JEFFREY HERF
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esthetic and political issues in Eisenman's design, which had been revised
in response to the criticisms that followed its first unveiling. In
Der
Tagesspiegel
of August 22, 1998, Young pointed out that the revised design
offered no compensation for the Holocaust in art or architecture; left the
visitor room to find his/ her own way towards proper memory; and,
through reductions in size and scope, presented the visitor with a human
and humane-not at al l monumentalist or overwhelming-scale and left
room for text in stone that would convey basic information. The summer
and fall of 1998 may have been the only time when right-of-center politi–
cians appeared to be more supportive of the public memory of the
Holocaust than the leadership of the Social Democratic Party.
In Berlin, however, the Christian Democratic Mayor, Eberhard
Diepgen, consistently opposed the memorial. In September 1998, he said
that he stood by his January 27, 1994 statement that Berlin must not
become "the capital city of remorse." On September 3, 1998, all the mem–
bers of the parliament of the city of Berlin, from the CDU, SPD, and
Bi.indnis 90/ Gri.inen, came out in favor of the memorial. The SPD and
CDU, while supporting the memorial in principle, concluded in a joint
statement that the final decision should be made by the newly elected
Bundestag before the government moved
to
Berlin. The resolution of the
Bi.indnis 90/ Gri.inen criticized this postponement, arguing that "a memor–
ial for the murdered Jews of Europe is an avowal of Germany's historic
responsibility and guilt, and an expression of remorse. . .. [With a] memor–
ial in Berlin, the city assumes its responsibility as the national capital." They
went on to approve the selection of a piece of land near the Brandenburg
Gate, and recalled that the debate over the memorial began in 1988. Their
statement called Eisenman's revised design a "worthy representation" and
then criticized the Berlin senate for postponing the decision to build. They
saw it as the Berlin parliament's "duty" to support construction of the
memorial in the planned centra] location. Over the course of the next six
months, Naumalill zigged and zagged and gradually changed course to sup–
port a proposal linking the memorial to a museum and library.
In this highly charged atmosphere-of a national election campaign,
debates over the Berlin memorial, financial restitution for slave labor, and
revelations about German banks, insurance companies, and industrial cor–
porations-the second major chapter of the politics of memory erupted.
In October 1998, German publishers awarded the prestigious Peace Prize
to the novelist Martin Walser. The ceremony in the historic Paulskirche in
Frankfurt-am-Main brought the honoree world-wide attention. Walser's
acceptance speech, "Experiences in the Writing of a Sunday Speech,"
expressed resentments and views which heretofore had not been voiced
within the German literary establishment. Walser was fed up with what he
