Badgers and Interbrigadisten in Berlin

Me and Isabelle at Kaffee Marlene

I decided that my stay in Berlin would be more fun if I didn't spend all my time in museums. I posted on Facebook to see if any USM alums were in the neighborhood. Turns out Isabelle ('16) is there for a couple of weeks between semesters at UW-Madison! Meeting her for coffee gave me an excuse to visit Prenzlauer Berg--I've neglected the neighborhood each time I've been to Berlin. It was great catching up with her--She's now studying Russian!

On the way to Kaffee Marlene I walked north from my hotel, crossed the Karl-Marx-Allee (formerly Stalinallee), and then took a detour into Volkspark Friedrichshain. Because it was going to take about an hour to reach my destination, I had to forgo climbing the Trummerbergen (Rubble-mountains). There were three giant anti-aircraft bunkers in Berlin during WWII, and two of them were completely demolished. One of these Flakturme was in the Volkspark.

It was there that I ran into this impressive Memorial to the German Interbrigadisten. These were Germans who volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic against the Spanish Nationalists and fascists. Many volunteers to the International Brigades were communists, but certainly not all of them. You only need to read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls or Orwell's Homage to Catalonia to see that defending the Republic inspired all kinds of idealists and adventurers.

A German Anti-Fascist Freedom Fighter

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a rehearsal for the Second World War--the liberal democracies proved indecisive and sclerotic in the face of fascist and communist revolutionary dynamism. France and Britain dithered while Mussolini and Hitler sent aid, air-power, and even front-line troops to smash republican Spain. Indecision only encouraged fascists and Hitler realized that his willingness to smash diplomatic norms worked to his strategic advantage. In September, 1938, the Munich Conference demonstrated that the liberal democratic order was unlikely to fight back unless directly under attack. This seemed true even after Hitler invaded Poland! The western democracies remained incapable of taking decisive action. Fascist regimes maintained the strategic initiative until 1943. Chaos and conflict always served fascist ends, since they never believed that old Europe or liberal democracy was worth conserving. Britain and France, terrified that a war could radicalize politics and undermine imperial control, always waited for the fascists to make the first move. Naturally, Hitler struck first: the natural outcome of democratic indecision was Dunkirk and the Fall of France in June, 1940.

In 1936, years before French, British, and American politicians recognized that war was inevitable and necessary, approximately 45,000 men and women assumed individual responsibility for slowing the spread of fascism. They took great risks to cross the Pyrenees and fight for the Republic. More than half were killed in action.

We have our own memorial to the Wisconsin volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. You can find it in Madison in the southeast corner of James Madison Park. ¡Viva la Brigada Lincoln! ¡Viva Badgers! 

Battle of the Bulge Day--La Gleize and Bastogne

Map of the battle. The crossroads at La Gleize and
Bastogne were the keys to Hitler's success. 

On Saturday (6/20), I wanted to take the students to a pair of historical sites that were both central in deciding the outcome of the battle and that offered spectacular battlefield relics. That meant that we would visit the small village of La Gleize as well as Bastogne.

In December, 1944, Hitler’s goal was to strike west with his remaining mobile reserve, splitting the Allied front and pinning the British up against the English Channel, just as he had done in 1940. He didn’t think he could win the war, but he hoped a massive victory would demoralize the American and British public. He was convinced it would gain him a few months of respite while he stabilized the Russian front. The initial attack staggered the Allies, whose intelligence had failed completely. Within hours German forces shattered the American front, overrunning foxholes and rounding up thousands of prisoners.

Battle-Group Peiper's route to La Gleize. American troops stopped him dead.

La Gleize was where the northern flank of the German attack failed. Led by a ruthless veteran SS commander, the battle-group massacred Belgian civilians and hundreds of American prisoners, most infamously at the Malmedy crossroads. 

The SS massacred American prisoners at Malmedy

This force was racing to seize the Meuse River crossings, but enough American troops held their ground to refuse bridges and road junctions all around La Gleize. Eventually, fighting in the area devolved into house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The Germans ran out of gas and ammunition; the survivors abandoned their heavy equipment and fled.

The La Gleize Tiger and my students. 

King Tiger 213 is a relic of that battle. It was damaged during the fighting, but was still serviceable. Following the battle, American soldiers practiced shooting armor-piercing shells at its front glacis. The solid shot gouged the armor, but didn’t penetrate—so visitors get a sense of why Allied soldiers found Tigers so terrifying. The tank stands in front of the December 44 Museum, restored and larger--in every dimension--than a modern M1A2 Abrams. It is huge.

