An inter-generational and international encounter on the subject of Baltic Germans or German Balts in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania between the world wars...
The Academia Baltica hosted a conference at the Akademie Sankelmark near Flensburg on Baltische Deutsche in den Städten this past weekend.
The conference took place right near the scene of the February 1864 battle of Sankelmark between Austro-Prussian and Danish forces. Monuments to the fighting were a five minute walk from the Akademie (and will eventually appear at sites-of-memory.de. While that war has virtually disappeared from German collective memory, it remains alive and well in the local culture near Flensburg and in Danish collective memory. Every year there is a local commemoration event. Right after the battle, people from nearby Flensburg came to aid and feed the wounded who were then in the village of Oeversee. For this, they were given an award by the king. Ever since, on February 6th, the anniversary of the battle, 300-400 people from Flensburg walk to Oeversee and lay wreaths at the battlefield memorials and gravesites.
The conference was an interesting mix of academic and memory discourse. Despite a number of young visitors from the Baltic States, the average age among the 70 or so participants was probably over 50. There were a number of people who remembered the events and people being spoken about. As has been my experience at other Baltic history events, these people feel a strong impulse to contribute their personal impressions and memories to the discussion. This often adds a new dimension to the discussion or makes the issue at hand more vivid. When Janusz Tycner gave his account of how the Poles perceived the arrival of German "settlers" from the Baltic and other regions (who had been essentially forced to leave by Hitler and Stailn), it was interesting to have several people in the room who experienced the resettlement themselves. There was a consensus that the same discussion would have been much more difficult 10 or 20 years ago.
The conference took place right near the scene of the February 1864 battle of Sankelmark between Austro-Prussian and Danish forces. Monuments to the fighting were a five minute walk from the Akademie (and will eventually appear at sites-of-memory.de. While that war has virtually disappeared from German collective memory, it remains alive and well in the local culture near Flensburg and in Danish collective memory. Every year there is a local commemoration event. Right after the battle, people from nearby Flensburg came to aid and feed the wounded who were then in the village of Oeversee. For this, they were given an award by the king. Ever since, on February 6th, the anniversary of the battle, 300-400 people from Flensburg walk to Oeversee and lay wreaths at the battlefield memorials and gravesites.
The conference was an interesting mix of academic and memory discourse. Despite a number of young visitors from the Baltic States, the average age among the 70 or so participants was probably over 50. There were a number of people who remembered the events and people being spoken about. As has been my experience at other Baltic history events, these people feel a strong impulse to contribute their personal impressions and memories to the discussion. This often adds a new dimension to the discussion or makes the issue at hand more vivid. When Janusz Tycner gave his account of how the Poles perceived the arrival of German "settlers" from the Baltic and other regions (who had been essentially forced to leave by Hitler and Stailn), it was interesting to have several people in the room who experienced the resettlement themselves. There was a consensus that the same discussion would have been much more difficult 10 or 20 years ago.
mhatlie - Mon Apr 30, 17:50 Topic: German memorial culture
