facts, but operate as interdisciplinary practitioners. The creation of a new Public History Masters Program at the Free University of Berlin can be seen as a first response to this challenge in the German historical field.

Almost all of the highly esteemed symposium contributors stressed the importance of enhancing a diversified training for aspiring historians in the public arena. Already the first speaker, KATHLEEN FRANZ (Washington DC), was devoted to providing more common criteria and defining key aspects for this young academic field and suggested to limit “getting one’s hands dirty” not only to an internship, but to include it as a vital part in the everyday curricula. By balancing a synergy of content and skills, theory and practice, historians should have the power to inspire relevant public debates and spark curiosity for historical topics. Correspondingly, DAVID A. ZONDERMAN (North Carolina) reflected on his personal experiences in teaching Public History for over 15 years. For him, blending traditional history with the public sphere had been a crucial conjunction during this time. He said that the core of his teaching was to train students to handle controversy, be they historiographical, political or cultural ones.

Works within the communities and outdoor landscape projects were a point of interest for DAVID GLASSBERG (Massachusetts). He focused on the case study of the “Cape Cod National Seashore Project”, which dealt with the changing landscape that was linked to the rapid population growth. The Public Historians on the team sought to preserve the personal memories attached to places on the cape through a dialogical approach with so called “cape conversations” to enable natives narrate their memories and compare them with today’s situation.

Further new fields of activity for Public Historians as mediators between academia and consumer culture were depicted by two speakers with personal expertise. DIETMAR PIEPER (Hamburg), editor in charge for the historical special issues of the magazine DER SPIEGEL, illustrated how closely related the triangle of history, media usage and the market is today. He stated that the people’s “worst thoughts about journalists are true” and added “Obama today sells better than Hitler”. His debatable “gut feeling” predicted that the big selling times of Third Reich topics are over and that the overflowing coverage of various aspects on the Nazi regime will hinder a similar hype for future WWII anniversaries.

HANNO HOCHMUTH (Berlin) addressed the newest form of combining history with the popular culture in the phenomenon of “HisTourism”. He argued that the Berlin tourism sector is largely based on Public History. Most of Berlin tourists really do seek art and culture, which makes them a target audience for Berlin museums. Linking historic information with entertainment through tours of the Berlin underground, former WWII bunkers or “time travels” by bus, is the newest form of reviving the past.

Another domain was entered with the debate about a nation’s cultural legacy. Several speakers dwelt on the architectural concept of “revenge demolition” in a new era of trauma commemoration, like in the case of the Palast der Republik. JANET WARD (Las Vegas) undertook a comparative look between the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the World Trade Center Site in New York, which both used redemptive reconstruction to process past hurts. The Frauenkirche was archaeologically “derubbled” in the mid 1990’s and the trauma of the past has been embedded in a therapeutic urbanism at Neumarkt. Ward argued that the danger of a happy ending dominating over the “Täterdiskurs” was put aside by the reasoning that the church would now represent a successful icon for the country’s unification and was back to serving Eastern Germany as a major tourist attraction.

Subsequently, ELIZABETH H. LAMBERT (Indiana) presented part of her dissertation and elaborated, with few surprising research results, on the interlinked correlation between Germany’s idealized classicistic epoch in Weimar and the construction of the memorial place in Buchenwald. Lambert showed that most contemporary observers of the city today no longer notice the postwar two-sided narrative or the traces of Communist occupation, because residents demanded the removal of both Nazi and Soviet remains.

The speech by JON B. OLSEN (Massachusetts) can also be incorporated in this discussion, because he traced the delicate balancing act of removing the GDR-legacy in Eastern Germany and dwelt on the peculiar “Ostalgie” created by a growing consumer culture. He got into the matter of why in the aftermath of the German unification some monuments, like the Soviet-built “Ernst-Thälmann-Denkmal” in East Berlin, were kept while others lost their raison d’être.

A major part of the symposium was dedicated to speakers examining the museological side and the coupled discourses on national traumas and memory traditions. LEORA AUSLANDER (Chicago) explored the disparate state of commemorative past of the Jewish Museum of Berlin in contrast to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. While Daniel Libeskind in his structure aimed to express a harsh civilizational break, the Native American architects in Washington DC built a somewhat idyllic oasis right on the National Mall. The diverging definitions of “Mahnmal” versus “Denkmal” at this juncture were a big point of discussion among the attendees. Libeskind enshrined shame and the Holocaust epitomizes the JMB until today, whereas the NMAI is not mainly meant as an accusation.

This controversy connected her to the glimpse LONNIE BUNCH (Washington DC), the highly anticipated keynote speaker of the conference, imparted of the realization of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, where he faces similar deliberations and retentions. Although the actual physical structure will not be finished on the mall until late 2015, his most inspiring speech created a vivid picture for the attending experts of the way his concepts and visions might come to pass in future years.

He opened by admitting that the challenge of raising 500 million Dollars, attracting an average of 6–7 million visitors to the museum each year and managing the highly diverse public expectations is not for the faint-hearted. He affirmed that the best skills a Public Historian could have in this highly competitive business were not of academic, but of political nature. The biggest goal for him will be to overthrow many of the American core myths and face those who want to make “the rough edges of history smooth”. With whiteness still being the goal standard in museum presentations, race is an ongoing dilemma within the American track record. The NMAAHC is not only supposed to be about great names and dates, but is meant to be a place of telling the story of everyday people with complexity and nuance. It is supposed to present a rich layered insider’s perspective of the age-long struggles of African Americans as a lens of identification for all Americans regardless of the color of their skin.