This museum is all about militiaria and this battle alone--there's no attempt to provide any broader historical or political context. The King Tiger tank outside is the most imposing relic, but you can get lost in the huge collection of uniforms, weapons, equipment, and even foodstuffs. If you like your military history unadulterated, this is the place for you. Even the gift shop is overflowing with military memorabilia. I had to explain to an enthusiastic student that he would have to refrain from purchasing a reproduction German potato-masher hand grenade. There was no way he would get it past airport security.

Display of SS uniforms and equipment in a scene
reproducing the fierce  house-to-house fighting

An "up-armored" American jeep

I loved this set of artifacts: chewing gum, Chiclets, and cigarettes. German
newsreels showed numerous SS troops happily passing around food they had
plundered from their American prisoners. 

Invitation to the show. The scrum in
La Gleize finally made sense.  

In addition, our visit coincided with the Bourse Militaria Internationale show. Collectors came from all over Europe and the world to deal in military antiques. When we arrived in our bus, we couldn't understand why all the roads into town were choked with cars. I initially thought a bicycle race was in progress (the Ardennes are a biker's dream). Instead, barricades blocked the road to the museum and groups of surly, serious-looking men stared up at us from their exhibits. They demanded we pay to enter the area. Arnaud, our guide, patiently explained that the 15 teenagers were not in the market to purchase wartime-era uniforms, and the organizers permitted us to pass through to the museum unmolested.

We were not allowed to approach the booths (registered guests only) but it was fascinating to see tables covered in Second World War-era ammunition clips, web gear, and helmets. There were also a few young men who were clearly there because they have an unhealthy obsession with SS racism (see my posting on neo-Nazi fashion HERE) They were fairly unobtrusive, which is more than could be said in 2011 when they marched through the streets in full SS regalia. The story in French is here. It appears that the Tiger tank may serve as an unholy relic for neo-Nazi pilgrims, and the commander of the SS battlegroup has become one of their "saints". Yuck.

Incidentally, there's a Wisconsin connection here as well. Senator Joe McCarthy (yes... that Joe McCarthy) served on a Senate committee in which he defended Peiper and his troops--apparently McCarthy felt that left-leaning Hollywood types were a greater danger to America than fanatical Nazi officers who had worked closely with Himmler and the Einsatzgruppen in Russia.

We then moved on to Bastogne, where we visited the Bastogne War Museum. It was a much richer experience overall, although it lacked the—er—authenticity—of mixing with latter day Nazis. The museum provided a rich narrative experience, combining deeply cool artifacts (my favorite was the brewed-up Sherman inside the museum) with a story emphasizing humanity and reconciliation. 

Sherman in city center--note the killing shot that knocked it out.

Unlike La Gleize, where historical nuance takes a back seat to authentic equipment, Bastogne is the "real deal". A student could walk into the museum with no knowledge of the Second World War or the rise of Hitler and leave with a broad understanding of both. Better yet, the story even addresses the longer term implications of the battle on the region. What about all the minefields? What about the civilians trapped in the city? This museum addresses it all.

Telling a story helps kids learn--so the Bastogne War Museum
includes the stories of four young people.
Narratives are triggered as you proceed through the displays

Finally, there's the Bastogne Memorial directly behind the museum. I thought it was awesome. I suggest that anyone planning to visit this museum set aside an entire day--to really get through the museum thoroughly you'll want about 3-4 hours. An on-site cafe means you can take a break halfway through. Then head over to the memorial. You can climb to the top for a view of the surrounding countryside. I hope to return to this site someday.

A panoramic view of the Bastogne Memorial.
I made sure to frame "Wisconsin" in the center of the shot.

I watched a wreath-laying ceremony, complete with bag-piper.

NPR does Nihilism

Two fun (fun?) podcasts about nihilism from On the Media and RadioLab. A bit of overlap because it's a collaborative effort, but both pieces are distinct enough to make it worth your while.

Ernst Jünger’s Shot-up Stahlhelm

Shot in the head during the battle of Cambrai (1917).
On display at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin.

