The German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst commemorates the history of the German-Soviet War at the historic site of the German surrender in Berlin. Germany, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are members of the sponsoring association.
Now three of these countries are at war with each other. In an interview, historian Jörg Morré explains what that means for his house.
Mr Morré, how will your House celebrate May 8th this year?
It will be different than in previous years. On May 8th we will confine ourselves to our museum activities. The house is open, as is the historical site, i.e. the hall in which the supreme commanders of the Wehrmacht signed the unconditional surrender on the night of May 8th and 9th, 1945 in front of representatives of the Soviet Union, the USA, Great Britain and France. We have an exhibition on the fate of Soviet prisoners of war in World War II and another on forced labor by Memorial Russia. There are guided tours and at 10 p.m. a reminder for peace. This replaces the toast to peace that we usually make at the end of the festival. Instead of a glass of sparkling wine for visitors, there is a minute’s silence.
And the reason for these changes is the war?
It’s the war. After all, it is the countries that are part of our association that are waging war against each other: Russia supports Belarus against Ukraine. When they shoot, they stop talking to each other. We’ve had a dialogue approach for 30 years, and while Ukraine has legitimately seen itself at war with the Russian Federation since 2014, we’ve bridged the gap. But now that doesn’t work anymore. We have arrived at a zero point.
Harry Schnittger
museum director
Jörg Morréborn in Berlin in 1964, studied history, Russian studies and educational sciences at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Hamburg.
Since 2009 he is director of the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. He previously worked at the Sachsenhausen and Bautzen memorials.
The historian is a member of the German-Russian Commission of Historians.
Can’t you also separate the historical event from the present?
The historical event stands for itself. And we resist oblique historical comparisons. History doesn’t repeat itself. But what changes is the view of history and May 8th, and this war plays a huge role in that. We find that everything we say in our home is overshadowed by current events.
How does the war change the view of May 8th?
On the one hand, one draws direct comparisons between history and the present. There are also national attributions. In Ukraine, a narrative is sometimes maintained that everything bad comes from Moscow, from Russia: the great victims during the famine caused by collectivization at the end of the 1920s – the so-called Holodomor – as well as political persecution and terror in Stalinism; just to name a few examples. For historical science, however, this is not so clear. Russia, on the other hand, has not managed to come to terms with Stalinism and thus not to take the fears of its neighboring countries seriously. And we are currently seeing that Russia’s neighbors are right to have these fears. But now is not the time to discuss that. We in Karlshorst have tried over the past 30 years to shed light on national attributions and possibly break them down. But now they are experiencing a boom again. This is fatal for our content-related work.
Does it matter that Russia interprets the current war as a continuation of World War II, as a war against fascism?
This is a distortion of history. But unfortunately such distortions are quite action-guiding. I would say that Putin really believes that. As historians, we are completely dismayed that our decades of specialist discussions, including with Russian colleagues, have apparently been so fruitless. If you deny national independence to a neighboring country like Ukraine, the root likely lies in exaggerated nationalism. Because it negates all principles of international law or human rights, such as the sovereignty of states and the inviolability of their people. Only by negating all that can I do what the Russian army is doing now; and that too with a sense of injustice.
history of the museum
1967 The Museum of the Unconditional Surrender of Fascist Germany in the Great Patriotic War was established in the building of the former officers’ mess. The building was founded as a Soviet museum on German soil and was a branch of the Central Museum of the USSR Armed Forces in Moscow.
The one with German reunification Agreements made about the withdrawal of Soviet forces stipulated that the Federal Republic of Germany and the USSR want to commemorate the history of the German-Soviet war together at the historic site of the German capitulation in Berlin. This is how the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst was founded.
You just spoke about the composition of your sponsoring association from Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine and Germany. How did that come about?
The association was founded in 1994 by the Russian Federation and Germany. At that time the last Russian soldiers were leaving Germany and we were in Gorbi mania. And we were very grateful to Gorbachev for German unity. The Cold War was over and everything seemed to be about peace, friendship, a bright future and cooperation. In 1997/98 the World War Museums from Kyiv and Minsk joined our sponsoring association. Four nationalities sat at the table. However, there is an imbalance towards the Russian Federation due to the history of its founding, although we have recently also anchored Ukraine and Belarus in the Advisory Board. But that was too late. The war has overtaken us. We don’t have a chance to develop that any further. Whether we break it off completely for my house – that will have to be clarified.
What could the future of your house look like?
I strongly advocate concentrating on museum cooperation. But let’s not fool ourselves: a large national museum of the Russian Federation, as well as Belarus, Ukraine and Germany, is always a state institution. It’s not going to be civil society. And of course you can ask whether it has a workable future. But currently there is no cooperation at all. To solidify that, everything in me resists. I want to work as a museum, I want to do exhibitions. And now I have to see how that can work and how I can build in a back door so that at some point cooperation can perhaps come to life again.
Earlier you mentioned the Memorial exhibition on the subject of forced labor, which you can see again. This NGO has been banned in Russia. How did your Russian partners react?
There were no protests. I also see the strength of museum cooperation in this. That’s just not big politics, even if large national museums are not free from political interference. But as museum people we understand each other. Even if the symbolic nature of the reactivation of a Memorial exhibition is immediately clear to everyone. But we are talking about late autumn 2021.
Have you had to make compromises?
Not really that hard. We have been given a lot of room for manoeuvre. Even if we have occasionally been accused of being too soft-spoken. It is actually the case that I formulated some things softer because I have three other nations sitting at the table.
The name of your house is perceived as increasingly problematic: German-Russian Museum Karlshorst. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the attack on the Soviet Union, on which Federal President Steinmeier gave a speech, the Ukrainian Ambassador Andrij Melnyk boycotted the event, citing the museum’s name as the reason. The other participating nations do not appear in this. What do you do with this name?
We part with it. From now on we call ourselves Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. This name has always been in the register of associations. The name German-Russian Museum goes back to the founding phase, when only two nations were involved. That wasn’t a problem at the time, and even when Belarus and Ukraine came along, it wasn’t seen as a problem at first. That actually only came with the progressive formation of national states in Belarus and Ukraine. Like the nations, the culture of remembrance also developed more and more. Even before the annexation of Crimea, the cultures of remembrance were drifting apart. Mr. Melnyk’s predecessor sat with me – we spoke fluently in Russian – and said that we had to discuss this name.
The name German-Russian Museum is written on a wall in front of your house. Will this lettering be removed?
Yes. We’ll build it over next week. Then it says: Place of surrender, May 1945.