Contrasting Bunch’s intended narrative, ERIC CHRISTIANSEN (Maryland) looked at the conceptualization of the National Museum of American History in its troublesome first years of the Cold War era. It played a key role in the formation of post-war American identity and celebrated the nation’s superiority by enshrining its merits while leaving out the dark moments. He declared that despite some cosmetic changes, the spirit of this Cold War notion remains with the exhibit until today.

The Cold War and its terms were again issues in JACOB EDER’S (Pennsylvania) talk, when he commented on the German reactions to the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which opened its doors in 1993. Worrying about the formation of possible Anti-German sentiments, while still heavily relying on American military protection, the Kohl government tried to influence the American decision-making. Their interventions however only enlarged American skepticism, and the negotiations with Washington came to a standstill. After the museum opened there was no indication that the majority of visitors bore Anti-German sentiments from the exhibition.

The group of speakers who pursued the museological perspective for analyzing Public History in the field was completed by KATJA ROECKNER (Potsdam), who presented three case studies of German industrial museums and how they reflect the industrial past. Today these institutions have to deal with working-class problems such as massive job losses in the formerly highly industrialized “Ruhrgebiet”. She added a quote by Bernd Faulenbach who noted that “when work ends, it goes to the museum”. In the course of time the industrial museums have proved themselves to be popular successes, and have led to a rebirth of the heritage tourism sector in these regions.

Another area discussed at the conference concerned the relevance of Public Historians in the political and judicial field. WARREN ROSENBLUM (St. Louis) emphasized that post-war Germany held several exhibits on Nazi atrocities, but the guilt of courts and judges was long denied. When curators first designed the travel exhibit “Ungesühnte Nazijustiz” (Unatoned Nazi justice) in 1959, they were defamed as “public enemies” and their works caused a storm of conservative protest.

ARNITA JONES (Washington DC) remarked that the history of policy nowadays is likewise “whispering in the ear of power”. She reconstructed the winding road until the U.S. government took note of its own history through the initiative of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Historians since then have worked not only for the National Archives or the National Council of Public History, but also in political agencies, like the Kennedy Assassination Board or the 9/11 Commission.1 JOSEPH P. HARAHAN (Washington DC) tied in with Jones’s story and surprised the German participants by revealing that a number of about 2.000 historians are working in the United States federal government in the various departments today, 500 of them in the Department of Defense. He explained that especially the end of WWII caused a great quest to conserve the records of the “glorious days”. Paul Nolte commented that this was a fundamental difference in the transnational memory debate, where the U.S. had three cathartic wars to base their military pride on, while the Germans could not draw from any ‘good’ associations.

Martin Sabrow further depicted how academic and public coming to terms with the past can differ in time and topics. A latest example for this is the quarrel about the GDR as an “Unrechtsstaat”, which has not yet produced a master narrative, but exceedingly revived scholarly debate. He remarked on the astounding fact that although most historians would characterize the epochal upheavals of 1989/90 as a profound overthrow, the term “revolution” has not yet entered the German everyday language and people cling to the spongy label “Wende”.

Altogether the symposium gave new impulses on the changing self-conception and future prospects for Public Historians by giving a broad overview of their various application areas. It also marked the opening of a new chapter in contemplating transatlantic cooperations and exchange initiatives. It became clear that it is impossible to have one coherent narrative for either American or German history and that professionals should embrace these challenges in a vigorous, yet diplomatic way. As one of Franz’s students put it, “Public Historians must wear many hats” while tackling their everyday agendas.

Conference Overview:

Welcome speeches
Paul Nolte
Anke Ortlepp

Session 1 – Contested Memories, History and the Public
Chair: Andreas Etges

Kathleen Franz “A Report from the Trenches. Training the Next Generation of Public Historians”

Leora Auslander “State-sponsored Memorialization of Domestic Shame in Germany and the U.S.: Commemoration of what and for whom?”

Lonnie Bunch “Creating a National Museum: The Challenge of Interpreting Race in American Museums”

Session 2 – Policy of History in Museums and Exhibitions
Chair: Anke Ortlepp

Erik Christiansen “A National Shrine: American History at the Cold War Smithsonian”

Jacob S. Eder “No ‘Kind Words’ about the Federal Republic? The Kohl Government and the United States Holocaust Memorial”

Warren Rosenblum “Justice Accused & Amended: Exhibits on Law and Civil Liberties in the U.S. and Germany”

Katja Roeckner “Industrial Museums and Economic Structural Change”

Session 3 – Landscape and Memory
Chair: Marcus M. Payk

David Glassberg “Public History Projects in Landscape and Memory”

Elizabeth H. Lambert “The Best and Worst Place in German History: Contested Memory of Weimarer Klassik and Gedenkstätte Buchenwald”

Janet Ward “Signs of Rubble and Reconstruction: German and American Memorialisation of War, Terror and Sacrifice”

Session 4 – History of the Lost Cause
Chair: Hanno Hochmuth

Jon Berndt Olsen “Re-Tailoring Truth: Post-Unification Debates on Places of Memory in Eastern Germany”

David A. Zonderman “Myths, Memories, and History: Teaching Public History in the American South”

Session 5 – Politics and Public History
Chair: Christine Gundermann

Joseph P. Harahan “Public Historians and the U.S. Government: Documenting, Interpreting, and Disseminating Federal History”

Arnita A. Jones “Public History as Policy History: The U.S. Federal Government as a Case Study”

Martin Sabrow “History and Politics in United Germany. The GDR Case”

Session 6 – Selling History
Chair: Paul Nolte

Dietmar Pieper “The ever-present past. A short history of SPIEGEL GESCHICHTE”

Hanno Hochmuth “HisTourism. Public History and Berlin Tourism”

Note:
1 Richard E. Neustadt / Earnest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, New York 1986