Is it wrong that seeing Ernst Jünger's damaged helmet was a high point in my trip to Europe? Is it wrong that my favorite piece of Great War literature is still Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel? Probably. Jünger was a darling of fascists everywhere, but his Wikipedia biographer takes great pains to distance Jünger from the Nazis. Actually, based on everything I've read, it seems he had little patience for Nazi anti-intellectualism. Jünger himself was a serious intellectual and his work reflects an active, creative imagination (as in The Glass Bees, a bizarre novella I read many years ago).

That said, I recently learned about Ernest Hemingway's claims that he killed as many as 122 German soldiers in WWII. He appears to have murdered at least one unarmed prisoner outright, but biographers won't take him at his word. I think his actions don't correspond to his myth, and so we choose to dismiss them. The same may be true about Jünger. Nobody wants to believe that such a prolific, creative author would throw his lot in with a mob of cretins.

A few of Jünger's Diaries

I've read a wide selection of veteran fiction/memoir (many seem to be a combination of both) over the past few years. I probably average one each year. This summer I picked up Gabriel Chevallier's Fear, which NYRB Classics just published. It was fantastic. Far more readable than Barbusse's Under Fire (although lacking his powerful, nightmarish imagery). I attribute much of Fear's power to the excellent work of translators Malcolm Imrie and John Berger. The language is fluid and accessible--it feels modern. One of my great complaints about Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front has been the archaic translation into British English. When I added some passages to the West Civ Reader I prepare for my students, I actually pulled out my German edition and polished up the language a bit. I won't pretend I could ever compete with A.W. Wheen's original translation, but the dialogue often feels like it was lifted directly from an episode of Downton Abbey.

My next Great War memoir will have to be Siegfried Sassoon's The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston. Translation won't be an issue.

Sacco's "Fixer"

Neven: Sarajevan Man of Mystery

Upon returning home, I pulled Joe Sacco’s illustrated reportage from my bookshelf. The war in Bosnia was Sacco’s Spanish Civil War, and Safe Area: Gorazde his Homage to Catalonia. He didn’t fight, of course, but his stories still resonate. His own experiences during the siege and the contacts he made in the 90s provided enough material for two additional books: War’s End and The Fixer. They’re both excellent.

Re-reading The Fixer following our journey was instructive. I could better appreciate how Sacco worked the story out on multiple levels. One story is Sacco’s, as he negotiates the wartime city. Another is the story of the city itself and the many underworld figures who organized its defense.

But the real story is about “the fixer” himself. Neven is Sacco’s unreliable narrator and guide through the shrapnel-scared streets of Sarajevo. Outside of Sacco’s own self-deprecating voice, it is Neven’s that we hear most clearly. A Serb defender of Sarajevo, Neven lurks in dark hotel lobbies, perpetually in debt, ever on the make, looking for western journalists who want to get close to the trenches in the hills above the city. The story of Sarajevo’s paramilitary antiheroes—Caco and Celo—remind us that this was a dirty, confused and morally ambiguous war. We wanted simple answers, and there are none to be had. The strongmen of Sarajevo press-ganged civilians into digging trenches, enriched themselves on the black market, and even ‘disappeared’ local Serbs who remained in the city. Sacco is at his most journalistic when he recounts their histories. However, those panels are also the least interesting in the book. The real story concerns Neven himself. He remains a mystery throughout the book. We don’t know if we can believe his stories about the Sarajevan underworld, much less his tales of his own battlefield heroics. At one point, a fellow soldier dismisses Neven’s account of a desperate battle against “43 tanks”, suggesting that Neven actually ducked front-line service. Later, another Sarajevan asserts that Neven was brave to the point of recklessness. Sacco lets us decide what we want to believe.

I want to believe in the romantic warrior who risked his life for a multi-ethnic city that no longer exists. I want to believe that the balding, paunchy, perpetually-broke Neven fiercely fought for the cause of Serbo-Bosniak co-existence, or at least Sarajevo. The war in the 90s left us to wallow in the mud and slaughter of Srebrenica. I turned off my television rather than watch more footage of useless UN “Smurfs” and meaningless talk from our politicians. But Neven seems different, and one Neven can remind us that war can evoke love as well as hatred. 

