2025-02-28
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Welcome to the Guardian Long read showcasing the best long form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.
For the text version of this and all our longreads, go to theguardian.com longread this article contains some swearing Israel and the Delusions of Germany's Memory Culture by Pankaj Mishra Read by Mikhail Sen after the Second World War, Germany's contrition and radical self cleansing under Allied supervision as the chief tormentor of European Jews ought to have been straightforward.
No country, however, matches its convoluted journey from ground zero in 1945 to Gaza today.
In recent decades, solidarity with the Jewish state has burnished Germany's proud self image as the only country that makes public remembrance of its criminal past the very foundation of its collective identity.
Particularly since German reunification, a Showa centered memory has been comprehensively institutionalized.
School curriculums and calendars emphasize anniversaries such as 27 January, the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz, and 8 May, the final surrender of the Nazis.
Monuments, memorials and museums across the country commemorate the victims of German crimes.
A resonant symbol of this memory culture is the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe near the Brandenburg Gate in the capital Berlin, probably the only major national monument to commemorate the victims of a nation rather than the nation itself.
In 2008, the then German Chancellor, Angela Merkel claimed before the Knesset that ensuring Israel's security was part of Germany's starts raison or raison d'etat.
The phrase was repeatedly invoked with more vehemence than clarity by German leaders after 7 October 2023, less than two months before the Hamas offensive, Israel had secured with American blessing its largest ever arms deal with Germany.
German arms sales to Israel surged tenfold in 2023.