Sarajevo: Scarred and Divided

Sarajevo is still a divided city, and I can imagine that many Sarajevans still feel that their security is tenuous. A quick Google search reveals that Sarajevo as well as the entire Bosniak “heart” of Bosnia-Herzegovina is landlocked, surrounded on three sides by the Republska Serbska and on the fourth by Croat-dominated territory. The region around Sarajevo itself is also divided. During the siege of 92-95, a large section of the southern bank of the rust-colored Miljacka River was occupied by Serb forces, and even today the boarder of Republika Srpska lies just over the wooded line of hills south of the city. Just this week, the gulf between Serbs and Bosniaks was once again apparent as the two communities held separate commemorative events. Bosniaks invited the Vienna Philharmonic to play in the Vijecnica National Library. I day earlier, in a Serb neighborhood to the east, residents unveiled a monument to the assassin/freedom fighter Gavrilo Princip. Reuters covered the story (and interviewed our group) HERE.

Even small things appear to reflect the continuing ethnic mistrust in this country. As he drove us from the airport along narrow, winding roads to a centuries-old Jewish cemetery overlooking Sarajevo from the south bank of the Miljacka, D______, our tour guide pulled a pack of Marlboro cigarettes out of his pants pocket. “You see,” he said, “the warning labels must be printed three times. Once in Cyrillic for the Serbs, of course. Then the same warning is printed for the Croats and Bosnians, even though it’s spelled the same. Word for word.” The street signs were now posted in Cyrillic as well.

This is a story we heard from other short-term residents as well. Barhana is a popular rakjia bar in the Baščaršija old town. American graduate students and other young tourists dominate the space. There is still a joint European military mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and EUFOR soldiers stationed near the airport were eating lunch at Barhana at the table next to ours. “Where is the new statue of Princip?” we asked. They didn’t know, and they advised us that we would never find out unless we asked in Serbian neighborhoods. Bosnians will simply ignore you or gently apologize and shrug, offering you a Sarajevsko Pivo. You can’t even get Novi Sad Serbian beer unless you leave Sarajevo. Serbs won’t sell Bosniak beer, and Bosniaks return the favor.

The Sarajevsko brewery itself, just across the river from the Latin Bridge, is evidence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s lasting impact.  Krakow and Prague play up their Habsburg roots, trading on a romantic narrative of a degenerating, doomed central European aristocracy—Think of the tragic stories of the beautiful and neurasthenic Empress Sisi or the murder-suicide of her son, the crown prince Rudolf. In contrast, it’s difficult to determine whether there’s any serious Habsburg nostalgia here. Clearly, the Austrians (or “Schwabes”, as Ivo Andrich’s Visegrad Turks refer to them in Bridge on the Drina) shaped this city as much as the Ottomans. One sees it in the architecture—solid facades reminiscent of similarly formidable Secession-style Belle Epoch buildings in Paris, Berlin, Budapest and Vienna. But Turkish Islam, Titoism, and the siege have had a far greater impact on look and feel of the city.

Even though the mythic tragedy of the murdered Archduke—a man who hoped to provide national minorities within the empire more autonomy, whose greatest joy was playing with his children, whose last words were “Sopherl! Don’t die! Live for our children!”—would seem to provide an obvious source of tourist revenue, the city is too divided about the character and status of the assassin. For many years, Sarajevans marked the spot where Princip stood with the imprint of his shoes in concrete. During the civil war in the 90s, however, the monument was removed (now it stands just inside the door to the museum). Many Serbs view him as one of their greatest heroes and they are quick to accuse those who refer to Princip as a “nationalist” or “terrorist” of anti-Serb prejudice.

Personally, I find this kind of knee-jerk response to the realities of the historical record baffling. It is a fact that Princip acted in concert with certain officials from Serbia who hoped to use terror and assassination to eject the Austrians from Bosnia. It is a fact that Princip’s actions that day triggered a cascade of events culminating in the outbreak of war a month later. However, those facts don’t damn the Serbians as a people or Serbia as a nation. It does not make them uniquely responsible for the catastrophe of the Great War. Most historians point at the other great powers: Germany and Austria for the most part (Fischer, Hastings), occasionally Great Britain (Ferguson) or even Russia. This is clearly a case where the violent breakup of Yugoslavia has made the sober assessment of history impossible. Serbs feel that the West continues to unfairly victimize them for their role in the war; that they suffered as much if not more than the Croats and Bosniaks, and that they must defend their own myths or risk losing face. 

Sassoon's Journals Online!

Siegfried Sassoon's wartime diaries are now available online in their entirety. You can read them at the Cambridge Digital Library. HERE

Sassoon attacks a German position on the Somme